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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/sep/13/cassandro-review-gael-garcia-bernal-lucha-libre-exotico-saul-armendariz | Film | 2023-09-13T14:00:01.000Z | Cath Clarke | Cassandro review – Gael García Bernal lights up the ring as lucha libre’s taboo-busting wrestler | In the macho world of Mexican lucha libre wrestling, “exóticos” are male fighters who compete in drag. Mostly they are straight, but this heartfelt and sweet drama based on real events tells the story of Saúl Armendáriz, an openly gay wrestler who shot to fame as an exótico in the early 90s. It gives Gael García Bernal his best role in years: Saúl is funny, infectiously upbeat, sometimes heartbreakingly vulnerable. He radiates the kind of magnetism that made him a world cinema it-boy in the early 00s (notably in another cross-dressing role: Pedro Almodóvar’s Bad Education).
Bernal’s Saúl begins his wrestling career using a male alter ego, El Topo. As everyone knows, wrestling is rigged, and since Saúl is slightly built he is forever cast as the “runt” in fights, the character ordered by promoters to lose against wardrobe-sized men with names such as Gigántico (played here by a real-life wrestler scarily named Murder Clown). It’s Saúl’s trainer Sabrina (Roberta Colindrez) – a female wrestler, an outsider too – who suggests he fights as an exótico. At first Saúl is not keen; for a start, exóticos always lose as well.
Director Roger Ross Williams made a documentary short about Armendáriz in 2016, The Man Without a Mask, which showed how the role of exótico traditionally existed to reinforce negative gay stereotypes. Cross-dressing wrestlers performed grotesque caricatures of feyness, which was an evil to be crushed by manly, hetero opponents. The audience whoops and jeers with homophobic slurs; order is restored. It’s grim.
When Saúl steps into the ring for the first time as Cassandro, accompanied by a Mexican version of I Will Survive, he is wearing a leopard-print leotard stitched together from a dress belonging to his mum. His character is flamboyantly gay but also proud and powerful. The crowd warms to his charisma – roaring with laughter when Cassandro sits on top of her opponent, theatrically grinding him. I wondered if the speed with which Cassandro wins over audiences in this film – local, then national – underplays the intensity of the homophobia Armendáriz faced in real life. (In interviews he has been open about his struggles with mental health.) Yet the focus is on his star quality and the qualities that made him a pioneer: sunniness, grit, passion for his sport, the unconditional love and support of his mother, and his unbreakable confidence to be himself. It’s undeniably heartwarming.
Cassandro is released on 15 September in cinemas, and on 22 September on Prime Video | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/may/06/losing-face-by-george-haddad-review-a-rich-complex-story-of-consent-and-coming-of-age | Books | 2022-05-05T17:30:45.000Z | Sarah Ayoub | Losing Face by George Haddad review – a rich, complex story of consent and coming of age | Joey Harb possesses no fighting spirit, despite his surname meaning “war” in Arabic. He’s aimless and apathetic: meandering through his young life in western Sydney as a produce assistant at Woolworths, while being indulged by his grandmother Elaine, dabbling in drugs with his good friend Kyri, and getting on his mother Amal’s nerves. Everyone, he thinks, “feels the need to judge his existence”, but that doesn’t propel him to do anything about it.
Nothing changes when he finds himself among a group of young men arrested for a violent sexual crime. The fact that he sees the possible two-year prison sentence as “doable” suddenly adds a layer of meaning to the novel’s opening sentence, which tells us that he likes his banh mi with extra chilli, “because it numbed his mouth and he liked numbness”.
It’s this passivity that makes the main character of George Haddad’s Losing Face so simultaneously frustrating and endearing. Within a strong and multilayered story, which follows Joey and Elaine in alternating chapters, Haddad presents us with the impact of intergenerational trauma, woven through a sharp appraisal of modern masculinity and its underlying misogyny. Addiction, bitterness, complacency and abandonment underpin the characters’ stories, but it’s the examination of consent that inspires the most thought.
The author’s depiction of rape culture is deftly handled: realistic and confronting, and not simply used as fodder for Joey’s growth as a character. Joey knows something is afoot from the moment the young woman is approached by his peers, but his silence in the face of what is unfolding in a public park is telling. It’s a subtle and profound reminder that it’s not a “yes” if there is no clear “no”; the limited focus on the young woman throughout the eventual trial reflects the broader lack of empathy and justice victims face in the public sphere.
Haddad colours the crime scene with drug use, in a clever reminder of our ability to still recognise and right wrongs even through clouded judgment. The onus is on the reader to see things for what they are: the consequences of an insistent patriarchal culture that doesn’t pause to consider the rights and needs of others in pursuit of its own want; the entitlement that can breed a take-take attitude in men, regardless of their background.
These big-picture themes are enhanced by the little details that vividly place the narrative in Sydney’s west: the top-of-the-line Range Rovers and Mercedes four wheelers in Greenacre, a suburb “trying too hard to play catch-up with other parts of Sydney”; the queue-jumping in the barbershops of Bankstown; the bubble tea craze in Canley Vale; and the Virgin Mary pendants worn as badges of identity around the necks of a particular generation of Lebanese woman.
One such woman is Elaine, Joey’s doting grandmother, who has a secret habit that threatens to undo the life she sacrificed so much for as a new bride, and new migrant, in Australia. Even after decades on Earth and many years as a widow, Elaine still cares about saving face in a community that thrives on gossip; she’s experienced too much otherness to risk more ostracisation. Her efforts to conceal her own indiscretions are compounded by her need to protect her wayward grandson. In many ways she is the novel’s heart, and the family’s moral centre. But it’s her daughter Amal, Joey’s mother, who I wish I had seen more of. As a first-generation born Australian, her story would have intricacies and contradictions worth exploring: she’s spent the last decade raising her boys as a single mother and is at last ready to live for herself, if given the chance.
Losing Face is rich in scope and substance, but it isn’t the quintessential coming of age story. There’s no sense that Joey is any wiser when you turn the final page. In this vein, Haddad has written something of a universal truth for a particular type of Sydney sub-culture, embodied in a character whose mistakes are brought on by a life lived at the intersections of identity, the lack of role models who have navigated the same struggles of in-betweenness, and the familial tensions that are complicated by traditions and debts traced back to the old country.
Haddad’s characters don’t have the luxury of finding themselves or rising above their lot in life. Instead, they’re just trying to get through the here and now. Despite this, and in a move of impeccable storytelling, Haddad offers them hope. For instance, Joey’s only kiss in the story, when “his whole universe folded up real tight for a second before it burst into absolute and unequivocal harmony”, and he’s on the cusp of discovering a whole new world.
This hope is subtle, redemptive, simple, and it makes Losing Face a stunning work: an evocative exploration of what it means to falter and to flail, to rise each day knowing your setbacks are embedded deep within you, and to turn up for the people you love even though they’re as screwed up as you are.
Losing Face by George Haddad is published by UQP ($29.99) | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/feb/28/nobel-laureates-president-erdogan-turkey-free-writers | Opinion | 2018-02-28T14:03:38.000Z | JM Coetzee | An open letter to President Erdoğan from 38 Nobel laureates | JM Coetzee, Kazuo Ishiguro, Svetlana Alexievich and others | Dear President Erdoğan,
We wish to draw your attention to the damage being done to the Republic of Turkey, to its reputation and the dignity and wellbeing of its citizens, through what leading authorities on freedom of expression deem to be the unlawful detention and wrongful conviction of writers and thinkers.
In a Memorandum on the Freedom of Expression in Turkey (2017), Nils Muižnieks, then Council of Europe commissioner for Human Rights, warned:
“The space for democratic debate in Turkey has shrunk alarmingly following increased judicial harassment of large strata of society, including journalists, members of parliament, academics and ordinary citizens, and government action which has reduced pluralism and led to self-censorship. This deterioration came about in a very difficult context, but neither the attempted coup, nor other terrorist threats faced by Turkey, can justify measures that infringe media freedom and disavow the rule of law to such an extent.
“The authorities should urgently change course by overhauling criminal legislation and practice, redevelop judicial independence and reaffirm their commitment to protect free speech.”
There is no clearer example of the commissioner’s concern that the detention in September 2016 of Ahmet Altan, a bestselling novelist and columnist; Mehmet Altan, his brother, professor of economics and essayist; and Nazlı Ilıcak, a prominent journalist – all as part of a wave of arrests following the failed July 2016 coup. These writers were charged with attempting to overthrow the constitutional order through violence or force. The prosecutors originally wanted to charge them with giving “subliminal messages” to coup supporters while appearing on a television panel show. The ensuing tide of public ridicule made them change that accusation to using rhetoric “evocative of a coup”. Indeed, Turkey’s official Anatolia News Agency called the case “The Coup Evocation Trial”.
As noted in the commissioner’s report, the evidence considered by the judge in Ahmet Altan’s case was limited to a story dating from 2010 in Taraf newspaper (of which Ahmet Altan had been the editor-in-chief until 2012), three of his op-ed columns and a TV appearance. The evidence against the other defendants was equally insubstantial. All these writers had spent their careers opposing coups and militarism of any sort, and yet were charged with aiding an armed terrorist organisation and staging a coup.
The commissioner saw the detention and prosecution of Altan brothers as part of a broader pattern of repression in Turkey against those expressing dissent or criticism of the authorities. He considered such detentions and prosecutions to have violated human rights and undermined the rule of law. David Kaye, the UN special rapporteur on freedom of expression, concurred and dubbed the legal proceedings a “show trial”.
Turkey’s own constitutional court concurred with this criticism. On 11 January this year, it ruled that Mehmet Altan and fellow journalist Şahin Alpay’s rights were being violated by pre-trial detention, and that they should be released. Yet the first-degree courts refused to implement the higher constitutional court’s decision, thus placing the judicial system in criminal violation of the constitution. Mr President, you must surely be concerned that the lower criminal court’s defiance and this non-legal decision was backed by the spokesperson of your government.
On 16 February 2018, the Altan brothers and Ilıcak were sentenced to aggravated life sentences, precluding them from any prospect of a future amnesty.
President Erdoğan, we the undersigned share the following opinion of David Kaye: “The court decision condemning journalists to aggravated life in prison for their work, without presenting substantial proof of their involvement in the coup attempt or ensuring a fair trial, critically threatens journalism and with it the remnants of freedom of expression and media freedom in Turkey”.
In April 1998, you yourself were stripped of your position as mayor of Istanbul, banned from political office, and sentenced to prison for 10 months, for reciting a poem during a public speech in December 1997 through the same article 312 of the penal code. This was unjust, unlawful and cruel. Many human rights organisations – which defended you then – are appalled at the violations now occurring in your country. Amnesty International, PEN International, Committee to Protect Journalists, Article 19, and Reporters Without Borders are among those who oppose the recent court decision.
During a ceremony in honour of Çetin Altan, on 2 February 2009, you declared publicly that “Turkey is no longer the same old Turkey who used to sentence its great writers to prison – this era is gone for ever.” Among the audience were Çetin Altan’s two sons: Ahmet and Mehmet. Nine years later, they are sentenced to life; isn’t that a fundamental contradiction?
Under these circumstances, we voice the concern of many inside Turkey itself, of its allies and of the multilateral organisations of which it is a member. We call for the abrogation of the state of emergency, a quick return to the rule of law and for full freedom of speech and expression. Such a move would result in the speedy acquittal on appeal of Ms Ilıcak and the Altan brothers, and the immediate release of others wrongfully detained. Better still, it would make Turkey again a proud member of the free world.
Full list of Nobel laureate signatories:
Svetlana Alexievich, Philip W Anderson, Aaron Ciechanover, JM Coetzee, Claude Cohen-Tannoudji, Elias J Corey, Gerhard Ertl, Albert Fert, Edmond H Fischer, Andrew Z Fire, Andre Geim, Sheldon Glashow, Serge Haroche, Leland H Hartwell, Oliver Hart, Richard Henderson, Dudley Herschbach, Avram Hershko, Roald Hoffmann, Robert Huber, Tim Hunt, Kazuo Ishiguro, Elfriede Jelinek, Eric S Maskin, Hartmut Michel, Herta Müller, VS Naipaul, William D Phillips, John C Polanyi, Richard J Roberts, Randy W Schekman, Wole Soyinka, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas C Südhof, Jack W Szostak, Mario Vargas Llosa, J Robin Warren, Eric F Wieschaus | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/nov/29/wilko-owners-dividends-losses-emergency-funding-sales | Business | 2022-11-29T13:43:41.000Z | Sarah Butler | Wilko owners took £3m in dividends despite £37m losses | The owners of Wilko took £3m in dividends this past year despite the cut price chain falling almost £37m into the red before seeking emergency funding.
The homewares-to-cosmetics retailer, whose managing director Alison Hands is to exit in January, about 18 months after taking the job, is understood to be trying to secure a £30m debt facility with alternative lenders.
One of the lenders Wilko is understood to have engaged with is Bantry Bay, a firm backed by the hedge fund Elliott Advisers which is reported to be in similar discussions with the fashion retailer Superdry, amid tough trading conditions.
However, Wilko said it had paid its owners, led by the Wilkinson family, £2.25m in the year to the end of January and a further £750,000 in February despite a near 3% fall in sales to £1.3bn and a slide to a £36.8m pre-tax loss from a £2.5m profit a year before.
The company said it had reviewed sources of funding as trading conditions “remained challenging, with consumer confidence continuing to be fragile, [with] ongoing supply chain disruption and rising cost inflation”. It said it expected underlying sales to continue to fall throughout 2022 and it had begun to make cuts as it expected further pressure on costs from rising energy bills.
The company said there was no immediate issue with liquidity but its auditors said in their report the accounts indicated that the company was a going concern but had “insufficient committed financing” to withstand a “severe but plausible downturn in trading activity”.
Jerome Saint-Marc, the Wilko chief executive, said: “Our relationship with our lending partners is solid. The recent sale and leaseback of our distribution centre to DHL earlier this week unlocked £48m which has enabled us to repay our revolving credit facility in full.
“We’re taking this opportunity, now that the deal is done, to review how we manage our ongoing financing to best trade through the current retail environment while continuing to invest in our future.”
He said the company was trying to drive growth by making its products available on the Amazon, eBay and OnBuy online marketplaces as well as enabling shoppers to pick up items ordered online in 69 stores.
In accounts for Wilkinson Hardware Stores Ltd filed at Companies House this week, the company said it had sufficient funds at its year end to meet its liabilities until the end of January 2024 if trading continued as hoped.
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That came after Wilko sold and leased back its distribution centre in Worksop for initial proceeds of £48m, £25m of which was used to repay a short-term loan called a revolving credit facility. The deal left it with £63m of cash against debts of £261m and provision for further liabilities of £39m at the year end.
The company admitted in the accounts that it might have to seek additional financing if it suffered a “severe but plausible” scenario in which it saw a significant reduction in the amount of goods it was selling. In that scenario, it said its available facilities “would be extinguished by December 2023”. It said if the economic downside was even worse that it feared, it could need financing earlier.
The Wilkinson family has been approached for comment. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/blog/2014/oct/08/miscarriage | Life and style | 2014-10-08T15:12:04.000Z | Claire Daly | Let’s talk about miscarriage | One in five pregnancies are thought to end in a miscarriage, yet though it is commonplace, such a loss can be emotionally paralysing. Many women and men feel reluctant to talk about what is often a distressing and bewildering – but far from rare – experience.
After I wrote an article for the Guardian about a miscarriage I had in 2013 I was shocked at the scale of the response. “Everyone wants to talk about, but no one wants to be the one to bring it up,” one woman told me.
The Miscarriage Association is calling for a national conversation about baby loss in the run-up to International Baby Loss Awareness Day on 15 October. Backed by several leading charities, a week of events are planned starting from Thursday for those affected by miscarriage and stillbirth.
Ruth Bender-Atik, head of the Miscarriage Association, says such events can be “especially important for those who have no other markers of these tiny lives”.
After my article was published, many people commented online and told me their stories in person for months afterwards. Often people shared details they had never told anyone before.
“I kept it in a drawer wrapped in tissues,” one woman told me. She miscarried after 10 weeks, a pregnancy that was followed by years of IVF treatment. She had never spoken of it before, but the anniversary of this loss left her stricken, unable to leave the house for the weekend until recently, six years later.
Lisa has had five miscarriages, and is now the mother of a three-year-old boy. She feels angry at what she feels is insensitive medical language used by NHS staff at various times during treatment for her miscarriages. “I felt like a chicken laying eggs – as if I was silly to worry as another one will be along in a minute.”
Like many of the women, Lisa felt she had no right to mourn or dwell on something that had happened so early in a pregnancy.
Another woman spoke of her distress at having a first trimester miscarriage while visiting a particular town. She cannot return to certain cafes because that is where she used the toilets, and the memories horrify her.
So many stories reflect the intangible nature of grieving for an early miscarriage. The wanted child that never was, who leaves behind such an enormous void of missed plans.
In a world where it is unremarkable for men to bawl after losing a football match, a Facebook feed can mourn a deceased pet, and sobbing seems a prerequisite for a successful television show, how is it this issue is still taboo for most of us?
There are some high profile exceptions. Jay-Z dealt with Beyoncé’s miscarriage in the song Glory, while Ed Sheeran’s Small Bump deals with the aftermath of a miscarriage. Disney’s Up tackles the issue wordlessly, while artist Frida Kahlo’s pain is clear for all to see in Henry Ford hospital.
Yet George Bush shocked the US public when he recalled in his 2010 memoir how his mother miscarried and he travelled with her to the hospital afterwards, the foetus in a jar.
The Miscarriage Association says “there should be no shoulds”: if you don’t feel like dwelling on the loss of something that, in the case of early pregnancy loss, could not have survived outside your body that is of course fine. But for many, including me, the logic and the emotion did not run in parallel. I needed to find a way to make sense of it. In order to move beyond what is for some people a paralysing event, marking the grief can help.
A new quality standard from Nice aims to improve the care of women who have a miscarriage or ectopic pregnancy in early pregnancy. The guidelines call for women be scanned within 24 hours when a miscarriage is suspected, while a Mumsnet campaign has pushed for a higher standard of care across all NHS trusts, after its survey found that the treatment and support women received after a miscarriage often failed to meet the official national guidelines.
The NHS website gives comprehensive advice for women going through a miscarriage, including what they are entitled to in terms of treatment, and gives support regarding any ceremony or burial.
But often those who are experiencing miscarriage for the first time are not aware of the options. With an early pregnancy loss, often there is just nothing to bury. Many women miscarry on the toilet and are in shock.
Perhaps it doesn’t matter exactly what you do, but a piece of time in rushed lives set aside to acknowledge a life missed can be the beginning of the road to acceptance. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/06/syria-rebels-unite-break-aleppo-siege | World news | 2016-08-06T19:40:15.000Z | Emma Graham-Harrison | Syria’s rebels unite to break Assad’s siege of Aleppo | A Syrian military academy in the heart of Aleppo made for a bold, even reckless target for opposition forces trying to break a devastating siege, but the rebels gambled on a double advantage: surprise and suicide bombers.
Soon the rebels were sharing pictures of abandoned artillery and a smashed portrait of President Bashar al-Assad on Twitter, flaunted as triumphant proof that the army was routed and opposition forces were within a few hundred metres of their besieged comrades.
Hours later, the people of east Aleppo were dancing in the street, as rebels and activists confirmed that the month-long siege of the area had been broken. The fate of the opposition-held city was back in play. “Morale is very high now,” said activist and poet Mahmoud Rashwani, who had been living largely underground to avoid airstrikes, eking out his supplies of canned food.
The victory is a fragile one. The area is still a conflict zone and it may be some time before a secure corridor for food and medical supplies can be set up, and the regime has called in reinforcements.
“We expect revenge bombing by the regime, including, possibly, chemical weapons,” said Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American doctor who coordinates medical aid in the city.
Still, for the rebels, it has been a remarkable triumph against the odds. After months of retreat under pressure from government forces and Russian airstrikes, they have not only broken the siege, but overrun a key base the regime had used to enforce it and apparently taken possession of a large cache of weapons and artillery.
Days earlier, the area’s future had appeared grimly settled, its civilian population facing slow weeks of deprivation and fear, as aid groups warned of a humanitarian catastrophe.
More than a quarter of a million people were hemmed into the battered remains of streets by the guns of Assad’s conscripts, elite Iranian troops and a spectrum of Shia militias, patrolled from above by Russian planes. The rebels had fewer men, fewer weapons and, most crucially, no air force.
The opposition groups called a temporary truce to their own disputes, summoned hundreds of their most battle-hardened troops away from other fronts, and used tunnel bombs and suicide attackers to hit the military base to try to set a counter-siege of western Aleppo.
Both sides are throwing everything they can at the four-year battle for the city – a fight that has come to define the Syrian civil war, because each believes the fate of Aleppo will decide the outcome of the conflict.
“This battle’s results exceed simply opening the road for besieged people; it will overturn the balance of the struggle in the Levant,” said Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of the powerful Jabhat al-Nusra faction that, until last month, was the official al- Qaida franchise in Syria.
Last month, the faction severed those ties, changed its name to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham and renounced international jihad, although observers said there was little sign of a parallel shift in ideology. Instead, experts reckoned the move was probably aimed at getting it off US airstrike target lists and easing coalitions with other factions.
That rebranding put the group in a strong position to capitalise on last week’s campaign, particularly if it can consolidate a victory that casts it as a champion of Aleppo’s battered civilians.
“We urge our people in Aleppo to remain steadfast,” Jolani added in the audio recording released on Friday. “The mujahideen will not fail you.”
The contrast with western powers, which condemned the siege but said they were powerless to stop it, is unlikely to be lost on Syrians, analysts warned.
“The world abandoned Aleppo; the jihadis came to the rescue. Al-Qaida’s rebranding could hardly have asked for more,” analyst Kyle Orton, from the Henry Jackson Society, said on Twitter.
Aleppo is both strategically and symbolically important. Damascus may be the capital but, before fighting broke out, the northern city was the most populous, the economic powerhouse – a diverse, vibrant cultural hub with a history stretching back millennia.
It was late to join the uprising against Assad, producing neither large-scale protests nor the bloody violence that swept through other cities in the first year of the civil war but, since the opposition stormed it in 2012, it has been a crucial battleground.
Aleppo was divided almost immediately into government- and rebel-controlled areas, along lines that have remained mostly static ever since: a stalemate unmoved by repeated and often ruthless attempts to dislodge the other side.
The years of bloody fighting have made it a symbol of Syria’s suffering, encapsulating in one place the bravery of its civilians and the terrible complexity of a war that, even before the rise of Islamic State, has set disturbingly extreme opposition groups against an ever more brutal government.
Fighters from the former Nusra – the groups has been renamed Fateh al-Sham but experts fear their ideology won’t change. Photograph: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images
The eastern half of the city has held out, despite an unforgiving aerial campaign by the Assad regime, whose barrel bombs have reduced much of it to ruins. Rebels have deployed “hell cannons” – crude artillery using gas cylinders – that have also been called indiscriminate.
Aleppo is now the last major urban centre where the rebels have a foothold, and success in breaking the siege would carry great psychological weight, reversing the momentum of months of setbacks brought about by an intense Russian air campaign in support of Assad.
Moscow intervened last year at a precarious time for Assad, who had lost all of Idlib province to a concerted rebel offensive. It was the first time a large coalition of opposition fighters had come together to fight the government and analysts spoke plausibly of Aleppo’s fall to the opposition.
The Kremlin’s campaign ended such hopes, pummelling the rebels, undoing their advances and leaving Assad secure in his strongholds. He, rather than opposition fighters, focused on the push for Aleppo, which culminated at the start of July in a long-feared siege.
Less than a month after being cut off, life in Aleppo has already slowed to a near halt. Markets are empty, schools have closed, hospitals and orphanages moved underground. Residents are woken by the first airstrikes of the day.
Those who chose to stay in Aleppo have stockpiled provisions in the knowledge that the regime and its backers would try to cut them off.
The Syrian army has honed the use of siege warfare to bring cities to their knees and then take them under government control – among them Homs, the birthplace and once the capital of the revolution, which opposition fighters abandoned last year.
Sieges allow Assad to avoid sending a depleted and demoralised Syrian army into close combat with the more highly motivated opposition forces. The Syrian military is down to as little as a third of its prewar strength and reliant on ground forces from Iran’s revolutionary guards, Hezbollah and a patchwork of other regional militias.
Like the opposition, Assad and his supporters are convinced that taking Aleppo will effectively end the civil war, breaking the morale of the opposition and condemning it to a marginal existence as a rural insurgency that can no longer claim to speak for large sections of Syrian society. Bringing all the country’s major cities under his control would also remove the threat that Assad’s international critics could push, as they once did, for a new Syrian settlement that does not include him as leader.
Moderate members of Syria’s opposition in exile say they fear not just for the people of Aleppo, but for the state of their wider cause, and believe the siege aimed not just to humble the city but also to polarise further a war that Assad has always cast as a battle between himself and extremists.
Isis does not have a major presence in Aleppo. Opposition groups in 2014 lost more than 1,000 men, pushing the jihadis back to a small stretch of territory near the town of Manbij, which is now under a concerted assault by US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters. But many of the groups fighting there are conservative Islamists, and moderates are worried that for this assault they have gathered around Jolani’s group.
It has shored up finances and power base as rivals splintered, and success in Aleppo would further entrench the group. “If the regime, Russians and other supporters had not brought a siege on Aleppo, we could have avoided the coalition of Nusra and the other groups joining it to fight,” said Bassma Kodmani, a member of the main opposition High Negotiating Council team for peace talks.
“The most radical remain in the fight: that is the most alarming consequence of letting Aleppo come under siege,” she said. “The lack of some credible commitment from the international community leaves the opposition welcoming an offensive waged by Nusra because this is the only way to gain some leverage, to put some pressure on Russia and the regime. And that is really unfortunate.”
Rashwani confirmed that relief on the ground in Aleppo means there is little interest in who is doing the fighting.
“No one is now thinking about Nusra or [the hardline Islamist group] Ahrar al-Sham. We are seeing a group of rebels doing their best to break this siege,” he said. “I was one of those people who started this revolution, so I believe that one day we will get our victory, and I need to be here at that moment.”
THE FACTIONS
Assad and his allies
President Bashar al-Assad. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Regime forces
The Syrian army numbered 300,000 before the war but, after five years of fighting, it is barely a third of that.
Hezbollah
Hezbollah began to support Assad covertly soon after violence broke out and, in 2013, its leader publicly declared it had joined the war. It is believed to have lost hundreds of fighters, including its top military commander.
Iranian Revolutionary Guards
Iran firmly supports Assad, whom it sees as a key ally in a regional power struggle, and is supplying arms, fuel and hundreds of soldiers. Last year, it released photos of its most celebrated commander on the ground in Syria.
Shia militias
Iranian troops are fighting alongside, and coordinating, Shia militias recruited from across the region, including from Iraq, Afghanistan and even Pakistan.
Russian air force
Last autumn’s Russian air campaign was key to turning the tide of the war in Assad’s favour. Its planes can fly in weather that grounds the Syrian air force and have more powerful and accurate weapons.
Anti-Assad forces in Aleppo
Free Syrian Army
The moderate FSA, made up of many smaller groups, was the dominant opposition force in the first two years of the war. It was initially backed by the Arab states and got cautious US support. After years of disunity and faltering advances, its influence and territory has shrunk, while Islamist groups have grown.
Jaysh al-Fateh
A broad coalition of Islamist factions that came together to fight Assad last year, when its advances forced Russia to come to his aid. Jaysh al-Fateh has been at the heart of the campaign to break the siege on Aleppo. The two most influential groups are as follows.
Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra)
The reconstituted al-Qaida affiliate renounced its ties to the global terror group last month and changed its name, but few observers believe that will herald any change in its ideology.
Ahrar al-Sham
Formed by hardliners with Muslim Brotherhood links, who aim to establish a Sunni theocracy in Syria, Ahrar al-Sham fought with Nusra when it was still part of al-Qaida, but rejects international jihad itself. It has a strong support base in Syria. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/01/the-guardian-view-on-the-australian-election-big-ideas-shrink-in-a-small-target-campaign | Opinion | 2016-06-30T21:33:23.000Z | Editorial | The Guardian view on the Australian election: big ideas shrink in a small-target campaign | The 2016 Australian election campaign began with the hope that big ideas and bold positive policies might mean voters would be able to choose the party that inspired them the most rather than the one they despised the least.
The eight long weeks have been better than the vitriolic battles of 2010 and 2013. But the election hasn’t entirely delivered on its promise. Ideas seem to have shrunk in the explaining and the campaign has too often descended into scares and misinformation and high-handed, self-serving demands that disillusioned voters should reconsider a vote for the Greens or minor parties because those democratic choices would somehow create “chaos”.
It soon became obvious that just eight months after he ousted Tony Abbott as prime minister and Liberal leader to widespread national relief and sky-high expectations, Malcolm Turnbull was planning a small-target campaign. He promised to respect the intelligence of the electorate but has been seeking the Coalition’s re-election on the calculation that voters were fed up with political upheaval and weren’t ready to write him off just yet, certainly not in favour of the Labor leader, Bill Shorten.
Turnbull’s agenda is thin. His centrepiece $48bn company tax cut, unveiled in a pre-election budget, was modelled as delivering a 0.6% boost to gross national income in a decade, but there are not convincing answers to questions about how much of the tax relief would flow offshore or the extent to which growth would fill the budget hole left by the revenue forgone. When the tax cuts for big corporations proved unpopular, he shifted to the more general claim that only a Coalition government could deliver “jobs and growth”. His budget included a progressive superannuation policy but he also talked about that less as a backlash in the Liberal heartland grew.
His agenda has been weighed down by the often regressive “zombie” spending cuts, still lingering in the budget from 2014 but never legislated, cuts to government payments to the poorest Australian families and a four-week wait before young people could receive the dole. His climate policy and marriage equality plans are deliberately opaque to disguise unresolved conflicts with the Coalition conservatives; by his own admission, Turnbull would prefer a parliamentary vote to introduce marriage equality (the policy of both Labor and the Greens) but he took the leadership with an internal agreement to keep Abbott’s unnecessary and expensive plebiscite. His childcare policy would leave many families better off, but its future is uncertain because he continues to insist it must be paid for by the family benefit cuts. And, astonishingly, he goes to the poll with no policies at all on higher education, vocational education, industrial relations or the arts.
It’s as if his re-election pitch is fuelled mostly by the sheer force of his confidence, because he hasn’t been in the job long enough, or exerted his authority over his own party sufficiently, to come up with a fully considered plan.
Bill Shorten, by contrast, began the campaign with a braver, clearer and more progressive set of ideas than we have seen from recent oppositions. Voters were far more attracted to them than the Coalition had expected. Labor had already announced ambitious policies to wind back the generosity of superannuation concessions for the wealthiest and to limit negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions – a policy that would both save money and go some way to slowing the price rises that are putting home ownership out of reach for so many Australians. The party had the courage to oppose the company tax cut and to offer slightly higher near-term budget deficits as the price of its health and education agenda and smart structural savings that would take some years to mature. It promised to fully fund the “Gonski” plan for schools, to more than reverse the Coalition’s university spending cuts, and Shorten argued the case for marriage equality with conviction. Tying the “putting people first” message together was a noticeable shift from the 1980s economic consensus, an acceptance that reducing inequality was important for ensuring economic growth as well as a fair society.
But Labor’s full policy offering hasn’t quite lived up to its vision. After spending years attacking the Coalition for cutting $57bn from public hospitals over the next 10 years, it topped up Turnbull’s additional spend in the short term but offered no more money over the decade. It quietly accepted some of the “zombies”, including some cuts for new recipients of deeply inadequate welfare payments. It sketched an ambitious climate policy and had the political courage to state clearly that it would need to involve emissions trading schemes, but it also fudged crucial details to avoid another carbon tax scare campaign. It abandoned parts of its superannuation policy mid-campaign and said it would come up with something in government that saved as much money as the Coalition’s version. Despite deep disquiet inside his party, Shorten persuaded Labor’s national conference to mirror the Coalition’s policies to turn back asylum boats and send any arrivals to offshore detention.
As the long campaign proceeded Labor seemed to balk, to be unwilling to back its departure from the political and economic orthodoxy. It lacked a coherent economic story that tied together its policies. It appeared diverted by trying to minimise the difference between its near-term deficit and the Coalition’s, as if it doubted its own ability to argue the case against the inevitable charge that Labor posed a risk to the economy.
Perhaps those fears were justified by Brexit, an international earthquake that has quickly reverberated across the world and on to the Australian hustings. The Coalition is sure it will benefit, both from incumbency and the traditional advantage the Coalition has in perceptions of economic management competency. It took Shorten days to mount the obvious alternative argument, that Australia has avoided the extremes of social division precisely because it retains a reasonable social safety net, but that even so, inequality is growing. Then he cut across his own arguments by being loose with the truth in some of his own last-minute scare campaigns.
The stampede to non-mainstream parties and candidates is not as fast in Australia as in other countries but an increasing number of voters are choosing someone other than the majors. The Coalition has effectively told those voters their choices are dangerous for the country’s political stability – which can only be assured by a Coalition majority. Given no major party has had control of both houses of parliament since 2004, that’s nonsense. Indeed, both major parties have let themselves down with scare campaigns and a ridiculous vilification of the Greens and some independents.
The Greens have released a full suite of progressive, costed policies. They are backed – according to the polls – by about 10% of Australians. And they have a track record of responsibly exercising a balance-of-power position. They are also the only significant party to represent the views of Australians who reject the offshore detention regime. The Greens would also keep up the pressure for crucial reforms to laws governing political expenditure and the disclosure of political donations, changes backed by Labor and Turnbull “in an ideal world”, but which never seem to happen, despite a steady stream of scandals and the increasingly unsustainable task of attracting sufficient donations to pay for election campaigns.
The major parties have also attacked Nick Xenophon and his candidates. The Nick Xenophon Team’s policies are not as detailed as those of the Greens, but Xenophon, powerful in South Australia, has a responsible parliamentary track record. So do Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, although many other independents have views so extreme and platforms so sketchy it should give any voter pause.
Guardian Australia readers are able to reach their own conclusions. But in our view the Coalition’s offerings are thin, Labor’s go a long way towards a progressive program, and false threats of looming “chaos” should not deter voters from choosing the Greens, or other candidates with a plausible, fair agenda. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/sep/20/opera-actor-82-furious-with-critic-for-saying-she-looked-a-fright-on-first-night | Music | 2023-09-20T18:09:58.000Z | Amelia Hill | Opera actor, 82, furious with critic for saying she looked a fright on first night | Rose Knox-Peebles was on a high after the opening night of Das Rheingold at the Royal Opera House earlier this week.
It was the first time the 82-year-old model, who plays Erda, the weary, gnarled earth mother who has seen it all, who knows what has been, what is and will be, had performed in an opera. In quite the baptism of all sorts of fire, the director, Barrie Kosky, decided to keep her character on stage, naked, for the entire two-and-a-half-hour performance – with no interval.
The reviews were glowing: Knox-Peebles’ performance was “remarkable and gracefully brave” said one reviewer. Another said she performed a difficult part with “great skill”. Yet another said that she was “visually arresting” and her constant presence on the stage was the producer’s “finest interpretative moment”.
Das Rheingold review – uncluttered staging is a compelling start to Kosky’s Ring cycle
Read more
But when Knox-Peebles turned to her favourite newspaper – the Financial Times – she got a shock. “Not only was the review terribly short and superficial but it accused me of having been ‘made up to look quite a fright’,” she said.
Knox-Peebles wasn’t upset about being told she looked “a fright” by the critic Richard Fairman – she couldn’t give two hoots what anyone thinks about her appearance – but she was upset by what she thought of as the lazy inaccuracy of the statement.
“I was furious,” she said. “I hadn’t been ‘made up’ to look like a fright. That’s what I looked like. It was me.
“I don’t actually think I do look like a fright”, she added. “I’m perfectly happy with the way I look.”
Knox-Peebles fired off a letter to the newspaper. To her great amusement, it was published. ‘The “fright” look is all naturally mine’, she wrote, signing her letter “Erda”.
The media loved it: “‘Frightful’ make-up is just my face, octogenarian tells opera critic,” announced the Times. “Opera critic calls 81-year-old actress’s make-up ‘frightful’ … but she wasn’t wearing any,” crowed the Telegraph.
Knox-Peebles said she had better things to do than worry about a critic who confuses an opera stage with a catwalk. “My appearance was obviously totally irrelevant. I’m supposed to be 4.9bn years old, so I would hardly look like some beautiful young thing,” she said on Wednesday.
She added: “I’m having a wonderful time. I got married at 18 and had four children. I never worked until 20 years, when I started modelling, more or less by chance. Since then, I’ve been in Vogue, in music videos – bopping around like anybody else – and having the time of my life.
“To my eyes, getting old is a plus. Until this thing – whatever it was – I’ve not been treated differently at all over my age,” she added. “If anything, ageing is a bonus: I get offered seats on the Underground. What’s not to like?!”
The Financial Times has been contacted for comment. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jun/28/kerry-washington-scandal-interview | Culture | 2013-06-28T22:00:00.000Z | Decca Aitkenhead | Kerry Washington: notes on a Scandal | When the Scandal box set dropped on to our mat, my partner took one look and said he'd be having an early night. Seven hours later we peeled ourselves away from the screen, having watched the entire series together back-to-back – but when I report this to Kerry Washington, she doesn't look surprised, just amused. "Yeah," she smiles, "I'm finding a lot of people telling me that. They watch it with their grandmother, or their girlfriend."
Now into its third series in the US, Scandal is the hit creation of Shonda Rhimes, who made Grey's Anatomy. Washington plays Olivia Pope, an elite crisis manager in Washington DC, part lawyer, part private eye, cop and political fixer – a tiny but formidable beauty in stilettos with a gift for getting what she wants out of everyone from foreign dictators to wealthy rapists to the president, with whom she has an on-off affair. Imagine Alastair Campbell and Matthew Freud in Naomi Campbell's body, and you begin to get the picture.
Pope is at once sympathetic and terrifying, and it's a measure of Washington's performance that she has to reassure me she's nothing like Pope in real life. "She's so much cooler than I am, so much smarter, so much more powerful, so much more fearless. I'm not going to tell you about yourself or try to manipulate you." She chuckles. "I'm definitely not her. She is based on a real-life person, though – and that person is pretty badass."
Pope is loosely based on Judy Smith, an African American crisis management expert who worked as a White House press secretary for George W Bush and has since advised clients from Monica Lewinsky to Wesley Snipes. She is still a crisis manager, but also a producer on the show. "So it's like, one week she's on set with us, the next she's in an undisclosed location doing work we can't know about." Washington has a conference call with Smith before filming each episode and the show's writers "come up with the most scandalous crisis situations they can think of, then say, 'Judy, what would you do? How would you fix that?'"
This helps explain why, despite the occasional far-fetched plotline and cartoonish cliche, Scandal feels so compelling. Even so, Washington hadn't even wanted to read the script when her agent suggested it. "I thought, a network TV drama? No way, no way. I have a thriving film career."
She's not being immodest: at 36, Washington is poised to make the breakthrough from interesting cinema actor to movie megastar. Her career began in television, with appearances in NYPD Blue, Boston Legal and Law & Order, but soon graduated to cinema. Following roles in Mr & Mrs Smith and Spike Lee's She Hate Me, she played Idi Amin's wife in The Last King Of Scotland, Ray Charles' wife in the biopic Ray and Broomhilda, wife of the slave Django, in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained.
With Jamie Foxx in the biopic Ray. Photograph: Rex Features
"But then I read the Scandal script and I was like, 'Oh, I'm screwed. This is so good.' Then I got really scared, because I did feel like it was written for me; you know, in some divine way, this was mine. But there were 15 other actresses who felt the same. Shonda auditioned everyone and their mother, because for African American actresses this was the glass slipper – so she let everyone try it on."
Scandal is the first network primetime drama to feature an African American female lead in close to 40 years, and possibly the first ever whose colour is entirely incidental. Pope's identity isn't defined by her skin: she just happens to be black. It is, many critics have raved, the first "post-racial" TV show. Does Washington think it could have been made pre-Obama? "Well, it could have been written pre-Obama, because Judy Smith worked in the George Bush White House. But would it have made it to air? Would people have tuned in? That I don't know."
She is adamant, however, that Scandal is not "post-racial" TV. "I don't believe in post-racial. It's like saying we should live in a post-gender world. But I love being a woman! I am interested in living in a post-sexist world and feel the same about race. I don't want to live in a post-race world because being black is really exciting. I mean" – she laughs – "it's who I am. I'm a woman, black, from New York, Aquarius – these are things that create who I am. I'm interested in living in a post-racist world, where being African American doesn't dictate limitations on what I can do – but I don't want to live post-race. Our differences are so fascinating and wonderful. We don't want to all be the same. Who wants that? Hitler did, but who else?"
She is philosophical about the influence of skin colour on her career. "There are two sides to this coin. I have had, and still do, experiences where someone will say, 'You know, we just don't really see this character as black. We don't want to go black with her.' Some of it I respect, because this is a visual medium, so I don't believe in colour-blind casting. But I think sometimes people make that decision out of fear, or laziness, or just not wanting to have to travel down roads that aren't familiar." On the other hand, she points out that, were she white, she wouldn't have landed her biggest movie roles. "It has its downsides – there have been things I've loved but I haven't been able to be a part of – but it's also had its upsides."
She can't bring herself to single out a favourite role. "God, no." She half-laughs. "Every role is like a child, so I don't like to compare them." But the part of Pope makes particular sense to her because "I've been in politics for a long time".
Washington campaigned for Obama in 2008, addressing meetings across 15 states, and spoke at last year's Democratic National Convention. "Which was the most terrifying thing I've ever done in my life. I looked out at this stadium full of tens of thousands of people and I was like, what am I doing here?" She is a member of V-Day, a global movement to raise awareness of violence against women and girls, and lobbies Congress on issues around the arts. Will she bring to the part skills or ideas learned through her political activism?
"I want to be careful about this," she says quickly, "because obviously I have a very different relationship with the White House than Olivia does, and a very different relationship with the president." She gives a playful but firm grin, before steering the conversation in another direction. "But I do think my knowledge of Washington fashion came to play in establishing her wardrobe, because I wanted to set her apart from the DC norm."
Kerry Washington in Scandal, America's favourite new drama. Photograph: ABC/Channel 4
Scandal has developed a US fan base who tune in for the outfits alone, and Washington is closely involved in choosing them. "For me the clothes are as big a part of how a character expresses herself as how she walks or speaks. When you think about the power suit of a corporate woman in the 80s, it was just dressing like a man. Olivia feels thoroughly modern – she is powerful, and at the same time she's flawed and vulnerable behind closed doors, and I love that. I live that duality and I think it's something a lot of us relate to. So Olivia does wear the pants, but her clothes are distinctly feminine: we tailor everything so that you see her waist."
Pope has a "wonderful balance", she says. "She doesn't traffic in her sexuality, doesn't manipulate people with it. But she is aware of the impact of her beauty and not afraid to be beautiful."
Washington herself was ranked among People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People earlier this year, and is a spokeswoman for L'Oréal, but has no interest in being a sex symbol. In fact, she had always thought she would be a psychotherapist or a teacher, not an actor. "I'm the daughter of a professor, so… well, I think acting's not a real job," she says, laughing. "I come from this sort of academic, working-middle-class family where you make something respectable of your life, do something that matters, and being a starving artist is not that. I always loved acting, but I think for a long time, in my brain, the desire to be an actor was equivalent to the desire to be famous. And I did not want to be famous. I did not want to be that girl. I thought that if you wanted to be an actress, you had to want to be on the front cover of magazines, otherwise you shouldn't do it."
It wasn't until halfway through her degree in sociology and anthropology at George Washington University that she "understood that I could want to be a working actor and it didn't have to include fame. That there were lots of people who made a living doing theatre and a couple of commercials a year, and I didn't have to want to be that girl."
Only now, of course, she is that girl, splashed across the covers of magazines. "That was that theory blown." She giggles, nodding. She has left behind the Bronx of her childhood and moved to Hollywood for work. "But I'm lucky. I come from a really grounded family and I have three best friends from high school who have made it their job to remain unimpressed by everything I do. If I started being superdiva Kerry, they would be like" – she wrinkles up her nose – "what is that?"
She was once engaged, to actor David Moscow, but is now single. And from what she says about shooting Scandal, I would guess her work-life balance may be as elusive as Pope's. "Doing 22 episodes is unlike anything I've ever done, like making 11 movies back to back. I actually called my doctor after because I felt like my adrenals were depleted." But she is guarded when asked, offering only, "Um, yeah, I don't get to spend as much time with friends and family as I'd like. But, you know, my primary relationships I'm very committed to and I find time for them, yeah."
Washington never reads reviews, so took a while to grasp that Scandal had relocated her to a new stratosphere of celebrity. "Looking at ratings is like stepping on the scales, and it's why I never weigh myself. If the number is a number you don't want it to be, then you're miserable, and if it's a number you want it to be, you spend the rest of the day thinking, oh, I should never eat again so the number stays where it is, right? It's just better that I don't get on the scales."
In the end it was her three best friends who let her know. "They are completely addicted to the show and I thought, oh, we have something here. OK, now that's interesting."
Scandal starts next Thursday at 9pm on More 4. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/06/corbyn-urges-support-for-labours-brexit-plan-as-house-vote-nears | Politics | 2018-12-06T20:43:26.000Z | Dan Sabbagh | Corbyn urges support for his Brexit plan as Commons vote nears | Jeremy Corbyn called on MPs of all parties to vote down Theresa May’s deal and back his alternative plan for Brexit, as campaigners for a second referendum urged him to get “off the fence” and endorse a fresh public vote.
Labour’s leader, writing in the Guardian, said that the party’s “comprehensive customs union plan” should be one of the options on the table if the party could not force a general election – in addition to a second referendum.
Corbyn argued that if May was defeated next Tuesday the government would lose “its ability to govern”. That would have meant an automatic election before the introduction of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act in 2011, which formalised the rules governing votes of confidence.
“If under the current rules we cannot get an election, all options must be on the table,” Corbyn wrote. “Those should include Labour’s alternative and, as our conference decided in September, the option of campaigning for a public vote to break the deadlock.”
Labour sources said recent polling showed that the most popular option with the British public was trying to renegotiate the Brexit deal, although the party wants to retain maximum flexibility in what is likely to be a chaotic period if May’s deal is, as is widely expected, voted down.
The careful positioning came as it emerged that a head-to-head TV debate between Corbyn and May would almost certainly not take place after ITV announced it had abandoned its plan to broadcast it because Labour and the Tories could not agree on its format. The decision followed the BBC dropping its own plans for a similar programme.
However, Labour’s decision to maintain its “constructive ambiguity” over Brexit and support a range of options came under fire from frustrated second-referendum campaigners on Thursday, one of whom abandoned her plan to submit an amendment to next week’s final vote on Thursday.
Tory MP Sarah Wollaston, a former GP, had planned to put down a cross-party “doctor’s amendment” calling for a second referendum, but said she would not do so because she had been persuaded that without Labour frontbench support at this stage it would be at risk of heavy defeat.
Wollaston said that she made her decision after discussions with the people’s vote second-referendum campaign, many of whose active members included backbench Labour MPs such as Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie. “Labour has to end the constructive ambiguity, Corbyn has to come off the fence,” Wollaston added.
She said that she would make her move after May’s deal “failed in the Commons”, although last night the Liberal Democrats took advantage of Wollaston’s decision to submit their own amendment instead.
The Lib Dem amendment instructs the government “to take all necessary steps to prepare for a people’s vote” although the party’s small number of MPs in the Commons means it will have no chance of passing it next week.
Corbyn said that as part of Labour’s “alternative plan” he wants to strike a “comprehensive customs union with the EU, with a British say in future trade deals”. He added that he wants the UK to enjoy “a new and strong relationship with the single market that gives us frictionless trade” – although with time running out before Britain is due to leave the EU in March 2019 it was unclear how the plan could be negotiated.
Corbyn also came out against the unpopular customs backstop in an effort to woo pro Brexit voters, warning that if the UK used it “workers’ rights would be allowed to fall behind” and “restrictions on state aid to industry would be locked in”.
The article came a day after it emerged that the Labour’s powerful union backer, Len McCluskey, had warned Labour MPs in a private meeting that they should have reservations about a second referendum.
One person present said that McCluskey had warned that there would be “a sense of betrayal” if the party chose that option, although the issue is divisive at senior levels of the party. Over the weekend it emerged that Sir Keir Starmer, Labour’s Brexit spokesman, had wanted Labour to quickly get to the point where a second referendum became an option.
In September Labour adopted a compromise position in which the party would first decide whether to oppose May’s deal, then, if it was voted down, try to force a general election, before turning to other options. But with the vote looming, Corbyn and the party’s leadership is coming under pressure to spell out what it might do next.
Tony Blair, the former prime minister and campaigner for a second referendum, returned to Westminster on Thursday to say he believed that May’s “half in and half out” deal satisfied no one in the Brexit debate and that there was no solution that commanded majority support in the House of Commons either.
Speaking at a parliamentary press gallery lunch, Blair said that MPs could be obliged to consider a second referendum. “My guess, and I may be 100% wrong, is that when all the options are voted upon, parliament will come to the view that none can truly be said to reflect the majority will of the people, and it’s back to them therefore that we must go for resolution.”
If May’s deal is defeated in the Commons on Tuesday Corbyn could call for a vote of no confidence on Wednesday. However, Labour is desperate to avoid signalling its intentions until the last minute.
Under the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, if May is defeated by one vote, her government will fall, but there will be 14 days in which an alternative government could be formed.
Corbyn flies to Lisbon on Friday for the two-day congress of the Party of European Socialists. Party sources said he was expected to meet Frans Timmermans, a European commission vice-president who is the socialists parties’ candidate for the commission presidency, to press his case. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/11/bbc-andrew-neil-media-politics | Opinion | 2018-04-11T17:42:00.000Z | Owen Jones | If the BBC is politically neutral, how does it explain Andrew Neil? | Owen Jones | Imagine this. The BBC appoints a prominent radical leftist, a lifelong Bennite, the chairman of the publisher of a prominent leftwing publication no less, as its flagship political presenter and interviewer. This person has made speeches in homage of Karl Marx calling for the establishment of full-blooded socialism in Britain, including a massive increase in public ownership, hiking taxes on the rich to fund a huge public investment programme, and reversing anti-union laws. They appear on our “impartial” Auntie Beeb wearing a tie emblazoned with the logo of a hardline leftist thinktank. Their BBC editor is a former Labour staffer who moves to become Jeremy Corbyn’s communications chief. They use their Twitter feed – where they have amassed hundreds of thousands of followers thanks to a platform handed to them by the BBC – to promote radical leftist causes.
Is the BBC abdicating its responsibilities over Brexit?
Henry Porter
Read more
This would never happen. It is unthinkable, in fact. If the BBC establishment somehow entered this parallel universe, the British press would be on the brink of insurrection. And yet, the strange case of Andrew Neil, the ultra-Thatcherite former Sunday Times editor who is the BBC’s flagship political presenter, is an instructive example about how our media works.
Neil is a formidable political interviewer in many ways: forensic, unrelenting, quick-witted, sardonic. But consider the background of this former Conservative party researcher. When Jeremy Corbyn had the audacity to meet with leftwing Jewish group Jewdas, Neil smeared them as “nutters”; last year, he made a speech denouncing antisemitism on the left. To be clear, leftwing antisemitism exists and must be vanquished. But Neil has no moral authority on this issue. As editor of the Sunday Times in 1992, he hired Britain’s foremost Holocaust denier, Nazi apologist David Irving, to work on the Goebbels diaries. To hire a sympathiser of Hitler and denier of the worst atrocity in history to do respectable work for a national newspaper – to offer a reputational lifeline to a man who should have been treated as a pariah – was a disgrace for which he has never apologised. As the Wiener Library, the oldest institution devoted to the study of the Holocaust, said at the time: “David Irving denies the gas chambers. Anyone who deals with him is tainted with that.”
Not long after becoming a high-profile BBC presenter, Neil made a speech in homage to rightwing radical Friedrich Hayek, in which he called for a “radical programme to liberalise the British economy; a radical reduction in tax and public spending as a share of the economy” as well as a flat tax “and the injection of choice and competition into the public sector on a scale not yet contemplated”. During last year’s general election, he presented the Daily Politics wearing a tie emblazoned with the logo of the hardcore neoliberal Adam Smith Institute. His editor was Robbie Gibb, a former adviser to Michael Portillo – another longstanding colleague of Neil on This Week. Last year Gibb became Theresa May’s head of communications.
Neil’s Twitter account – which has hundreds of thousands of followers thanks to his BBC gig – is routinely used to promote rightwing causes. He uses this platform to denounce the scientific consensus on climate change, reviling what he calls “the climate mafia” and claiming that deviation from the consensus meant “the witch-finders want to burn you”. It is not the first time he has deviated from scientific consensus. When he was Sunday Times editor, his newspaper ran a series of articles arguing that HIV did not cause Aids. It was a theme picked up by the Spectator 15 years later. Let’s be clear: this contemptible myth risked people’s lives. His Twitter feed, too, reveals a relentless sympathy for Brexit and denunciation of its critics. A valid political perspective, but not coming from the BBC’s main politics presenter on the biggest issue facing Britain. Again unsurprising, given that he once called “for a reorientation of British foreign policy away from Europe towards Asia and Latin America”and “unilateral free trade, regardless of the policy in Brussels”.
His firebrand rightwing politics aside, Neil skins politicians alive across the political spectrum, comes the inevitable retort. There is no question that Neil is exceptionally bright and well-read with an acute eye for detail: it is a grave error to turn up unprepared with him in the chair, as I discovered in one of my earliest TV appearances. And yes, he did recently take down a Tory minister for the absurd smears against Corbyn over a crank ex-Czechoslovak spy: that he was applauded for doing his job here shows how low the left’s expectations are. But as a general rule, while Neil will fillet politicians on both left and right on the basis of competence, he reserves his ideological assaults for the left, ridiculing Corbyn over Russia – which one would expect on US TV networks, where impartiality rules do not apply.
As editor of the Sunday Times in 1992, he hired Britain’s foremost Holocaust denier, Nazi apologist David Irving
Last month, when Green MP Caroline Lucas tabled an Urgent Question on bullying and harassment in Parliament, Neil excoriated her for not talking about rape in Telford instead. When Lucas responded that the Telford case was “absolutely appalling” and that she backed an urgent public inquiry into the matter, but that didn’t mean MPs shouldn’t get their own House in order, Neil denounced her for making a comparison between “what some middle class women had suffered” and the Telford scandal – one he alone had made. The consequence was an online pile-on. Imagine if a prominent leftwing BBC journalist existed and launched such a baseless out-of-nowhere attack on a rightwing politician?
Why does this all matter? Critiquing any prominent journalist normally results in a defensive backlash: it is regarded as the ultimate sin within media ranks. But the issue here is about a system. The media are one of the most essential pillars of any democracy, and must be critiqued as such. The usual BBC defence is that the corporation is attacked from both sides, and therefore must be neutral. This is a logical fallacy. For one, it does not take into account which side is more assertive or dominant. Our press overwhelmingly supports the Tories and is intolerant of even mild deviations from rightwing orthodoxy. The BBC itself is dominated by social and economic liberalism, which is why it provokes ire from left and right: but that isn’t neutrality, either. Its daily news priorities are set and framed by the front pages of Conservative-supporting newspapers.
Neil himself would be the most intimidating and effective rightwing polemicist in Britain if he was freed from the BBC. But the fact that somebody as stridently leftwing as he is rightwing would never be appointed to such a position is indicative of how our media operate. Many on the left fear that any critique of Auntie will play into the hands of a right wing that would privatise and gut the BBC if it could. This deference means that BBC political output remains framed by rightwing assumptions. The Media Reform Coalition has suggested a series of proposals, such as freeing the BBC from all government interference and a BBC board elected by licence-payers and BBC staff. At the very least, as the case of Neil underlines, the left – which, after all, represents millions of Britons – must stop accepting its continued media marginalisation as just one of those things. It isn’t – and it must change. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/03/rupaul-drag-race-big-f-you-to-male-dominated-culture | Television & radio | 2018-03-03T08:00:12.000Z | Decca Aitkenhead | RuPaul: ‘Drag is a big f-you to male-dominated culture’ | When RuPaul Charles was seven, one of his sisters comforted him with a promise. “Everyone who’s in charge of the world now,” she told him, “they’re all making it better, so that years from now everyone on the planet will have at least eight pairs of shoes.” Her prediction tells us something about the better world a young RuPaul dreamed of – and that, in the case of his own shoe collection, at least, turned out to be true. Before the boy was even born, a psychic had told his mother he would grow up to be famous, so she took great care to name him suitably. What neither his unusually prescient family – nor a single TV pundit – predicted, however, was that at the age of 57 he would be the star of what has been called “the most radical show on TV”.
RuPaul’s Drag Race was turned down by every network bar one when he first pitched the idea a decade ago. A pastiche of America’s Next Top Model, part talent contest and part reality TV, the format selects a dozen or so drag queens to compete in weekly challenges such as running up a Gone With The Wind-themed gown out of curtains. A judging panel of RuPaul and guests, who have included Lady Gaga and La Toya Jackson, scores the catwalk finales, looking for Charisma, Uniqueness, Nerve and Talent (the acronym is not an accident), and the bottom two then “lip-sync for their lives” to a pop anthem, before the loser is eliminated.
The show is about to enter its 10th season, the concept has evolved a little every year, and the queens take the contest very seriously, but I’ve never met anyone who actually cares who wins. What makes Drag Race addictive are the contestants’ life stories and the group dynamics which break all the rules of reality TV by favouring camaraderie over cat fights. For all the artifice of their outfits, the queens make themselves emotionally naked for us, by turns poignant, comic, vulnerable and heroic. RuPaul performs the role of grand matriarch, and it’s his unexpected humanity which both defines and elevates the show. As one Drag Race addict wrote in Esquire, “Drag Race is an endless reminder that it’s possible to find love for others – and ourselves – despite all of the shit and the pain and the heartbreak we go through in life.”
RuPaul in drag
The contestants are all “showgirls” – professional drag queens – and part of the fun comes from watching the miracles they conjure; there is nothing these girls can’t do with wigs and corsets and enough gaffer tape. Some are plus size, others comic, and some straightforward glamour girls – all unrecognisable out of costume – but beyond the pleasing reality TV formula of transformation, Drag Race is also wildly funny. The frenzied athleticism of the lip-sync challenge, the frantic panics over frocks, the fabulous names – Adore Delano, Tempest DuJour, Eureka O’Hara – all shimmer with knowing irony. Contestants are fluent in the vernacular of drag – “throwing shade” (criticising), “hog body” (an insufficiently hourglass figure), “Judy” (good friend) – making the show feel like an invite to a private party on another planet.
Bought by Logo TV, a tiny LGBT cable network, Drag Race became an instant hit, quickly crossing over to VH1, bringing the subculture of drag into middle America’s living rooms. In the coming season, the guest judges will even include senior Democrat and House minority leader Nancy Pelosi. Each episode now averages well over a million viewers, the show is streamed all over the world, and last year RuPaul won his second consecutive Emmy and was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People.
With Lady Gaga. Photograph: Logo TV
We meet in a hotel near his West Hollywood home. All 6ft 4in of him appears in the lobby, alone, bang on time; he could not be less diva-ish. Though immaculately dressed in a navy checked suit, his manner is playfully informal, and the unwavering eye-contact accelerates the sense of instant intimacy. When we part 90 minutes later, he has wept three times, referenced astral chart movements as though the zodiac were the Dow Jones, and cited various psychics as unimpeachable authorities. He has a fondness for aphorisms – “We’re born naked, everything else is drag” – and when he talks about “culture”, he means the Kardashians. To infer from all this that he is a delightful airhead, however, would be a mistake. RuPaul is deeply serious, erudite and self-aware, and has clearly given a great deal of thought to everything he says. If the personal is political, RuPaul has been a radical from the day he was born.
“P
eople have always been threatened by me as an African-American man, because of the inherent black rage that all black people have in our culture, the underlying black rage because of what happened to us in this country. It’s always there; it’s a glaring issue that’s saying, ‘First of all, let’s talk about the black rage.’ So one of the ways that I’ve been able to dilute that perception is to dress as a character that says, ‘Look I’m fun, I can have a sense of humour about life because I’m in drag. I acknowledge black rage, but we’re going to have some fun.’ So then people are like, ‘Oh, OK, so we can laugh together, we don’t have to address the black rage.’”
He grew up the only son of four children to dirt-poor, “crazy-arse country hillbilly” parents in San Diego, who fought violently before separating when RuPaul was seven. By then he already knew he was different. “When I was a kid I thought, ‘OK, I don’t fit in, I know that, but I’m smart enough to figure out what I can do to fit in.’” He studied the gender norms and expectations around him and, “I thought, ‘OK, I’ve got it, I want nothing to do with that. In fact I’m lucky that I don’t fit in, because now I can play with all the toys and all the colours.’” Drag, laughter and cannabis were his coping mechanisms, and at 15 he moved to live with his sister and her husband in Atlanta, where he quickly hit the nightclub scene, before graduating to New York’s downtown nightlife in his 20s.
‘I hear the universe’s stage directions and take advantage.’ Photograph: Dylan Coulter/The Guardian
A club dancer who did “comedy fright drag”, he had a lot of fun, but by 28 was broke. “Nothing was clicking. It was my Saturn returns, and it was that crossroads. I wasn’t sure if the prophecy [that he would be famous] was true.” He weeps unselfconsciously at the memory of how close he came to abandoning his dreams. “But then I was like, ‘You know what? I’m going to glam the fuck out.’” He shaved his legs and chest, “went glamazon,” and nine months later was crowned Queen of Manhattan at a drag queen pageant, “the pinnacle of downtown success”.
But at the end of his reign, he was horrified to see the New York dance act Deee-Lite enjoy global fame with Groove Is In The Heart. “These kids in the neighbourhood were actually behind me in terms of succession to stardom. I was like, ‘Wait a minute, how’d they get up there?’ It’s because bitch you were fucking asleep in the party world, being the Queen of Manhattan. So, I said, ‘OK, no, I’ve got to fix that. I’m not having that.’” He made a demo tape, got signed to a label, and on his 32nd birthday released the dance anthem Supermodel (You Better Work) which went on to be a smash hit. “And that’s when my world changed for ever.”
The 90s were a riot for RuPaul. An international superstar, he made albums, starred in movies, had his own chat show, and was signed up by Mac as the first male face of the cosmetics brand. But in 1999 he withdrew from public life and moved to LA, to get sober and quit smoking pot.
“Listen, I’m not the greatest actor. I’m not the greatest singer. I’m not the greatest drag queen. I’m not the greatest dancer. My gift has been having the clarity to hear the universe’s stage directions and to take advantage of that. I knew it was finally time for me to approach the things I had pushed deep down inside.” He breaks down and silently weeps again.
“I realised that my putting a cloud of smoke around myself, literally and figuratively, was a way to push down those feelings. So I got into therapy, and recalibrated what my purpose was, you know. I had gotten into show business as a kid to get validation from the world, get validation from my father. And I realised that would never satisfy. It has to come from the inside. So I came back to show business, but I do what I do now with this newfound motivation.”
When his long-time producers suggested a drag reality show, RuPaul had one condition: “I don’t want to do anything mean-spirited.” The high camp of drag may appear superficially catty, he says, but in fact the essence of the art form is compassion.
In 1979. Photograph: WireImage
“For people to do drag and make it their profession in a male-dominated culture, they have to go through so much emotional tug-of-war, because society says, ‘You’re not supposed to do that.’ So, the strength and humanity it takes to maintain yourself and your dreams create many different layers of consciousness. That’s where the humanity comes from.”
RuPaul likes to speak in deeply heartfelt but somewhat opaque rhetorical flourishes, so I ask if he means that Drag Race has a political message about humanity.
“Yes! It doesn’t have a political agenda in terms of policies in Washington. But it has a position on identity, which is really the most political you can get. It has politics at its core, because it deals with: how do you see yourself on this planet? That’s highly political. It’s about recognising that you are God dressing up in humanity, and you could do whatever you want. That’s what us little boys who were maligned and who were ostracised figured out. It’s a totem, a constant touchstone to say, ‘Don’t take any of this shit seriously.’ It’s a big f-you. So the idea of sticking to one identity – it’s like I don’t care, I’m a shapeshifter, I’m going to fly around and use all the colours, and not brand myself with just one colour.”
Pinning him down on precisely what all of this means can be tricky, in part I think because he doesn’t want to offend anyone by explicitly acknowledging the contradiction between his playfully elastic sensibility and the militant earnestness of the transgender movement. The two couldn’t be further apart, I suggest.
At a gay rights march in 1993. Photograph: Getty Images
“Ye-es, that’s always been the dichotomy of the trans movement versus the drag movement, you know,” he agrees carefully. “I liken it to having a currency of money, say English pounds as opposed to American dollars. I think identities are like value systems or currencies; there’s not just one. Understand the value of different currencies, and what you could do with them. That’s the place you want to be.” But to a transgender woman it’s critically important that the world recognises her fixed identity as a female. RuPaul nods uneasily. “That’s right, that’s right.”
What I can’t understand is how transgender women can enter a drag contest. Last year RuPaul’s Drag Race was widely acclaimed for featuring its first openly transgender contestant, called Peppermint – but if transgender women must be identified as female, how can they also be “men dressing up as women”?
“Well, I don’t like to call drag ‘wearing women’s clothes’. If you look around this room,” and he gestures around the hotel lobby, “she’s wearing a shirt with jeans, that one’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt, right? So women don’t really dress like us. We are wearing clothes that are hyperfeminine, that represent our culture’s synthetic idea of femininity.”
In the subculture of drag you do occasionally find what are known as “bio queens” – biological women who mimic the exaggerated femininity of drag. Would RuPaul allow a biological woman to compete on the show? He hesitates. “Drag loses its sense of danger and its sense of irony once it’s not men doing it, because at its core it’s a social statement and a big f-you to male-dominated culture. So for men to do it, it’s really punk rock, because it’s a real rejection of masculinity.”
With La Toya Jackson in 1993. Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock
So how can a transgender woman be a drag queen? “Mmmm. It’s an interesting area. Peppermint didn’t get breast implants until after she left our show; she was identifying as a woman, but she hadn’t really transitioned.” Would he accept a contestant who had? He hesitates again. “Probably not. You can identify as a woman and say you’re transitioning, but it changes once you start changing your body. It takes on a different thing; it changes the whole concept of what we’re doing. We’ve had some girls who’ve had some injections in the face and maybe a little bit in the butt here and there, but they haven’t transitioned.”
There’s something very touching about RuPaul’s concern to stay abreast of subcultural developments and find a way to embrace even those he finds confronting. “There are certain words,” for example, “that the kids would use, that I’d be like, ‘Wait a minute, hold up now.’ But I’ve had to accept it because I understand where it comes from.” Such as? “Well, one of the things that the kids do now is they’ll say, referring to another drag queen, ‘Oh that bitch is cunt, she is pure cunt’, which means she is serving realness,” by which he means presenting herself as realistic or honest. “They say it knowing it’s shocking, knowing it’s taboo, and it’s the same way that black people use the N-word.”
RuPaul talks about “the kids” on his show in tenderly nurturing tones, but has never had children himself. He met his husband, Georges LeBar, an Australian rancher, on a New York dancefloor in 1994, and revealed last year that the pair had married, but explains quickly, “Conventional, that wasn’t my goal! Our goal was to use the system to work for us. I don’t give a fuck about marriage. What I did care about is that if anything happens to me or him, our assets are protected.”
The couple’s domestic arrangements are fairly unconventional; LeBar lives on the couple’s 60,000-acre Wyoming ranch, while RuPaul spends most of his time in LA, observing an almost comically west coast lifestyle; he rises at 4am, meditates and does yoga, and is out in the canyon with his personal trainer before dawn. RuPaul puts the success of their 24-year relationship down to the fact that it is open.
‘We’re born naked, everything else is drag.’ Photograph: Dylan Coulter/The Guardian
“He and I are very respectful of one another. He and I know that on this planet where there are millions and millions of people, the person I have found on this planet that I like the very most is him. And I know that for him the person he loves the most on this planet is me. I know that; there’s no doubt in my mind. So if he needs to do something else somewhere else, I’m fine with that. He is respectful of me. He would never turn it into something that would make me feel uncomfortable, and I wouldn’t do that to him either. To have that on this planet is crazy. It’s rare.” He becomes overcome by tears again and sobs softly, before brightening and admitting, with a mischievous grin, “The truth of the matter is that there aren’t many people that I like. I’m usually bored by people, you know. I’d rather be alone reading a book or something.”
I ask if the couple ever considered having children. “Georges loves kids, but I know what a child needs to prosper and grow, and I don’t have the time to do that. If I were going to do it, I would devote my time to that kid. But, no, I’ve never wanted to do it. I love kids, but it’s mainly because I’d have to deal with the other parents.” He chuckles. “Fucking idiots, passing on this bullshit to their kids. People are fucking insane, and it would be terrible for my kid, because I would be telling off the other parents. I’d want to expand my kid’s experience, but all these other parents would be like…” He wags a finger disapprovingly. “Oh my God that would drive me crazy – so, no.”
He pauses to think for a moment. “But who knows? It could still happen, sure. It could happen tomorrow, you know. If he wanted to do it tomorrow, I would do it.” Really? “I certainly would, yes. It’s because I’ve done my thing on this. I think my legacy is set in stone.”
It can be hard sometimes to know when RuPaul is and isn’t being serious. What he calls shapeshifting is so central to his sensibility that being fabulous feels more important than maintaining fixed positions – but that is precisely the political message of his show. In another life, had he not been in show business, he thinks he would have been a teacher, “teaching young people how to navigate life”. But it is quite impossible to imagine him being anything other than RuPaul.
With husband Georges LeBar, a rancher he met on a dancefloor in 1994. Photograph: Getty Images
He wishes he’d given himself another stage name, and thus the option of anonymity in the doctor’s waiting room, say. But when I ask what name he would have chosen for himself, he can’t imagine being anyone but RuPaul either.
“You know, that’s a good question. I’m really good at choosing names for other people. Once I get their energy and once I see the rhythm I go, ‘Oh I know what you are.’” Can he do that trick for everyone? “I think so, once I know them.” Go on then, I laugh. Give me a drag name. He considers me for a moment.
“You know what? The first thing that came to my mind with you is Sparkle.” And so Sparkle it is.
RuPaul’s Drag Race season 10 starts on 22 March on VH1. Previous seasons can be viewed on Netflix.
Commenting on this piece? If you would like your comment to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email [email protected], including your name and address (not for publication). | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/jun/09/hargreaves-lansdown-apologises-to-clients-in-neil-woodford-fund | Business | 2019-06-09T16:58:34.000Z | Phillip Inman | Hargreaves Lansdown apologises to clients in Neil Woodford funds | The boss of stockbrokers Hargreaves Lansdown has apologised after thousands of the FTSE 100 company’s clients found their money trapped in ill-fated funds run by the renowned fund manager Neil Woodford.
Chris Hill, its chief executive, said he shared clients’ disappointment and frustration after the closure of the Woodford equity income fund which prevented investors from cashing out of the ailing investment vehicle.
Hill said he backed research through Hargreaves Lansdown’s Wealth 50 list of top buys that recommended investors pick Woodford over better-performing fund managers. Woodford, one of the UK’s best-known stockpickers, suspended all trading in the fund “until further notice” after being overwhelmed by customer withdrawals following a series of bad market bets.
Hill said: “I would like to apologise personally to all clients who have been impacted by the recent problems with the Woodford equity income fund. We all share their disappointment and frustration. Our priority right now is to support our clients and keep them informed.”
Woodford said last week the fund would reopen as soon as was “practicable after these exceptional circumstances have ceased”, and that the suspension would be reviewed “at least every 28 days”.
Hill said: “The shortcomings of one fund should not detract from the benefits of favourite fund lists like the Wealth 50.”
His firm has come under fire from investors who will not be able to access their investments until the suspension is lifted. Investors have also criticised the City regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, for failing to see the risks taken by Woodford.
The former City minister Lord Myners said the FCA “should have been awake” to problems at the fund, telling the BBC that the regulator had missed “clear warning signs” that things were going badly.
On Thursday, Nicky Morgan, who chairs the Treasury committee, said investors should not be charged management fees while trading in the fund was suspended.
Concerns were raised last year after a series of poor performances by companies part-owned by Woodford funds, many of them not listed on the stock market, making them difficult to sell.
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Andrew Bailey, chief executive of the FCA, defended the regulator and Woodford’s decision to suspend the fund. “The alternative would have been much more disorderly,” Bailey told Bloomberg TV in his first comments since the gates were closed on investors on Wednesday.
He offered assurances that the FCA would be watching Woodford closely as the fund manager started to sell off his stakes in privately held companies, which are more difficult to turn into cash. Bailey said it was important for funds like Woodford’s to invest in unlisted firms. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/18/australia-aukus-asia-future-us-china-richard-marles | Australia news | 2024-04-18T06:12:13.000Z | Daniel Hurst | Australia plans for a ‘less certain’ future in Asia — one where the US may not remain the dominant force | Australia’s defence overhaul has accelerated some projects and cut others and has already prompted a plea from China to abandon a “cold war mentality”.
But as the dust settles on a plan to increase overall military spending, the Albanese government has also sent some significant signals on how it sees the future of the Indo-Pacific region – and these aren’t exactly how Australia’s top security ally, the US, might see things.
The defence minister, Richard Marles, also has a new answer to a persistent question about claims from some western analysts that Beijing may seek to seize Taiwan in the next few years, and where Australia finds itself in that scenario.
Plans for new fighter jets on back burner despite Labor’s $50bn boost to defence spending
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The question goes like this: if the region is as dangerous as the government suggests, and Australia no longer can rely on a 10-year warning before major conflict breaks out, how can we wait until the 2030s and 2040s for nuclear-powered submarines? Of the government’s promise to spend an extra $50bn on defence over the next decade, why is only 10% in the first four years?
Marles’s answer is to imply the Australian defence force wouldn’t play a decisive role in a US-China war. He insists Australia will still work with the US and others to deter such conflict, but is “trying to solve a different problem”.
In his National Press Club speech and in a round of interviews afterwards, Marles takes aim at commentators who “talk about our defence force needing to acquire everything yesterday in case of the worst-case contingency that might be experienced in terms of great power contests in the next few years”.
Marles reasons that a medium power like Australia is “never going to bring to bear the kind of military capability that exists in the United States or China” and must be “really clear-eyed about the fact we are not trying to be a peer nation to the United States or China”.
In no way should his comments be seen as ruling Australia out of committing military forces in the event war erupted – there would probably be huge institutional pressure to join the US – but equally Marles is playing down the practical impact of such a contribution.
In Marles’s narrative, “the next decade and beyond” looks “precarious and less certain in every respect”. He says “the strategic problem that we are trying to meet” is to ensure that in the face of that uncertainty “we are able to resist coercion and maintain Australia’s way of life”.
Left unspoken is the fact this remains Australia’s focus regardless of the level of future US military engagement in the region – and a “less certain world” doesn’t presuppose who would emerge as victor in any great-power contest in the meantime.
According to the national defence strategy released on Wednesday, the effects of China’s military buildup are “occurring closer to Australia than previously” and Australia must project power further from its shores to discourage “a potential adversary from taking unwanted actions”.
Australia’s defence planners regard a physical invasion of Australia as unlikely because it would be an easier task to disrupt shipping or to launch cyber-attacks.
Resisting coercion means preventing a country – China – from being in a position to pressure Australia by physically blocking fuel imports from South Korea, Malaysia and Singapore. China was, however, able to cause economic disruption through a series of tariffs and trade actions against key Australian export sectors at the height of the diplomatic dispute in 2020, something that did not involve any military action or counteraction.
Albanese government recommends David Johnston to head Australian defence force – video
Even though senior US officials talk about the Aukus security pact as “binding” the allies for decades to come, Marles says Australia must become “a much more capable self-reliant country”. That’s the official justification for increasing defence spending to 2.4% of economic output within 10 years (up from 2.1% now).
Marles is also explicit in calling for “a sustainable strategic balance in the Indo-Pacific – a balance where no state is militarily predominant”.
This elaborates on what the foreign minister, Penny Wong, has said about the US being “indispensable to balance in our region” but that “the nature of that indispensability has changed”.
Australia’s National Defence Strategy devotes just two paragraphs to US engagement in the Indo-Pacific, including one welcoming Washington’s efforts to deepen its ties with partners and allies because “collective approaches are crucial” to maintain the regional balance. Australia’s security “will continue to be underpinned by the strength of our partnerships with regional countries and our alliance with the US”.
The Australian government’s emphasis on no one state being militarily predominant does tend to clash with the idea of the US maintaining “primacy” in east Asia – an idea that continues to have strong ideological appeal in Washington.
While the US president, Joe Biden, has proclaimed “competition not conflict” with China, he has also played to domestic sensibilities by rebuking claims that “China is on the rise and America is falling behind”. Biden retorted in his latest State of the Union address: “America is rising.”
In the latest edition of the Foreign Affairs journal, two former US officials with possible sway over the next Republican presidential administration call for “a generational effort” to “restore US primacy in Asia” rather than aiming “for a stalemate”.
Prominent Australians urge Albanese government to adopt activist middle power role to head off war between US and China
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Matt Pottinger, a former deputy national security adviser to Donald Trump, and Mike Gallagher, the former chair of the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist party, firmly reject the idea of trying to achieve a stable and durable balance of power, or détente, with China.
They scoff at the idea of “managing” competition with China or seeing dialogue as an end in itself. Instead, Pottinger and Gallagher demand a rapid increase in US military capabilities “to achieve unmistakable qualitative advantages over Beijing” as part of a strategy of “owning” and “winning” the new cold war.
Such calls are hard to reconcile with Australia’s stated goals: a more “stable” relationship with China, dialogue to reduce the risk of dangerous miscalculations, and a regional balance where no one power dominates. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/oct/07/bbc-says-no-decision-has-been-made-about-future-of-top-gear | Television & radio | 2023-10-07T12:56:02.000Z | Sammy Gecsoyler | BBC denies report decision has been made to axe Top Gear | The BBC has denied Top Gear has reached the end of the road amid reports the show had been axed.
The Sun reported on Friday that the broadcaster had told production staff on the long-running show to look for other work after the presenter and former cricketer Andrew Flintoff was injured during filming last December.
A BBC spokesperson told PA Media: “A decision on the timing of future Top Gear shows will be made in due course with BBC Content.”
Flintoff was taken to hospital by air ambulance last December after a high-speed crash during filming. He was taking part in a shoot at Dunsfold Park aerodrome in Surrey on Tuesday, which has featured regularly in the BBC show since 2002.
Flintoff was seen in public for the first time since the incident last month, when he attended the one-day cricket international between England and New Zealand at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff. He had visible scars on his face and tape on his nose.
He spoke publicly about the incident for the first time on Wednesday in a clip released by England Cricket on social media.
In the video, in which he awarded an England cap to the spin bowler Tom Hartley, Flintoff said: “It gives me so much pleasure to share what is going to be a day Tom that you’re going to remember for the rest of your life.”
He told Hartley the England Cricket team “would share the good times with you, the successes. But as I found over the past few months, they’ll be there in the hardest times of your life, they will stand next to you”.
The BBC said in March that it would not resume filming the latest series of Top Gear and added there would be a health and safety review on the motoring show, which has been running in its current iteration for 21 years.
The incident last year was not Flintoff’s first accident while filming the show. He crashed at 125mph while travelling in a three-wheeled cycle car in 2019, but was able to walk away from the scene.
The former presenter Richard Hammond spent two weeks in a coma in 2006 after crashing at the Elvington airfield in York in a jet-powered Vampire dragster while travelling at 288mph.
Flintoff’s son Corey said at the time he was “lucky to be alive” and described it as a “pretty nasty crash”.
Flintoff began presenting Top Gear in 2019. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/may/09/willie-landels-obituary | Media | 2023-05-09T17:07:44.000Z | Veronica Horwell | Willie Landels obituary | Willie Landels, who has died aged 94, had been at the London office of the supreme ad agency J Walter Thompson for years, art directing smooth, cool come-ons for consumables, such as Lux soap and Campari, before he was invited into the editorial side of magazines. Later he become the editor of Harpers & Queen, from its launch in 1970 until 1985.
The invitation came from Jocelyn Stevens, who in 1957 had spent an inherited small fortune buying the Queen, a publication with a dwindling dowager readership interested mostly in each other’s dowdy doings. Stevens abbreviated the name to Queen, targeted it at the Chelsea set – young, entitled but not always titled, and, if not monied, capable of making or marrying money – and brought in Mark Boxer as art director and Beatrix Miller as editor. They restyled it as a glossy in which the editorial content looked and read as sharply as the best ads, which it began to attract, along with creative talent.
When Boxer departed to set up the Sunday Times colour magazine in 1962, Landels suceeded him, while Stevens took over from Miller in 1964. Landels had a philosophy about glossies: he believed the business of mags was glamour, visually projecting a desirable if unrealisable life.
Tom Kublin’s photograph of Willie Landels photographing a model. Photograph: Tom Kublin
He put firm layout restrictions on words, since he hated “turn to page XX” directing readers to excess text squeezed between dull, cheap ads at the back of the book. Words, he thought, should serve clever ideas appealing to the ideal audience, although he did reserve pages for Jennifer’s Diary, an ur-social-media space of snapped smiles at polo tournaments and name-dropping.
Queen was a success when he arrived, at the height of hems and the Swinging London fantasy, and Landels stayed imperturbable through the subsequent contest for readers with its rival, the American-born sophisticate upstart Harper’s Bazaar, and through Stevens’ heavy management style and loss of interest in Queen after his related investment project, the pirate pop station Radio Caroline, was outlawed in 1967. Stevens then sold Queen the following year to a passing businessman, whose fortunes foundered even as the mag conquered.
After sell-offs and take-overs, the rivals were bound together in 1970 as Harper’s & Queen, with Landels as editor, and his protege Ann Barr as features editor. H&Q dominated magazine racks until Tina Brown’s Tatler breezed in at the end of the decade. Landels recruited on merit and instinct, unworried by eccentricity or lack of direct experience, and his finds did him credit.
He spotted fresh photographers and gave them minimally briefed, free-rein commissions, while Barr’s editorial strategy was to use newcomers, such as Peter York and Craig Brown, and collective social reporting, assembling anecdotes into narratives like an upmarket Mass Observation, to substitute for the big-name writers H&Q could not afford. H&Q created a genre out of the taxonomy of the shifting British class system, or at least its upper levels, as with the Sloane Rangers. Circulation more than doubled, to around 100,000, and issues bulked up with top-end ads. Landels was unsure about such expansion, asking: “But who are all these ghastly new readers?”
Landels took the shape and feel of his magazine with quiet seriousness but was no careerist; he kept up his own private taste and non-media gifts for art and craft. He really was an outsider, born in Venice, the son of a Scot, Reynold Landels, a banker, and an Italian, Carla Manfredi, and educated at home near Lake Como, then briefly, from 16, a student at an art college in Brera, Milan.
Such stories from his youth as he shared could stun: he told his friend Charles Darwent that he met the dictator Mussolini and his mistress the day before they were shot near Milan in April 1945: “Mussolini looked terrified. Clara Petacci looked rather chic.” (Chic was a key Landels approval word.)
In art, he learned on the job, with an apprenticeship in 1947 as a scenographer at La Scala opera house in Milan: this gave him the practical nerve to cover space – huge, painted backdrops – and an understanding of how glamour is practised and projected. He also worked for the architect Gio Ponti, and had an exhibition of surrealist collages before leaving for London in 1950.
Landels still remained Italian in many ways, never losing his accent or his pleasure in cooking Italy’s most difficult simple dishes. Even when working as an editor, he continued to paint and make practically, especially furniture – in the 60s a sofa experiment with novel solid foam upholstery, in the 80s, handmade wooden desks for the H&Q office to replace deplorable plastic ones. Landels biked to work decades before it was fashionable and designed and chose his clothes with a Milanese ease with textiles.
His mischievousness, and refusal to defer to suits and stuffed shirts (he was a velvet slipper and tartan trews man), ended his H&Q reign. He had a wicked collage idea, photographs of real Bond Street bling applied to picture postcards of the royals. Nicholas Coleridge, who was to succeed him as editor, recalled that “all hell broke loose” upon publication, with royal-warranted jewellers claiming Harpers & Queen had offended her majesty.
Landels resigned eventually, from a phone box at Heathrow on his way to a summer holiday in Italy. There was one more editorship, in 1989-90, of a travel magazine, Departures, for American Express, but his definition of global glamour was wider, kinder and less obvious than his employers’ and he was soon out.
He painted and exhibited for the rest of his life, and designed for friends’ ventures, including books, and the club belonging to Robin Birley whose father Mark he had known in his ad-man days.
A first marriage in 1958, to Angela Ogden, ended in 1986; their two daughters, Lavinia and Francesca, and his second wife, Josephine Grever, whom he married in 2003, survive him.
Willie Landels, artist and magazine editor, born 14 June 1928; died 29 April 2023 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/jun/02/lars-ulrich-metallica-mission-documentary-feature | Film | 2012-06-02T22:01:47.000Z | Kate Kellaway | One fan's mission to Lars | This is a story that almost didn't happen. And I am on a train to Devon to meet the people who were determined to see that it did. The saying "Be careful what you wish for", in the case of the Spicer family, needs adjusting to "Be careful what your brother wishes for". It is the story of three siblings: Kate, a 42-year-old London-based journalist, her youngest brother, Will, a 36-year-old film-maker, and their middle brother, 40-year-old Tom, born with fragile X syndrome, the commonest cause of inherited learning disability, affecting about one in 4,000 men and one in 6,000 women – a sort of autism, caused by a mutated gene on the X chromosome that can inhibit intellectual development. For half a lifetime, Tom had been a fan of heavy metal – Metallica his favourite band. And, by 2009, no one was in doubt about Tom's dearest wish: "I wanna meet Lars." Lars Ulrich is Metallica's drummer. Many times a day, Tom would repeat his wish. It is like this with fragile X sufferers: an idea jams – and language gets stuck with it. The technical name for this is "verbal perseveration".
Will and Kate had talked before about making a film with Tom (he would "map read", they'd concoct a random road movie). But now, the Lars fixation got them thinking. Could they make Tom's dream come true – and get him together with Lars? "We began to think we could exploit our media positions to do something genuinely cool for our brother," says Kate. Put like that, it sounds easy. But, as they were about to discover, "ease" was not to be part of the process. What they have produced is a film that will make everyone who sees it want to champion it. It is original, funny and overwhelming – and it will make you cry. It is called Mission to Lars.
One can think of several Oscar-nominated films about autism and other disabilities – Rain Man, Ryan's Daughter, I am Sam, Precious – and, more recently, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – but they can be counted on the fingers of one hand. There are 1.5 million people with a learning disability in the UK – and they are feebly represented in the arts. This truthful, unglamorous film with a learning disabled, middle-aged man as its centre is not only a rarity, it is a treasure.
As the Devon landscape rushes past, I picture the Spicers setting out in the opposite direction, to LA and beyond – and of the moment when Kate and Will ask their parents for tips about Tom. They are given a lengthy list – it reads like a warning. Tom is dependent on routine but, on their transatlantic trip, uncertainty will rule supreme. There is no guarantee Tom will even meet Lars. Only one thing is sure: wherever Metallica goes, the Spicers will follow. We watch with horror as they rent a mobile home and drive this overblown beast along the bumpy concrete of interstate 15 to Las Vegas. Tempers fray. And then comes the show-stopper. Tom has cold feet. He does not want to go to a Metallica gig. But doesn't he want to meet Lars? "No." It looks as if dream and film are over. The trip has become a nightmare. Kate and Will are catatonic. Head in hands, Kate admits to her brother: "I don't think you and me are very good at looking after Tom…"
But as the audience we know that if the mission were not accomplished, there could be no film. And, against the odds, we are eventually backstage, chez Metallica, where Tom and Kate endure a heck of a wait. Kate gnaws at her nail varnish, Tom is restless. But then the door opens and a small, ordinary Danish man in a white plastic bomber jacket walks in (the truth is that when Lars first moved to LA, he was a junior tennis champion before founding Metallica). He is smiling. And by this stage, anyone watching will be crying hard – because Lars is so nice to Tom. He is not patronising. He is sensitive. On the back of this film, Lars is about to become everyone's hero. And the look on Tom's face is – but you have to see the film to witness it – happiness beyond words.
Bystock Court is a residential care home on the outskirts of Exmouth, where Tom has lived for 22 years. I travel there with Kate. She is funny, hyper-intelligent, attractive and anxiously controlling. She thinks of everyone and everything (she has engagingly instructed me to bring "pocket money" for Bystock's excellent eggs). But you can see she is making efforts not to take charge. Will drives into the car park in his Volvo – a family man with three children. He has a video production company. He is not as dissimilar from Kate as each of them likes to think. He is personable, nice, amused – the smile, usually missing from the film, is lovely to see. But he is more self-contained than Kate – on the back foot.
The house itself is double bow-fronted, red brick – Victorian or earlier – with a generous garden. It has a comfortable, battered grace. And with summer making its surprise appearance, residents are coming and going, talking to each other and, sometimes, to themselves. I sit on its elegant terrace. It is the only time in my career – and it is refreshing – that my first sighting of the person I have come to interview is his disappearing back view. Tom, instantly recognisable from the film – owlish glasses, sweet face, loping gait – hurries past with a mischievous smile. He is looking at his feet critically and says (his speech is not always easy to follow), "It is a mess", before heading in the direction of the shrubbery.
It is not clear what is a "mess". But one reflects, with amusement, that he is right – if what he is talking about is family. Kate tells me later that Tom was just winding her up. But it reminds me of the first crisis in the film when Kate and Will fail to show up on time to take him to America and Tom does a runner. And they had already been through so much to get the film off the ground. Kate fills me in on the hell of fundraising, unenthusiastic television producers ("It was a big, fat no") and their unflattering insistence that she lacked the "charisma" to be a presenter.
When a television company finally came good, the Spicers decided against it. They no longer wanted to "entrust the family dynamic" to anyone other than their long-suffering co-director, James Moore. It was John Battsek, of Passion Pictures (responsible for Man on Wire), who inspired them to go it alone. He said: "Sod the telly, make the film you want to make." They were determined to raise awareness: "There is still so much prejudice where it is not supposed to exist." And Mission to Lars now has charity status. The film's fundraising has earned Mencap £25,000. And the relationship with Mencap will continue. There are plans to reform Mencap's leisure provision to film an annual "Mencap mission" in which other learning disabled people can pursue their dreams.
But there is one score that needs settling: why was it so difficult to reach Lars? Couldn't Kate, as a journalist, hook him with a charming phone call? She explains it was not simple: Metallica are the biggest metal band on the planet (with 25m likes on Facebook) and wrapped up in red tape. "I don't know what did it in the end – whether it was the correct emails – climbing the greasy pole to the top – or when I was drunk at a party late at night and met someone who surfs with Kirk [lead guitarist Kirk Hammett]."
And besides, in the film, the axis of worry shifts. It is not about whether Lars will see Tom. The new question is: will Tom refuse to see Lars? "It was Tom who was behaving like the rock star," Kate laughs. But his reaction, typical of his syndrome, is sympathetically presented. It comes across as a larger-than-life version of what all of us feel when something we long for is suddenly in the offing: stage fright without a stage. What is amazing – and partly explains the film's power – is the Spicers' emotional honesty. Rough and unready, they don't finesse anything. Kate openly calls her family "dysfunctional".
But to talk about her parents, she says, would be "to open a can of worms, kick over a hornet's nest and uncover a viper's nest". This does not stop her or Will returning to the subject. Their father – a surgeon – and mother divorced when they were little (Will was a baby, Tom four, Kate six). They now hazard that the stress of having a child with fragile X must have been "a big factor" in the marriage breakdown.
The family split in two: Will lived with his mother, Kate and Tom with their father. But it is their stepmother, Jane, who is the most intriguing parent in the film, the only person with authority. Kate's mother, admirably, makes no secret of the fact that Jane is more effective with Tom than she is. Will says he only now realises (after having a bash at Tom maintenance) how hard it must have been bringing Tom up. Jane had three more children of her own – so was often in charge of six. He used to see her as "slightly cruel". Now he sees that what is implied to have been a dictatorial rule was expedient. His mother he sees as a "complete softie".
Will explains that one reason he wanted to make the film is that he has "struggled" to explain Uncle Tom to his children. He hopes the film might do the job in a "light-hearted and cool" way. Kate, who at present has no children of her own, feels slightly differently and is less lenient about the past. "This is so not a film about my parents. I love them to bits, but they won't be there for ever. Tom will be my responsibility. I will have to fight for his wants and desires in a world that, at best, cannot afford to fulfil them and, at worst, doesn't listen or care.'
Tom was 11 when he was diagnosed with fragile X. Kate remembers from childhood "the strain in people's voices. They'd be saying he was not normal, potty-trained, crawling. You absorbed the adult anxiety – and euphemisms." Tom's condition was not much discussed: "We don't talk much as a family." Tom would be referred to as "mentally retarded". It was "awful". Diagnosis, we agree, is a difficult subject. Kate thinks there is an over-diagnosis of autism in this country and the US. We consider the attendant risk that a person will be defined by a diagnosis. "You have to ask: at what point do we stop diagnosing and say: This is Tom." Kate then tells me about her boyfriend's joking reaction to the film – which has its serious side. He asked: "Which one of you is supposed to be normal?"
I ask Will whether he thinks that when one family member has a disability, it is, in a sense, shared by the other children? "That is true. But you don't question it. It is your life." It was not until Will's wife was expecting their first baby that they woke up to what fragile X, a hereditary condition, might mean and were horrified by their ignorance. Kate says: "It galvanised us. Until then, we had existed apart from the generation above. Fragile X was their problem."
They made it their business to learn about fragile X. "It even affects fruit flies – it goes back to the primordial soup. And now we can see," Kate adds, "there were lots of Toms in our family tree. We look at black-and-white family photos and say: 'We think she was a Tom.'" They also got themselves tested (and aren't carriers). But Kate admits: "I have often wondered if fragile X made me internally anxious about settling down and having a child."
Kate is ashamed to remember herself as a child. She was often Tom's tormentor. Once, aged 10 and driven to distraction, she ran to the kitchen and "grabbed one of Dad's carving knives from the magnetic rack and held it to my brother's neck: 'You will do what you're told or I will cut your throat'." All through his childhood, Tom had "humdinger tantrums that Mum now, knowing more, thinks were small fits: petit mal seizures". Today, she is fiercely sisterly towards Tom and would be more likely to brandish the carving knife at anyone who treated him badly (boyfriends who could not be natural with him never lasted).
"Tom can be upset if he is in a room of people and feels left out. He can be dismissive of other residents. He will tap his head and say: 'They have got issues.' He is unfathomable: he can surprise you or be obtuse. But he is not stupid. If you are calm with him, you can have good chats."
As teenagers and when they were in their 20s, there was one place where they were together and happy: in Will's old banger – commuting between their parents in Bristol and Devon in the school holidays. "We'd eat junk food and listen to AC/DC tapes." It was "magic" – old banger heaven. And that is what they were trying to recapture in the film. "I always expect things to be easy – and they never are," says Will. His starting point is: "We are brothers and sisters, we have never not got along." But he adds: "Kate can be hard work." And by the end of filming: "We were raw and ragged. It felt wrong… And we didn't want the film to be about film-making – that was a constant tension."
Kate continues: "There were so many fights. Will would make me feel like a loser. Tom, responding to our tension, would look distraught and unhappy. I felt so lonely with nowhere to run." Now she says: "We were like three little islands." How often did they think of giving up? "It was non-negotiable. We couldn't let Tom down. The film took on a life of its own. It was a monster that had to be fed."
By the end of the trip, the Spicers were not on speaking terms. When they got back to Bystock, a bottle of red wine, badly packed by Kate, had broken in Tom's case. She and Will had a "screaming fight" as a parting shot. "We were totally out of love with each other," Kate says. Even by the cutting stage, they were still asking: are we going to make this work?
Once the film had been made, there was the further problem of Lars. There was no telling how he would react. Metallica, who formed in 1981, are one of thrash metal's "big four", alongside Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. But their members have not always been model human beings (as Joe Berlinger's 2004 documentary Some Kind of Monster revealed; while the 2000 lawsuit they brought against Napster helped effect the file-sharing site's demise).
And their stage image does nothing to reassure. Kate tells me about the gig she and Tom went to – part of the World Magnetic tour, in Anaheim, home of Disneyland: black helium balloons, with Metallica insignia on them, a revolving drum kit for Lars, coffins lowered onto the stage mid-act. It seemed possible that the film itself might be buried alive.
Its fate was decided last June at a small screening at Alfred's club in Mayfair. All the Spicer family assembled for the occasion. Lars arrived really late – and Kate had a second chance to strip her nails of varnish. But Lars turned out to be "really cool". Kate sees it like this: "When artists get to that level, they have either to evolve as human beings or become the biggest knob. Lars tries hard to be authentic. I think that is because he is Danish." And at the end of the film, Lars "jumped up and down and cheered".
Tom does not linger in the shrubbery – and turns out to enjoy having his picture taken. We drink tea together. You're famous, we say. "Yes, I know," Tom laughs. He is pleased with "my film" and the promotional poster and leads us to his room to find space for it. A togetherness is visible now between the Spicers – which was what they all wanted "deep down".
Will and Kate are seeing the benefits of having come through it. And so is Tom who has, since the trip, become more independent: taking bus journeys on his own, using a mobile, visiting London. Tom tells us, approvingly, the film will be loud. "But you don't like that?" Kate exclaims (hypersensitivity is one of the causes of the intense social anxiety that is part of the fragile X syndrome). "I do now," Tom says. The world's foremost expert, Prof Randi Hagerman, explains in the film: "Tom hears the world 10 times louder than anyone else," but he seems to have a love-hate relationship with noise. Today, "really loud" is his catchphrase. The key is to control the level – in the film, headphones save the day.
Tom announces that his Metallica T-shirts are "in the wash". Kate ignores this. She opens a drawer stuffed full of Metallica shirts. Tom shows me the drumsticks Lars gave him and assorted DVDs and pictures of the band. He appears to be developing a crush on James Hetfield, the lead vocalist (famous for accidentally setting fire to himself at a 90s gig). He tells me about Hetfield's superior size. (He gravitates towards strong male characters.) I ask how big Lars is? "He's tiny."
But there is no cause for serious concern: the devotion to Lars is holding. Tom thinks it is Lars's turn to visit him. His eyes shine as he imagines his friend giving a gig on the lawn. Kate thinks a reality check is needed: "Lars would never come." Yet somehow the fantasy builds. We talk about what Lars would eat: "Mum's cottage pie." And he would drink "tea and wine", Tom adds, and "more wine". "Chardonnay," says Kate. Tom, she tells me later, loves to act the sommelier. What would his message to Lars be then? "Come," Tom says. And we all dream about how Lars could do it: Mission to Tom.
Mission to Lars tours Picturehouse cinemas through June and July | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2020/jun/12/anna-jones-summer-recipes-for-pavlova-and-vegetarian-picnic-rolls | Food | 2020-06-12T11:00:21.000Z | Anna Jones | Anna Jones' summer recipes for pavlova and vegetarian picnic rolls | Instead of zigzagging down to Portugal in our campervan this summer, we’ll be at home. Still, I intend to make it a summer to remember. I’m seeing the beauty of our parks and countryside with fresh eyes, and, thanks to the recent run of knockout weather, we have been eating most meals outside. This pavlova has been on our table a few times – it brings a lot of cheer – and the leek and mustard rolls have been packed for low-key family picnics. It’s going to be a British summer in every sense, and I am embracing it.
Brown sugar pavlova with Pimm’s-roasted strawberries
Vegans can make meringues using aquafaba (the water from a can of chickpeas). Here is a quick recipe: Whip 150g chickpea water with a pinch of salt until very stiff, add 150g of caster sugar and 1½ tsp cream of tartar, and whip on high until the sugar grains have dissolved. Use coconut yoghurt in place of dairy. You will need a stand mixer or an electric hand whisk for this.
Prep 20 min
Cook 1 hr 20 min
Serves 8
For the meringue
4 eggs (see above for a vegan alternative)
100g light brown sugar
100g caster sugar
1 pinch salt
For the Pimm’s fruit
500g strawberries, larger ones halved
50ml Pimm’s
Zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
1 small bunch mint
For the cream
200ml double cream
1 tbsp vanilla bean paste or 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1 tbsp honey or maple syrup
Heat the oven to 140C (130 fan)/gas 2. Separate the eggs and put the yolks to one side for another use. (You can use them for mayonnaise, custard or add them to scrambled eggs, making them extra rich).
Make sure the bowl you’re using for the egg whites is very clean, then whisk them to stiff peaks. Add the sugars and salt, a tablespoon at a time, whisking between additions. Once all the sugar is added, whisk on the highest setting for about five minutes, until all the grains of sugar have disappeared. Rub the meringue with your fingertips: if you can still feel the grains, keep going.
Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, dotting a little of the mix on each corner of the tray to stick the paper down. Spoon the mixture into the middle of the tray: use the back of a spoon to make a circle roughly the size of a large dinner plate (about 24-26cm in diameter), then use the spoon to make it lower in the middle and a little higher around the sides. Once you have a shape you like, use the spoon to create waves and peaks in the meringue, which will look great when it is cooked. Bake for an hour, until golden on the outside and chewy on the inside.
Take the meringue out of the oven and turn up the oven to 190C/(180C fan)/gas 6. Toss the strawberries in the Pimm’s, lemon zest and mint, spread on a baking tray and roast for 20 minutes, until everything caramelises. You are looking for the strawberries to soften but hold their shape. Set aside to cool.
Whip the cream with the vanilla and a couple of tablespoons of the liquid from the roasting pan. Once everything is cool and you are ready to eat, pile the cream on to the meringue, and top as artfully as you like with the fruit.
Seeded sweet leek and mustard picnic rolls
Use whatever root veg you need to use up here; mine included carrot and squash but parsnip, celeriac and sweet potato would all work – steer clear of potatoes, though, as they are too starchy. If you are vegan, use shop-bought puff pastry (most supermarket brands are vegan), vegan cheese in place of the cheddar and a non-dairy milk instead of the egg wash.
Anna Jones’ vegetable sausage rolls.
Prep 25 min
Cook 35 min
Makes 12 medium rolls
Olive oil
2 leeks, washed, trimmed and finely sliced
1 red onion, peeled and finely sliced
2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
200g root veg, peeled and grated (see intro)
½ tsp fennel seeds
1 small bunch parsley, roughly chopped
Zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
1 tsp english mustard
100g cheddar, grated
Salt and black pepper
1 x 320g sheet ready-rolled all-butter puff pastry
1 medium egg, beaten
Seeds, to top (I use a mix of black and white sesame, linseeds, fennel and caraway mixed with a pinch of salt)
In a large frying pan, heat a little olive oil and add the leeks and onion. Cook for 10 minutes until soft and sweet.
Add the garlic, grated root veg and the fennel seeds, and cook for another five minutes, until the root veg has lost its rawness and the mixture has come together. Tip into a bowl to cool. Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan)/gas 7.
Once cool, add the parsley, lemon zest, mustard, cheddar and some black pepper, taste and adjust the seasoning if needed.
Unroll the puff pastry on a floured surface, then cut in half lengthways so you have two long, thin rectangles. Have the egg and a pastry brush to hand.
With the long side of the rectangle towards you, spoon half of the mixture along the middle of the rectangle and then press it into a long sausage with your hands. Egg-wash the far edge of the pastry. Pull the near side of the pastry over the vegetable mixture, then carefully pull the egg-washed edge on top to seal.
Carefully turn the whole thing over so it sits on where the pastry joins, then cut it into six equal pieces. Repeat with the other rectangle.
Put the little rolls on a baking paper-lined tray, brush with the beaten egg, then generously sprinkle with the seeds. Bake for 20-25 minutes, until golden and bubbling. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/01/country-diary-mysterious-birdsong-fills-the-air-with-sweetness | Environment | 2022-10-01T04:30:58.000Z | Jim Perrin | Country diary: Mysterious birdsong fills the air with sweetness | The birdsong that best counterpoints relaxed and sunny days is surely the sonorous, easy fluting that drifted up from the bottom of the garden. Where was it coming from? What bird was making it? This was not the tunefulness of my favourite blackbird – the one with white feathers on his rump, who serenades each morning I’m here. The tempo was slower, the tone richer, the impression altogether more mellow. I went indoors for a spyglass, scanned the bushes, found nothing. Still those cadences filled the air with sweetness.
Suddenly, the tops of the ash trees seemed dappled with glancing sunlight, from the midst of which a vision in black and gleaming gold swooped down to a bunch of dark grapes hanging from the pergola above my head. You cannot mistake a male golden oriole. In full view now, he gorged himself on fruit, feeding up for the long flight to equatorial Africa. Grapes and ripe figs on the terrace are an irresistible lure to birds on migration. A taste for them has been to the oriole’s disadvantage historically, rendering sweet and succulent the few grams of flesh they provided to heartless epicurean gluttons, for whose tables these exquisite birds were slaughtered in tens of thousands. WH Hudson tellingly said “if protected, [orioles] would probably become an annual visitant [to Britain]”. In our time it is classified as “rare visitor”.
Country diary: The kingfisher allows me to get astoundingly close
Read more
There’s a passage in Giraldus Cambrensis’s The Journey Through Wales of 1188 where he and Archbishop Baldwin, with whom he was recruiting for the Crusades, encountered one near Bangor: “a bird in a nearby coppice began to sing very sweetly … it was an oriole, remarkable for its gold and yellow colouring.” Its brightness and dramatic contrast between gold and black is indeed remarkable. The only other bird I’ve seen to match its visual and aural impact was a blue-crowned motmot that peered into a wooden cabin where I was staying in Tobago, and hooted in a deep and resonant quaver.
As I watched, the oriole stopped feeding and sped back into the ash foliage, where it became invisible against the shifting lemon-brightness on the leaves.
Country Diary is on Twitter at @gdncountrydiary | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/sep/14/phones-4u-administration-contract-ee | Business | 2014-09-15T08:00:00.000Z | Juliette Garside | Phones 4u goes into administration – with 5,600 jobs at risk | Phones 4u went into administration on Sunday night, putting 5,596 jobs at risk after the retailer said it would not open its doors on Monday.
The closure of the retail chain that made the entrepreneur John Caudwell a multimillionaire comes after mobile network EE decided to stop selling through Phones 4u.
Disaster struck when Vodafone withdrew its business a fortnight ago. O2 had stopped selling through the retailer earlier this year and Three some time before that.
With only EE left to represent, Phones 4u's ability to offer customers choice by comparing prices across operators disappeared, and its final supplier is understood to have dealt the death blow on Friday after talks last week.
Phones 4u's private equity owner, BC Partners, said it would appoint PwC as administrators for its 720 outlets, including 550 stores, on Monday. BC acquired the chain in 2011 in a €770m (£610m) deal, but the highly leveraged business is currently saddled with debts of £635m.
Phones 4u will update its staff at meetings in store and at its headquarters on Monday, and BC insisted: "Employees will continue to be paid until further notice."
The retailer has pledged to refund customers in full for any orders that have not yet been dispatched. While there was grumbling on Twitter from customers who had ordered an iPhone 6 as recently as Friday, the company said it had ceased trading "as soon as practically possible".
Administrators will be left to decide whether the stores can reopen. Vodafone's contract with Phones 4u, which represents 20% of profits and revenues, runs until February 2015, and its deal with EE has more than a year left to run.
In January EE began a review of all the independent retailers it sells through with the intention of reducing the number of partnerships. The decision to part company with Phones 4u means EE is likely to continue selling through Dixons Carphone for the time being.
An EE spokesman said: "In line with our strategy to focus on growth in our direct channels and to move to fewer, deeper relationships in the indirect channel, and driven by developments in the marketplace that have called into question the long-term viability of the Phones 4u business, we can confirm that we have taken the decision not to extend our contract beyond September 2015."
BC executive Stefano Quadrio Curzio hit out at Vodafone, which had traditionally favoured Phones 4u over its larger rival Carphone Warehouse.
He said: "Our overriding concern is for all the dedicated hardworking employees of Phones 4u at a time of uncertainty for the company.
"Vodafone has acted in exactly the opposite way to what they had consistently indicated to the management of Phones 4u over more than six months. Their behaviour appears to have been designed to inflict the maximum damage to their partner of 15 years, giving Phones 4u no time to develop commercial alternatives.
"EE's decision on Friday is surprising in the context of a contract that has more than a year to run and leaves the board with no alternative but to seek the administrator's protection in the interests of all its stakeholders."
Carphone's decision this year to merge with electricals retailer Dixons is thought to have been prompted by growing unrest among its biggest customers – the mobile networks whose connections it sells. Three pulled its business from Carphone earlier this year.
Hammered by the financial crisis and regulated price cuts to the cost of phone calls, with Europe tackling bill shock by imposing strict limits on how much customers can be charged for using their phones on holiday, networks have been looking for savings.
An obvious place to cut was in the use of third-party resellers, who have enjoyed healthy margins in the UK compared with elsewhere in Europe. Vodafone has invested heavily in expanding its own-brand stores, making it less reliant on Phones 4u and Carphone.
David Kassler, chief executive of Phones 4u, said: "Today is a very sad day for our customers and our staff. If the mobile network operators decline to supply us, we do not have a business. A good company making profits of over £100m, employing thousands of decent people, has been forced into administration.
"The great service we have provided should have guaranteed a strong future, but unfortunately our network partners have decided otherwise. The ultimate result will be less competition, less choice and higher prices for mobile customers in UK."
Known for its controversial advertising campaigns, including a banned ad featuring a cartoon Jesus, Phones 4u was aimed squarely at the youth market, a hard-to-reach demographic for Vodafone in particular, which is regarded as the business person's network.
It is understood that EE sold around 10% of its connections through Phones 4u, but the company will now rely more heavily on its string of 570 stores across the UK, and on its remaining contract with Dixons Carphone.
Caudwell founded the business in the mid-1980s. By the time he cashed in his shares for £1.5 billion in 2006, it was selling 26 phones a minute and employed 10,000 people. It generated sales of more than £2.25 billion.
Phones 4u said it remained profitable, with turnover of more than £1bn, underlying earnings of £105m in 2013 and significant cash in the bank.
Credit rating agency Moody's, which downgraded its outlook for the company's ability to repay its debts last week, said Phones 4u had £205m in notes due by 2019, £430m due in 2018, and a £125m revolving credit facility. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/20/netflixs-the-crown-cruelly-unjust-for-leaving-off-accuracy-disclaimer-says-judi-dench | Television & radio | 2022-10-20T15:24:06.000Z | Sammy Gecsoyler | Netflix’s The Crown ‘cruelly unjust’ for leaving off accuracy disclaimer, says Judi Dench | Dame Judi Dench is calling for a disclaimer to be added to The Crown to tell viewers the show is not historically accurate.
In a letter to the Times, Dench said the Netflix hit “seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism” the closer the drama comes to the present day.
She goes on to express her concern that “a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true.
“Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a ‘fictionalised drama’, the programme-makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode … the time has come for Netflix to reconsider.”
Dench also notes events due to be covered in the upcoming fifth series, some of which have already drawn criticism: “Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series – that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence – this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.”
Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, former prime minister Sir John Major said a scene which apparently portrays a plot to oust Elizabeth II was “a barrel-load of malicious nonsense”.
Major’s office released a statement that said: “Sir John has not cooperated in any way with The Crown. Nor has he ever been approached by them to factcheck any script material in this or any other series.
“As you will know, discussions between the monarch and prime minister are entirely private and – for Sir John – will always remain so. But not one of the scenes you depict are accurate in any way whatsoever. They are fiction, pure and simple.”
In response to Major’s comments, a spokesperson for The Crown said: “The Crown has always been presented as a drama based on historical events.
“Series five is a fictional dramatisation, imagining what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family – one that has already been scrutinised and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians.”
The Crown returns on Netflix on 9 November. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/27/republican-candidates-second-debate-polls-california-reagan-library | US news | 2023-09-27T19:53:15.000Z | Joan E Greve | Rivals accuse Trump of being ‘missing in action’ at second Republican debate | The absence of Donald Trump played a central role in the second Republican primary debate of the 2024 election season, as seven White House hopefuls tried and mostly failed to shake up a race in which the former president remains the clear frontrunner.
Two of Trump’s rivals attempted to capitalize on his absence by criticizing him for skipping the debate, held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation & Institute in Simi Valley, California. DeSantis mocked Trump as “missing in action”, saying, “He should be on this stage tonight. He owes it to you to defend his record.”
Chris Christie, the former New Jersey governor, suggested Trump was skipping the debates out of fear of facing voters. Addressing Trump in a straight-to-camera diatribe, Christie said, “You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on this stage and defending your record. You’re ducking these things.”
Trump skipped the event – as he skipped last month’s debate, and reportedly plans to skip the next – and instead held a rally in Michigan, where autoworkers have gone on strike to demand pay increases. A day earlier, Joe Biden joined some of the striking workers on the picket line, providing an odd preview of the likely matchup in the 2024 general election.
In the final question of the night, the moderators of the Fox Business and Univision debate forced the candidates to reckon with reality. Fox News host Dana Perino asked, “What is your mathematical path, Governor DeSantis, in order to try to beat President Trump, who has a commanding and enduring lead in this race?”
DeSantis replied, “Polls don’t elect presidents. Voters elect presidents. And we’re going to take the case to the people in these early [voting] states.”
But those voters do not yet appear to be swayed by any of the candidates who appeared onstage on Wednesday night. Even as Trump faces 91 felony charges across four criminal cases, Republican primary candidates have struggled to put a dent in the former president’s significant polling lead. One NBC News poll conducted this month showed Trump has the support of 59% of likely Republican primary voters, giving the former president a 43-point edge over DeSantis. Besides Trump and DeSantis, every Republican primary candidate remains mired in the single digits, the poll found.
DeSantis in particular entered the second debate looking for a breakout moment to help dispel mounting doubts over his ability to challenge Trump for the nomination. The Florida governor has seen his polling numbers tumble in recent weeks, with one New Hampshire survey showing him dropping to fifth place in the second voting state.
With their primary hopes dwindling, the debate participants shouted over each other in an attempt to be heard, allowing the discussion to devolve into incomprehensible crosstalk.
In an apparent effort to get voters’ attention, some debate participants offered eyebrow-raising suggestions on the issues of gun violence, race and immigration. The former vice-president, Mike Pence, called for the passage of “a federal, expedited death penalty for anyone involved in a mass shooting so that they will meet their fate in months, not years”. It is unclear how such a policy might prevent mass shootings, especially given that the perpetrators of such crimes often die by suicide or are killed by law enforcement before they are prosecuted.
In another surprising moment, South Carolina senator Tim Scott, who is Black, implied that slavery had been more bearable for Black Americans than the Great Society, President Lyndon Johnson’s anti-poverty program that birthed social welfare programs like Medicare and Medicaid.
“Black families survived slavery. We survived poll taxes and literacy tests. We survived discrimination being woven into the laws of our country,” Scott said. “What was hard to survive was Johnson’s Great Society … where they decided to take the Black father out of the household to get a check in the mail.”
Trump’s business empire could collapse ‘like falling dominoes’ after ruling
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A theme from the first primary debate played out again on Wednesday, as former UN ambassador Nikki Haley sparred with entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy. Criticizing Ramaswamy for joining TikTok despite the app’s potential security vulnerabilities, Haley landed the most stinging insult of the night.
“Honestly, every time I hear you, I feel a little bit dumber for what you say,” Haley told Ramaswamy.
But it remained unclear how the debate might help candidates break through in a race that has grown static, as Trump’s rivals jockey for a distant second place. With less than four months left before the Iowa caucuses, the pressure is escalating for candidates to quickly prove their mettle in the primary. One Republican candidate, the Miami mayor Francis Suarez, has already dropped out of the race, and others may soon follow suit if they cannot gain momentum in the coming weeks.
Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor who participated in the first primary debate, did not appear on Wednesday because he failed to meet the heightened polling requirements set by the Republican National Committee, but he insisted he would keep fighting for the nomination. In a statement released on Monday, Hutchinson said he would move forward with events planned in early voting states even after he failed to qualify for the debate.
“I entered this race because it is critically important for a leader within the Republican party to stand up to Donald Trump and call him out on misleading his supporters and the American people,” Hutchinson said. “I intend to continue doing that.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/07/kazakhstan-president-scientists-research-ageing | World news | 2010-12-07T20:26:09.000Z | Tom Parfitt | Kazakhstan's president urges scientists to find the elixir of life | Cleopatra may have bathed in asses' milk to preserve her youth but Nursultan Nazarbayev, the autocratic president of Kazakhstan, wants nothing less than an elixir of life to keep him going.
Not satisfied with 19 years in charge of the gas-rich central Asian state, Nazarbayev urged scientists today to unlock the secret to immortality.
The 70-year-old leader stressed in a speech that a new scientific research institute in the capital Astana should study "rejuvenation of the organism," as well as "the human genome, production of human tissue and creation of gene-based medicines".
In an aside to students, Nazarbayev added: "As for the medicine of the future, people of my age are really hoping all of this will happen as soon as possible."
Two months ago an ethnic Korean delegate at Kazakhstan's people's assembly proposed that Nazarbayev should stay in power until 2020. The president answered: "Maybe, then, you'll offer me an elixir of youth and energy – maybe you have such potions in Korea … I'm willing to go on until 2020, just find me an elixir."
Today was the third time in just over a year that Nazarbayev has urged scientists to find a way to stave off death.
"Anti-ageing medicine, natural rejuvenation, immortality," he mused to a government science committee in September last year. "That's what people are studying these days." He added: "Those who do are the most successful states in the world – those who don't will get left on the sidelines."
In case anyone had missed the point, Nazarbayev repeated the challenge a month later.
"One important subject is anti-ageing, or the study of prolongation of life," he told an audience at the Kazakh national university in Almaty. "However difficult such investigations are, these questions must be resolved sooner or later. Why shouldn't our scientists take on this task? Would it not inspire our Kazakh youth who are now living through the great moments of passion?" | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/jan/17/the-end-we-start-from-review-all-too-believable-disaster-drama-jodie-comer | Film | 2024-01-17T07:00:23.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | The End We Start From review – Jodie Comer shines in all too believable disaster drama | Here is a post-apocalyptic drama of survival, a fiercely acted and unnerving real-time demonstration of law and order breaking down. It is all the more disturbing, credible and immediate in that, unlike other examples of genre, the narrative isn’t heading for an abyss of unknowable chaos. Rather, it envisions society’s grim normalisation of disaster and loss, an evolutionary leap downwards but one in which a kind of rebirth is not ruled out.
In contrast to the American post-apocalypse of John Hillcoat’s The Road, or the European apocalypse of Michael Haneke’s Time of the Wolf, this film is a very British world-ending – because the populace are unarmed, or mostly. First-time director Mahalia Belo and screenwriter Alice Birch (who has adapted the novel by Megan Hunter) may have taken something from the 70s BBC TV classic Survivors. The film’s vision of climate change and of those low-lying British cities, naturally positioned near the very rivers and commercial waterways which are going to drown them, couldn’t be more timely. So many people imagine the effects of climate disaster in only the most abstract terms, and don’t grasp that it means fire and flood.
Jodie Comer plays a pregnant young woman living in London: smart, tough and with a supportive partner played by Joel Fry; the movie begins with a black-comic irony, as her waters break just as the heavy rain escalates into something more catastrophic. Giving birth in a crisis-hit hospital and getting home in the riotous streets, she is calm because having a baby for the first time is just such a radical upheaval that she hardly notices.
Fry’s new-dad figure is charming and easygoing, coming up with facetious suggestions for naming a baby born into a world of water: Noah and Bob. But instead, in a spirit of weird blankness and a feeling of having reached the end of their conceptual tether, they call the baby “Zeb”. The couple head for his parents (Mark Strong and Nina Sosanya) who live out in the country with a stockpile of food, but when this runs low, dangerous sorties have to be made into the terrifyingly lawless countryside to find government shelter-support stations which are overrun by violent hungry mobs; Comer faces a lonely battle to survive with her baby.
This is a road movie and quest movie, of sorts, with alpha-grade supporting performances from Katherine Waterston, Benedict Cumberbatch and Gina McKee. These keep the film’s IQ at the highest level, although I wasn’t entirely sure about the emollient later flashbacks showing the beginnings of the young woman’s relationship with her partner. Comer’s vulnerability and idealism are authentic as are her determination and a dash of real ruthlessness – for a moment, she becomes one of the scary people to be encountered on the road, and not particularly regretting it afterwards. She carries everything with unselfconscious strength and style.
The End We Start From is released on 19 January in UK cinemas, with an Australia release to be confirmed. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/08/89-review-arsenal-football-documentary | Film | 2017-11-08T13:30:45.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | 89 review – on-the-ball doc revisits Arsenal's last-minute glory | An easy-going, watchable documentary about one of the great feelgood-underdog stories in the history of British sport. After being written off as boring, boring failures, Arsenal FC triumphed against Liverpool at Anfield in the final match of the 1988-89 season.
It was a uniquely important era that included the horror of Hillsborough and preceded the great resurgence of football with Italia 90. And of course the great Arsenalaissance of ’89 was made mythic by Nick Hornby in his classic memoir Fever Pitch: the 1997 movie version starring Colin Firth actually made the Liverpool v Arsenal match its euphoric finale, in tandem with its romance plot, and there is almost a tension in this film waiting for Hornby to make his talking-head appearance, and then afterwards something anticlimactic, knowing that he has so much more to say.
As well as Arsenal fans such as Hornby and Alan Davies, the film speaks to journalists such as Amy Lawrence and of course the great warriors themselves, including Paul Merson and George Graham, and there is a great poignancy as they go back to their old Highbury ground in north London, now redeveloped into pricey flats. A pleasantly nostalgic documentary, maybe chiefly for fans. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/dec/09/rugby-union-talking-points-weekend-action-champions-cup | Sport | 2019-12-09T09:57:24.000Z | Guardian sport | Rugby union: talking points from the weekend’s Champions Cup action | 1) Larmour suits for Leinster and Ireland
Ireland look like going into the Six Nations Larmour-plated. Joe Schmidt, who stood down as the national side’s head coach after the World Cup, never seemed to trust Jordan Larmour fully, certainly at full-back, but the 22-year old showed in Leinster’s emphatic victory over Northampton at Franklin’s Gardens that he is ready to take over from Rob Kearney, who was among the province’s replacements on Saturday. Larmour was the architect of Leinster’s first two tries, showing how deadly he can be in broken play if given just a trace of time and space, and he was part of a defensive unit that prevented the Saints from turning considerable second-half pressure into points. The victory puts Leinster in charge of Pool One with Northampton’s likeliest route to the quarter-finals being one of the best runners-up. Rivalling them for second place will be Lyon, who broke their Champions Cup duck with a 28-0 victory over Treviso. Paul Rees
Pool One: Northampton 16-43 Leinster
2) Quins’ hopes hang by thread
The Harlequins head coach, Paul Gustard, insisted his side have not given up hope of qualifying out of Pool Three after their late 25-24 defeat in Belfast on Saturday even if realistically they need to win their three remaining matches. They will at least face the two pacesetting clubs, Ulster and Clermont Auvergne, at home with the former, who lead Clermont by a point in the standings, travelling to the Stoop on Friday night . Bath were dismantled by a quickfire treble of tries in the final 20 minutes at the Rec by Franck Azéma’s side in a 34-17 defeat after a promising first half was wiped out. There is a daunting return leg on Sunday with Bath having lost all three of their pool games so far, while Clermont have lost at home only once in Europe since 2008, in a quarter-final two seasons ago. Claire Tolley
Pool Three: Bath 17-34 Clermont Auvergne
Chris Robshaw and Harlequins’ hopes of a quarter-final place look bleak after a narrow defeat to Ulster. Photograph: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images
3) Hogg makes difference in Chiefs cameo
Exeter’s full-back Stuart Hogg was on the field in Salford for only 17 minutes but the Scottish international, who scored one try and created another in his brief outing, is already making a difference to the table-topping Chiefs. Sale’s Steve Diamond would love to have Hogg’s former Glasgow colleague Leone Nakarawa to bolster the Sharks’ resources but says the Fijian lock has declined a move to England from Racing 92 “because the weather’s too cold … it’s not the money”. He is promising, however, to put out his strongest possible side for the return game at Sandy Park, taking sardonic aim at sides who put out weakened teams in the Champions Cup. “I might just send the kids down. Other teams are doing that, aren’t they? I could send my under-19s down. We work hard to get into the competition and you have to respect it.” Many would have expected La Rochelle to be posing a more serious threat in Pool Two but they have so far lost all three matches, including two at home. The latest disappointment came courtesy of a 27-24 loss to Glasgow who were hastened to victory by another fine finish from the flying Kyle Steyn, South African-born but Scottish qualified, who has just signed a new contract to stay at Scotstoun until 2022. Robert Kitson
Pool Two: Sale 20-22 Exeter
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4) Ntamack takes centre stage for Toulouse
Toulouse took control of Pool Five after a Romain Ntamack inspired 23-9 victory over Montpellier on Sunday. The France fly-half, playing at centre for the host club, scored two tries, one each side of the interval, on a wet day in the south of France. The four-time European champions are now six points clear of second-placed Gloucester, after Johan Ackermann’s side ended a run of five straight defeats to earn a bonus-point win over Connacht. The 26-17 win at Kingsholm featured two tries from Tom Marshall and a first Champions Cup try for 18-year-old Louis Rees-Zammit after a Danny Cipriani interception. The try was the first of three scored by Gloucester in 17 second-half minutes, after going into the break three points adrift at 10-7. Afterwards Ackermann said: “We can hope it kickstarts our season. Every season’s got a [turning] point but we are not blind to know that it is far from perfect.” Claire Tolley
Champions Cup roundup: Cooney kicks Ulster to win
Romain Ntamack goes over for a Toulouse try against Montpellier. Photograph: Pascal Pavani/AFP via Getty Images
5) Saracens preoccupied with home discomforts
Saracens remain just about in the mix in Europe, albeit tenuously. It is clear they are not prioritising their defence of the Champions Cup title; they have bigger matters on their minds at home. Nevertheless, the integrity of the competition is compromised as a result and there are rules against fielding under-strength teams. Very difficult to prove, though, against the perfectly legitimate concern of squad management. Besides, Saracens probably feel tribunals can hurt them only so much after their recent experiences. Either way, the English challenge in Europe is looking as anaemic as ever, bar Exeter. This time not even Saracens can be relied on. Their team sheet this weekend for the return against Munster in Barnet will be interesting. A win with a bonus point might draw them level with Munster but Racing will almost certainly register the same at home to the Ospreys, putting them in comfortable control of Pool Four. Michael Aylwin
Pool Four: Munster 10-3 Saracens
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/03/tories-lose-over-1200-seats-in-local-elections-as-major-parties-suffer | Politics | 2019-05-03T21:00:05.000Z | Heather Stewart | Tories lose over 1,300 seats in local elections as major parties suffer | Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have vowed to press ahead with seeking a cross-party solution to the Brexit deadlock at Westminster, after voters punished both major parties in local elections.
The Conservatives’ net loss of more than 1,300 seats on their 2015 figures marked their biggest defeat since John Major was prime minister. Disillusioned voters deserted the party in droves, including in traditional Tory areas such as Chelmsford and Surrey Heath.
Labour had expected to make gains, but instead suffered a net loss, and lost control of a string of councils, including Burnley, Darlington and Wirral.
Vince Cable’s remain-supporting Liberal Democrats were the major beneficiaries, taking control of 10 councils, including Cotswold and Winchester, while the Greens and a string of independents also fared unexpectedly well.
The Greens’ co-leader Sian Berry described her party’s performance as “a spectacular 24 hours”, adding: “Voters are clearly fed up with the tired old politics of the parties of the past, who have delivered a UK in Brexit turmoil.”
Cable told celebrating Lib Dem activists that the result reflected a “story across the country”. He said: “The Lib Dems were written off at one point, but we’re coming back very, very strongly. We’re the big winners of the night throughout the country.”
Many Labour MPs suggested the results underlined the urgency for Labour to shift to a full-throated remain position.
But Corbyn insisted: “I think it means there’s a huge impetus on every MP, and they’ve all got that message, whether they themselves are leave or remain – or the people across the country – that an arrangement has to be made, a deal has to be done. Parliament has to resolve this issue – I think that is very, very clear.”
Close Corbyn allies Ian Lavery and Richard Burgon echoed his message, saying Brexit was detracting from a string of other crucial issues, while shadow chancellor John McDonnell said the message from voters was: “Brexit – sort it.”
The prime minister, who was heckled by a party activist as she began to address the Welsh Conservative conference, said the voters were giving a “simple message” to the Conservatives and Labour: “Just get on and deliver Brexit.”
She conceded that the results were “very difficult” and apologised to councillors who had lost their seats, saying they were not to blame.
The Guardian view on local elections: national lessons for Brexit
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Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson, speaking at her party’s conference in Aberdeen, said: “I think the message is pretty clear. It seems to be ‘A plague on both your houses.’”
The projected national share of the vote, calculated by elections analyst John Curtice for the BBC, put both major parties neck-and-neck on 28% of the vote – both down from 35% a year ago. If that result were replicated in a general election, it would result in another hung parliament.
Curtice said the results demonstrated that Labour had been hit just as hard by the Brexit logjam over the past 12 months as the deeply divided Tory party. “The opposition is in no way demonstrating an ability to profit from the government’s misfortunes,” he said.
Labour MPs who favour a referendum said the results showed that Corbyn’s attempt to appeal to both remain and leave voters had failed, and he should throw his weight behind a people’s vote.
Sunderland MP Bridget Phillipson said: “I fear Labour’s position has been too hesitant and lacking in clarity over the past few months, depressing support among our voters at a time when they expect strength and leadership from my party rather than fudge.”
However, Corbyn appeared determined to press ahead with seeking a compromise with the Conservatives – a move that could spark a ferocious backlash from many of his MPs unless it is accompanied by the promise of a “confirmatory” referendum.
Participants on both sides of the cross-party Brexit negotiations reported a marked improvement in tone at the start of this week, and several senior Labour figures, including the shadow business secretary, Rebecca Long-Bailey, have played up the idea of a deal.
Both parties fear the disappointing set of council results could be dwarfed by the challenge facing them at European parliament elections in three weeks’ time, when political newcomers Change UK and the Brexit party will be standing candidates.
The foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, suggested he was optimistic about the prospects of a deal, and hoped that Labour might sign up to some compromise that brought “the benefits of a customs union” but would also allow the UK to have an independent trade policy for the services sector.
Hunt suggested that the local election results, and trends in the polls, gave an incentive to both parties to compromise since both parties were being dragged down. He added: “It is actually in both parties’ interests to resolve this because we will both be punished equally hard by our core voters.”
Hunt, a former remainer who is now willing to countenance a no-deal Brexit, warned that the electorate had become angry and bored. “They want it resolved. They want to move on, so anyone thinking of delaying Brexit further needs to remember one of the core reasons why the people of Britain decided in large numbers to give a punch in the face to the British establishment – which is overwhelmingly remain – is because they thought we were not listening to them.”
“If, three years on from that vote, we still fail to deliver Brexit, then that anger will only amplify.”
This article was amended 6 May 2019 because an earlier version described Rebecca Long-Bailey as shadow Brexit secretary instead of shadow business secretary. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/sep/18/kurt-sanderling-obituary | Music | 2011-09-18T16:55:42.000Z | David Nice | Kurt Sanderling obituary | Of all the London orchestras waking up to the desirability of having a Grand Old Man among its roster of conductors, the Philharmonia moved quickest and chose most wisely. Its conductor emeritus since 1996, Kurt Sanderling, who has died aged 98, proved even more popular with awestruck orchestral players than with respectful audiences for his love, depth of understanding and disciplined attention to detail of the core repertoire he conducted. While his interpretations of Beethoven and Brahms signalled the solid German training to which he returned in 1960, his authority in speaking about the meaning of the Shostakovich symphonies that were among his most distinguished interpretations came from more than two decades in the Soviet Union - perhaps the most unusual period of his career, and only recently the most often discussed.
Sanderling was born in Arys, in former East Prussia, now Orzysz, in Poland. His piano studies in Königsberg and Berlin led to a post as a repetiteur at the Berlin State Opera (now the Deutsche Oper) from 1931 until 1933, when Hitler's rise to power meant his dismissal as a "non-Aryan". After working for the Jewish Cultural Foundation, he was forced to leave Germany. A post as coach at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, fell through owing to the absence of an affidavit, so it was for Russia that he departed in 1936.
In one way his journey east, rather than west to America like so many of his colleagues, came at a bad time; Stalin's denunciation of Shostakovich's Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk as "chaos instead of music" spelt even more difficult times for creative and performing artists, as Prokofiev - who returned to his homeland at the same time - soon discovered. But for conductors there was plenty of work. Sanderling assisted Georges Sebastian at the Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra before taking up a post in the southern city of Kharkov, now Kharkiv in Ukraine, from 1939.
There Sanderling first performed the music of Shostakovich, conducting the Sixth Symphony shortly after its premiere. He had become acquainted with Shostakovich's works right at the start of his Soviet career, playing through a four-hand piano arrangement of the First Symphony with Nikolai Anossov, but did not meet the composer until 1943, when a courteous, respectful and durable friendship was born which extended to Sanderling's son Thomas (Shostakovich entrusted the first German performances of several of his later symphonies to the younger Sanderling, who had taken up his father's profession). Kurt Sanderling was chosen to "rehabilitate" the disgraced artist in a concert a year after the trials of "formalism in music" in 1947, and always remained dedicated to explaining the hidden meaning of Shostakovich's music to orchestral players. He tended to steer clear of the more deliberate epics – especially the Seventh and Eleventh Symphonies – but the massive tragedy of the Eighth seemed to accord well with his sustained, often very slow, shaping of long paragraphs, accompanied by the most detailed shading of phrase and nuance.
His chance to explore the breadth of the Russian symphonic repertoire with the very finest of orchestras came in 1941, when he was once more appointed assistant – this time to the awesome Yevgeny Mravinsky at the Leningrad Philharmonic. The second-in-command made several recordings with the orchestra – including a powerful interpretation of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet. In his in-depth study Conductor's World, David Wooldridge recalled that the German conductor's visit to Berlin with his Russian orchestra in 1957, playing Weber's Der Freischütz Overture, Scriabin's Piano Concerto with Emil Gilels as soloist and Rachmaninov's Second Symphony, "boded well for the Leningrad Philharmonic's title as the world's greatest orchestra, and Sanderling's title as the world's greatest conductor".
In 1960, he was sent to East Berlin to raise the Berlin Symphony Orchestra to new heights. Although it never became the rival to Herbert von Karajan's glowing Berlin Philharmonic on the other side of the wall as the authorities had hoped, and lacked the distinctive bite of the Leningrad Philharmonic, Sanderling worked hard to improve standards and left a legacy of reliable, if safe, recorded interpretations. He also championed a host of contemporary German composers, though, according to his son Thomas he did not hold them in the highest esteem. At the same time he took charge of the Dresden Staatskapelle (1964-67), and began to tour more widely.
His first appearance with the (then New) Philharmonia came in 1972, replacing an indisposed Otto Klemperer, and grand master status arrived when he recorded a cycle of Beethoven symphonies with the Philharmonia in 1981. The verdict of players in all the British orchestras he conducted, including the BBC Symphony, the BBC Philharmonic (or BBC Northern Symphony, as it then was), remained the same: a Sanderling concert was always an event, the conductor a rare figure to be respected – and permitted to talk at length about his point of view – by otherwise unimpressible musicians.
The same was true of his work with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and of his appearances with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra as he approached his 90s. He retired on his own terms, slowly but wisely, first ceasing to travel to America and Japan, then taking only direct flights from Berlin and finally conducting in Berlin only. By the time he celebrated his 95th birthday, he had retired completely.
The tradition lives on in his conductor sons Michael (also a cellist), Stefan and Thomas, who followed his father's work with the Philharmonia in an outstanding recording of the four Brahms symphonies. On the recent anniversary of 9/11 in Moscow, Thomas conducted the Russian National Orchestra in Shostakovich's Thirteenth ("Babi Yar") Symphony. The composer's widow, Irina, was there, and recalled Sanderling as being among the greatest of the musicians, along with Mravinsky and the cellist and conductor Mstislav Rostropovich, who had been close to her husband.
Sanderling's first marriage ended in divorce, and he is survived by his second wife, Barbara. Thomas is the son of his first marriage, and Michael and Stefan are from his second.
Kurt Sanderling, conductor, born 19 September 1912; died 17 September 2011 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/mar/04/booker-club-english-patient-ondaatje | Books | 2011-03-04T11:00:46.000Z | Sam Jordison | Booker club: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje | In 1992, for only the second time in its history, the Booker Prize was divided between two books: Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger. The English Patient has been translated into 40 languages, has sold more than 1m copies, and turned into an Oscar-winning film. Scared Hunger has ... well ... have you read it?
All of which is not to diminish Sacred Hunger. I haven't read it either (that's for next time) and have no reason to doubt the competition was hard fought. By all accounts the judges were bitterly and passionately divided about the books: the decision was made just 30 minutes before the ceremony, and the chair, Victoria Glendinning, characterised the awarding of the prize as a "necessary nonsense".
Even so, viewed through the reverse telescope of history it seems surprising that Ondaatje's novel had to share the prize. Especially since it's so damn good.
In case you're one of the few people who've neither read the book nor seen the film, The English Patient centres around an Italian villa towards the end of the second world war, where four variously damaged characters try to come to terms with the past. The titular patient isn't, in fact, English. He's a Hungarian desert explorer called Laslo Almasy (very loosely based on a real man) who was burned black after a plane crash on the Libya-Egypt border. He spends the book on what he knows to be his deathbed, recounting the story of his doomed love affair with a married woman, Katharine Clifton. This story is extracted by a former thief and spy, Caravaggio, who uses his knowledge of morphine addiction (developed after Axis torturers removed his thumbs) to make the patient garrulous. Almasy is also tended by a young nurse, Hana, who is herself a victim of war, shell-shocked and grieving for her father's death under arms. Finally, there is Kip, a Sikh bomb disposal expert who becomes Hana's lover and the patient's admirer and friend.
The character of the English patient may be sophisticated, adult and troubled, but there's plenty of Indiana Jones in his archaeological discoveries, incredible journeys, wartime intrigues, and even the accident that spills him from his plane wearing "an antlered hat of fire". Then there's Caravaggio's thieving and spying, Kip's bomb disposal and Hana the beautiful nurse ... This is a book imbued with the spirit of Boys' Own Adventure. It makes sense that it made such a good film – even if the most impressive feature of the book, Ondaatje's prose, can't be caught on celluloid.
Much has been said about the richness of Ondaatje's writing, the sensuousness of his physical descriptions and his poet's gift for using well-timed silences and ellipses to speak volumes. All that's true. But the thing that impressed me most as I read the book this time around is its hard centre. It may come wrapped in musky perfume, but Ondaatje's prose could go a few rounds with Hemingway and probably knock out Kipling, too.
The latter is a comparison the author audaciously invites. At one point Hana reads the patient an extract from Kim:
"He sat, in defiance of municipal orders, astride the gun Zamzamah on her brick platform opposite the old Ajaib-Gher – the Wonder House, as the natives call the Lahore Museum. Who hold Zam-Zammah, that 'fire-breathing dragon', hold the Punjab; for the great green-bronze piece is always first of the conqueror's loot."
He interrupts her to say:
"Read him slowly, dear girl, you must read Kipling slowly. Watch carefully where the commas fall so you can discover the natural pauses. He is a writer who used pen and ink. He looked up from the page a lot, I believe, stared through his window and listened to birds, as most writers who are alone do. Some do not know the names of birds, though he did. Your eye is too quick and North American. Think about the speed of his pen. What an appalling, barnacled old first paragraph it is otherwise."
It's a fairly incidental and subdued passage in the greater scheme of things. There are far brighter pyrotechnics in the book. But it's a good example of how hard Ondaatje's writing works. It works firstly because it's spot on: try and read that quote with and without commas. It works thematically: immediately you start thinking about empire and its impact, about the Orient, about adventure, about how much Kipling himself lost in war. It works because it illuminates the polymath English patient: he's just the sort of man to have an opinion on how to read Kipling – and to be right about it. It works – craftily – as a guide to reading Ondaatje himself: The English Patient too should be taken slowly and with careful attention to rhythm. And so it is throughout the book. You get the sense that every word is straining and bursting with meaning. Every word has been made to labour as well as delight. Everything is turned up to 11. Everything, in short, works.
Or almost everything. I should also note that some of the novel has come in for criticism. Most notably, there have been objections to the way the book ends, with the detonation of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some have said that it seems rather tacked on – and it's true that the bombs do have a strange and unsettling impact at the culmination of the narrative. Personally, I felt that to be true to the brutal way the bombs cut short the war, but it isn't an easy termination.
There has also been controversy – particularly in the US – about the following remark: "They would never have dropped such a bomb on a white nation." It's certainly uncomfortable reading. Possibly because it's too true. Possibly because it's impossible to prove either way. There is one important point to make about it though – and that is that Ondaatje himself does not present it as a simple black and white statement of fact. It is not Kip – as most critics seem to think – who owns the line. Caravaggio says it as he attempts to explain why Kip has found the nuclear bomb so upsetting. Yet Kip's horror can just as much be ascribed to his role as a sapper as to his race. He's spent the whole war trying to prevent explosions. He's risked everything time and again to save maybe a few hundred Allied lives – and now the Allies have killed millions at a stroke. Actually, the line is just another example of how everything Ondaatje writes has depth and ambiguity that rewards slow reading and careful thought - just another demonstration of his meticulous talent. This is a book to be savoured, re-read and remembered. It is wonderful. I'm going to be very curious to see how Sacred Hunger measures up.
Next time: Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/13/australia-supplants-china-to-build-undersea-cable-for-solomon-islands | World news | 2018-06-13T04:09:44.000Z | Amy Remeikis | Australia supplants China to build undersea cable for Solomon Islands | The Australian government has stepped in to help build a key piece of infrastructure for the Solomon Islands, as concerns about Beijing’s attempts at “soft diplomacy” continue to grow.
Malcolm Turnbull announced that Australia would jointly fund construction of an underwater telecommunication cable network, which will link remote Solomon Islands communities to Honiara.
Huawei had been earmarked to build the cable, after the Solomons originally awarded the contract to the Chinese company – a move that prompted Australian intelligence and security chiefs to warn against the deal.
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The cable is to have an Australian link point, to allow the Solomons and Papua New Guinea to connect to Australia’s fibre optic cable infrastructure. Sydney, Townsville and the Sunshine Coast are all being considered as connection points.
Huawei has been banned from government contracts to build Australian infrastructure over concerns that its links to the ruling Chinese communist government could jeopardise Australia’s security.
Last year Nick Warner, who heads the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the agency which deals with foreign intelligence, was reported to have warned the former Solomons prime minister Manasseh Sogavare against Huawei’s involvement.
Australia stepped in to fill the gap, with funding put aside for the 4,000km cable in the budget.
While foreign aid funding was frozen, Australia has concentrated its efforts on the Pacific, after reports about the concessional loans Beijing has been providing countries in the region have concerns that China is seeking to increase its influence in the region.
Of the $4.2bn Australia will spend on foreign aid in the next year, $1.3bn is earmarked for the Pacific.
Julie Bishop said the Solomon Islands accepting the Australian offer made sense, as it was “cheaper” and “likely to be faster results for them, and technically superior”.
“We put up an alternative, and that’s what I believe Australia should continue to do,” Bishop said. “We are the largest aid donor in the Pacific.
“We are a longstanding partner of the Solomon Islands and I want to ensure that countries in the Pacific have alternatives, that they don’t only have one option and no others, and so in this case, we are in a position to be able to offer a more attractive deal for Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea and they accepted it.”
Turnbull attempted to play down the security concerns about the cable, saying instead Australia was happy to see the Solomons and PNG grow.
Warning sounded over China's 'debtbook diplomacy'
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“There have been a number of cable projects that have been contemplated, with respect to the Solomon Islands over the years,” he said.
“You’ve referred to one of them. What we are doing is providing very practical and substantial support and aid as part of our foreign aid program, to provide that telecommunications infrastructure which will ensure that the Solomons Island has access to 21st century telecommunications, which, as I was discussing with the prime minister [Rick Houenipwela] today, it is going to be vital for education, for commerce, for economic development, in every aspect of their society, just as it is in ours.”
Houenipwela will spend time in Queensland, a key trading partner with the Solomons, as well as Sydney and Canberra during his trip, which follows the official end of the Australian-led peacekeeping mission in his nation, which began in 2003 and ended last June.
with Australian Associated Press | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/marketforceslive/2013/jun/04/rentokil-balfour-beatty-office-maintenance | Business | 2013-06-04T09:20:44.000Z | Nick Fletcher | Rentokil rises on talk of £400m sale of office maintenance business | Rentokil Initial has risen nearly 3% on reports of a possible offer for its office maintenance business.
US private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice is considering buying the Rentokil division and merging it with Balfour Beatty's rival operation, according to the Financial Times.
Talks are already being held on the plan, the report said, with a valuation of a higher than expected £400m put on the Rentokil business. Justin Jordan at Jefferies said:
In our sum of the parts Rentokil valuation, we value [the division] at £226m, hence view £400m proceeds as an appealing prospect. While Rentokil has refused to comment, we view this possible disposal as strategically sensible, allowing Rentokil to focus on its two key growth divisions, Textile and Hygiene and Pest, both of which enjoy leading market positions, mid-teen operating margins and structural growth opportunities.
Hector Forsythe at Oriel Securities said:
The proposal to a sale of the two businesses to a single purchaser reduces the probability that a deal can be done. That an article appears in the public domain at this juncture perhaps is an effort to get some price tension into the deal.
Our view is that this is perhaps the most likely route for Rentokil to achieve a disposal of [the division]. It is a business that is performing well in our view. Margins are making progress as the mix changes to a higher concentration on integrated facilities management contracts. There have been notable wins this year and the pipeline is encouraging. Near-term, revenue progression is being masked by action to exit small, single service contracts. These are low margin sales. An exit would remove another non-core business from the Rentokil portfolio and lower group leverage, giving additional flexibility to maintain bolt-on growth in its core activities.
Rentokil is up 2.65p at 91.1p while Balfour Beatty, whose business is said to be worth around £200m, has dipped 1.2p to 231.3p after HSBC cut its target from 285p to 260p.
Meanwhile defence group Cobham is down 13.7p at 272.4p on talk of an institutional investor selling 3.6%, or 39.1m shares. The shares were said to be being offered by UBS to institutions at between 273.5p a share and last night's close of 286p. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/08/hornby-losses-widen-supplier-problems-china-it-upgrade | Business | 2015-12-08T08:44:56.000Z | Sean Farrell | Hornby losses widen amid supplier problems and IT upgrade | Hornby has posted a £4.5m loss for the first half of its financial year after an overhaul of the model railway maker’s operations disrupted sales. The group, whose products include Corgi Cars and Airfix kits, also struggled to get products into European stores from its Chinese supplier.
The pre-tax loss for the six months to the end of September widened from £520,000 a year earlier as sales fell to £22.3m from £24.2m. Excluding exceptional items, Hornby swung to a £3.4m loss from a £250,000 profit a year earlier.
Hornby has been upgrading its computer and stock management systems in the UK and Europe while bringing in new managers. The revamp caused UK sales to fall sharply over the summer and affected Hornby’s European business, which was also hit by problems getting products made in China on to shelves.
The group has had trouble with its Chinese suppliers for many years after moving production from the UK in the late 90s. After extricating itself from a long-running contract, it had further problems this year and issued profit warnings in September and November.
Hornby said it was looking for additional manufacturers in China and elsewhere and that it would open a new warehouse in China to give it greater control over suppliers.
In the UK, business has recovered from the summer disruption and sales are rising, Hornby said. With Christmas approaching, the company’s main products include an 80th anniversary set of silver LNER locomotives and a James Bond Spectre themed Scalextric set.
Richard Ames, Hornby’s chief executive, said: “We are at an important stage in Hornby’s transformation. Following significant disruption in the first two months, the business is performing well in the important Christmas and New Year period.
“We have pulled forward our reorganisation plan for our European operations, which has contributed to further trading disruption but which accelerates our overall plan.”
Hornby said it expected to post a £2m loss excluding items for the financial year, in line with the guidance when it published its second profit warning last month.
Hornby’s shares fell 4% to 91p. The shares are up 17% this year but have fallen from the 111p level reached in August. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/jan/16/techscape-big-tech-post-office-horizon-scandal-substack | Technology | 2024-01-16T11:51:21.000Z | Alex Hern | TechScape: Why big tech could learn big lessons from the Post Office Horizon scandal | The Post Office Horizon scandal has long been a frustrating one to follow as a technology reporter, because – for all that it stems from the botched rollout of a massive government IT project – it isn’t a technology story at all.
There is a desire, with stories like this, to uncover the one specific fault from which the disaster unfolded. Take Grenfell Tower: there were flaws throughout the system, uncovered in harrowing detail by the inquiry into the fire, but it’s also clear that the deadly error was cladding the building with flammable panels. Identifying that fulcrum point leads to further questions in both directions (how were the panels deemed safe and could the building have been safely evacuated even given that flaw), but it is clear where the catastrophe lies.
With the Horizon system, it feels as if there should be an equivalent focus point. “What was it about Horizon that led to so many false accounts” is a question I have asked, and been asked, so many times over the decade since I first became aware of of the scandal thanks to the reporting from Computer Weekly. I’ve looked into the architecture of the system, hoping to find the telling nugget, the terrible decision from which all the ensuing problems spiralled, that I could sagely explain to provide the technical underpinning to a very human story of malice and greed.
And yet the conclusion I’ve been forced to draw is that Horizon was just really, really broken. Toe to tip, the system sucked. The sheer plethora of technical errors, worst-practice decisions, and lazy corners cut is likely one reason why the Post Office continued fighting for so long, since different subpostmasters experienced radically different flaws.
Where one had a screen that froze but continued to accept inputs, invisibly writing transactions to the database, another simply had an edge-case bug in the underlying system that failed to lock transactions when they should have been inalterable. Others had problems with the networking with the central database, leading to transactions being silently dropped whenever there was a hiccup with the data connection.
If you still want to track down the point where bad IT became a crisis, then you have to look past the tech altogether. The Post Office declared, as fiat, that Horizon worked. From there, everything that happened after was the logical conclusion. If Horizon works, then the errors must be because of what the subpostmasters did. If they say they made no errors, then they must have committed fraud. If they committed fraud, then a conviction is morally just.
But Horizon didn’t work.
Today’s big tech companies would never be so gauche as to insist that their software is flawless. If anything, the opposite has become the accepted reality: “all software has bugs” is blithely repeated so often as to imply that users are asking too much for critical technology to work reliably.
Yet they often still act as though they believe the opposite. My inbox is filled with a constant, unmanageable, stream of people who have been wrongly flagged as spammers or fraudsters or robots by the automated systems of Facebook, Google, Amazon or Apple. These people have lost years of purchases, access to their friends and family, or pages and profiles that they had built a career on. I can’t help them all and still do my day job, and yet, curiously, the cases I find capacity to query with the big companies almost always turn out to be easily fixable.
No one would claim that even the worst piece of software put out by Google is a fraction as broken as Horizon was. (The Post Office says the current version of the software, dating from 2017, was found to be “robust, relative to comparable systems”.) But if the actual sin is acting like your broken software couldn’t possibly have flaws, then big tech might have more lessons to learn from the scandal than they care to admit.
Substack exodus
A screenshot of the Substack page on Apple’s App Store on Monday. Photograph: Apple
If you go to the App Store page for Substack, the newsletter platform that has spent the last year expanding into a subscription-focused social network, you will see (at time of writing) a lovely screenshot declaring it “A home for readers”, and showing the homepage for a user subscribed to two newsletters, Platformer and Garbage Day.
On Wednesday, Garbage Day published its last Substack newsletter:
I really liked using Substack and have had great interactions with their team over the years and don’t actually want to move tbh. But it’s clear that it’s time. So, over the next month, I’ll be migrating off the site.
On Friday, Platformer published its last Substack newsletter:
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After much consideration, we have decided to move Platformer off of Substack. Over the next few days, the publication will migrate to a new website powered by the nonprofit, open-source publishing platform Ghost.
To lose one flagship newsletter may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
These newsletters, and many others across the platform, are leaving because of Substack’s insistence on providing censorship-free service even to Nazis so long as they don’t break its permissive code of conduct. Substack’s Hamish McKenzie posted a widely-shared note in late December, which said: “We don’t think that censorship (including through demonetizing publications) makes the problem go away – in fact, it makes it worse. We believe that supporting individual rights and civil liberties while subjecting ideas to open discourse is the best way to strip bad ideas of their power.”
But what began as a dispute over moderation could metastasise into something far more painful for the platform. Since its inception, the site has been proudly “writer-led”, reminding authors that “we only get paid when you do”, and promising that switching to another platform is just a button press away. The service monetises by taking 10% of all paid subscriptions, and cross-subsidises free ones accordingly.
While everything is going well, the deal works for everyone. Writers earn money, Substack earns money, the wheels turn and everyone’s happy. But Substack’s competitors – platforms including Ghost and Beehiiv – offer a different deal: pay a flat fee depending on how many emails you want to send, and keep all the money you raise. It’s particularly appealing to those writers who have built a substantial paid userbase, but it’s a deal that few have taken up until now.
That’s partially because of the wider “recommendation engine” that Substack has built: newsletters can recommend other newsletters, users of the service’s Twitter-style feed, called Notes, can follow and retweet writers, and the platform itself will merrily suggest you new things to read. The implied deal is that Substack will continue to grow your readership by enough to justify its larger cut of your earnings.
In practice, based on conversations with writers across Substack, in the UK and US, the deal doesn’t aways work. Substack’s platform generates free subscribers, but few paid ones. And, as the site’s leadership has doubled down on its policy to serve anyone, including Nazis, having a newsletter on Substack has started to hit writers’ ability to keep paid subscribers as well.
For Casey Newton, the founder of Platformer, the subject of the conflict may be different, but the pattern is all too familiar:
Substack’s tools are designed to help publications grow quickly and make lots of money – money that is shared with Substack. That design demands responsible thinking about who will be promoted, and how.
The company’s defense boils down to the fact that nothing that bad has happened yet. But we have seen this movie before, from Alex Jones to anti-vaxxers to QAnon, and will not remain to watch it play out again.
If you want to read the complete version of the newsletter please subscribe to receive TechScape in your inbox every Tuesday | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/may/06/kesha-gag-order-interview | Music | 2023-05-06T10:55:06.000Z | Michael Cragg | ‘I would walk in and just cry for two hours’: Kesha on cats, court cases, and the dangers of ‘toxic positivity’ | In April 2020, months after the release of her fourth album, High Road, Kesha had a “beautiful and terrifying” spiritual awakening. Having spent the early lockdown months paralysed by anxiety and consumed by the weight of both personal and global trauma, she suddenly felt “overwhelmed by so many things I hadn’t taken the time to stop and think about”. One night, after weeks of looking for answers, she started hearing “what some might call God, what some might call your higher consciousness” via a two-hour-long, completely sober encounter she initially mistook for a psychotic break.
“I woke up in the morning and called all my healthcare workers and explained what happened, and they all said: ‘Oh that’s a spiritual awakening, congratulations.’” She shakes her head. “I was like: ‘What the fuck are you talking about? You’re saying what I’ve been doing therapy for, and meditating for, and searching for, was to have an incredibly surreal, terrifying, nearly psychedelic experience?’ They were all, like: ‘Yep, that’s the goal.’”
That night inspired Eat the Acid, the deeply hallucinatory, minor-key lead single from her Rick Rubin-produced fifth album, Gag Order. “I searched for answers all my life / Dead in the dark, I saw the light,” she sings over wheezing synths and a distant bass rumble that eventually breaks like a clap of thunder. It heralds an album quite unlike anything the 36-year-old LA-native, born Kesha Rose Sebert, has released before. “With this album I actually got to get really intimate and expose the sides of myself that I’m not the most proud of,” she says, shuffling for a comfy spot on her bed, her laptop wobbling as she lays down on her side. “The ones that I want to never talk about, that I never want to share with the greater public. The ones that are more scary, and more vulnerable, and more insecure. I share a lot of ugly emotions on this album.”
Having blazed a trail through the pop cosmos in late 2009 via messy, hedonistic banger Tik Tok, all smeared glitter, sexual liberation and talk of brushing her teeth “with a bottle of Jack”, Kesha (or Ke$ha as she was then) was the perfect soundtrack for a disfranchised generation pepped up on post-recession nihilism. Critics hated her while her fiercely loyal fans, or Animals, connected to her outsider spirit, and the hits – all of them made with Pink and Katy Perry producer Dr Luke – kept coming. Then, in 2014, the party stopped: Kesha dropped the dollar sign from her name and checked herself into rehab for an eating disorder. Later that year she filed a lawsuit against Dr Luke (real name Lukasz Gottwald), claiming he had sexually and emotionally abused her over a 10-year period. In 2016, Kesha’s case was dismissed, and Gottwald – who has always denied the allegations – sued for defamation.
Instead of what other people want or expect, this was about what truly needs to be excavated from inside of me
Creatively, Kesha was left in limbo. Still signed to Gottwald’s label, Kemosabe Records, an imprint of Sony, she eventually released her third album, the rockier, more inward-looking Rainbow in 2017. Muzzled in interviews for fear of jeopardising her ongoing legal case, she managed to hint at her emotional state on the album’s lead single, Praying. “When I’m finished, they won’t even know your name,” she sings at one point. But Kesha’s early, defining songs were pushed through a default filter that read as “fun and numb”, a sound she felt compelled to return to on 2020’s muddled High Road, with its partial reclamation of her party girl persona.
In stark contrast, the tellingly titled Gag Order – a plain-speaking, minimal record that touches on death, depression, emotional exploitation, control, hope and a battle for the truth – sheds so many layers that only the core remains. “I realised that I, almost to the point of toxic positivity, was trying to really amplify that [playful] side of my personality,” she says, utilising, as she does throughout our interview, the language of therapy and self-help teachings. “I was doing a disservice to the whole of my being. As the woman who wrote Tik Tok and ‘the party don’t start until I walk in’, I didn’t think anyone needed or wanted that side of my psyche. I also realised that there’s an element of people-pleasing in just trying to give people what they want from me.”
‘I’m always cognisant of the litigation even when I’m just telling the truth’ … Kesha is stripped bare on Gag Order. Photograph: Vincent Haycock
Kesha credits the zen-like Rubin for creating an environment where she felt comfortable enough to reveal herself emotionally. “After a decade of feeling like I’d become a caricature of myself in some ways, he was like: ‘I really want to know what’s going on deep inside of you,’” she says. “So he just made this super cosy space where instead of thinking about what other people want, or what other people expect, or what’s going to make other people happy, it was about what truly needs to be excavated from inside of me.”
Things started slowly, however, with the first three weeks defined by extended emotional purging. “I would walk in every day and for approximately two hours I would cry and he would just create space,” she says. “He never once asked me to stop crying, or to get it together. It just took me a minute to put a voice to these really unpleasant, embarrassing emotions. I don’t want to be seen as weak, or fucked up, or unhappy, because overall in my life … I have all the emotions.”
If Kesha’s early career, publicly at least, was defined by hedonistic abandon, it was also anchored by a fierce honesty in her interviews that set her apart from her more polished contemporaries. So while Gag Order is deeply raw and emotionally hyper-specific in places, it is disconcerting to be presented with a version of Kesha that has to tread incredibly carefully. Legally, with Gottwald’s defamation case to be heard in July, there is a lot she can’t talk about and her answers are occasionally euphemistic or stop-start. On Fine Line, the album’s defining track, she appears to tackle this head on. “All the doctors and lawyers cut the tongue out of my mouth / I’ve been hiding my anger, but bitch look at me now” she sings over rolling piano, distorted screams and plucked harp.
To have to run a filter through everything I say – like how I’m talking now – when I have nothing to hide is exhausting
When I mention those lyrics, and this disconnect between pure honesty and enforced silence, she shifts to sit upright. A stuffed toy replica (made by her mother) of her beloved cat, Mr Peeps, nestled beside her for “moral support” (this is the first interview she’s done for the album, a fact she nervously mentions multiple times), is now brought close to her chest. “I wrote the line, I sang the line, so it’s only fair I’m going to be questioned about the line,” she says slowly. “I feel like having to … I feel like …” She starts again: “Since I was a little kid I just was so free and I really do think that’s why my fans connected so much to me. Like, ‘This is who I am, I don’t really care what you think, it is what it is.’ And I have almost, like …” She stops and asks for a moment to collect her thoughts. “I have nothing but the truth,” she eventually says, the words caught up in a deep sigh. “I have that. Across the board. To have to run a filter through everything I say … is … like the way I’m talking now … To have to look at it from so many directions when I have nothing to hide is incredibly … exhausting.”
I ask if the lyrics also have to go through such a legal filter, which immediately seems like a stupid question given how raw and honest she is on the album. So I’m relieved when she refers to her music as a “sanctuary” and “a completely free space”. But, as we continue to chat about Fine Line and how it lays everything out there, she suddenly circles back. “Erm, yeah, after the songs are completed I do have … People do go through it,” she says. “I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this. I’m always cognisant of the ongoing litigation even when I’m just telling the truth about how I’m feeling. Hence the title of the album.”
The sadness of the moment hangs heavy. “We each have a purpose of some sort,” she says calmly. “Not in some religious way at all, I just mean if you zoom out, the universe doesn’t want us to be miserable.” It’s a sort of spiritual, slightly bohemian take fostered during an upbringing she describes as “really wild from the beginning”. Kesha was born to a single mum, the singer-songwriter Pebe Sebert (she never knew her dad), and raised on the road both in LA and then later Nashville. Her early life jarred with those of her classmates, and the family often lived off food stamps (the dollar sign in her name was ironic). Later, this meant that Kesha’s pop personality was defined by a raw edge and an intriguing sense of outsiderdom. “It was always: ‘Huh? Are you sure? Me?’ I grew up on the Stooges, they’re my favourite band; so then to be in the echelon of super pop singers was flattering but I felt the same way I did in high school where it was like some people are cheerleaders and I’m the geek who has the weird art band,” she laughs.
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A different Animal … Kesha on stage in Texas, 2021. Photograph: Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP/Getty Images
When she moved back to LA to sign her deal with Gottwald as a teenager, she spent the first few years partying and living the life she would later write about on debut album, Animal. There was a lot of hard work, too, and lots to prove, which is why she won’t allow this entire era to be tarred by what’s happened. “No one should ever take [those songs] away from me because I made them, I incubated them, I birthed them into the world,” she says. “And I sang them for fucking 15 years, so that’s a part of me. I remember riding my bicycle from Echo Park to downtown LA, getting on a subway for two hours to Long Beach, and then riding my bike for three miles to producer David Gamson’s house. I would see people playing with their own poop on the subway – it was not a cute scene. Then I’d ride my bike up a fucking mountain to get home, every day, to write some songs.” She looks me dead in the eye: “That album is mine. I put my heart and soul into it, so of course I look back with mostly affinity. No one can rip that away from me.”
Her frankness around drinking, partying and the uselessness of the opposite sex also set the tone for a subsequent era of pop from female artists tinged by hardcore self-annihilation (think Bangerz-era Miley, or I Love It-era Charli XCX). But for Kesha that rebelliousness soon calcified into a caricature around 2012’s Warrior, with critics taking aim at what they saw as vapid lyrics from a singer who needed lashings of Auto-Tune. On Gag Order, however, those raw edges that used to be given a quick studio polish are left unvarnished. It took some getting used to.
“It got ingrained into me in the younger years of my career that I needed Auto-Tune,” she says. “Like I needed it. So I remember talking to Rick and the engineer and saying, ‘You have to put Auto-Tune on it.’ We had a back and forth that blew my mind; they were like, ‘You don’t need Auto-Tune.’ In my mind it felt like this mild addiction to this thing that fixed me, almost like a filter on a photo. Rick made space for the imperfections and embraced them almost to the point of making me like the parts of myself that are imperfect. You kind of have these rules that I’m learning are now an illusion. They’re bullshit. They’re so ingrained. Like you have to wear a bodysuit and be a certain size, and have Auto-Tune, and look perfect, and be perfect. All of it is an illusion.”
So much of Kesha’s life over the last three years has been about allowing herself to embrace the darkness, but lighter moments flicker through Gag Order. On the playful Only Love Can Save Us Now – a throbbing, gospel-laced electronic hoedown – she jokes “I’m getting sued because my mom has been tweeting / Don’t fucking tell me that I’m dealing with reason,” while The Drama’s all-enveloping cacophony dissipates to leave a nursery rhyme-like mantra of “In the next life I wanna come back / As a house cat, as a house cat.” She is funny, too. When discussing the album’s lack of collaborators, outside of an interlude by the late spiritual teacher and guru of modern yoga Ram Dass, she casually mentions that a friend also appears on the album. “He’s a wizard who lives outside Seattle, his name is Oberon Zell.” Literally the wizard of Oz, I say. “Yes,” she deadpans. When I mention these flashes of humour her shoulders relax. “For me that’s a coping mechanism. Sometimes life is so ludicrous and deranged that it’s like you’re living in a David Lynch movie. I like to try to make art out of my experiences even if they’re dark. And find humour in it because what the fuck else am I going to do? Even on the last song [on the album] Happy, it’s like ‘I’ve got to just laugh so I don’t die.’”
New rules: the destruction of the female pop role model
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Around the release of High Road, Kesha was often asked about whether she was happy. On one occasion she said she was “fucking ecstatic” to be at a place so far removed from hurt that she could see happiness on the horizon. These recent years, with their pauses, revelations and spiritual reckonings, have added a note of caution. “I have a big year coming up,” she says, a nod at July’s court case. “There’s a lot of fear. Happiness is always going to be my goal and something I’m working towards. I have a beautiful family and a bunch of gorgeous cats, and that makes me happy. I have wonderful friends. But I’m in a lot of emotional pain. The whole point of this album is: ‘Some things are not OK, and I’ve been through some stuff that is not OK.’”
She takes a big gulp of water. “I feel like I had to be direct with the title, and the songs, and with the imagery. That’s how I feel.” She lets Mr Peeps go and leans in. “Sometimes I’m incredibly happy, and then sometimes I have panic attacks. That’s the truth. I’ve been so sick of pretending everything is all good.”
Gag Order is released on 19 May via Kemosabe Records/RCA Records. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/jan/30/bbc-and-the-local-press-its-time-for-a-proper-factual-inquiry | Media | 2015-01-30T11:33:47.000Z | Roy Greenslade | BBC and the local press - it's time for a proper, factual inquiry | What’s more important to citizens – journalism or commerce? Which is more valuable to our democracy – public information or private profit? What matters most to people – holding power to account or acting as power’s PR?
These are obviously loaded questions. They are hardly new. They form the backdrop to a debate stretching back to the dawn of the commercial press, but they have assumed a new, more urgent, form in recent years because of the reverses suffered by regional newspapers.
Collapsing newsprint sales, closures of titles and unprecedented staffing cutbacks are widely portrayed as having reached crisis proportions. The fact that audiences have moved online, and that publishers therefore lay claim to having more readers than ever before, has not changed the negative perspective.
In part, this is due to the continuing love of print (and consequent digital blindness) by many of those worried about the situation, such as elderly citizens, veteran journalists, politicians, academics and members of the judiciary.
But it is only part. Although the facts are hard to come by, thereby allowing prejudice to fester, the evidence of an increasing dearth of news-reporting in local and regional papers/brand/outlets, whatever, has been plain for several years.
In 2009, for instance, the Press Association tried to pilot a “public service reporting” project on the grounds that the coverage of public institutions had diminished with a consequent impact on democratic engagement.
At the time, the PA’s then managing director, Tony Watson, told a parliamentary committee: “Things have got so bad in the regional press now, courts and councils are not getting covered sufficiently.”
The plan came to naught when the news agency failed to find independent funding, but the PA was not alone in voicing concerns about the shrinkage of the reporting cohort.
The effects of that decline – the over-reliance by editors on filling space with single-sourced PR-provided “oven ready” copy – were highlighted in Nick Davies’s seminal Flat Earth News in 2008. He may not have invented the description for such material as “churnalism”, but he certainly popularised it.
Part of his evidence was drawn from a study by Bob Franklin of Cardiff University’s journalism school, who has charted the decline of reporting over several years.
In one recent study, Franklin’s fellow Cardiff lecturer, Andy Williams, looked at just one example of staff cuts: the South Wales operation owned by Trinity Mirror. He found that in 1999, Media Wales had around 700 editorial and production staff. By 2011, it had fallen to 136.
A succession of “restructures” at its weekly titles had left just six senior reporters and five trainees to cover news for seven titles in communities such as Pontypridd and Llantrisant, Merthyr, Aberdare, and the Rhymney and Rhondda Valleys.
This study was quoted in The Future of News, the controversial report commissioned by the BBC’s head of news, James Harding, which was released on Wednesday. It is controversial because it argued that the BBC should fill the information vacuum in the regions caused by the retreat of commercially-owned newspapers.
“One of the biggest market failures in the last decade is local journalism”, it says, arguing that “vast swathes of modern life are increasingly unreported or under-reported”. This echoes the Press Association’s view of six years ago and the Cardiff studies.
The report also cites another study, by Mediatique, in which it is said that “about” 5,000 editorial jobs were axed by regional newspaper owners over a decade. (Figures, it concedes, are hard to come by – see below).
Essentially, the BBC’s argument is that it has a public service remit and a “mission to inform”. It is therefore the appropriate news organisation to step in to overcome what it calls “a democratic deficit in the UK”.
In something of a call to arms, the report states:
“The BBC is the only news organisation committed to reporting the whole of the UK, community by community, region by region, nation by nation …
The economic issues facing the newspaper business are not of the BBC’s making, nor will they be alleviated by the BBC standing aside.
If the UK is to function as a devolved democracy, it needs stronger local news, regional news and news services for the nations”.
But the publishers, having been previously wooed – so they thought – by Harding, are having none of it. Their reaction, as reported on the website of their trade body, the News Media Association (NMA), is wholly antagonistic to the BBC’s idea.
The piece says the local press reaches 73% of the UK population each week and quotes Geraldine Allinson, chairman of the Kent-based KM group chairman, as saying that the BBC has picked up on “one or two convenient statistics … rather than taking account of the whole picture of local and regional news reporting”.
She says some newspaper closures are due “to the very stringent competition rules” and that the report “conveniently excludes any mention of the 1,700 local websites run by the local news industry”. Allinson continues:
“Why does the BBC feel it needs to muscle in with its public funding into a space that it shouldn’t occupy. We have dedicated a lot of time and money to meeting with the BBC to try and construct ways to work together and at the KM we feel this report is a huge step back from the progress we feel could be made.”
She is backed up by the NMA’s legal director, Santha Rasaiah, who argues that “the local news media industry has bigger overall audiences than ever before across print and online platforms …
“The industry has stressed repeatedly over many years that the licence fee funded BBC must not do anything that could damage the commercial independent news media industry and its ability to perform this vital role.”
So the battle lines are, once again, drawn between the two sides: the BBC and the NMA, between a public service and an “industry”.
Note first the apples and pears argument. The BBC cites studies that show a decline in specific newspaper titles and reporting staff. The industry quotes large-scale national figures for readerships.
But what’s the truth? Are there courts and councils not being covered, as the PA said? Are public institutions being under-reported? Are there fewer reporters in Britain in 2015 than there were, say, in 2005 and 1995?
Are reporters nowadays confined to their desks, relying on phone and email contacts? In a digital world, is the decline in shoe-leather reporting problematic?
I am not asking for a royal commission, but I think there may be merit in the call by the National Union of Journalists for “a short, sharp inquiry into the future of local newspapers” to get at the facts.
Week by week, editorial jobs vanish. Some of these cuts are related to the undeniable fact that production can be achieved more efficiently with fewer staff. Some, however, suggest a readiness to sacrifice quality reporting by obliging reporters to churn out articles without adequate checks.
I concede that the perception that papers/brands are not doing their job properly may be wrong, as publishers argue. But the BBC’s report cannot be ignored. It makes a powerful case for a proper investigation into the state of local and regional journalism.
One obvious starting point: how does the NMA justify the claim that 73% of the population are consuming local journalism every week? What does that mean? Knowing about the metrics is key to understanding the validity of the total. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/03/weinstein-company-the-butler-title | World news | 2013-07-03T09:22:27.000Z | Ben Child | Weinstein Company will fight The Butler title ruling | Harvey Weinstein has hired a high-profile lawyer to appeal against a ruling that he must change the title of upcoming awards-season hopeful The Butler, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
The Weinstein Company, which Harvey owns with his brother Bob, lost rights to the title on Tuesday following a ruling by the Motion Picture Association of America's arbitration board. Rival studio Warner Bros claims it maintains the rights courtesy of a little-known 1919 silent comedy short, also called The Butler.
Harvey Weinstein has now hired David Boies, who recently won a landmark victory in the US supreme court against California's gay-marriage ban, Proposition 8.
"The suggestion that there is a danger of confusion between The Weinstein Co's 2013 feature movie and a 1917 [sic] short that has not been shown in theatres, television, DVDs, or in any other way for almost a century makes no sense," said Boies in a statement. "The award has no purpose except to restrict competition and is contrary to public policy."
The MPAA board was unequivocal in its ruling, which called on the Weinsteins to immediately desist from labelling their film The Butler. "TWC made continuous use of the unregistered title The Butler in wilful violation of the TRB (Title Registration Bureau) rules," the board said. The TRB is a database of previously used film titles which studios voluntarily check in order to ensure they do not borrow a rival organisation's moniker. In the event of a clash, studios usually negotiate, but the Weinsteins and Warner have chosen to battle it out instead.
The Butler's much-garlanded cast includes Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker as a servant named Cecil Gaines, based on the real-life White House butler Eugene Allen, who served presidents between 1952 and his retirement in 1986. Oprah Winfrey plays Gaines's wife, Gloria, with Britain's David Oyelowo as his civil-rights activist son, Louis. Robin Williams, Melissa Leo, James Marsden, Minka Kelly, John Cusack, Alan Rickman and Jane Fonda appear as the various US presidents and first ladies Gaines meets along the way. The film is directed by Precious's Lee Daniels and will debut in the US in October – timing that suggests an Oscars run in 2014. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/mar/29/copernicus-online-portal-offers-terrifying-view-climate-emergency | News | 2024-03-29T06:00:31.000Z | Paul Brown | Copernicus online portal offers terrifying view of climate emergency | There is so much information on the newly launched Copernicus Climate Change Service atlas that my laptop started to overheat trying to process it all. As well as all the past data, it predicts where the climate is going and how soon we will breach the 1.5C “limit”, and then 2C. You can call up the region where you live, so it is specific to what is happening to you and your family – and all the more disturbing for that.
A separate part called Climate Pulse intended particularly for journalists is easier to operate. The refreshing bit is that the maps, charts and timelines from 1850 to the present day on the main atlas are entirely factual measurements, so there can be no argument on the trends. It then follows those trends into the likely scenarios for the next few years. Examining current temperature increases, it seemed to this observer that scientists have been underestimating for some time how quickly the situation is deteriorating.
Looking at the mass of information all pointing one way makes the current political arguments about how soon the UK should reach net zero seem trivial. We are clearly running out of time. Still, the idea is that people can use the atlas to make up their own minds. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/oct/23/rupert-murdoch-theatre | Media | 2014-10-23T07:30:00.000Z | Roy Greenslade | Rupert Murdoch role unfilled because actors are too scared to play him | Who will dare to play Rupert Murdoch on the West End stage? Evidently, actors are not lining up for the part because they fear his power.
The failure to hire a big name for the Murdoch role is putting the project in jeopardy, according to the playwright, David Williamson. He told the BBC:
"All commercial productions rely on getting a cast that will attract an audience and we've found that some actors are actually scared of playing Rupert on stage.
The man has so much power and quite understandably, people - and that includes actors - don't want to offend him. He owns Fox Studios, for heaven's sake."
Williamson's play, Rupert, enjoyed a successful debut in Melbourne in 2013 and was staged in Washington DC in March this year.
Now the 74-year-old American actor James Cromwell will take on the Murdoch mantle in a Sydney production next month. He isn't worried about it affecting his future career.
"I like taking on the dragon, and Murdoch is definitely the dragon," he told Australia's Sydney Morning Herald.
"Let's put it this way – I'm not at the beginning of my career. I don't give a fuck what he does to me. If this is going to be my last shot, I think it's a good one."
Clearly, Cromwell is the man to star in the London version too. Or are there any British actors also willing to take on the dragon?
Sources: BBC/Sydney Morning Herald | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/jun/27/germany-exit-world-cup-thomas-hitzlsperger | Football | 2018-06-27T21:31:41.000Z | Thomas Hitzlsperger | This was not the Germany we are used to – I feel completely empty | Thomas Hitzlsperger | Germans are used to seeing our national team lose – it has happened before and will happen again – but what we are not used to is seeing them leave a World Cup at the group stages, and especially in the manner that has taken place at this tournament. It is a big surprise, a huge disappointment, and it has left me and many of my compatriots feeling completely empty.
After the dramatic victory over Sweden on Saturday I expected to see a different Germany against South Korea, one re-energised and ready to secure the victory needed to reach the last 16. Instead the players performed with no determination to win. There was minimal risk in their approach and minimal resistance to the attacks South Korea launched against them. This was not the Germany we have been used to for many years now.
Germany crash out of World Cup group stage after defeat by South Korea
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What went wrong? It’s hard to pinpoint one reason but increasingly complacency appears to be an issue. Germany performed poorly in their last two games before the start of the tournament, against Austria and Saudi Arabia, and, thinking about it, it has been an issue for much longer than that. Germany didn’t play well in their 0-0 draw with England in November, nor in the subsequent games against France, Spain and Brazil. But nobody really worried because Joachim Löw was in charge and Germany always do well under Löw at major tournaments. But that has not proved to be the case in Russia.
Already there have been calls for a major overhaul of German football. For me that is far too radical. Yes, questions have to be asked by the German Football Federation in regards to how such a high-quality group of players could perform so badly, but the fact they are high-quality players is the reason there doesn’t need to be panic. Germany’s talent pool is broad and the task now is bringing through the excellent young players we have while replacing the older ones who have reached the end of the road.
They have not been up to it for some time, thus the need to decide whose time is up and who deserves a chance to step up
I’m aware there has been a lot of talk in England about Leroy Sané’s exclusion from the squad following his excellent season with Manchester City and, for me, he is a player who should be reintroduced immediately. He is exactly the calibre of player Germany needs, someone who is young and has raw, dangerous pace.
Among the older players who simply did not perform at this World Cup is Thomas Müller. He was poor from start to finish and needs to raise his level.
Then there is the manager. There will be calls for him to be sacked but for me the decision regarding whether or not Löw continues in his role is down to Löw; if he has the motivation to continue then he should, if he doesn’t then he should move on and perhaps look to manage at club level. Personally I feel he has what it takes to oversee Germany’s post-World Cup transition given his record, talent and awareness of what is happening in world football. What’s for sure is that the German FA won’t sack Löw having handed him a new contract just prior to the World Cup. They trust him fully.
Joachim Löw considers his future after Germany’s shock World Cup exit
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In that sense, the focus will mainly fall on the players, who won all 10 games in qualifying for the World Cup but, once there, failed to perform to an acceptable level. It is widely known they have not enjoyed their base in Moscow and there has been speculation of big rifts in the squad. I cannot confirm or deny that but, what’s for sure, is that something has not been right with the group since they landed in Russia, and indeed in the games that preceded their involvement in the tournament. Quite simply, they have not been up to it for some time and thus the need to decide whose time is up and who, from the next generation of German players, deserves their chance to step up.
It will be a strange few days in Germany as we get used to this situation – the national team leaving a World Cup at the group stages. Some people who only watch the tournament to follow Germany will no doubt switch off and get on with other things, but such is the popularity and importance of football here that most will stick with it until the end. From a neutral’s point of view it is also exciting that there will definitely be a new world champion.
For those of us working on World Cup coverage, tomorrow is another day; more games to watch and analyse. At least some Germans are still part of this tournament. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jan/09/guantanamo-bay-20-years-on-detainees | US news | 2022-01-09T10:00:17.000Z | Julian Borger | ‘It’s a huge political albatross’: Guantánamo Bay, 20 years on | On 4 January 2002, Brig Gen Michael Lehnert received an urgent deployment order. He would take a small force of marines and sailors and build a prison camp in the US-run military enclave on Cuba’s south coast, Guantánamo Bay.
Exclusive: many resettled Guantánamo detainees in legal limbo, analysis shows
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Lehnert had 96 hours to deploy and build the first 100 cells, in time for the first plane-load of captives arriving from the battlefield in Afghanistan on 11 January. The job was done on time: a grid of chain-link cages surrounded by barbed wire and six plywood guard towers manned by snipers. There were five windowless huts for interrogations. It was named Camp X-Ray.
Camp X-Ray was built in three days, but the sprawling Guantánamo Bay prison camp which grew out of it has proved very hard to dismantle. About 780 detainees have been held there over the past 20 years, many of them swept up arbitrarily on the battlefield. One university study found that 55% of them had not committed hostile acts against the US or its allies.
US army military police escort a detainee to his cell in Camp X-Ray on 11 January 2002. Photograph: Reuters
Three of the past four US presidents (Donald Trump being the exception) have tried to close it, but 20 years on, it is still there, a legal anomaly and lead weight wrapped around America’s global reputation.
As the 20th anniversary approached, Lehnert, now retired, appeared at a Senate hearing and looked back in regret.
“The speed of Guantánamo’s creation and the urgency to gain information had bad consequences,” Lehnert told senators. “I am not an attorney, but even I know that when you forego generations of legal thought and precedent, bad things happen.”
Lehnert had been part of a group of military officers who tried to make Guantánamo a conventional prisoner of war camp, subject to the Geneva conventions, but they were overruled by their superiors in the Pentagon, which had chosen the site precisely because it would lie outside the rule of law.
“I remember overhearing conversations that it was useful to put a facility for holding captured terrorists in Guantánamo, because basically there was no clear legal context and that was seen as an advantage,” Daniel Fried, a career US diplomat who was working in the Bush White House at the time, told the Guardian. “What I kept hearing in those days was it’s a brand new world, the old rules don’t apply.
“It turned out to be a horrible mistake,” he said.
Detainees hold on to a fence at maximum security prison Camp Delta at Guantánamo naval base in August 2004. Photograph: Reuters
It has been a hard mistake for the US to erase, as Fried knows first-hand. In the Obama administration, he was made special envoy for closing Guantánamo. He had some success in the first year of the administration in persuading allied governments to accept Guantánamo detainees, and the camp’s population was reduced to 41, but Barack Obama failed to fulfil his pledge to shut it down completely. His administration gave up on efforts to hold trials in New York and place long-term detainees in an empty prison in Illinois in the face of furious local opposition.
Guantánamo Bay (known in the US military by its abbreviation GTMO) has been left to fester. Conditions have improved: the detainees are no longer in solitary detention and are kept in cell blocks with refrigerators and communal pantries, but the fact of detention without trial remains a constant. Over the 20 years of its existence, only 12 detainees have been charged, and only two have been convicted by the military commissions.
The trial of the five accused of direct participation in the 9/11 plot, including its supposed mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, has not even started. They are entering the 10th year of pre-trial hearings. At the other end of the scale, 13 “low-value” inmates have been cleared for transfer, in some cases many years ago. Tawfiq al-Bihani, a Yemeni picked up in Iran in 2001, was recommended for repatriation in 2010. But because of congressional Republican opposition, bureaucratic inertia and the difficulty of finding countries willing to accept them, they are still stuck on the island.
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, center, and co-defendant Walid Bin Attash, left, attending a pre-trial session at Guantánamo Bay. Photograph: Janet Hamlin/AP
Chairing last month’s judiciary committee hearing, the Democratic senator Dick Durbin noted: “A generation of conflict has come and gone yet the Guantánamo detention facility is still open, and every day it remains open is an affront to our system of justice and the rule of law.
“It is where due process goes to die,” Durbin said.
It is also where an increasing number of inmates may end their lives. Over the past 20 years, nine inmates have died in the camp, seven of them by apparent suicide. One of those was Yasser Talal Al Zahrani, a Saudi teenager at the time of his capture in Afghanistan in 2002. He was found dead in his cell four years later. His family insist he did not take his own life.
“A lot of people don’t realise the gravity of being imprisoned in GTMO” said Omar Deghayes, a Libyan citizen and UK resident, who spent five years there without charge. He was blinded in one eye in what he said was an assault by a guard.
“It’s not how people imagine. It’s worse,” Deghayes said. “I don’t see why GTMO is open when the Afghanistan war has ended. Put people on trial, let them see the evidence, and represent themselves, or release them.”
As time goes on, more prisoners face death in Guantánamo by natural causes. It will increasingly become a very expensive, yet very rudimentary, nursing home in the Caribbean. The Pentagon has asked for $88m to build a hospice for ageing detainees, the New York Times has reported. The prison camp already costs over half a billion dollars a year, working out at nearly $14m per detainee, compared to about $80,000 an inmate in US ‘supermax” prisons.
Joe Biden, like Obama, has pledged to close the camp, but so far has only reduced the prison population by one. Abdul Latif Nasser, a Moroccan captured in Afghanistan, was returned to his home country in July, after being held 19 years without charge. He had been on the point of release in 2016, but the required paperwork was not put together in time before the Trump administration took office. All work on releases stopped, and Nasser had to wait nearly five more years.
His lawyer, Thomas Durkin, is doubtful that Nasser’s release is part of a broader administration plan to shutter the prison.
Abdul Latif Nasser. Photograph: AP
“I’m not sure what their strategy is,” Durkin said. “They say they want to close Guantánamo, but they seem to be running into all the same problems that Obama did … Guantánamo has taken on a life of its own. It’s a huge political albatross, and frankly Obama dropped the ball.”
In 2010, a Republican-led Congress passed a defence spending bill that included clauses aimed at preventing prisoner transfers to the US and placing restrictions on transfers from Guantánamo. Those restrictions have been renewed and adjusted every year since.
Biden’s critics claim Biden is using Congress as an excuse for his slow progress. They point out he has not appointed a special envoy, and his administration declined invitations to send officials to the Senate hearing on Guantánamo.
The ranking Republican on the Senate judiciary committee, Chuck Grassley, taunted the Biden team, saying: “No one from the administration has come to defend the president’s plan to close Guantánamo, and I’m not sure there is a plan.”
Administration officials insist that a lot of the groundwork for emptying the camp is being done behind the scenes without fanfare, and that with a relatively small number of remaining detainees, a special envoy was not longer necessary.
The guard tower of the ‘Camp Six’ detention facility in January 2012. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images
“The state department staffs a team of officers in its bureau of counter-terrorism that focuses on Guantánamo transfers and related issues,” a senior administration official said. “The department is committed to ensuring that it can effectively address the needs of this priority mission. With only 39 detainees remaining, we are facing a far different landscape now.”
What has not changed in that landscape is the adamant Republican opposition to any move towards closure of the prison camp. Congressional Republican leaders, who supported transfers under the Bush administration, now portray all Guantánamo inmates, from the 9/11 accused to those cleared for release years ago, as “terrorists”.
In the December hearing, Grassley invoked the “over 4,000 service members have given their lives in a war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan”.
“The veterans of those wars gave life and limb to protect Americans from terrorists, like those at Guantánamo Bay,” Grassley said.
How 9/11 led the US to forever wars, eroded rights – and insurrection
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In the face of such absolutist opposition, Hina Shamsi, director of the national security project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the best administration strategy would be to drop its opposition in habeas corpus cases, and allow the courts to order prisoner transfers.
Those could be done “responsibly, lawfully and safely”, Shamsi said. “With court-ordered transfers, there are no congressional notification requirements.”
As for those inmates who have been charged, she argued the administration should pursue plea agreements, which would entail, among other compromises, taking the death penalty off the table.
US military guards walk within the Camp Delta prison in June 2006. Photograph: Brennan Linsley/AP
The political storm that would erupt over any plea agreement would be explosive, and would be grist to the mill for the Republican portrayal of Biden as weak in the face of America’s enemies. But Bernard Harcourt, a law professor who also represented Abdul Latif Nasser, said the politics for Biden are not going to get any better.
“These are the kind of thorns that you need to pull out immediately,” Harcourt said. “With the midterms on the horizon and then another presidential election, the pressure is not going to ease up. It’s just going to get worse.”
Additional reporting by Noa Yachot | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/apr/18/scientists-discover-pristine-deep-sea-galapagos-reef-teeming-with-life | Environment | 2023-04-18T11:54:51.000Z | Dan Collyns | Scientists discover pristine deep-sea Galápagos reef ‘teeming with life’ | Scientists operating a submersible have discovered deep-sea coral reefs in pristine condition in a previously unexplored part of the Galápagos marine reserve.
Diving to depths of 600 metres (1,970ft), to the summit of a previously unmapped seamount in the central part of the archipelago, the scientists witnessed a breathtaking mix of deep marine life. This has raised hopes that healthy reefs can still thrive at a time when coral is in crisis due to record sea surface temperatures and ocean acidification. It also showed the effectiveness of conservation actions and effective management, they said.
“They are pristine and teeming with life – pink octopus, batfish, squat lobsters and an array of deep-sea fish, sharks and rays,” said Dr Michelle Taylor, a marine biologist at Essex University and co-leader of the expedition in a human-occupied vehicle, HOV Alvin, a submersible able to take two scientists to depths of 6,500 metres.
HOV Alvin being lowered into the Galápagos marine reserve. The submersible can take two scientists to depths of 6,500 metres.
Photograph: Samuel J. Mitchell (U. Bristol)
“This is encouraging news,” said José Antonio Dávalos, the environment minister for Ecuador, which owns the Galápagos. “It reaffirms our determination to establish new marine protected areas [MPAs] in Ecuador and to continue promoting the creation of a regional marine protected area in the eastern tropical Pacific.”
The country is collaborating with its northern neighbours Panama, Costa Rica and Colombia on a regional marine corridor initiative, which aims to protect and responsibly manage the ocean.
Michelle Taylor looks out from HOV Alvin. Photograph: Darwin Foundation
Operated by Taylor and Dr Stuart Banks, of the Charles Darwin Foundation in Ecuador, HOV Alvin explored unknown regions of the reserve using state-of-the-art sampling capabilities and visual upgrades that included improved high-quality still and ultra-high-definition 4K video-imaging systems.
Prior to this discovery, Wellington Reef, off the coast of Darwin Island in the far north of the Galápagos archipelago, was thought to be among the few structural shallow coral reefs in the islands to have survived the destruction wreaked by an El Niño event in 1982-83.
The find shows that sheltered deep-water coral communities have probably persisted for centuries in the depths of the Galápagos marine reserve, supporting rich, diverse and potentially unique marine communities.
“These newly discovered reefs are potentially of global significance – a ‘canary in the mine’ for other reefs globally – sites which we can monitor over time to see how pristine habitats evolve with our current climate crisis,” Taylor said.
Banks said the reef helped scientists “reconstruct past ocean environments to understand modern climate change”. It could also help understand the role of MPAs in the carbon cycle and fisheries. “It’s very likely there are more reef structures across different depths waiting to be explored,” he said.
A sea urchin on a coral with fossil coral, the foundation of the live reef, in the background. Photograph: L Robinson, U Bristol/WHOI
A newly established MPA, the Hermandad marine reserve, now connects a chain of seamounts in Ecuadorian waters to offshore marine environments such as Costa Rica’s Cocos Island national park. Scientists say the underwater mountains are migratory routes for marine life and require special measures to protect foraging grounds and sustain responsible fisheries.
Dávalos said the discovery was another reason to achieve the commitments of the Global Ocean Alliance 30x30, which aims to protect at least 30% of the world’s oceans by 2030.
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HOV Alvin is owned by the US navy and operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), as part of the US National Science Foundation-funded National Deep Submergence Facility. It was also financed by the Natural Environmental Research Council in the UK.
Taylor and Banks are also part of an international group of scientists onboard the US navy-owned and WHOI-operated research vessel RV Atlantis, which is undertaking the Galápagos Deep 2023 expedition. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/sep/27/late-night-comedy-shows-return-hollywood-writers-strike | Television & radio | 2023-09-27T16:12:16.000Z | Adrian Horton | Late-night comedy shows to return in early October after strike end | Late-night television is back. Less than a day after the Writers Guild of America called off their 147-day strike following a deal with studios and streaming services, all five of the major late-night hosts – Stephen Colbert, Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Seth Meyers and John Oliver – set their return dates for early October.
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The four network hosts will return to air on Monday 2 October, while Oliver will precede them by an evening, as HBO’s Last Week Tonight settles into its normal Sunday night slot on 1 October. Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, which has cycled through a roster of guest hosts since Trevor Noah’s departure last December, will return on Monday, 16 October with another slate of guest hosts.
The hosts, who started a joint podcast, Strike Force Five, during the strike to support their staffs, announced their return on the show’s Instagram page with a humorous message. “Of course, in a greater sense, the Strike Force 5 will never end, because Strike Force 5 is not a place, Strike Force 5 is not a people, Strike Force 5 is barely a podcast … nay, Strike Force 5 is an idea. An idea that five men could talk on top of each other for 12 episodes, and maybe somebody would listen. As we say goodbye, we would like to thank all those somebodies. Truly, you were the heroes.”
Late-night programs immediately shuttered when the strike was announced in May, and are some of the first to return to production now that a provisional deal is in place. The three-year contract was approved by union leadership on Tuesday, which gave the go-ahead to resume work. That work can continue while the contract awaits ratification by the union’s 11,500 members.
The shows will resume, however, without certain A-lister guests, as the actors guild continues its strike, with negotiations reportedly resuming with studios next week.
Daytime productions such as The Drew Barrymore show, The Jennifer Hudson Show, The Kelly Clarkson Show and The Talk are expected to return the second week of October, per Deadline. With the exception of Kelly Clarkson, those shows had prepared to return with its non-union staff last week ahead of the strike’s conclusion, until it reversed course after backlash from union members.
The Strike Force Five hosts will return to air during a difficult period for late-night television, which has struggled to retain viewers in recent years; as of April this year, ad revenue for late-night television was down 50% from 2014, and ratings are consistently down since the Trump presidency. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/nov/07/west-ham-liverpool-premier-league-match-report | Football | 2021-11-07T18:58:00.000Z | Sachin Nakrani | Kurt Zouma earns West Ham victory as Liverpool run ends with Alisson errors | The scenes at the final whistle said it all. An explosion of noise from most of those in attendance while, in front of them, those in claret and blue celebrated and sighed in relief in equal measure. It had been that sort of game for West Ham – tough, challenging, nerve-racking but ultimately glorious. Little wonder David Moyes took his time departing down the tunnel, the Scot milking the applause and rightly so, for this is a manager reborn in charge of a team that continues to soar.
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Indeed, this was not only West Ham’s first league victory over Liverpool since January 2016 but one that saw them leapfrog their opponents into third. They are also level on points with Manchester City and only three behind Chelsea and, while the idea of Moyes’s men qualifying for the Champions League and even challenging for the title may seem far-fetched, it simply cannot be ruled out given their form and performances. This is their fourth league win in a row and each, in its own way, has been deserved.
Here they were forced to show great togetherness and resolve against opponents who dominated possession and territory and carried a goal threat right to the last. The hosts were forced on to the back foot but, as has been typical of them for some time now, they did not wilt while, going forward, they yet again showed craft and guile, unsettling Liverpool on the counterattack and twice piercing them from what has become a formidable weapon: the set piece.
For Liverpool it was a chastening afternoon, halting their unbeaten run at 25 games and bringing into sharp focus the defensive frailties that threaten their hopes of winning prizes at home and abroad. This was the sixth occasion this season that they have conceded two or more goals and, while that resulted from a collective slackness, there was a standout figure: Alisson.
Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson flaps at a corner. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
The Brazilian, normally so secure and reliable, was a central presence for all three West Ham goals, most strikingly the first, given it was an own goal on his part. Only four minutes had been played when Pablo Fornals swung a corner into the six-yard area and Liverpool’s goalkeeper made a mess of clearing it with his left arm, the ball grazing off his thumb and drifting into the net.
Liverpool’s players protested to the referee, Craig Pawson, insisting Alisson had been fouled by Angelo Ogbonna as the pair jumped together. There came a VAR check and it was decided there had been no foul on Ogbonna’s part.
Not that Jürgen Klopp saw it that way. He was immediately incensed by the decision and reiterated that stance afterwards, insisting Ogbonna “hits Alisson’s arm” as they rose and therefore prevented him from making clean contact with the ball. And that was not the end of the German’s ire in regard to the officiating.
Five minutes later he was left raging with Pawson for not sending off Aaron Cresswell for his challenge on Jordan Henderson, with the West Ham left-back catching the Liverpool captain on the knee of his standing leg as he maneuvered down the right flank. It definitely could have led to a red yet, incredibly, after another VAR check, not even a foul was given.
Pablo Fornals (left) celebrates scoring West Ham’s second after Liverpool goalkeeper Alisson could not get a proper block on the shot. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
A sense of injustice permeated through the visitors’ ranks and they channelled it by taking full control of proceedings. After 41 minutes they got the equaliser their efforts deserved via a wonderfully executed free-kick from Trent Alexander-Arnold from the edge of the area, the ball curling over the wall and into the top right-hand corner of the net.
It was a blow for West Ham so close to half-time, especially given they had also lost Ogbonna after 22 minutes due to a cut to the centre-back’s face resulting from being accidentally caught by Diojo Jota’s elbow. But they did not feel sorry for themselves and, come the second half, found not only a second wind but further gears.
The hosts continued to sit deep but now they were pouring forward on the break, in the process establishing the platform for a barnstorming victory against increasingly lacklustre opponents. Jarrod Bowen and Fornals stood out and it was that pair who combined for West Ham’s second goal on 67 minutes, with Bowen charging forward after possession had been overturned in midfield and playing in Fornals, whose left-footed shot too easily went through the grasp of Alisson.
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Cue raucous cheers among the home fans, with the volume turned up even further when Kurt Zouma made it 3-1 on 74 minutes with a far-post header from Bowen’s right-sided corner. Alisson scampered across in an attempt to block the ball but got nowhere near it. For West Ham it was also a sixth set-piece goal in six games.
Liverpool came forward with renewed vigour and scored again on 83 minutes after Divock Origi, on as a substitute, sent a low drive past Lukasz Fabianski. A comeback suddenly felt on and looked to have been completed when Sadio Mané met Alexander-Arnold’s cross with a diving header that sent the ball past Fabianski and seemingly into the far corner of the net. It went narrowly wide and, soon after, West Ham had secured a triumph that sent this venue into raptures. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/25/nhs-worse-than-average-in-treating-eight-common-causes-of-death | Society | 2018-06-25T21:30:14.000Z | Haroon Siddique | NHS 'worse than average in treating eight common causes of death' | The NHS leads the world at ensuring equal access to treatment but underperforms compared with other developed countries’ healthcare systems in preventing common causes of death, a major analysis has found.
The report, which will fuel further debate about the current state of the NHS, also found that the UK has fewer doctors, nurses, hospital beds and CT and MRI scanners than 18 other comparable countries.
The research was carried out by the Nuffield Trust, the Health Foundation, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) and the King’s Fund. It determined that, with the NHS free at the point of use, the UK had the lowest proportion of people who avoided healthcare due to cost. Just 2.3% did so in 2016 compared with an average of 7.2% across the 19 countries, including France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US.
However, the UK’s health service performed worse than average in the treatment of eight out of the 12 most common causes of death. They included deaths within 30 days of having a heart attack and within five years of being diagnosed with breast cancer, rectal cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer and lung cancer.
The NHS was also the third-poorest performer in cases where medical intervention should have prevented death, and had consistently higher death rates for babies at birth or just after (perinatal mortality), and in the month after birth (neonatal mortality).
Nigel Edwards, chief executive of the Nuffield Trust, said: “Discussion about the NHS is often marked by an unhelpful degree of exaggeration, from those that claim it is the envy of the world to those who say it is inferior to other systems.
“The reality is a much more mixed picture, but one thing is clear: we run a health system with very scarce resources in terms of staff and equipment and achieve poor outcomes in some vital areas like cancer survival.”
The NHS had a lower than average number of staff for all professional groups except midwives, with one doctor for every 356 people in the UK, compared to one for every 277 people on average.
The UK had fewer beds per person than 16 of the 18 other countries and the lowest levels of both CT and MRI scanners, while it spends a slightly below average proportion of national income on healthcare, the researchers found.
The UK fared better when it came to efficiency, having the largest share of generic prescribing of all comparator countries (84% in 2015 compared with an average of 50%). It also performed well in managing patients with some long-term conditions such as diabetes and kidney diseases.
While record numbers of people waiting at A&E and for treatment have caused alarm in the UK, the researchers found that the NHS was in the middle of the pack on both these measures internationally.
Defending a charges of neglect of the NHS, the government has often trumpeted the Commonwealth Fund health thinktank’s judgement of the NHS as the best, safest and most affordable healthcare system out of 11 rich countries. But other analyses have not been so flattering, including the the 2015 Euro Health Consumer Index, which ranked the NHS 14th in the continent.
The thinktanks behind the latest analysis, published on Monday, said both the NHS’s most ardent supporters and most vociferous critics were misguided. The Health Foundation’s chief executive, Dr Jennifer Dixon, said: “We can be proud of the fact that the UK is a standout nation where people are not put off from seeking care due to cost, and the NHS is cheap to run. But austerity has bitten hard, and the lack of investment shows.”
Chris Ham, chief executive of the King’s Fund, described the report as “a timely reality check”, while the IFS director, Paul Johnson, said the NHS was “a perfectly ordinary healthcare system”.
The thinktanks joined together for the first time for the report, published by the BBC, which also compared Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden.
A Department for health and social care spokesman referenced the Commonwealth Fund report and said: “We are taking strong action to help people live longer and healthier lives—cancer survival is at a record high while smoking rates are at an all-time low.”
An NHS England spokesman said: “Although the NHS has been under great pressure, this report shows once again that our health service provides outstanding care for many conditions in a way that is both fair and efficient. But the report also rightly highlights areas for further improvements, which need to be addressed head on in the NHS’s long term plan for the decade ahead.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/aug/20/colin-jackson-coming-from-the-world-of-sport-ive-got-decent-legs | Fashion | 2016-08-20T08:30:09.000Z | Martha Hayes | Colin Jackson: coming from the world of sport, I’ve got decent legs | If I’m not clean-shaven I’m not happy going out the door. I have to run a quick razor over my face to make sure my skin’s nice and smooth. Moisturising is very important (I use Kiehl’s) and I’ll do an Aesop parsley seed face mask on the last Sunday of every month. I spend the longest time moisturising my body; I get through a tub of whipped body butter every six weeks. I like to watch a fun gameshow like Take Me Out so I leave the house in a good spirit.
When I get dressed I always start with the top I’m going to wear. Ultimately, on a night out (in a restaurant or bar, say) that’s all people are going to see anyway. I’ll wear Hugo Boss or Dolce & Gabbana but I get a lot of things made for me, which I know sounds terrible but you’d be surprised what you can get for 100 quid and the fit is so much better. I love Mark Wallace and Joshua Kane if I want something more “out there”.
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Everyone looks at a part of their body and goes: “I’m a little bit fat.” Mine’s my stomach. You won’t see me topless, but I’ll wear a vest, as I’ve got decent arms and shoulders. Coming from the world of sport, I’ve got decent legs. I like Oliver Sweeney for classic, fitted, comfy shoes. It’s comfort over style for me, although when my mum reads this, she’ll go, “He’s lying!” We went to Buckingham Palace recently and I was wearing a tight pair of Chelsea boots. As soon as I put them on, I thought: “This is not going to be a good day.” When we got into the taxi, I had to blame the fact that I couldn’t walk anywhere on my mum being an “old woman”. She just looked at the driver and said, “It’s because he’s got tight shoes!”
Colin Jackson is part of the BBC’s Rio 2016 Olympics team. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/02/australia-world-cup-2018-bert-van-marwijk-cahill | Football | 2018-06-02T13:00:18.000Z | Richard Parkin | Australia World Cup 2018 team guide: tactics, key players and expert predictions | This article is part of the Guardian’s 2018 World Cup Experts’ Network, a cooperation between some of the best media organisations from the 32 countries who have qualified for Russia. theguardian.com is running previews from two countries each day in the run-up to the tournament kicking off on 14 June.
Having changed coaches so close to the big dance, Australia head to Russia as very much an unknown quantity.
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Their former coach Ange Postecoglou was emphatic about the way his Socceroos side would play – without fear, an attacking style based on possession and high pressing, and at Brazil 2014 his players earned high praise for the manner in which they took games to Chile and the Netherlands.
Some regarded it a watershed moment as Australia finally shed an inferiority complex as a second-rate football nation on the world stage, with the Asian Cup victory of 2015 crowning the transformation.
But the wheels began to come off Postecoglou’s revolution during qualifying for Russia – uncertain results in Thailand and Iraq exposed the Socceroos as fallible, and after failing to secure automatic qualification only a narrow escape against Syria allowed Australia to book their place with a win over Honduras.
Under Bert van Marwijk, philosophically and tactically, it’s expected to be a far more pragmatic Socceroos side in Russia. In recent friendlies the Dutchman rolled back Postecoglou’s flirtations with 3-4-2-1/3-2-4-1 and overlapping wingers and dual No 10s, reverting to a simple 4-2-3-1, with full-backs who were noticeably more defence-minded.
Announcing his wider squad of 32, Van Marwijk reiterated aspects of his philosophy. “I like to play fast football, I like to play offensive football,” he said. “But I also like to win.”
Given the short-term nature of his contract – only for Russia and with a long-term replacement named in Graham Arnold – don’t expect Van Marwijk to try to radically overhaul things. He will, however, tighten the defence and, against more highly rated nations such as France, look to play fast, vertical passing in transition to release pacy players such as Mathew Leckie or Robbie Kruse.
Probable starting XI
Australia probable starting XI
Which player is going to surprise everyone at the World Cup?
Two years ago Andrew Nabbout was a young player staring at the end of his fledgling career. But coming off a stellar season with a resurgent Newcastle Jets the 25-year-old has signed for J-League powerhouse Urawa Red Diamonds, made his Socceroos debut and could start in Russia pending Tomi Juric’s fitness. He’s strong, hard-working and composed in front of goal. Daniel Arzani is another to watch as a wide forward. After a breakout year in Australia the teenager is not short of confidence or guile and could conjure something special, especially against packed defences.
Which player is likely to disappoint?
If there’s a player who disappoints it won’t be through individual failings but the role they’re expected to play. Tom Rogic and Aaron Mooy have been superb at club level in recent years but like England’s infamous dilemma with Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard, there are question marks over whether both can operate effectively in the same team.
Rogic could even be sacrificed should Van Marwijk look for more industry, with Hull’s Jackson Irvine or QPR’s Massimo Luongo providing better defensive work rate. It would be a shame given Rogic’s talent – he is one of the few Australia players capable of unlocking a world-class defence.
What is the realistic aim for Australia at World Cup 2018 and why?
Van Marwijk has been tasked by Football Federation Australia with navigating the group stage, with a berth in the knockouts considered a success. But faced with three opponents ranked in the world’s top 12 (France, Peru and Denmark), only the most optimistic supporters might consider that a likely proposition.
Still, it’s a less daunting group than at World Cup 2014, where Australia drew Spain, the Netherlands and Chile. If Van Marwijk can instil a simple shared vision and sense of purpose in his players, there is no reason why the Socceroos can’t look to upset one or more of their more vaunted opponents.
Richard Parkin writes for Guardian Australia.
Follow him on Twitter here. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/26/one-pot-cabbage-rolls-recipe-alice-zaslavsky-unrolled-how-to-use-head | Life and style | 2023-07-26T01:00:04.000Z | Alice Zaslavsky | Alice Zaslavsky’s one-pot ‘unrolled’ cabbage rolls recipe – and other ways to use a whole head | A cabbage head is the Hydra of veg – no matter how much you use, it seems like more head is always growing.
But that same quality gives the vegetable exponential potential, especially now while grocery shelves are cabbage-rich, and wallets less so.
Know your cabbage
Round cabbages are either green or white, depending on the soil, with the green variety more peppery in flavour and the white milder. They are interchangeable in cooked cabbage recipes, as the bitter flavour of chlorophyll in green cabbage mellows with heat.
In cooked cabbage recipes, the green and white varieties of round cabbage are interchangeable. Styling: Kirsten Jenkins. Photograph: Eugene Hyland/The Guardian
Frilly leafed savoy cabbage behave similarly and have an even milder flavour. Red cabbage, on the other hand, is earthier, retains its deep purple hue when cooked and can be a dramatic addition to coleslaws.
Raw sugarloaf cabbage is much sweeter, while wombok (otherwise known as Chinese or napa cabbage) has juicy leaves and finer fibres. If you’re substituting it in place of other cabbage in soups or braises, halve the cooking time.
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Don’t overcook it
Though you’ll sometimes find cabbage wrapped in plastic, the outer leaves are nature’s clingwrap. If you buy it whole, strip off the outer leaves and the inside is good to go without fussing about with washing.
Feel free to use the outer leaves too – but note they’re the strongest-tasting and most fibrous so need to be cooked longer or used as a “lid” for kraut. You’ll also need to wash them well.
When it comes to cabbage, the longer the cooking time, the lower the cooking temperature. Styling: Kirsten Jenkins. Photograph: Eugene Hyland/The Guardian
To reduce the fibrous texture, slice the leaves against the grain, similarly to how you’d slice secondary cuts of meats for stews and braises.
And remember: the longer the cooking time, the lower the cooking temperature. Blanch it quickly, sauté it swiftly, braise it slowly, or let residual heat do its magic (like in my shchi). But if you overboil (and under-season), you’ll confront the most flatulent cabbage cliches.
How to use it up
If you’re in possession of one head, make okonomiyaki. And if you have two and a bit of time, make kraut. You should see results within days and reap the benefits for months, like my forebears did in eastern Europe.
Chefs, too, have become cabbage patch kids, creating flashy dishes from the humble head – such as fancy roasted cabbage.
To try at home, crank your oven to 200C (180C fan). Place an oven-proof pan over a medium-high heat, rub a quarter cabbage with oil and char for six to eight minutes each side, until lovely and blackened (weigh it down with something heavy to maximise its contact with the pan). Splash a couple of tablespoons of soy sauce over the cabbage, letting it trickle between the layers, then carefully shape some foil around the cabbage (wear oven mitts to protect your hands). Whack the pan into the oven for 20 minutes with the foil on, then remove the foil and roast until the cabbage has softened – usually around five minutes. Serve with an extra splash of soy sauce.
Rice, meat, tomatoes and cabbage: Alice Zaslavsky’s midweek take on cabbage rolls. Styling: Kirsten Jenkins. Photograph: Eugene Hyland/The Guardian
But the king of cabbage dishes from my neck of the woods is the cabbage roll, where sweet and tender leaves coddle a parcel of rice and meat, braised in rich tomato sauce. It’s no wonder they’re called golubtsi (little pigeons in Russian) – they nestle against each other in the pan.
But ain’t nobody got time for rolling when it comes to midweek meals. Enter: the unrolled cabbage rolls.
One-pan unrolled cabbage rolls – recipe
To make this recipe meat-free, substitute the beef with a plant-based mince, marinated tempeh or blitzed-up mushrooms.
If you are using meat, cook the mince as one big burger patty. It will be juicier and you can whack it on and let it sear, stir-free, while you get on to the mirepoix. And it’s a midweek mirepoix – so instead of chopping, you just blend in a food processor. (The whizzed-up paste will also cook faster.)
Cook the mince as on large patty – this keeps the meat juicier. Styling: Kirsten Jenkins. Photograph: Eugene Hyland/The Guardian
While the meat and veg are getting friendly, you can get on to the rice. If you are making from scratch, two cups of cooked rice is equivalent to three-quarters of a cup of uncooked grains. Otherwise, use leftover cooked rice or a microwave rice pouch – even brown rice will do.
To cook your cabbage not-rolls, a Dutch oven or a wide 32cm, heavy-bottomed pan with high sides works best. You’ll be surprised by how much the cabbage cooks down so don’t be afraid to load it up with raw sheets then watch them wilt into the sauce.
The more the merrier: don’t be afraid to top up the pot with more raw cabbage – it’ll continue to wilt into the sauce. Styling: Kirsten Jenkins. Photograph: Eugene Hyland/The Guardian
Serves 4 to 6
Olive oil, to sauté
500g beef mince
1 brown onion, roughly chopped
1 carrot, roughly chopped
1 stick celery, roughly chopped, plus celery heart leaves (optional) for garnish
4 cloves garlic, peeled
½ bunch each of dill and parsley, leaves and fronds reserved, stalks roughly chopped
¼ cup tomato paste
2 tsp sweet paprika, plus extra for sprinkling
1 tsp sugar
1 x 400g tin whole peeled tomatoes or cherry tomatoes
500ml beef, chicken or vegetable stock
750g white, green or savoy cabbage (either ¼ of a large head, or half of a small head), core and outer leaves removed
2 cups cooked rice (250g)
Sour cream and extra-virgin olive oil, to serve
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Heat a large Dutch oven or heavy-based wide pan with high sides over a medium-high heat and pour in a large glug of olive oil. Add the mince and spread it flat over the base of the pan as a large “patty” and let it sear. Once browned on the bottom, flip it over and break it up with a wooden spoon, stirring until cooked through.
While the mince is searing, in the bowl of a food processor add the onion, carrot, celery, garlic and dill and parsley stalks. Process until finely chopped, occasionally scraping down the sides of the bowl.
When the mince is cooked through, add another glug of olive oil and the vegetable mixture and sauté for 10 minutes still on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally.
Stir through the tomato paste and paprika and sauté until the mince and vegetable mixture is a uniform shade of burnt amber. Add the sugar and tinned tomatoes (slosh in some water into the tin to rinse out the remaining tomato juices into the pan). Pour in the stock and bring to a boil, uncovered. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.
With your knife pointing towards the core, chop the cabbage into 2.5cm wedges (see photo above), then into fork-friendly rectangles, approximately 3 x 2cm. Stir the cabbage rectangles through the sauce in the pan and return to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 10 minutes, then stir the cooked rice through and simmer for a further five minutes. (After this cabbage will continue cooking in the residual heat, so if it still has a little bite, don’t worry.)
To serve, roughly chop the dill fronds and parsley leaves and stir most of them through the pan (set some fronds and leaves aside for the garnish). Top with sour cream, a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil and a sprinkle of paprika, salt and pepper, and garnish with remaining dill fronds, parsley leaves and celery heart leaves (if using). | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/sep/12/the-whitlams-their-25-best-songs-sorted | Culture | 2022-09-11T17:30:37.000Z | Sian Cain | The Whitlams: their 25 best songs – sorted! | There are a few indelible qualities unique to the Whitlams, detectable from their first days as a trio playing university bars around Newtown, and still there now as they play their back catalogue of gutsy ballads with orchestras to boot. There’s Tim Freedman’s distinctive voice; somehow as plaintive and clear as when he started singing, despite now pushing 60 years old. Then there is the wry cleverness of the lyrics, often focused on long nights (and mornings) out on the plonk, chasing elusive women and troubled friends. And Freedman leading from his piano, which feels almost old-fashioned for an alternative rock band – though that label has never felt like a comfortable fit for a group that dips in and out of blues, jazz and pop, from song to song.
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I was six when their breakthrough album, Eternal Nightcap, came out; You Sound Like Louis Burdett will always hold a fond place in my heart for allowing me to say “fuck” in front of my parents for the first time. They are the first band I ever saw live and by far the band I have seen perform most often. That is to say: I have never felt so prepared to write a piece, or agonised over one so much.
25. Fall for You (Torch The Moon, 2002)
With its shuffling beat and bendy guitar notes, this is the Whitlams song most often enjoyed by people who don’t normally like the Whitlams. It’s undeniably catchy and the whisper of a woman’s vocals underneath Freedman’s gives it a hypnotic quality.
24. I Will Not Go Quietly (Torch The Moon, 2002)
Written for a now forgotten ABC drama, this playful tune about behaving badly and have a great time while doing so is fun. Freedman delivers the braggy lyrics with real gusto: “I was the best, you all knew it / On the days I cared at all / You can all say I blew it, you’ll be talking about me for years.”
23. Following My Own Tracks (Undeniably The Whitlams, 1994)
The only song on this list that is not sung by Freedman, but one of his fellow founding members, the late Stevie Plunder. You’ll spend the day humming this track’s beachy little guitar riff.
22. Up Against the Wall (Eternal Nightcap, 1997)
A gloomy, grubby song about a tempestuous relationship that more than earns its spot for the lyric: “She was one in a million / So there’s five more just in New South Wales”. One to sing next time you are heartbroken.
21. Breathing You In (Torch The Moon, 2002)
Hidden among all the grander songs on Torch The Moon is this dreamy little track about the simple joys of spooning with a loved one on a weekend: “Don’t get up, I’m in heaven.”
Tim Freedman performs with the Whitlams in 2005, in Melbourne. Photograph: Kristian Dowling/Getty Images
20. Royal in the Afternoon (Torch The Moon, 2002)
A blokey rock song about leaving behind the life of a hellraiser for domestic bliss: “Nobody’s going to satisfy me / Except you and the baby and the colour TV.” Freedman sounds as if he is having fun as “the mad king of it all”, while Jak Housden provides the bouncy guitar.
Tim Freedman in 2006. Photograph: John Stanton/WireImage
19. 400 Miles from Darwin (Love This City, 1999)
A sweeping, mournful song about the East Timor genocide and Australia’s apathy to violence so close to our shores. Freedman imagines a crowd watching a film about the massacres and consoling themselves afterwards: “Compose ourselves and fix our hair / We would have all been Schindler there.”
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18. Make the World Safe (Love This City, 1999)
As the first track on the Whitlams’ album after Eternal Nightcap, Make the World Safe may have seemed a strange opener, coming after so much gloom. But this buoyant song wins everyone over, with Freedman promising to protect a romantic partner and ending on a cute string pluck.
17. You Gotta Love This City (Love This City, 1999)
Like a misanthropic Springsteen, Freedman whisks us through the life of a guy in Sydney who is having a rough old time – “too sick for breakfast / car wouldn’t start / the train was really full / and his girlfriend has got a boyfriend” – and builds it all up to the rotten cherry on top: finding out his city is about to host the Olympics. It’s funny about everything that’s rubbish about Sydney, it’s bluesy and it has backing vocals from Marcia Hines.
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16. Out the Back (Torch The Moon, 2002)
One of my colleagues thinks this song is “too Tim Winton”, but she’s wrong. The warm strings and lazy percussion makes for a very beguiling song, packed with elegant imagery of an afternoon spent surfing: “I can sit out here like a teabag”; “gum trees are stamped into the sky”.
15. I Make Hamburgers (Undeniably The Whitlams, 1994)
Who hasn’t tried picking someone up with the line, “Hey, that’s a salad roll”? This is the closest to a novelty song the Whitlams have. Hollering “more sauce!” during live performances ranks up there with “no way, get fucked, fuck off” in the pantheon of Australian music call and responses. But underneath the fun, it still has heart: a burger-flipping lothario who just likes giving girls the world.
14. Ease of the Midnight Visit (Torch The Moon, 2002)
“Show me a way to stop loving you and I’ll stop coming ‘round,” Freedman opens wistfully. This slow track is the best of what I lump together as his “old man love songs”: horndog lyrics swapped in for yearning for emotional connection, a certain languid quality in music, and did I mention so much yearning?
13. Charlie No. 3 (Eternal Nightcap, 1997)
With its lyrics about a friend in the thralls of addiction, some interpret Buy Now Pay Later (Charlie No. 2) to be about Plunder, the Whitlams founding member who died a year before Eternal Nightcap was released. But Freedman has said that Charlie No. 2 is about fellow musician Charlie Owen, while Plunder is the subject of No. 3: an appropriately moody song dominated by punchy piano chords, as Freedman sings about a despondent man, “staring down from the 56th floor”.
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12. Keep the Light On (Little Cloud, 2006)
Reading the comments on YouTube, it seems Keep the Light On has become a regular at funerals. This melancholic song is a beautiful choice even though it isn’t overtly about death, but a loved one who only gets in touch when they have lost their way (“Each time you reach out, a new shout or shine-on”). It works as a story about friendship and love that endures even when the worst happens: “I’ll always keep the light on for you / You try so hard to be alive.”
11. Best Work (Torch The Moon, 2002)
Some might overlook this track for the band’s other big songs, like Blow Up the Pokies or Kate Kelly. But Freedman’s falsetto opener and bold piano sound makes it stand out – along with the great bridge, where the lovely yowl of an electric guitar spills over the crescendo.
10. Catherine Wheel (Sancho, 2022)
On a first listen, this cover of a Megan Washington song sounds like it would be destined to play at weddings for the rest of time. But where Washington’s sparse original is more overtly sorrowful and grieving a relationship burning out in real time, the sweet piano and strings in this version lends a hopeful quality to Freedman’s grave voice, somehow still sounding like he’s thirtysomething.
9. 1995 (Undeniably The Whitlams, 1994)
From the moment the clock begins ticking, it is obvious that 1995 is teetering on being overproduced, especially when compared to the rest of the band’s laid-back second album. But the momentum builds so steadily and Freedman truly puts his pipes to the test, singing “there’s nothing I can do” with such ferocity that it is hard not to feel electrified.
8. The Curse Stops Here (Little Cloud, 2006)
A moving companion to the next song, Freedman pays tribute to the two other founding members of the band: bassist Andy Lewis, who killed himself in 2000 while struggling with his gambling addiction, and guitarist Plunder, who died in an apparent suicide in 1996. “I am the last one,” Freedman sings, as strings and horns build underneath. “And the curse stops here.”
7. Blow Up the Pokies (Love This City, 1999)
Told from the perspective of a musician playing the pokies where he once performed, this protest anthem about the poison of gambling in Australia is the Whitlams’ biggest radio hit (though, as Freedman writes, “one regional network would back-announce its title as I Wish I so as not to offend local sponsors”). Knowing that Lewis killed himself just three months after this album was released, having just lost a week’s wages to the pokies, makes it even more impactful.
6. You Sound Like Louis Burdett (Eternal Nightcap, 1997)
Named for the “inner-west Sydney eccentric”, drummer and Freedman’s one-time housemate, this energetic song is filled with sleazy guitar, jangling piano and a breathless account of life in Sydney that is bewildering to Whitlams fans living anywhere else. (I may have believed Tempe was invented by Freedman until very recently. And does everyone start masturbating when they get to Marrickville?)
5. Gough (Introducing The Whitlams, 1993)
It is impossible not to tap your toes to this jaunty whirlwind tour through the life of the band’s namesake, former Australian prime minister Gough Whitlam. Plunder, real name Anthony Hayes, attended the same school as Whitlam, which was enough to get Freedman writing about the links between the two men: “He learnt Latin, held his head up high and he hated the Liberals though he didn’t know why”. And the “days of wine and roses” when Australia had a prime minister who, among other positives, championed the arts: “All the artists flew in and all the arseholes flew out.”
4. Thank You (For Loving Me At My Worst) (Love This City, 1999)
I, for one, am very fond of all Whitlams songs that sound like Freedman is a bit pissed in a honkytonk bar. (Perhaps one out east called Scrum, with only red wine and the finest of cigars?) This upbeat ode to days spent with roguish friends is unabashedly earnest – but, if this isn’t love, it’s very close.
3. Melbourne (Eternal Nightcap, 1997)
Much of Eternal Nightcap was shaped by Freedman’s relationship with children’s author Martine Murray (author of the A Dog Called Bear, among others). The open sweetness of its lyrics – “If I had three lives, I’d marry her in two” – paint a heartfelt portrait of young love, while the drone-like strings and tinkling piano evoke the best of 1990s pop – Manic Street Preachers, the Verve, Oasis.
2. No Aphrodisiac (Eternal Nightcap, 1997)
“A letter to you on a cassette, because we don’t write any more,” ranks among the most instantly recognisable opening lyrics in Australian music; even in 2022, when both cassettes and writing to ex-lovers are but distant memories. Freedman says he wrote the song “quickly, after drinking Irish whiskey”, having just visited Murray in Melbourne and sensing they were drifting apart. Initially released with no video or marketing, it became a radio hit, won song of the year at the Arias and topped the Triple J Hottest 100.
No Aphrodisiac is a demarcation in the Whitlams’ sound: gone were the boyish songs about mates and girls, replaced by melacholic, clever songs about being lonely and drinking too much (and girls). In a neat encapsulation of the band’s shift, Lewis even swapped his double bass for an electric bass halfway through the track.
1. Buy Now Pay Later (Charlie No. 2) (Eternal Nightcap, 1997)
While some may have wished to see my No 2 here, there is only one No 2 and its No 1. The lyrics of Buy Now Pay Later, being both so specific and universal at once, are what make it so powerful, directly addressing a friend wrestling with addiction: “If I hadn’t left early last night / I would have made a speech to you / How you’re not the only one you’re going to hurt”. But the friend tends to their addiction lovingly, hauntingly: “You love it like a little dog / and feed it on the scraps you find.”
The death of Plunder a year before this song, and the death of Lewis just over two years later, means this song came to encapsulate everything that makes the Whitlams stand out: Freedman’s remarkable voice, the poetry inherent in his lyrics and his willingness to step up to the piano and confront tragedy. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jun/07/pm-confident-david-davis-will-stay-in-job-no-10-says | Politics | 2018-06-07T23:02:38.000Z | Heather Stewart | Leaked comments by Boris Johnson expose cabinet divisions | Deep divisions over Brexit in Theresa May’s warring cabinet were laid bare once again last night as Boris Johnson was captured in a secret recording criticising the Treasury as the “heart of remain”.
Johnson made clear his dissatisfaction with the chancellor and warned of a Brexit “meltdown” in remarks at a private dinner with Conservative donors.
The foreign secretary said May was “going to go into a phase where we are much more combative with Brussels”. He added: “You’ve got to face the fact there may now be a meltdown. OK? I don’t want anybody to panic during the meltdown. No panic. Pro bono publico, no bloody panic. It’s going to be all right in the end.”
He dismissed the cautious approach of Philip Hammond’s Treasury, which he said had focused on “mumbo jumbo” predictions about short-term disruption, instead of the potential gains from leaving the EU.
“That fear of short-term disruption has become so huge in people’s minds that it’s turning them all wet,” he said. “Project Fear is really working on them.”
Britain’s top diplomat also told the select audience at a dinner for Thatcherite group Conservative Way Forward, that Britain should take a leaf out of Donald Trump’s book when it came to Brexit.
Johnson said he had become “increasingly admiring of Donald Trump” and has become “convinced that there is method in his madness”.
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“Imagine Trump doing Brexit,” Johnson said, according to the recording leaked to BuzzFeed news and the Times. “He’d go in bloody hard … There’d be all sorts of breakdowns, all sorts of chaos. Everyone would think he’d gone mad. But actually you might get somewhere. It’s a very, very good thought.”
A friend of Johnson said: “This was a private dinner under Chatham House rules so it is sad and very disappointing that it has been covertly recorded and distributed to the media.”
Earlier, both camps in cabinet claimed victory after a day of drama in Westminster, as the prime minister finally published the UK’s plan for a customs backstop to avoid a hard border in Northern Ireland.
The contentious proposal was agreed after two face-to-face confrontations between the prime minister and her disgruntled Brexit secretary, David Davis, who would only sign it off after she inserted a specific end date.
As expected, the backstop as drafted would keep the whole of the UK – and not just Northern Ireland – inside key aspects of the customs union, until a permanent arrangement can be put in place that avoids cumbersome border checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
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Britain would continue to apply the EU’s common external tariff; but would demand the right to negotiate and sign new trade deals, “and implement those elements that do not affect the functioning of the temporary customs arrangement”.
Speaking to reporters on the plane en route to Canada, the prime minister insisted: “The point about the backstop is that it may never be used. It only comes in if the agreed end state customs arrangement has not been been brought into place by January 2021.”
But she sidestepped the question of whether she could offer a “cast iron guarantee” that the backstop would not remain in place after December 2021.
As well as tense talks with Davis, May also met Liam Fox and Johnson, the other two most prominent leavers in her cabinet, as she sought to find wording they would agree to.
May’s spokeswoman was forced to deny claims that Davis had come close to walking out. “No one threatened to resign,” she said.
Johnson’s views were laid bare in the secret recording in which he criticised the significance the Irish border issue has taken on in the negotiations with Brussels.
“It’s so small and there are so few firms that actually use that border regularly, it’s just beyond belief that we’re allowing the tail to wag the dog in this way. We’re allowing the whole of our agenda to be dictated by this folly,” he said.
The backstop text, which was presented to Brussels at the same time as it was published in London, included a final clause – insisted on by Davis – saying the backstop “will be only in place until the future customs arrangement can be introduced”.
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It adds: “The UK expects the future arrangement to be in place by the end of December 2021 at the latest. There are a range of options for how a time limit could be delivered, which the UK will propose and discuss with the EU.”
Allies of Davis said the time limit had only been added at his request – and he had also obtained assurances from May about pressing ahead with the planned Brexit white paper.
But remain-leaning cabinet ministers believe the clause is a cosmetic concession, which would have no legal force.
“It’s a sentence added for political expediency,” said one Whitehall source, adding that the EU could easily sign up to it. “They operate in the legal sphere.”
Asked whether it was plausible the deadline would be met, the source added: “It’s taken us seven years to put 150,000 people on universal credit.”
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In a letter to all her MPs, May warned them of more compromises to come, saying they represented a choice between “the unacceptable” and “the unpalatable”.
Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, said he welcomed publication of the UK proposal, but did not give a verdict on whether it would be accepted.
“We will examine it with three questions,” he wrote on Twitter. “Is it a workable solution to avoid a hard border? Does it respect the integrity of the SM/CU [single-market and customs union]? Is it an all-weather backstop.”
His mention of the single market pointed to the fact – acknowledged by ministers – that the customs issues are only a partial solution to the challenge of avoiding a hard border, and the UK is also likely to have to agree to align closely with EU regulations.
Brexit select committee chair, Hilary Benn, said:
“This is a recognition of blunt reality. But this backstop contains no proposal on regulatory standards, which will also be essential to keep an open border in Northern Ireland. Half a backstop is therefore unlikely to be sufficient to make progress possible at the June European council.”
Ireland’s deputy prime minister warned that “a great deal of work remains to be done” on the Irish border question and it “remains vital that a legally binding backstop is agreed” to ensure a hard border is avoided “in all circumstances”.
Simon Coveney said the European commission had made it clear it needed to see operational wording on the backstop solution for Ireland in time for the council summit on 28 June. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/california-schools-reopening-rules-coronavirus | World news | 2020-07-17T20:48:03.000Z | Mario Koran | California announces strict rules that will keep most schools closed | California’s governor has announced strict rules for school reopening that would prevent the vast majority of students from returning to classrooms in the fall as coronavirus cases hit their highest levels yet in the state.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced the new guidance on Friday, which mandates that public schools in California counties that are on a monitoring list for rising coronavirus infections cannot hold in-person classes, and will have to meet rigorous criteria for reopening.
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With 31 of California’s 58 counties now on that monitoring list, including the state’s most populous areas, that would mean most of the state’s 10,000 schools are unlikely to start the school year with in-person instruction.
The conversation over reopening schools has become politically fraught, with Donald Trump earlier this month saying his administration would pressure governors to reopen schools to in-person instruction this fall.
Betsy DeVos, the US education secretary, has also backed Trump’s demands, despite a long history of championing local control and pushing back on federal mandates.
Social distancing dividers for students are seen in a classroom at St Benedict School, in Montebello, near Los Angeles, California, this week. Photograph: Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
The administration’s rush to reopen has been met with alarm, particularly among education and healthcare professionals, who worry it could hasten the spread of the virus and put students and teachers in danger. On Friday, the president of one of the country’s biggest teaching unions called the president’s plan “reckless”.
In California, Newsom has tied the reopening of schools to county health metrics. Schools will be allowed to reopen for in-person instruction only when the counties they are located in have been off a statewide monitoring list for 14 days, based on stable case rates.
The guidelines also includes requirements for PPE, physical distancing, distance learning and guidance for what should happen if students get sick.
Masks, for instance, will be required for students in third grade and older – for students in second grade and younger, masks or face shields (which can be less intimidating to youngsters) will be strongly recommended. Staff must maintain 6ft between each other and students, where possible, and each day would begin with checks for symptoms.
If 5% of students at a school are sick, it would mandate school closure. If a quarter of a district’s schools are closed within a two-week period, all district schools will close.
Distance learning, which saw a disastrous rollout in spring, will also have new requirements: connectivity and devices for all kids; a requirement of daily live interaction with teachers and others students, assignments that are comparable to in-person classwork and lessons adapted for English learners and special education students.
School buses sit in a lot in San Francisco on Tuesday. Photograph: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
The announcement comes just weeks before many of the state’s 1,000 school districts return to classes in mid-August, with many still finalizing their reopening plans.
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The governor’s strict new regulations marked a dramatic shift from his earlier position that it was up to local school districts and boards to decide when and how to reopen, and creates the first statewide approach to the issue. Until now, counties have been allowed a wider degree of discretion in how to move forward, creating an uneven patchwork of plans.
That was seen this week when the state’s two largest school districts in Los Angeles and San Diego, announced they would open the school year with online classes only. Meanwhile, education officials in Orange county, located between the two, recommended that students return to school with in-person instruction, without the use of masks.
The recommendations endorsed by the Orange county officials made the case that masks can lead to anxiety, depression and even learning disabilities – a claim, one doctor told the Guardian, that was not backed by any evidence that he was aware.
An educational consultant told EdSource that Newsom made the decision to support school staff and insulate district officials from angry parents who want schools to reopen for in-person classes. Newsom’s move effectively takes that decision out of the hands of county school officials.
Agencies contributed reporting | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/09/russian-hacking-groups-last-member-at-liberty-comes-out-of-the-shadows | World news | 2017-02-09T06:00:14.000Z | Shaun Walker | Russian hacking group's 'last member at liberty' comes out of the shadows | Wearing a Christmas jumper emblazoned with reindeer, Alexander sits in a bar in Riga. He has a remarkable story to tell. After several years hiding in the shadows, he is, or at least claims to be, the last member still at large of Russia’s most notorious band of hackers and leakers.
Shaltai-Boltai, or Humpty Dumpty, terrorised Russian officials for nearly three years, combining hacking, leaking and extortion, while retaining an impenetrable cloak of anonymity. The group would post online samples of emails from officials they had hacked, and put the rest of the cache up for sale: the incriminating information could then either be bought back by the original sender, or snapped up by enemies.
But in mid-December, Shaltai-Boltai’s sardonic Twitter feed suddenly went quiet, and in late January Russian media claimed the group’s founder, named as Vladimir Anikeyev, had been arrested.
I thought it would be good to troll the Kremlin, and to try to change something in the country
Alexander
The case took on an extra layer of intrigue when it was reported that two of Russia’s top cybersecurity agents at the FSB had also been arrested, along with an expert from Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab. Sources briefed Russian media outlets that the FSB security officers were accused of working for the CIA, and linked the case to Shaltai-Boltai.
Coming so soon after US intelligence pointed fingers at Russian intelligence for hacking the Democratic party, as part of an attempt to help get Donald Trump elected, the arrests raised eyebrows. Was Shaltai-Boltai a conduit for passing information to the CIA, or was the meshing of the two cases a way of obscuring the real truth about why the FSB agents were in trouble? The rumour mill went into overdrive, and each day brought fresh leaks and new theories, with varying degrees of plausibility.
Trolling the Kremlin
Enter Alexander, 39, who did not want his surname revealed for now. There was no way of verifying his story in full, but he provided a screenshot of correspondence between the Guardian and the hacker group in 2015, as well as photographs of him with Anikeyev. He also noted, correctly, that when this reporter met a verified Shaltai-Boltai representative on a boat in a European capital in 2015, the pair drank whisky.
The headquarters of the Federal Security Service (FSB) in Moscow. Photograph: Maxim Marmur/AFP/Getty Images
Alexander said he had known Anikeyev, whom he described as the driving force behind Shaltai-Boltai, for more than a decade. In late 2013, Anikeyev, who worked for a St Petersburg agency specialising in the shadowy world of “black PR”, suggested the pair work together to create a new site giving a platform to hacked official correspondence. Bored with his telecoms marketing job, Alexander agreed.
“I thought it would be good to troll the Kremlin, and to try to change something in the country,” Alexander said. “But he [Anikeyev] also said we could make some money with it too.” Some of the first things Shaltai-Boltai published really did seem to have political undertones, notably emails that detailed Moscow’s role in stirring unrest in east Ukraine.
Alexander claimed Anikeyev was no master-hacker - “he didn’t even know how to use a VPN connection properly, I had to show him” - but simply paid anonymous hackers on web forums to obtain passwords to the webmail accounts of Russian officials.
Alexander said his work focused on analysing emails and writing blogposts, and that Anikeyev paid him a cut each month depending on how well the site had done. The pair met in person now and then, often in Thailand, but otherwise would communicate using secure messages. He estimated the total turnover of the site to be “between $1m and $2m” during its three years of operation.
With time, the focus of Shaltai-Boltai’s activities shifted from political statement to straight extortion.
The group used an “information exchange” set up by an anonymous third party to make sales in bitcoin. It did not know if it was selling the files back to the person it had hacked them from, or to others.
“We’re just like WikiLeaks, but with us, people can get solidly remunerated for their information,” said an anonymous response to a message sent to the information exchange’s email address. The responder also confirmed he or she believed Alexander to be a member of Shaltai-Boltai.
Anikeyev arrested
Alexander claimed that in May last year, Anikeyev went to Russia, having been given safety assurances, to meet an FSB official. According to Alexander, the official suggested that Shaltai-Boltai could continue to operate, but that the intelligence agency wanted the right of veto, and to be able to leak information through it.
Alexander said: “He [Anikeyev] told me the FSB knew who we were, but wouldn’t touch us if we cooperated.”
Shaltai-Boltai or Humpty Dumpty hackers logo. Photograph: Twitter
In November, Anikeyev travelled to Russia again, but this time he was arrested. Perhaps the deal had gone sour, or perhaps he had been caught by agents for a different intelligence service – Russia’s multitude of intelligence agencies are notoriously competitive.
A few days after going dark, Anikeyev contacted Alexander, claiming he had been released by authorities, and that Shaltai-Boltai would continue. “But the deal was that we had to be based in Moscow, and he asked me to move there,” Alexander said.
That sounded odd, so Alexander asked Anikeyev if he was speaking under duress. He said he was not, and he did not use a codeword the pair had agreed on if one of them was arrested.
The whole story smelled like rotten fish. I told him … that I quit
Alexander
To make sure Anikeyev really was at liberty, Alexander told him to go to a branch of Jean-Jacques, a chain of French cafes in Moscow, and take a selfie, and a photograph of the receipt. Two hours later, Anikeyev sent the photos. Later, Alexander called the cafe, and asked the waitress how many people had been sitting at table five, mentioned on the receipt. Only one person, she replied.After that, Anikeyev would appear online for a couple of hours a day. Two other members of the group travelled to Moscow, but Alexander was not convinced. “Somehow, the whole story smelled like rotten fish. I told him I wouldn’t come to Moscow, and that I quit.”
Both of the other men are now apparently under arrest, and in December, Anikeyev went completely dark and the Shaltai-Boltai accounts stopped functioning. Alexander found himself locked out. At the end of January, news broke of the arrests.
Shaltai-Boltai and the missing jigsaw pieces
Alexander said he was in Asia at the time, but travelled to Estonia within the past week, having first paid a trusted contact to peek into Interpol’s systems and check Russia had not yet put him on the wanted list. He drove to Riga, Latvia, to meet the Guardian. He said he planned to claim asylum in Estonia, and had contacted the journalists with whom members of Shaltai-Boltai had met in the past.
Anikeyev’s lawyer says he believes Anikeyev has been behind bars since his arrest in November. Photograph: Bill Hinton/Getty Images
Alexander’s story, if true, is a sizeable missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle that is the Shaltai-Boltai story, but many other gaps remain.
Was Anikeyev trying to lure his friends and colleagues back to Moscow as a trap? What link, if any, does he have to the FSB men arrested? And can it really just be a coincidence that weeks after US intelligence accused Russia of hacking the election, two of the country’s most senior intelligence officials are arrested on charges of treason, allegedly for passing secrets to the Americans?
Anikeyev’s lawyer, Ruslan Koblev, told the Guardian he believed Anikeyev has been behind bars since his arrest in November, which would suggest any contact made with others was done under intelligence supervision. Koblev spoke with Anikeyev by telephone in November and believed him to be under arrest at that time.
Koblev said Anikeyev had verbally admitted the charges of unauthorised access to electronic information, but denied all connection to the treason case.
“There is no connection [to the FSB case], I was very concerned when I saw this information in the media. I asked him if it’s connected, he said he didn’t even know these people. They are different cases,” he said. He added that the investigators on the cases are different.
It became all about money … I regret that I was involved
Alexander
This is backed up by Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer specialising in treason cases, who has said he is defending one of the men accused of treason, though he refused to specify which one. He told the Guardian he was limited in what he could say about the case, but conceded that US intelligence featured in the papers. He added that his client planned to deny the charges.
“In the documents that I have become acquainted with, there is no mention of Shaltai-Boltai,” he said.
Alexander said the arrested FSB men could theoretically be those he believes Anikeyev met last May. “He could have known the FSB people, but I can’t believe they were arrested just for this. It sounds like part of a bigger story,” he said.
As for his own role in the project, Alexander admitted that what started as a political project became increasingly mercenary.
“Especially in the last year, it became all about money, and I regret that I was involved,” he said. “But it gave me some small influence on politics. Maybe, when they write the history of Russia, there will be a couple of lines about Shaltai-Boltai.”
Alec Luhn contributed reporting from Moscow | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/jun/27/guardianobituaries | News | 2003-06-27T01:40:41.000Z | Dennis Barker | Obituary: Sir Denis Thatcher | Sir Denis Thatcher, who has died aged 88, was the ideal consort for Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady - an adaptable businessman with the values of the colonial era, who did not take Westminster politics seriously enough to embarrass or rival his wife but who was prepared to control his scepticism for the sake of a woman, 10 years his junior, whom he regarded as special without being in awe of her. As someone who often gave the impression of putting affairs of state before the needs of individuals, she seemed to recognise and appreciate that.
When Margaret Thatcher became leader of the Conservative opposition in 1975, and the media besieged the family home in Flood Street, Chelsea, her husband was at his desk at Burmah Oil before nine the next morning - as if nothing had happened. He had his own business to attend to, and that was that. It was not until he retired that the consort role became a larger one, and even then his directorships made him a busy traveller, trading on his own experience rather than his wife's name.
If Margaret was the least relaxed person in the world - as her daughter Carol thought - Denis was the most apparently relaxed, a man comfortable with himself and able to deal with human beings in a usually emollient way. Few men could have carried it off, even with the support of scarlet-lined opera cloaks and numerous gin and tonics; few men except the weak and dependent - which Denis Thatcher was not - would have wanted to be a consort to a dominant woman; and few men could have camouflaged themselves into a PG Wodehouse figure without losing the respect of the satirists who wrote him down as a comic character, while sensing, on meeting him, that there was rather more to him than that.
He certainly understood the volatility of the crowd. After his wife's last election victory in 1987, she was cheered loud and long by the crowds outside No 10. "In a year," said Denis, "she'll be so unpopular you won't believe it." It took longer, but the prediction was correct. When his wife entered the leadership contest triggered by Michael Heseltine's challenge in 1990, her husband sensed long before anyone else, that "she's done for".
Nor was he afraid to speak to the point in royal circles. When the Duchess of York remarked to him, "Oh Denis, I do get an awful press, don't I?" he mimicked doing up a zip fastener across his lips and replied, "Yes, ma'am, has it occurred to you to keep your mouth shut?"
Denis Thatcher's family hailed from Wanganui, a coastal town in New Zealand, where there is a street named after them. His grandfather set up a firm producing weed killer for railway tracks, the origin of the family fortunes. At 28, his father settled in London to run a British version of the company, Atlas Preservatives, which moved on to deal in paint and general chemicals. A rugby-playing freemason, and stalwart of the Kipling Society, he married a businesswoman, Lilian Bird, the daughter of a London horse dealer.
Denis was born just after the start of the first world war in Lewisham, south London. At eight, he was sent to boarding school at Bognor Regis and, at 13, transferred to Mill Hill, also as a boarder. Though he did not shine academically, he was good at cricket and rugby, and liked attending the annual Duke of York camp, with its maxim: "Play the game."
In 1933, he left to join the family firm, where he was expected to work his way up from the bottom. As at school, he conformed, and mostly kept his opinions to himself; when put on the spot, how ever, he would express himself with the sort of pungency for which he was noted later. He went to Germany as works manager in 1937, and came back with the view that war was not a question of "if" but "when".
At the outbreak of hostilities, he was a territorial army officer and joined the 34th searchlight regiment of the Royal Artillery. He liked the military life, albeit because it gave him a chance to organ ise rather than to kill. This was just as well, since his bad eyesight relegated him to staff duties. Promoted to major in 1945, and working from the British HQ at Marseilles, he organised the movement of thousands of Canadian troops from Italy to Belgium, and was made an MBE.
Thatcher maintained to the end of his days that the army had taught him how to think, as well as how to act. But the war marked his life in a way that was to remain a virtual secret for a generation. In 1941, he had met the beautiful Margaret Kempson at an officers' tea dance: they married in March 1942, never lived together because of the circumstances of war and divorced in 1948, believing they had nothing in common. It was a fairly common wartime story, but Denis was always reluctant to talk about it, and his second wife Margaret, who disliked being second in anything, even more so - she did not tell her twins Carol and Mark until they were 23.
At the end of the war, Thatcher came out of the army with reluctance, and only because he was asked to take charge of the family firm. He became managing director in 1949 after his father had a stroke. The war had left him with the view that a stiff upper lip was an asset, and that, as a businessman, he was probably more use than many from more socially privileged backgrounds. He revelled in such comments as, "He's about as much use as a one-legged man at an arsekicking contest."
He met Margaret Roberts, the Oxford research chemist at a dinner dance organised by his trade association, whose chairman told him, "That's the one!" She liked his Methodism and his money talk. He looked like her adored father, Alderman Alfred Roberts of Grantham. At first, Thatcher was rather keener on her than she was on him, but when he proposed in 1951, she accepted.
The proposal coincided with Margaret's second attempt to get into parliament for Dartford, in a campaign in which she cut the Labour majority by 1,000. Ironically, in 1949, Denis had been offered, and declined, the very same candidacy. Now, after she had thanked her party workers at the count, he took the microphone to report that the candidate was to become his wife. They were married at John Wesley's Methodist chapel in City Road, and spent their honeymoon in Portugal, Madeira and Paris.
This was all strange territory to Margaret, and an indication that her husband's horizons had, so far, been wider than hers. It was also an indication that his substantial financial muscle would prove invaluable in developing her political career, and in her being called to the bar in 1954.
There was something of the comic caricature in the fact that the birth of their twins took Denis by surprise - he was watching a Test match when they appeared early. As far as the children were concerned, there were firm rules - no pets, no slippers - but no corporal punishment either. Both children greatly loved him; and in her affectionate 1996 biography of her father, Below The Parapet, Carol Thatcher fought hard - if unsuccessfully - against his gin-and-expletives image.
In 1959, his wife finally entered the Commons as MP for Finchley. Two years later, under Harold Macmillan, she got her first government job, as joint parliamentary secretary at the Ministry of Pensions. By 1963, Denis had sold the family business to Castrol for £560,000, a deal that netted him only £10,000 personally but gave him a job on the parent company board. He had been going through a midlife crisis, and the thought that his mother and his aunts, as shareholders in Atlas, were dependent on him became intolerably oppressive.
Eventually, but much, much later, in 1975, he retired - but as divisional director of planning and control at Burmah Oil, which had taken over Castrol. He imagined a life of non-executive directorships, golf, Savoy lunches with chums and watching rugby at Twickenham. Indeed, being touch judge at the 1956 England-France rugby match had been a highlight of his life.
But his wife's career had continued to advance. In 1970, as Edward Heath led the Conservatives to a surprise election victory, she became secretary of state for education and science, and - as "Margaret Thatcher milk snatcher" - famous at last. Heath's enthusiasm for the EEC, meanwhile, was to lead Denis Thatcher to call him a "latter-day appeaser of a latter-day Hitler".
Then, in 1974, came Heath's two general election defeats. With Sir Keith Joseph, the leading theorist of the Conservative right - whom Denis Thatcher labelled "England's greatest Man" - pulling back from a leadership challenge, the way eventually opened in 1975 for his wife to be elected as Conservative leader.
Being consort to the leader of the opposition, and then the prime minister, did not turn Denis Thatcher's life upside down so much as give it a new visibility. He reacted by refusing all requests for interviews - he regarded journalists as "reptiles". He harboured a special contempt for the BBC, an attitude confirmed during the 1982 Falklands war when he claimed that he heard someone say on air, "The British military authorities say, if they are to be believed ... ".
Such indignations gave the satirists something to work on. The image was most clearly fixed during his wife's tenure at No 10 by John Wells's Dear Bill letters in Private Eye. These featured Denis Thatcher writing to a golfing chum - generally acknowledged to be Bill Deedes, the former Daily Telegraph editor and Conservative minister. The setting was comings and goings in a vexatious Downing Street and gave Wells an opportunity to show Denis as a figure of fun, but never of contempt.
Out of step with the times the fictitious character might have been, but his shots often hit home, whether they were directed at his troublesome son, the "reptiles" of the media or the ambitions of those duplicitous acolytes who grovelled at his wife's feet.
When the real Denis Thatcher did dabble in political advice, it was invariably not that of a Colonel Blimp. He counselled that the Argentinians should not be overly humiliated in the Falklands, since it would make them more difficult to deal with in the future. He could, when the occasion required, be a rock of commonsense. After the first state dinner at Downing Street in 1979, he said the cutlery "belonged in the sergeant's mess"; it was immediately replaced. When touring a Falklands battlefield with his wife, she saw a box of live ammunition and asked what it was. "For heaven's sake, woman, don't get out and count it!" Denis commanded.
He may have crashed through various faux-pas, loved a South Africa that was ruled by apartheid, and referred to black people in Brixton as "fuzzy-wuzzies", but Denis Thatcher remained a decent man - "I hope I have never hurt anyone" - resourceful, disciplined, a man who worked quietly for many charities but believed that emoting achieved nothing except a breach of good manners. He may not have been an especially interesting or arresting figure in himself, but that was his strength in his non-official office: he could be either inconspicuous or conspicuous without putting his foot in it. His baronetcy in 1990 - for which that hereditary title was restored after a long obsolescence - was his public reward.
Denis Thatcher's wife may, however, have found some of his quips difficult to take. Asked once by a stranger during her premiership what his wife did, he replied: "She has a temporary job." It summed up his wry, dry attitude to political life in a nutshell. She, and their two children, survive him.
· Denis Thatcher, company director, born May 10 1915; died June 26 2003 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/mar/03/premier-league-weekend-awards-liverpools-secret-weapon-and-pochettino-is-a-problem | Football | 2024-03-03T20:30:08.000Z | Oliver Connolly | Premier League weekend awards: Liverpool’s secret weapon and Pochettino is a problem | Player of the week
Phil Foden is in the middle of the biggest heat check since Mark Ruffalo in Poor Things. He was the best player on the pitch in City’s 3-1 win in the Manchester derby, finishing with two goals, including a now trademark stunner from the edge of the box.
PHIL FODEN ROCKET EQUALIZER 🚀
(via @TelemundoSports)pic.twitter.com/7B9mgl60Xr
— B/R Football (@brfootball) March 3, 2024
Sometimes you can tell a player has taken a mini-leap, even if it doesn’t show up in the numbers. While others have been in and out of the lineup this year, Foden has been City’s constant. He’s played more games for Pep Guardiola this season than at any other point in his career.
By the advanced metrics, this has been a standard Foden season, albeit with an increase in shots. But he’s delivering key performances with more pressure on his shoulders. With Erling Haaland missing big chances, Kevin De Bruyne missing time due to injury and others being cycled in and out of the lineup, City have routinely turned to Foden to dig out wins.
The focus on Foden’s End Product™ has obscured (a little) the development of his all-around game. As a player, Foden’s greatest strength is his unpredictability: it is impossible to know, at any given moment, whether he will zig here or zag there. He can drop into space and feed players ahead of him; he can zoom in behind. No other City player has such a refined bundle of skills.
Controversy of the week
Isn’t it fun to have another weekend defined by an officiating decision? If you want a full accounting of the disasterclass at the end of Liverpool’s 1-0 win over Nottingham Forest, we will point you here.
In short, referee Paul Tierney incorrectly handed a drop ball to Liverpool in the eighth minute of added time at the end of the game. Liverpool went up the other end of the pitch and, two minutes later, Darwin Núñez scored a last-second winner. From there, bedlam.
We can debate the merits of how much Tierney’s decision affected the winner – Forest, after all, had a couple of chances to clear the ball before Liverpool put it in the net. But for those in non-Liverbird tinted glasses, it was probably a lot. Former referee Mike Dean described it as “monumental error.”
What we can all agree on: Forest’s post-match handling of the situation was farcical. The club sent out their newly appointed ‘referees analyst’, Mark Clattenburg, to flood the airwaves with their side of the story. It is a damning indictment of the league that a former official is now employed by a club to go full Malcolm Tucker when a decision they disagree with goes against them.
When Clattenburg was initially appointed, it was sold as a position built around data analysis and internal communication – all commonplace for Premier League clubs, though it’s typically work undertaken by data scientists. Clattenburg, we were told, would help teach the Forest coaches and players the rules and assemble dossiers on the different referring crews. It was clear to anyone with eyes and ears that Clattenburg’s real role would be to give the club an outlet to take shots at officials without manager Nuno Espírito Santo shouldering any responsibility.
“I will not comment on the referee,” Espírito Santo said post-match, leaving it to Clattenburg to do the heavy PR lifting.
This was Clattenburg’s first rodeo as spinner-in-chief. Here’s hoping it will be the last.
Liverpool’s goalkeeper Caoimhín Kelleher kept a clean sheet against Nottingham Forest. Photograph: Rui Vieira/AP
Save of the week
On the flip side of the Forest controversy was a result that kept Liverpool at the top of the table. “If you had told me 12 days ago we would have won all four games,” Jürgen Klopp said after the Forest game. “I’d have said no chance.”
If Liverpool win the league, people will rightly point to the young replacements further up the pitch who have stepped up in the absence of senior pros all across the field. But it’s been Caoimhín Kelleher’s ability to keep Klopp’s team in games that has provided the platform for their recent form. It’s now five wins on the spin for Liverpool in all competitions. Across the last three, they’ve conceded a cumulative xG of 5.76 but haven’t conceded a goal.
Here are the league’s current top-three goalkeepers in shot-stopping % who have played at least 600 minutes:
1. André Onana, Manchester United
2. Alisson Becker, Liverpool
3. Caoimhín Kelleher, Liverpool
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How wonderful it is to have Kelleher as your backup goalkeeper. Since he’s entered the starting lineup due to Alisson Becker’s hamstring injury, Kelleher has been as productive as any keeper in the league. Take any measurement you like – stop percentage; post-shot expected goals; actions outside the box – and you’ll find Kelleher at or near the top of the list. He is saving a ludicrously high volume of shots that should go in. He’s saved his best Alisson impression for one-on-one stops, though.
Klopp’s expansive style puts pressure on his goalkeepers to be quick off their line. Midway through the Forest game, Kelleher delivered another crucial save, rushing out to deny Anthony Elanga, who was running clean through on goal.
If Kelleher had played at even a league-average level over the past month, Liverpool’s title hopes would probably have disintegrated. Instead, they have maintained a title challenge despite being hit by injuries. They have lost one of the league’s best goalkeepers and, seemingly, found another one.
Goal of the week
This, from Marcus Rashford, is football as high art:
OH MY DAYS MARCUS RASHFORD.
UNITED LEAD IN THE MANCHESTER DERBY. pic.twitter.com/e3ghaHXhbi
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) March 3, 2024
“If you back me, good,” Rashford said this week. “If you doubt me, even better.” There is no better way to answer critics than to blast one in from 30-yards in a home town derby.
Despite Rashford’s effort, though, it was a disappointing display from United. They conceded three preventable goals and finished with just three total shots, only one of which (Rashford’s) was on target. Issues that have plagued them all season returned against the league’s best. They finished with just 26% possession – City finished with more total shots (27) than the percentage United had the ball. Had it not been for Rashford’s strike, it would have been another routine win for City.
Chant of the week
Chelsea left it late to grab a 2-2 draw away to Brentford. It was another frustrating afternoon, with Chelsea controlling the first-half and then wilting once Brentford applied pressure early in the second.
Hounding defense is built into Brentford’s DNA, and Chelsea could not hold their composure once their opponents started to crank the tempo. Chelsea fans let their manager know how they were feeling, offering a round of anti-Pochettino chants and singing the name of former manager José Mourinho – and this on Pochettino’s birthday, no less.
Pochettino is one problem among many. But he is a problem. Chelsea’s performances have been a cluttered slog all season. They have no organizing purpose, no structure, no crutch when a game gets tight. Pochettino was hired to mold a mishmash of players into a team – and Chelsea are no closer today to having a blueprint for the next 12 months than they were when he first took the job.
The handwringing over Chelsea’s $1bn spending spree has (rightly) drawn msot of the vitriol. The scattershot approach to the transfer window has been the club’s biggest problem. All of that is baked into the adjustment period. But the confusion and aimlessness is still jarring at times. Pochettino is closing in on a near full season worth of games but the list of questions is growing: Where is the development? Which of the young investments is significantly better today than when they first signed? What would the peak version of Pochettino’s Chelsea even look like?
As we approach the final stretch of the season, Chelsea are in the bottom half of the table. They’ve won just once in their last five league games. They lost a cup final that was there for the taking. They’re now left hoping they can win the FA Cup and scratch together enough points to finish in the upper half of the league table. A reminder: they won the Champions League three seasons ago. By the time next season rolls around, it’s unlikely there will be any European football at Stamford Bridge.
Building a team is about incremental improvement, sure. But under Pochettino, Chelsea have shown none. The doubtful experiment feels increasingly doomed. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/australia-culture-blog/2014/oct/30/william-kellys-war-review-australian-film | Film | 2014-10-30T01:33:49.000Z | Luke Buckmaster | William Kelly’s War review – big-minded small-budget war movie | The words “low budget” and “first world war action movie” don’t exactly go hand in hand, but director Geoff Davis appears to be undeterred by constraints. His big-minded small-budget period film William Kelly’s War – a soapy blend of fight-for-your-country war tropes and back-on-the-home-front drama – is nothing if not audacious.
Co-written by his sons Josh and Matthew, who play two of the lead characters, the film’s battle and trench scenes were shot on a 10-acre section at the back of the family farm in rural Victoria. Trenches and huts were constructed in a paddock using a tractor; fortifications were made out of chipboard and coated in a mixture of mud and cement.
More than adding an interesting back story and ethos to the film’s production (a sort of never say never free enterprise approach to cinema, built on a belief Hollywood-style spectacles can be literally made in your backyard), the big surprise is that the action scenes in William Kelly’s War look well staged and convincing.
They may not be as densely detailed and finessed as a larger and better resourced film – in subject matter, Jeremy Sims’ 2010 first world war pic Beneath Hill 60 comes to mind – but there’s never a moment when you cross your arms and think no, these sets don’t look real.
And if its technical achievements weren’t enough to turn a fellow filmmaker’s head, William Kelly’s War (which doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page) opens on more than 20 screens across Australia, predominantly in regional locations. To put that figure into perspective, director David Michod’s $12m dystopian adventure The Rover, starring Guy Pearce and Twilight heartthrob Robert Pattinson, opened on 41 screens. Hugh Sullivan’s time travel rom-com The Infinite Man opened on four.
The most inspiring messages in William Kelly’s War can be found in this story behind the story because, ironically, Davis’ cheap as chips spectacle falls down on the things money can’t buy: a good screenplay and strong performances (though a budget for professional actors would help).
The story begins circa 1913 along Queensland’s Proserpine river with a chase scene: two men run after Jess (Ella McIIvena) along a railway track and through beautiful forest. One expects confrontation, but it’s a fake-out. The men are brothers Billy (Josh Davis) and Jack (Matthew John Davis) and the three siblings are taking part in a family ritual of hunting kangaroos.
One bullet, as some cheesy narration explains, is all they need. In front of a beautiful setting sun Billy ignores his sister (“they’re too far away”) and pops a roo, establishing him less than two minutes into the running time as a cracker shot.
The film reminds us of this a couple more times – Billy wins a medal, then amazes his army colleagues – to ensure we got the message. It then whisks the brothers off to war (or, as the case may be, to the back paddock). There’s billows of smoke, gun fire and plenty of bayonets and bullets before Davis eventually returns to the home front for a plot involving kidnapping and murder, which gives the story more intimacy but feels oddly disconnected. Davis does himself no favours with wishy-washy voice-overs that sound stilted and forced.
While William Kelly’s War is surprisingly diligent with large set pieces (just when you think the director has restricted scenes to close-ups and mid shots, the camera pulls back), it is best with basic dramatic configurations. Moments as simple as characters who want something they cannot have or are in possession of something dangerous.
Execution is a little hammy but the film’s staginess gets more palatable as it goes along, until it finds an unpretentious homely vibe that makes it hard to hate. Like most war movies, William Kelly’s War makes a small but prominent mistake: its characters’ clothes look far too clean. On this point the film can be excused on the grounds they were probably borrowed and the director had to return them to the costume shop afterwards. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/mar/01/teen-tv-clique-netflix-riverdale-skins | Television & radio | 2017-03-01T09:00:03.000Z | Hannah J Davies | The new noir: how teen TV went over to the dark side | Feminism, ambition, hedonism: drama explores lives of university’s privileged
Read more
Rapist-slaying vigilantes, teacher-pupil sex, revenge porn. The kids might be far from alright in 2017, but with the TV industry more engaged with their reality than ever, teen dramas – whether coal-black thrillers or pop culture-heavy dramedies – are only getting better at tapping into the harsh world facing Generation Z (ie those young people who were born, if you can believe it, after the year 2000).
Among them, new BBC3 thriller Clique, which debuts on Sunday. Penned by Jess Brittain – who cut her teeth in the Skins writers’ room – it follows lifelong friends Holly and Georgia, who begin to drift apart when the latter is inducted into a shady group of fellow students. The alpha girls’ world is shrouded in mystery, danger and drugs, as Holly begins to glimpse the truth, witnessing an apparent suicide attempt, an unhealthy relationship between the gang and a lecturer and, finally, a shock fatality. As well as serving up thrills, the programme ventures into the identity politics zeitgeist – namely around feminism, and what it means today – as well as delving into the moneyed, drug-fuelled underbelly of elite British universities at a time of rising tuition fees and increased inequality.
The cast of Clique (l-r): Rachel (Rachel Hurd-Wood), Fay (Emma Appleton), Louise (Sophia Brown) and Phoebe (Ella-Rae Smith). Photograph: Mark Mainz/BBC/Balloon
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Tackling tough, timely themes wasn’t always such a high priority for broadcasters. “We were on a rat-infested corridor in the basement of the production company when we made Skins,” recalls Bryan Elsley, Brittain’s father and creator of the pioneering sex-and-drugs-filled show. “The prevailing wisdom in the internet age was that kids didn’t watch television any more, so there was no point.” Such predictions turned out to be wrong, of course: 10 years on, the Bristol-based series has become the rule rather than the exception. Edgy youth dramas of all stripes, from E4’s rural murder mystery Glue to BBC3’s abduction-themed Thirteen – among the most viewed programmes on iPlayer in 2016 – have sprung up in recent years; and in the case of the latter, it exists on the internet rather than being threatened by it.
Having played a key role in the teen drama’s transformation from effectively non-existent to a politically charged genre with teeth, Elsley is continuing to work on shows that continue to push boundaries of theme and form. As well as E4 and Netflix’s upcoming part-animated virtual-world thriller Kiss Me First, he’s the exec producer of Brittain’s show. Regarding its subject matter, he says: “We’re in a world where universities seem to have forgotten some of the guiding principles that women fought for in the 70s and 80s. Consent and sexual abuse, what is meant by attractiveness and beauty in a social media age, class – these were part of Jess’s thinking.”
Like father, like daughter ... Jess Brittain, the writer of Clique. Photograph: YouTube
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Indeed, while the titular in-crowd in Clique initially seem empowered by their place in society, their dominance comes at a cost for the other women around them – and ultimately themselves. More broadly, Elsley sees Clique as part of an important trend of unsanitised teen offerings, where ideas are often more forward-thinking than on shows made for a more mature audience. “I think that the young adult drama form is where discussions about society are going on, in the absence of far-reaching insights into contemporary life in more mainstream dramas,” he says. “[Adult dramas] are in a crisis of ideology – obsessed with crime and history and echoes of empire, which are very typical responses to an age of crisis. But teen drama is where it’s all happening.”
It’s happening across the Atlantic, too. Another programme that is seizing on the challenges facing young women today is Sweet/Vicious. In the US MTV show, college students-turned-vigilantes Jules and Ophelia give men on campus who sexually assault and rape female students a violent comeuppance. These aren’t bogeymen in dark alleys or Crimewatch caricatures but their contemporaries, underscoring the insidious nature of college rape culture. While MTV has form in the area, with the likes of Awkward, about a girl who returns to school after a failed suicide attempt, and abduction drama Finding Carter, the pertinent nature of the theme here has seen it garner more attention, with US Vanity Fair labelling it “our [nation’s] most politically urgent show”.
Blurring the boundaries ... Veronica (Camila Mendes) in Riverdale. Photograph: PR
Creator Jennifer Kaytin Robinson was keen to use her programme as a vehicle for a wider anti-misogyny message: “This country has such a ‘protect our boys’ mentality, and it’s happening with Trump,” she told US Glamour late last year. “If your man is accused of something he 100% did not do, yes, stand by your man. But when your man is Donald Trump and he’s on tape saying ‘grab them by the pussy,’ I want to be as far away from that man, and also put on a chastity belt.” As a result, the series doesn’t use euphemisms for rape, instead dealing with the word head-on. Jules’s dual identities – prim sorority girl and kick-ass ninja – meanwhile, coexist in a way that gives her power, as neither the victim nor the perpetrator.
Sweet/Vicious’s dark humour and sorority setting recalls murderous queen bee-led teen films of the 80s and 90s – think Heathers, Jawbreaker, Cruel Intentions – but it’s more subversive than those films. Like Clique, it’s aware of the terrors lurking in the modern world, whether that’s an attacker who meets his victim through a Tinder-like dating app or a body-shaming girl gang whose leader is described as “the love child of a CrossFit trainer and Mussolini”. What’s more, Robinson manages to make the show accessible to young people despite its hard-hitting nature. The adult-aimed anthology series American Crime – although, admittedly excellent – tackled school-based sexual assault with a sparse, documentary-like feel for its second season. By contrast, Sweet/Vicious feels made for the Snapchat age: Grimes is on the soundtrack; knowing pop culture references are littered throughout, whether Sherlock or the Wicked soundtrack.
Likewise, Riverdale is blurring the boundaries of your average youth drama and plunging it into murky new depths. The series, which originated on The CW channel, reimagines the all-American world of popular teenage comic-book publisher Archie Comics with parallel stories of small-town murder, student-teacher sex, slut-shaming and organised crime. “Riverdale is a little more of a noir or a Lynchian story. It’s not just a coming-of-age tale,” says creator Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. “It has this mystery and a subversive element to it that I think helps differentiate it from earlier shows like The OC.”
Aguirre-Sacasa was keen to haul its cast of teens into the 21st century. “The Archie characters are known in the States for being wholesome and innocent and life-affirming. Everyone drinks milk with dinner. But that’s not the world we live in.”
Even so, there are some places that the teen drama might not be ready to go quite yet. “A movie that I love, and we actually used as a reference for a couple of things, was Elephant [the Gus Vant Sant high-school shooting film],” he says. “I think it’s phenomenal, but I don’t know that we would ever do that to the kids in Riverdale. It’s almost a melodrama – it’s dealing with subtext.” By connecting with darker themes without swamping younger audiences with gloom, these shows feel engaged while still holding on to a youthful idealism that things can get better. Maybe they could teach their adult counterparts a thing or two.
Clique is available from 5 March on BBC iPlayer; Riverdale is streaming on Netflix now | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/mar/23/valeria-luiselli-wins-rathbones-folio-prize-lost-children-archive | Books | 2020-03-23T19:30:12.000Z | Alison Flood | Valeria Luiselli wins £30,000 Rathbones Folio prize for third novel | Valeria Luiselli’s “singular, teeming, extraordinary” novel Lost Children Archive has won the £30,000 Rathbones Folio prize. The Mexican-born novelist and essayist is the first woman to win the prize since its inception in 2013.
The planned ceremony at the British Library in London was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic, but the chair of judges, Paul Farley, called on those watching the event online to imagine the award ceremony: “a podium, flutes of house prosecco, the din of assembled guests and the speeches”. Organisers of the prize broadcast the presentation live on Twitter and its website.
Farley, an award-winning poet, spoke from Lancashire and Luiselli was in New York for the event. In a recorded speech, Farley said there was “still a cause for celebration”, and he described Lost Children Archive as a “genuinely original and bravura performance of a novel: a road trip, a documentary, a portrait of a family and of the American borderlands, and a journey into the idea of home and belonging”.
Photograph: FMcM Associates/PA
Luiselli, who lives in New York, was inspired to write Lost Children Archive by her work with young migrants on the Mexico-US border. The autobiographical novel, her third and her first to be written in English, brings together a family road trip from New York to the southern border with stories of Mexican children trying to cross into the US. Longlisted for the Booker last year, it beat titles including Zadie Smith’s first short story collection, Grand Union, and Forward prize-winner Fiona Benson’s poetry collection Vertigo & Ghost to win the Folio award, which is open to books of all genres.
Luiselli was “happy, sad, confused and overwhelmed” on learning she’d won the prize.
“First I was smiling, and then my publisher in London said, ‘How I wish you were coming so we could toast and be together,’ and I started crying,” she said, speaking on the phone from New York. “Writing is a solitary work, so to celebrate with the team you worked with doesn’t happen so often. That was frustrating and sad but everyone in the world is feeling that same frustration, at the fact we cannot come together the way we’d like to.”
The writer said she was “deeply thankful that we can continue, that we can say, ‘OK, we can still give a literary prize, and you know why? Because we believe in books as the echo of something so much greater than us, and much greater than this moment.”
Farley said that he and his fellow judges, the novelists Nikita Lalwani and Ross Raisin, were unanimous in their choice of Luiselli, with their gatherings over the winter “to talk about nothing but books for a few hours over a drink already … like idylls from a bygone age”. Their final meeting to decide the winner “took place online, without so much as an elbow bump”.
“Last year, when I was invited to be chair of the Rathbones Folio prize, my first duty was to offer a few words for a press release. I heard myself saying something about how judging through the autumn and winter would lead to an emerging, sometime around the spring equinox, into the lengthening daylight with a winner,” Farley said in his speech. “Things haven’t quite worked out like that … the room in the British Library where the Rathbones Folio prizewinner for 2020 would have been announced this evening is currently dark, along with theatres, galleries, cinemas and stadiums everywhere.”
Valeria Luiselli: 'Children chase after life, even if it ends up killing them'
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But he reminded those watching that there was “still a cause for celebration”, and that “as daily life suddenly feels circumscribed and uncertain … I also think of how a novel, story or poem, now more than ever, can reassert its ability to transport and illuminate”.
Rathbones Folio prize director Minna Fry said that it had been “quite a challenge to keep up” with changing realities, but the prize’s organisers were “determined to find a way to go ahead, to celebrate the eight brilliant shortlisted authors and to reward the book our judges considered the very best of the year”.
Previous winners of the prize, which was set up after the Booker prize was accused of prioritising readability over artistic achievement, include Raymond Antrobus, Hisham Matar and George Saunders. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2009/nov/05/lord-burns-channel-4-chairman | Media | 2009-11-05T12:37:17.000Z | Mark Sweney | Lord Burns confirmed as Channel 4 chairman | Lord Burns will be the next chairman of Channel 4, Ofcom confirmed today, and will join the broadcaster's board immediately for a handover period before Luke Johnson's departure in January.
MediaGuardian.co.uk revealed yesterday that the announcement of Burns's appointment was imminent. He will join Channel 4 immediately as chairman designate, leading the search for a new chief executive to replace Andy Duncan.
Duncan is expected to leave Channel 4 before the end of the month, while Johnson departs on 27 January.
Burns, 65, is best known in the media industry for leading a review of the BBC's role for the former culture secretary Tessa Jowell in the runup to the renewal of the corporation's 10-year royal charter in late 2006.
"I am delighted to be joining Channel 4," Burns said. "This is a time of great change as we experience the impact of the rapid development of digital technology in the communications sector and Channel 4 has a very special and continuing role to play."
Burns is chairman of Abbey National, Welsh Water and the Royal Academy of Music. He is a non-executive of the Pearson Group, which owns the Financial Times, and president of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.
The Ofcom chairman, Colette Bowe, said: "I am delighted that we have been able to appoint someone of Terry Burns's calibre. He has an outstanding record of public service and a real depth of commercial expertise. He will provide strong leadership at a time of considerable change in the broadcasting world."
Burns's 2005 report on BBC charter renewal recommended replacing the board of governors with a public service broadcasting commission to advise government on the corporation's funding and decide if licence fee money should be given to other organisations to produce and broadcast public service content.
He also suggested that the BBC should move from a compulsory licence fee to voluntary subscription - and raised the possibility of it taking advertising.
In the end, then BBC chairman Michael Grade's plan for the governors to be replaced by the BBC Trust was taken up by the government.
However, Burns's proposal for "top-slicing" the licence fee is back on the political agenda with Labour's plan to use licence fee money to help pay for a replacement ITV regional news service and children's programmes on commercial TV.
Burns was also a candidate for BBC chairmanship in 2001 and 2007 and in the running for the top job at Ofcom when it was created in 2003.
He was permanent secretary at the Treasury from 1991 to 1998, and has also been its chief economic adviser and held the post of professor of economics at the London Business School.
After leaving the Treasury, Burns gained a reputation as Whitehall's "Lord Fixit". He was chosen by Jack Straw to chair the inquiry into hunting in 1999 and parachuted into the National Lottery Commission two years later to review the way it awards its licence.
He also led a review of the way the FA, football's governing body, was run in 2004 after it was hit by a string of scandals.
To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email [email protected] 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". | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/12/boris-johnson-faces-legal-action-over-peerage-for-billionaire-tory-donor-peter-cruddas | Politics | 2021-06-12T14:58:35.000Z | Nicola Slawson | Boris Johnson faces legal action over peerage for billionaire Tory donor | Boris Johnson is facing legal action over his decision to give a peerage to a billionaire party donor in defiance of advice from the watchdog for appointments to the Lords.
Electoral Commission records show that Peter Cruddas, a former Conservative party treasurer, gave the Tories a further £500,000 just three days after taking his seat in the upper chamber last February.
Lord Cruddas, a businessman and philanthropist who has given more than £3m to the Conservatives since 2010, has strongly denied any wrongdoing.
At the time of his appointment, Downing Street took the highly unusual move of publishing an open letter from Johnson to Paul Bew, the chair of the Lords Appointments Commission, explaining why he was putting Cruddas in the upper house without its approval.
However, the Good Law Project – which has brought a series of judicial review cases against the government over the award of contracts during the pandemic – has said it intends to challenge the appointment in the courts.
More than 18,000 people have also signed a petition on the legal campaign group’s website calling for the removal of Cruddas’s peerage, saying it makes “a mockery of democracy”.
Jo Maugham, the executive director of the Good Law Project, said it was unprecedented for the prime minister to press ahead with the nomination after objections were raised by the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission, adding: “We don’t only think it is odd. We also think it is unlawful.”
The body – which vets new peerages – raised “historic concerns” over allegations that Cruddas had offered access to then prime minister David Cameron in exchange for donations to the party.
In 2012, Cruddas, who was at the time the Tory party co-treasurer, was at the centre of the cash-for-access scandal.
He resigned after it was revealed he was offering access to the prime minister and chancellor for up to £250,000. He was forced out after footage emerged of him apparently making the offer to undercover reporters from the Sunday Times.
A year later Cruddas won £180,000 in damages in a libel action, although that was subsequently reduced to £50,000 after aspects of the original allegations were upheld when the paper appealed.
The £500,000 donation made last year was the largest cash sum that the tycoon, who is worth £1.3bn according to the Sunday Times Rich List, has donated to the Tory party.
He said at the time it was “definitely not true” that there was any link between the donation and his receipt of a life peerage. “That would be corruption and that’s definitely not the case,” he added.
Maugham said the Good Law Project’s lawyers had advised there was “apparent bias” in Johnson’s decision to continue with his appointment regardless.
He said: “The independent watchdog didn’t think Peter Cruddas should be given a peerage. But Boris Johnson ignored their advice and appointed him anyway. Just three days after he entered the Lords, he gave the Conservatives half a million quid. I don’t think this is lawful.
“I think a fair-minded observer, presented with the facts, would conclude there was a real possibility or danger of bias in the prime minister’s decision-making.”
The campaign group has set out its case in a pre-action protocol letter sent to the prime minister.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: “All individuals are nominated in recognition of their contribution to society and their public and political service.
“Lord Cruddas has a broad range of experiences and insights across the charitable, business and political sectors which allow him to make a hugely valuable contribution to the work of the Lords.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/jul/30/rupert-everett-uncle-vanya-theatre-royal-bath | Stage | 2019-07-30T06:00:09.000Z | Arifa Akbar | Rupert Everett: 'I'd have done anything to be a Hollywood star' | Rupert Everett is directing his first play and a few unfortunate incidents have occurred before opening night. It is David Hare’s new version of Uncle Vanya, in which Everett also stars, and all did not go as planned in its first preview. “In a fight scene I elbowed the leading actor, John Light [who plays Dr Astrov],” says Everett. “He really hurt his eye and had to go to hospital. He came back and then, leaning around the stage with his one eye, he fell off it and really hurt his leg.”
The play’s opening has been pushed back a week, until Light is back on his feet, but if this production returns Chekhov’s 1898 play to the farce that Everett says it was written to be, and not a straightforwardly bleak tale of midlife ennui and angst, then the mishap has an edge of black humour, too.
Talk about breaking a leg, I say. Yes, says Everett, and describes the strain of the unexpected on stage. “I’m in a state of collapse.”
Perhaps because he is an actor accustomed to playing arch, unflappable types, he does not look as if he is in a state of collapse. He appears equanimous and elegant, sitting in a back room of the Theatre Royal Bath, bearing the mildly aristocratic air of a gentleman farmer. Aged 60, he lives in the West Country these days, having moved in with his 85-year-old mother a few ago, together with his partner of 10 years. “I now like trees and birds. And cows. I love cows..”
Rehearsing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya at Theatre Royal Bath with John Light. Photograph: Nobby Clark
It wasn’t always so. In the late 70s he ran away from private school, the shires and his military family’s Catholicism to make his name in acclaimed films such as Another Country and Dance With a Stranger. He also spent years doing drugs, clubs and parties, looking incandescently beautiful alongside Hollywood types.
Life now is a far cry from all that. The ferocious beauty has mellowed into a gentler, crinklier handsomeness. He has a modesty that may reflect the lessons learned from the extreme gyrations of his career – from A-list stardom to the much-documented wilderness years.
When I ask him about directing a play for the first time, he says it has been challenging “for a flake” but , at this age, he feels lucky to be challenged. While directing is new, the stage isn’t. He learned his trade at the Citizens Theatre in Glasgow. Three years before the film of Another Country, he starred in the play. Where is he more at home? “Because one is continually questioning oneself and what one is doing, you’re never really at home. You’re always starting at zero. I love being involved with theatre and film and with stories in general. I find each of them very challenging. Everything is a potential train crash, but that’s the nature of our business.”
Incandescent … Everett and Colin Firth in 1984 breakthrough film Another Country. Photograph: Ronald Grant
Vanya, the character Everett plays, is 47 and in the grip of midlife crisis. The play grapples with the loss of youth alongside the complications of love. Does ageing bother Everett? “No, I feel thrilled not to be young. I’m older, but I haven’t got any maladies yet.”
And when you look in the mirror? “I don’t look in the mirror. Not much. I’ve spent a long time looking in the mirror … I had that gay shame when I was young. I wanted to be better looking all the time. I was always striving to look right.”
Some of it was because of his size. He grew 12 inches when he was 15. His limbs are still rangy though he swears he has shrunk a couple of inches from his once 6ft 6in(-ish) frame. Back then, he had a 19in waist and was rake-thin. “That’s why I never felt good-looking. Immediately after I started working, I found these two queens who made padding. I had a padded bum, padded legs, padded shoulders.”
Things have got better as he has aged. “I learned how to be more interesting as an actor. I learned how to write a bit. I feel very lucky that so many things came along.”
He is right about the writing. His two autobiographies showcased a genuine talent, though writing is not an easy option, he says. “An actor is a group animal and a writer is a solitary animal. For a group person to isolate themselves and have just themselves to feed off is very complicated. Sometimes it goes well, but mostly it’s a process of endless reworking and getting it wrong.”
Writing has also given him the freedom to create roles that were not being offered to him in film, he has said. He came out as gay in an era when it could kill an actor’s career, at the height of the Aids epidemic. He has said that it led to typecasting ever since, exemplified by his role as the gay friend opposite Julia Roberts in My Best Friend’s Wedding.
I think people who say they have no regrets are a bit wacky. There are so many things to regret
Might he be tempted not to come out if he had his time again? “For me it wasn’t possible. There was no way I was going to pretend. I was so proud to be part of it all. The gay scene at the beginning of the Thatcher years was so remarkable because you counted just for showing up. And it was classless and ageless. You’d go to the Coleherne Arms [a former gay pub in west London] and you’d see a duke of 70 chatting to a plumber of 25 and then they’d go off to spank each other.”
Still, the dearth of acting roles is what led him to write the screenplay for The Happy Prince, a biopic of the elderly Oscar Wilde, which he also directed and starred in. It was a labour of love for Everett, who worked on it for over a decade, and it should have won the Oscars it was predicted to scoop. He has starred as Wilde on stage, too, in a revival of Hare’s The Judas Kiss, for which he brought back the padding of his youth. “I always imagined Wilde was revoltingly well hung. So I wore a padded cock and the front five rows, I could see, were thinking, ‘My God, I had no idea Rupert Everett was so well hung!’ I had go down a few sizes because it was taking over.” That was four years ago in the West End. “Maybe I should put it back in for Vanya!”
Padded … as Oscar Wilde with Freddie Fox in The Judas Kiss by David Hare in 2013. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
The writing also became more necessary because of the growth of ageism, as he sees it, which means even male actors now must present eternal youth on screen. Men he says, had it very easy for a long time. “You could be a man aged 73 and have a 22-year-old girlfriend. That’s all changed. The result for us is that we haven’t got roles going off into the grey distance.”
The prospects for gay actors have changed in Hollywood, he thinks, but only because the industry has been forced to accept it. Ironically, he has observed the erosion of gay rights in the real world. “It seems to me that there’s no ‘live and let live’ any more,” he says. “Last year I was opening my film in Italy, and you’d go to a place like Genoa, where the state withdrew funding for its gay pride march, and there would be other horrible things you’d hear, about families who’d locked up their lesbian daughter …”
The world is changing in a way that gives him another reason to be happy about ageing. He is particularly despairing of British politics. “The end of it was Ann Widdecombe’s speech in Brussels. The most alarming, repulsive, depressing, shaming thing that I’ve ever seen. More shaming than Nigel Farage somehow, right down to the old cockney rolling of the Rs,” he says, and demonstrates the sound.
Despair is a central theme of Chekhov’s play; Vanya’s midlife crisis is filled with disappointment as he reflects on the past. I wonder about Everett’s midlife audit. There is regret at losing friends, he says, but he won’t be drawn on his famous falling-out with Madonna. “I think people who say they have no regrets are a bit wacky. There are so many things to regret. The way one treats people; the way one writes off relationships; the way one, looking back, backstabs. Middle age is a reckoning. You need nerves of steel to get through it.”
There is disappointment, too. The reality of his life did not – and perhaps could not – meet the totality of his ambitions as a young man. “I wanted to be that big Hollywood movie star as a kid. I was so blindly ambitious that I would have done anything to get along. I mean, I wouldn’t have killed ...”
But doesn’t he see through that kind of fame now? “Yes, but still … I think everybody’s disappointed. Everybody wants to have more.”
So what is the ambition now? He is working on another autobiography about the 10 years it took to make his Wilde film. He has also written the screenplay for a film about Paris in the 1970s, which he is trying to get financed, and a TV series about a boyband. He swings between doubt, despair and hope as he lists the projects. “I don’t know if I can write any more,” he says in one breath, and then in the next: “I’ve got tons of things I’d like to try and do.”
“Of course,” he says, “you’ve got to know the time to stop trying so hard. But I’d love to direct another film. I would love to write for TV. I’m keeping going. The ambition is still blind. That’s the weird thing.”
Uncle Vanya is at Theatre Royal Bath until 3 August. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/07/narendra-modi-visits-kashmir-first-time-since-state-autonomy-stripped | World news | 2024-03-07T11:12:16.000Z | Hannah Ellis-Petersen | Narendra Modi visits Kashmir for first time since state’s autonomy stripped | India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, has made his first visit to Kashmir since the government revoked the region’s autonomy in 2019, claiming the state was finally “breathing freely” despite allegations of systematic repression.
Thousands of police and paramilitary officers were mobilised before Modi’s first rally there for more than five years, held in the state’s largest city, Srinagar.
Speaking to the crowds, Modi proclaimed a new era of peace and development in the region. “It is the new Jammu and Kashmir that we have been waiting decades for,” he said.
Modi’s speech hailed an era of development after his government decided overnight to revoke article 370 in the aftermath of the 2019 elections. The statute had given the Muslim-majority state a unique form of autonomy, including its own constitution and protections over legislation, land and culture for more than 70 years.
The move stripped the region of its statehood and instead split it into two union territories of Jammu and Kashmir under the control of the central government. Tens of thousands of troops were moved into the state and in the following months a fierce crackdown was implemented. The internet was shut down for more than 18 months and all the political leaders in the region were detained.
The move fulfilled a longstanding Hindu-nationalist pledge and was widely welcomed across India, but angered many in the territory itself. A report by Amnesty International found that the government had “drastically intensified repression” in Kashmir after the removal of article 370.
Kashmir, India’s largest Muslim-majority region, has been a source of turbulence for decades. It has long been claimed by both India and Pakistan, and since the 1990s Indian-administered Kashmir has been home to a violent militant insurgency with an allegiance to Pakistan.
The decision to revoke article 370 in 2019 was justified by the Modi government on the basis of security and aligning the region with the rest of India. However, it did not have the backing of most Kashmiris, who saw it as a violation of their rights and freedoms by the Hindu nationalist government.
In the aftermath, new rules were implemented that allowed outsiders to buy land in the state for the first time, which many saw as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) to dispossess them from their land and change the Muslim demography of the region.
There was also a crackdown on freedom of the press in the region, with independent journalists interrogated and in several cases arrested and held under terrorism laws. Human rights defenders were also routinely harassed and detained.
Modi’s visit to Srinagar is being seen as a campaign event for elections in a few weeks’ time, where he will be seeking a third term in power. His party, the BJP, which has never won the Srinagar seat, also hopes to make further political inroads into the Himalayan region in the polls.
The government embarked on a delimitation exercise last year to redraw parliamentary constituencies in Jammu and Kashmir, which gave more seats to the Hindu majority areas of the region and was therefore seen to politically benefit the BJP before the 2024 elections.
Kashmir has been without any state political representation since 2018, when the BJP-appointed governor dissolved the state assembly. Political leaders in the region have accused the BJP of a “suspension of democracy” as no state elections have been held for more than a decade.
The supreme court ruled that the state elections must take place by September but no date has been confirmed. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/sep/15/portugal-wales-preview-rugby-world-cup | Sport | 2023-09-15T11:14:09.000Z | Michael Aylwin | All change: Portugal await but new-look Wales have fresh expectations | Michael Aylwin | What a difference a win makes. Wales spent last week under siege conditions, fending off questions about their year so far, about their lowly ranking relative to their first opponents Fiji, even about the pre-match nerves of Warren Gatland, in Welsh rugby the most successful maestro of all. One bonus-point win later, they roll out an exciting young team and start talking about World Cup finals.
There is no doubting their World Cup pedigree of late: a semi-final, quarter-final and semi-final in the past three editions under Gatland, lost by margins of one, four and three points respectively. “I stated beforehand, don’t write us off,” said Gatland. “This team is capable of doing something special and I still believe that. For us it’s about one game at a time. We have done well in previous World Cups and would like to get to a final of a World Cup.”
Molars to mauls: Portugal’s captain sinks teeth into World Cup chance
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After the controversial epic against Fiji on Sunday night in Bordeaux, Wales sit alongside Australia on maximum points at the top of Pool C. Fiji must now beat Australia in what will be another intense encounter this Sunday, but Wales can afford to turn over most of the team for their no-doubt-gentler assignment with Portugal in Nice. That said, Portugal are the highest-ranked “fifth” team in any of the pools, 16th in the world, one place above Uruguay. After Thursday night’s match in Lille, mighty France can tell you how good Uruguay are.
Gatland has made 13 changes, bringing in the other of his co-captains, Dewi Lake, for only his third start for Wales, his 10th cap overall. Lake, the 24-year-old hooker, was named as co-captain with Jac Morgan, who captained the side against Fiji. Lake was rested as a precaution for that game but now leads a team that look young and exciting.
Dan Lydiate, Taulupe Faletau and Leigh Halfpenny might be considered stalwarts of Wales’s outgoing generation, but the rest of the side bristles with young talent, guided by a half-back pairing of Goldilocks-zone experience – Tomos Williams, who wins his 50th cap, and Gareth Anscombe.
A couple of pairings will be of particular interest. In the centre, Johnny Williams and Mason Grady pose a physical challenge for the Portuguese, each man a punchy 17 stone or so, but perhaps the future for Wales will be best served by the partnership in the engine room.
Dewi Lake will captain Wales on only his third start. Photograph: Chris Fairweather/Huw Evans/Shutterstock
Dafydd Jenkins and Christ Tshiunza are barely out of their teens, but Jenkins has already been touted as the next Alun Wyn Jones, while Tshiunza defies comparisons: a galloping, leaping athlete who could probably play a number of other positions – and not just in the back row, where he has also turned out for Wales. This will be his first start as a lock.
Both young men play their rugby at Exeter, both attend the local university. “It is still a bit weird,” said Tshiunza. “We are roommates as well, and sometimes we just lie in bed and look over at each other and say: ‘What are we doing here? To be 20-years-old, what have we done to deserve this?’”
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Portugal roll out most of the side that earned qualification for this tournament with a 16-16 draw against USA in November last year. As if to prove that was no fluke, they beat them again 46-20 in the Algarve in August. This is their first match of this World Cup, having appeared at only one other, in 2007.
They are coached by Patrice Lagisquet, the imperious France winger of yore, once known as the Bayonne Express. Eleven of the starting team play their rugby professionally in France, although only one in the Top 14 – the hooker Mike Tadjer of Perpignan. The right-wing Vincent Pinto is one of four players to have played for France Under-20s. He won the world championship with them in 2019.
“Portugal are kind of a similar version of Fiji,” said Gatland. “They like to move the ball around.” If nothing else, Wales’s encounter with them should be easy on the eye. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/dec/05/road-osborne-investment-demand-more | UK news | 2012-12-05T23:26:08.000Z | Josephine Moulds | Road groups welcome £1.5bn investment but demand more | Motoring groups welcomed the £1.5bn investment to improve the road network but said the chancellor's plans did not go far enough.
Among a range of measures, George Osborne announced a £314m investment in the A1, bringing the route from London to Newcastle up to motorway standard. There was funding for a link road between the A5 and M1 to cut traffic going through Dunstable, and an upgrade to junction 30 of the M25 to improve access to Lakeside shopping centre.
The Department for Transport will pay half the costs of upgrading 2.6 miles of the A30 in Cornwall – between Temple and Higher Carblake – from a single to a dual carriageway. It will also provide £42m for cycle lanes and tracks across the UK.
Stephen Glaister, director of the RAC Foundation, said: "[Osborne] has announced some significant new money, so to that extent it's welcome." But, he said: "It's nowhere near enough."
Funds will come from the £5bn pot for infrastructure investment announced on Tuesday, which the Treasury hopes to raise from fresh cuts to Whitehall departments. It will also dip into this for £120m to build new flood defences.
Meanwhile, Osborne named the 12 cities that will share £50m of funding for ultrafast broadband and public Wi-Fi – announced in this year's budget – including Brighton and Hove, Coventry, Salford and Aberdeen.
The shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, was quick to point out that much of the infrastructure spending has yet to materialise. "A year ago the prime minister boasted about their national infrastructure plan, 12 months on not a single road scheme has even started." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/25/apple-ios-update-arab-activists-iphone-spyware | Technology | 2016-08-25T19:25:26.000Z | Dan Tynan | Apple issues global iOS update after attempt to use spyware on activist's iPhone | A botched attempt to break into the iPhone of an Arab activist using hitherto unknown espionage software has triggered a global upgrade of Apple’s mobile operating system, security researchers said on Thursday.
The spyware took advantage of three previously undisclosed weaknesses in Apple’s iPhone to take complete control of the devices.
It’s a story worthy of a high-tech spy novel. When Ahmed Mansour opened his iPhone 6 on 10 August, he spied two suspicious text messages claiming to offer new information about dissidents being held and tortured in prisons in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Each message held a link to a website where Mansour could obtain more information.
Mansour – a decorated human rights activist who had been targeted twice before by the UAE government – knew better than to click the links. Instead, he forwarded them to security researchers at the Citizen Lab, which examined the links with the help of another security firm, Lookout Mobile.
Bounty hunters are legally hacking Apple and the Pentagon – for big money
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What they found was an extremely sophisticated piece of spyware that, when launched, would jailbreak Mansour’s iPhone and take complete control of the operating system, bypassing any security controls Apple put in place.
Detailed reports issued by Lookout and Citizen Lab outlined how the technique worked, potentially compromising an iPhone with the tap of a finger – a trick so coveted in the world of cyberespionage that in November one spyware broker claimed it had paid a $1m dollar bounty to programmers who’d found a way to do it.
When researchers found that the attack had used three separate “zero-day exploits” – attacks never before encountered by security researchers – they decided to name the attack “Trident”, says Mike Murray, vice-president for security research and response at Lookout.
The first attack exploited a vulnerability in the Safari, fooling the phone into launching a browser session. The second located the core of the phone’s operating system, known as the kernel. The third exploit replaced the kernel, becoming a part of iOS. “Once you become the kernel, at that point you are the phone,” Murray says. “You can load any software you want.”
From that point, it would have been possible for attackers to spy on virtually anything Mansour did – phone calls, text messages, Gmail, Skype, and Facebook – as well as scan his calendar, and steal passwords and other personal information.
By tracking the domains used to launch the attack, as well as code embedded inside those sites, Citizen Lab traced it to a private Israeli security firm called NSO Group. That organization sells surveillance software called Pegasus to nation states; in 2012, NSO sold 300 licenses to the government of Panama for $8m.
In a statement that stopped short of acknowledging that the spyware was its own, the NSO Group said its mission was to provide “authorized governments with technology that helps them combat terror and crime”. The company said it had no knowledge of any particular incidents.
Citizen Lab also uncovered links between NSO and a group known to have launched attacks on other UAE citizens known as Stealth Falcon. The hacking group shared a handful of Internet servers with NSO. “So the link we suspect between Stealth Falcon and NSO is that Stealth Falcon is an NSO customer,” says Bill Marczak, senior researcher for Citizen Lab.
Stealth Falcon, in turn, had targeted other UAE dissidents in the past who were later imprisoned or convicted in absentia, Marczak adds. In addition, the material Stealth Falcon used as bait to lure victims into clicking the fatal link “was overwhelmingly geared towards the UAE”, he says.
“The high cost of iPhone zero-days, the apparent use of NSO Group’s government-exclusive Pegasus product, and prior known targeting of Mansoor by the UAE government provide indicators that point to the UAE government as the likely operator behind the targeting,” Citizen Labs’ report concludes.
While nation states targeting individuals is nothing new, this attack was something no one has ever seen before, says Lookout’s Murray.
“I cannot remember a single malware attack that contained three distinct zero-day exploits,” he says. “They picked the iPhone, the hardest platform to compromise. They created spyware with the most comprehensive feature set you can have, and they deployed it in a way that no one would catch it for years.
“Put it all together, this is unprecedented.”
Apple said in a statement that it fixed the vulnerability immediately after learning about it. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/sep/11/angela-hartnett-stuffed-bream-potatoes-recipe | Life and style | 2013-09-11T12:07:00.000Z | Angela Hartnett | Angela Hartnett's stuffed bream with sauteed potatoes recipe | Cook fish on the bone to keep that lovely moist texture. It's easy to serve it family-style and allow everyone to dig in, perhaps with a nice chicory salad on the side.
(Serves 4)
400g new potatoes, halved
Pinch of salt
2 medium bream, 400g each
1 small onion, finely sliced
1 small head of fennel, finely sliced
Olive oil
1 lemon, rind grated and juice reserved
200ml water
2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/gas mark six.
Cover the potatoes with cold salted water in a pan and parboil for 10 minutes.
Place the bream in a large ovenproof dish.
Combine the onion and fennel, hold the fish open with one hand and stuff with the mixture.
Season the bream, add a dash of olive oil, the lemon juice and water, cover with foil and place in the oven for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, drain the potatoes and saute over a medium/high heat until golden brown.
Mix the parsley, lemon rind and garlic, season and add enough oil to bind.
Check the fish is cooked by piercing with a knife – it should go in without resistance – and remove from the oven.
To finish, cover the bream with the parsley mix and serve with the sauteed potatoes.
Angela Hartnett is chef patron at Murano restaurant and consults at the Whitechapel Gallery and Dining Room, London. Twitter.com/angelahartnett | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/mar/24/victor-hochhauser-obituary | Music | 2019-03-24T17:28:25.000Z | Hella Pick | Victor Hochhauser obituary | The impresario Victor Hochhauser, who has died aged 95, made possible performances by leading figures of the worlds of classical music and ballet in Britain, sometimes also in Israel and in the former communist bloc countries. Many of them became personal friends. In the decades following the second world war, Victor made it his business, and his pleasure, to bring such great talents to the widest audiences.
To that end he ventured behind the iron curtain and to China, opening western doors for performers from the Soviet Union such as Rudolf Nureyev and the pianist Sviatoslav Richter, the Bolshoi and Kirov ballets and Chinese opera. Working as a team with his wife, Lilian, Victor developed a remarkable record in negotiating with the Russians, sometimes in spiriting artists out of the country, always nannying them and nursing their supersize egos.
Yet Victor did more than cater for the elites. It was always his ambition to make the performing arts more accessible to wider audiences. His Sunday evening concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London, often derided by the critics as second-rate potboilers, popularised classical music long before the emergence of the Three Tenors. Victor was also the first to stage opera for mass audiences at the former Earls Court exhibition centre and in what is now Arena Birmingham.
Rudolf Nureyev during a rehearsal of Romeo and Juliet at the London Coliseum in 1980. Photograph: Michael Ward/Getty Images
The impresarios’ club is small, its members always competing for artists and auditoriums. As a young man Victor certainly had no burning ambition to penetrate this circle. His priorities in 1945 were far more concerned with his Jewish faith. He had been born in Kosiče, in what is now Slovakia. His family were devout Jews – his grandfather had been chief rabbi of Hungary. But his father was an industrialist, and in 1938 emigrated to Britain while it was still possible to save the family from Nazi persecution.
The young Victor was sent to study at a Jewish seminary in Gateshead and went on to work as a fundraiser at a London synagogue for Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld. It was in that capacity that he set out to stage a charity concert – and in the process discovered that he possessed a hidden talent for promoting musical events. In March 1945 he was able to hire the Whitehall theatre in London; and because his father knew the father of the pianist Solomon Cutner, who always appeared professionally as Solomon, the great man was persuaded to perform.
On the strength of that evening’s success, Victor borrowed £200 from his father, hired the Albert Hall for £30, booked the London Symphony Orchestra for £60 and in May staged the first of a series of concerts that featured such names as the violinist Ida Haendel and pianists Eileen Joyce, Louis Kentner and Benno Moiseiwitsch. It was always sold out, and in 1946 he secured the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham for a season of concerts. “It all seemed so easy,” Hochhauser reflected many years later.
In 1947, Victor felt sufficiently secure to organise a Richard Strauss festival, with the composer himself sharing the conducting with Beecham. The following year, he also approached Harold Holt, London’s leading impresario, to ask if he could borrow one of his artists, Yehudi Menuhin, for a charity concert. “Holt saw me as a novice, said ‘so what?’ and let me have Menuhin at a reduced fee. And that is how I got Menuhin,” Victor said many years later, still savouring Holt’s misjudgment.
Victor Hochhauser, centre, with the conductors John Barbirolli, left, and Gennadi Rozhdestvensky in the 1960s. Photograph: Sputnki/Alamy
Menuhin went on to play under the Hochhauser management on many occasions, and they became good friends. But those concerts in 1948 were unique: the Vienna Philharmonic came on its first postwar visit, playing under Bruno Walter, Josef Krips and Wilhelm Furtwängler, and with soloists, besides Menuhin, including the singers Kathleen Ferrier, Julius Patzak and Hilde Gueden.
Menuhin had suggested that Furtwängler should be invited – even though the German conductor was under a cloud for his decision to work in his homeland during the war. Menuhin was convinced that Furtwängler was a good man and argued that the conductor demonstrated his integrity by insisting that émigré members of the Vienna Philharmonic, ousted in 1939 because they were Jewish, should rejoin to play with the orchestra during their London season. Still, “had I been more mature, I might have reflected more deeply” about backing his presence, Victor recalled.
In 1949 he made two moves that were to have a lasting influence on his life and work. By far the most important was his marriage to Lilian Shields, whom he had met in Schonfeld’s office. This brought him enduring happiness and gave him the ideal working partner. They undertook everything as a team. While he was at his best working behind the scenes, Lilian’s outgoing nature helped in making friends with their artists, and winning their loyalty.
Victor’s other important initiative in 1949 was the decision to branch out into ballet and to do so on a grand scale for mass audiences. He hired the old Empress Hall in Earl’s Court, and secured the great names of the postwar ballet era: Alicia Markova, Anton Dolin, Léonid Massine, Svetlana Beriosova. That year he also brought to Britain the two great Spanish flamenco dancers Antonio and Rosario. And the Vienna Philharmonic returned with Walter for what was to be Ferrier’s last performance.
As Victor’s reputation grew, his ambitions turned to the Soviet Union’s great artists. His father had heard the violinist David Oistrakh perform in Prague. He told Victor that this was an artist he had to have. But how could he persuade the Kremlin to let such a leading figure come to the west?
Negotiations finally began in 1953, after the death of Stalin, and Oistrakh came the following year – an occasion that Victor marked 50 years later by a concert with David’s son Igor and grandson Valery as soloists. In 1956, Mstislav Rostropovich came, for the first time, to Edinburgh and then to London, under the Hochhausers’ aegis. This was long before the cellist’s defection and Victor was now paying regular visits to Moscow to negotiate for folk dance troupes as well as classical soloists.
Lilian and Victor Hochhauser at the Olivier awards in 2017. Photograph: John Phillips/Getty Images
The Soviet authorities were far from overjoyed to be dealing with a Jew. But “They had little choice. I had the major orchestras in Britain under my management and I had the concert halls. In an attempt to discourage me, the Soviets increased the artists’ fees six-fold,” Victor recalled.
The relationship eased after an Anglo-Soviet cultural agreement was signed in 1957. With encouragement from the British government, the Hochhausers embarked on a series of remarkable exchanges between orchestras, soloists and ballet companies. The BBC Symphony Orchestra went with John Barbirolli to the Soviet Union, Poland and Hungary; the Bolshoi and Kirov ballet companies performed in London; festivals of Russian music with Shostakovich and many other Soviet artists were organised in Britain, too.
In 1972 the Hochhausers took their friends Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears to join the BBC Symphony to perform British music in the Soviet Union. The following year, the Hochhausers were also able to bring the Peking Opera to London for the first of many successful visits.
A long era of close cooperation with Moscow came to an end in 1974 when Rostropovich followed Nureyev and a clutch of other Soviet artists and defected to the west. The Hochhausers, already suspect because they had signed on Nureyev for performances in Britain, compounded their sins by giving the cellist the use of a flat in their office building in Holland Park. It took a long time for Victor to be forgiven. He was declared persona non grata; Moscow cancelled a tour because he was involved; formal memos replaced friendly correspondence addressed to “Dear Victor”.
It no longer mattered greatly. Most of the great performers from the Soviet Union were now established in the west. Victor staged a dozen Nureyev festivals in London; Mikhail Baryshnikov performed there under the Hochhauser management; Rostropovich made frequent return appearances in Britain. The Hochhausers also broke new ground by bringing ice ballet to the Albert Hall, and Aida to Earls Court. And after Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader in 1988, the Hochhausers were again in favour, and were able to organise exchange visits between Russian and British orchestras. In 1994 Victor was appointed CBE.
Victor and Lilian, both pillars of the Jewish community in Britain, also developed close ties with Israel, buying a house in Jerusalem and becoming involved in the country’s cultural life. They brought the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra to the UK, and helped to stage music festivals in Israel. Increasingly they focused on charitable work to promote Israeli interests.
However London, with their capacious, elegant Hampstead house set in extensive gardens, remained their much-loved home base. Going into the new century, Victor and Lilian still hovered around every event staged under the Hochhauser label to make sure that things worked smoothly and deal with the countless backstage dramas of visiting artists. The Mariinsky (as the Kirov had become) and Bolshoi ballet companies continued to appear in London, with the latter returning to Covent Garden this July. Victor also remained keenly interested in political developments at home and abroad.
He is survived by Lilian and their four children, Daniel, Mark, Simon and Shari.
Victor Hochhauser, impresario, born 27 March 1923; died 22 March 2019
This article was amended on 25 March 2019. Victor Hochhauser died on 22 March rather than 21 March. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2015/dec/16/tv-swansongs-the-final-peep-show-sex-city-sopranos | Television & radio | 2015-12-16T15:52:34.000Z | Mark Lawson | TV swansongs: the final Peep Show and the art of saying goodbye | In the post-mortem that takes place after the unexpected failure of a big show in theatre, producers will sometimes conclude that it all went wrong in the last few minutes, due to a play lacking a good enough “curtain line” or a musical a suitably spectacular finale (what Broadway calls the “11 o’clock number”) to send audiences away with generally positive impressions.
Peep Show review: a wedding, new flatmates and juicing? There’s change afoot in this last series
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This pressure for a perfect ending is increasingly spreading to television. If the final episode of the season of a drama or comedy – or, still worse, the final ever programme of the franchise – doesn’t finish convincingly, then much of the pleasure or success that went before can be compromised by the perceived failure, in industry jargon, to “land” the show well.
Tonight on Channel 4, after 54 episodes in nine series screened since 2003, Peep Show reaches the end of the runway, meaning that Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain are the latest writers – and David Mitchell and Robert Webb, as ageing flatmates Mark and Jeremy, the latest actors – to come under pressure to deliver the perfect credits line, the ideal 10.30pm scene.
One advantage for Armstrong and Bain is that they are closing down a whole show rather than a mere series. Several recent controversies over crash-landings have related to season finales that were irritatingly open-ended, including The Affair (Sky Atlantic), Doctor Foster (BBC1) and London Spy (BBC2). All of those shows suffered from the multiplying encouragement in television to leave any series, no matter how discrete the first storyline seemed, open to the possibility of coming back.
The Sopranos (HBO, 1999-2007, HBO) ended on a note of violent ambiguity that is generally felt to have been fitting. Photograph: c.HBO/Everett / Rex Features
Knowing that you are going, though, brings a different set of challenges, as the producers, writers or actors may wish to have the project still available in the future as an emergency pension scheme. And even the keenest viewers – perhaps especially those – may severely judge their favourite for the manner of its departure.
Is the final episode of London Spy doomed to let us down?
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The Sopranos (1999-2007, HBO) ended on a note of violent ambiguity that is generally felt to have been fitting, while One Foot in the Grave (1990-2000, BBC) boldly ignited the final word of its title and vindicated the pessimism of its protagonist, Richard Wilson’s Victor Meldrew. Less happily, The West Wing (1999-2006, NBC) ultimately succumbed to a fatal dose of the saccharine to which it had always been partial, and Lost (2004-10, ABC) imploded in a sentimentality of a different kind with a payoff of meta-physical silliness.
Deliberately or accidentally, Bain and Armstrong have followed the model of Sex and the City (1998-2004, HBO) and Friends (1994-2004, NBC) by bringing the main characters back to the apartment and basic situation with which everything started, although where SATC waited until very near the end to reveal Big’s first name (John), Peep Show exposed Matt King’s magnificent Super Hans as a Simon on his birth certificate in the opening show of the final run.
Having now watched every episode of Peep Show, I think that Armstrong and Bain have judged their exit lines perfectly. Sharply created and sharply acted new characters – the frisky historian April (Catherine Shepherd, reprising a brief role from 2004) and her lugubrious theologian husband Angus (Angus Wright) – converge with the 12-year veterans as the scriptwriters demonstrate their absolute confidence in the plotting of dark farce and writing of cruelly self-deluding dialogue.
Lost (2004-10, ABC) imploded in a sentimentality of a different kind with a payoff of meta-physical silliness. Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
With Mark convinced that he has found love, if only he can spring April from her marriage, and the newly gay Jeremy apparently settled down with a much younger man, the closing scenario becomes a sort of dirty Richard Curtis movie. All the familiar pleasures of the series are present to the end, including the devastatingly contradictory or confessional inner-voice-overs, the wide range of references (name-checks tonight ranging from Delia Smith to Dorothy Parker) and the still-sometimes-disconcerting tight closeups.
Everyone needs a Super Hans: the life lessons Peep Show has taught us
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Valedictory episodes can also benefit from the tangible overlap between the characters taking leave of each other and the emotions of actors who have worked together for so long. While this process can be confused by the fact that scenes are rarely filmed in the order that they appear on screen – the climactic trialogue between Mark, Jeremy and Super Hans was shot fairly early on – there does seem to be an extra weight to some of the exchanges. In a public Q&A at Bafta to mark the series end, Webb admitted that he cried after recording his last scene, while Mitchell revealed that he hadn’t, although knowing that he should.
For many viewers tonight, the loud laughter that the writing and acting that Peep Show provokes to the last will contain an occasional melancholy note.
Peep Show, 10pm, Channel 4 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/30/uk-passenger-buys-ticket-already-sold-out-flight-air-traffic-chaos | World news | 2023-08-30T15:23:59.000Z | Miles Brignall | ‘Furious’: UK passenger stung by air traffic chaos – then an oversold flight | Like thousands of others caught up in Monday’s air traffic control chaos, Swarna Khare is more than £1,000 out of pocket. However, she claims her case has been made substantially worse after she used an online agent to buy a last-minute replacement flight from Rome back to London – only to find that it appeared to have been massively oversold, denying her boarding for a second time.
The 35-year-old pharmaceutical executive from Woking had spent a week travelling around Italy and was scheduled to fly back from Rome with British Airways at 9pm on Monday evening. She first learned that the UK air traffic control system had crashed when a friend called her as she travelled to the airport. When BA later cancelled the flight, Khare says, she was one of hundreds of passengers left stranded, with no help offered by either the airline, or airport staff.
She managed to grab one of the last remaining rooms at the Hilton hotel, paying almost €300 (£258), about double the normal rate. Needing to be back at work, she was delighted when she found what seemed to be an Iberia/Vueling ticket on Booking.com on Tuesday, for which she paid £252. At this point she cancelled the BA replacement flight she had been offered on Friday.
“When I got back to the airport on Tuesday I was one of a number of people who were denied boarding because the flight had been oversold and we were not even on the passenger list,” says Khare.
“I was made to run around between Iberia and Vueling counters and told to call the Iberia call centre to get a solution. They told me to ask Vueling who then told me to call Iberia or Booking.com. I missed the flight along with at least 15 other UK passengers who had bought the similar ticket as me and couldn’t be found on the passenger list. I was in tears, out of money, nowhere to go with each of the companies saying there is nothing they can do. There were children and elderly people in our group, all clearly devastated.”
A spokesperson for Booking.com said it was a “complicated” situation and that it was now investigating what had gone wrong.
“We take any complaint seriously and are currently looking into the details raised,” they said.
Unwilling to keep paying the inflated airport hotel charges, Khare says she is now back in Rome city centre, and trying to do as much work as she can using her mobile phone. She has since booked a third flight with easyJet on Friday, paying a further €380, and is desperately hoping it will go ahead.
“The whole episode has been a nightmare. I’m more than £1,000 out of pocket and I am still furious that I was sold a ticket for a flight that was already sold out, with no one willing to take responsibility. I will never use one of these online travel agents again,” she says. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/15/sun-pressure-sack-kelvin-mackenzie-ross-barkley | Media | 2017-04-15T19:12:06.000Z | Jamie Doward | Sun under pressure to sack Kelvin MacKenzie | Pressure is growing on the Sun to sack its columnist and former editor Kelvin MacKenzie, as the chair of the equalities watchdog called on newspapers to think carefully before publishing comments that could promote social division.
David Isaac, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, made the warning on Saturday after Everton football club banned the tabloid’s journalists from its ground following fury at a MacKenzie column in which he compared the club’s star midfielder, Ross Barkley, who has a Nigerian grandfather, to a gorilla, and made contemptuous remarks about the people of Liverpool.
Everton said it had informed the Sun on Friday that its journalists were banned from its stadium, its training ground and all areas of the team’s operations. Everton added: “While we will not dignify any journalist with a response to appalling and indefensible allegations, the newspaper has to know that any attack on this city, either against a much-respected community or individual, is not acceptable.”
Everton's Ross Barkley roars back to sink Burnley after Kelvin MacKenzie attack
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Isaac said: “At a time when we need to heal divisions in our country, these comments are at best careless and poorly timed. Free speech is the cornerstone of our democracy, but in exercising that right the media must act sensibly and consider the impact that publishing material like this will have. Many people will be rightly offended by these comments.”
Everton announced the ban as football fans, pundits, players and celebrities took to social media calling for the Sun to sever all links with MacKenzie, who edited the paper between 1981 and 1994. Questions have also been asked about who among the paper’s senior staff approved the column. “Verified S** column by Kelvin MacKenzie today,” the former England player Stan Collymore tweeted. “Implied racism at its finest. Time to boycott sponsors and associated companies.”
In his column for the paper on Friday, MacKenzie wrote: “Perhaps unfairly, I have always judged Ross Barkley as one of our dimmest footballers. There is something about the lack of reflection in his eyes which makes me certain not only are the lights not on, there is definitely nobody at home. I get a similar feeling when seeing a gorilla at the zoo. The physique is magnificent but it’s the eyes that tell the story.”
When accused of racism, MacKenzie said he had no idea of Ross Barkley’s family background. Numerous press articles have made it clear that Barkley, who has 22 England caps, was eligible to play for Nigeria. Amid strong support from his home crowd on Saturday, he was instrumental in Everton’s second goal against Burnley.
Liverpool’s mayor, Joe Anderson, reported MacKenzie to the police for what he said were “racial slurs”. Merseyside police said inquiries were under way to “establish the full circumstances of the incident”.
Barkley was punched in a Liverpool bar last weekend in what his lawyer said was an “unprovoked attack”. In response to that incident, MacKenzie wrote: “The reality is that at £60,000 a week and being both thick and single, he is an attractive catch in the Liverpool area, where the only men with similar pay packets are drug dealers and therefore not at nightclubs, as they are often guests of Her Majesty.”
Everton join Liverpool in banning Sun journalists over coverage
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Coming the day before the 28th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster, his comments were seen by many as deliberately timed. MacKenzie was editor of the Sun when it published a front-page article headlined “Hillsborough: The Truth” in the aftermath of the 1989 disaster at Sheffield Wednesday’s football stadium. The article falsely claimed that Liverpool fans were to blame for the tragedy. MacKenzie later apologised.
Steve Kelly, an Everton fan who lost his brother, Mike, in the tragedy and who was a leading light in the Hillsborough Justice Campaign, said MacKenzie’s latest comments proved there was no genuine remorse.
“He knew what he was doing, he’s got an opinion of Liverpool people and he’s sticking to it,” Kelly said. “We’ve had a hard time in this city and it’s taken us 28 years to recover, but we never will when there’s the likes of him. It’s all about MacKenzie and keeping himself in the limelight. It’s a form of narcissism.”
Kelly said the Sun, which pays MacKenzie a reputed £300,000 a year for his column, needed to take firm action to show that it no longer shared its former editor’s views.
Many of the Sun’s critics pointed out on social media that the piece would have been seen by a chain of journalists and editors before publication. The comedian David Schneider tweeted: “The impressive thing about Kelvin MacKenzie is how he hacked the Sun and smuggled his article into the paper without any editor reading it.”
Ellis Cashmore, a professor of sociology at Aston University, said it was difficult to see how MacKenzie could now continue working for the Sun. “I sense Kelvin will tread the same path to oblivion as Ron Atkinson,” Cashmore predicted, a reference to the former manager who lost his job as a TV pundit after making a racist comment.
A spokesman for the Sun did not respond to calls for comment. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/30/cop28-president-team-accused-of-wikipedia-greenwashing-sultan-al-jaber | Environment | 2023-05-30T05:00:22.000Z | Ben Stockton | Cop28 president’s team accused of Wikipedia ‘greenwashing’ | The Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, has been accused of attempting to “greenwash” his image after it emerged that members of his team had edited Wikipedia pages that highlighted his role as CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc).
Work by Al Jaber’s team on his and the climate summit’s Wikipedia entries include adding a quote from an editorial that said Al Jaber – the United Arab Emirates minister for industry and advanced technology – was “precisely the kind of ally the climate movement needs”. They also suggested that editors remove reference to a multibillion-dollar oil pipeline deal he signed in 2019, the Centre for Climate Reporting and the Guardian can reveal.
“Oil companies and their CEOs are taking greenwash to a whole new level – seizing control of global climate conferences, then getting their own employees to airbrush out criticism of their blatant hypocrisy on Wikipedia,” said Caroline Lucas, the Green party MP.
The UAE government, which controls about 6% of the world’s oil reserves, has been criticised for appointing a fossil fuel boss as head of Cop28, which will be held in Dubai in November. Last week, 130 US and EU lawmakers called on Al Jaber to be removed from his post as the summit’s president.
Meanwhile, Al Jaber has been working with major consultancy firms and PR agencies to promote his work as an advocate for Emirati investment in green energy. His appointment as Cop28 president was welcomed by the likes of John Kerry, the US special presidential envoy for climate, and other key figures in international climate diplomacy.
Pointing to Al Jaber’s work on climate issues over the past decade, a spokesperson for Cop28 said: “We will continue to ensure that all publicly available sources of information about the presidency and its leadership remain factually accurate and up to date.”
Al Jaber’s role as both CEO of Adnoc and Cop28 president is at the centre of the controversy. The company is forging a major expansion of the UAE’s fossil fuel output despite the International Energy Agency having said there must be no new oil and gas projects if the world is to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050. A series of edits to Al Jaber’s Wikipedia page since March last year reveal the extent to which his team has tried to control public perception of his record in the fossil fuel industry.
A Wikipedia user, whose identity is unknown but who disclosed they were being paid by Adnoc, suggested editors remove the reference to a $4bn agreement Al Jaber signed in 2019 with US investment giants BlackRock and KKR for the development of oil pipeline infrastructure. The user said there was “too much detail” and suggested the page say that Al Jaber had simply attracted “international investment” in Adnoc.
The user also recommended that editors delete a quote from the Financial Times which highlighted the dissonance between Al Jaber’s role as the UAE’s climate tsar and his driving of Adnoc’s fossil fuel expansion. Instead, they suggested that the page note the company was using the revenues from this increased oil output to “invest in carbon capture and green fuel technologies”.
In this case, only some of the changes they suggested were actually added to Al Jaber’s Wikipedia page.
“Well sourced material that includes pertinent information (even if it’s a little more detail than ideally the company would like to see shared in an article) would always be retained,” an editor told the user.
A spokesperson for Adnoc said: “We are very proud of Dr Sultan’s achievements as a global energy leader and regularly review content to ensure accuracy. Update requests were submitted to Wikipedia in the spring and summer of 2022, which were fully transparent and compliant as per Wikipedia’s guidelines.”
More recently, a member of the Cop28 team has been directly editing Wikipedia articles, despite having been “strongly discouraged” from doing so.
In February, a user going by the alias Junktuner made a number of edits to the climate summit’s Wikipedia page. The Cop28 team confirmed that its head of marketing, Ramzi Haddad, who uses the same handle on Twitter, owns the Junktuner account. Haddad only disclosed his ties to Al Jaber after being questioned by another user.
The US senator Sheldon Whitehouse, who led last week for Al Jaber to be replaced as the summit’s president, said: “It’s not surprising that Cop28 is trying to burnish Al Jaber’s green credentials, but the fact remains that as an oil executive he is also overseeing a lot of damage to the planet.”
Whitehouse called on the UN, which oversees the Cop process, to “rethink how to run these very important forums” to avoid undue influence by the fossil fuel industry.
The climate summit’s Wikipedia page includes a quote from Amnesty International saying: “[Sultan Al Jaber] cannot be an honest broker for climate talks when the company he leads is planning to cause more climate damage.” Beneath it, Haddad added a quote from a Bloomberg editorial which stated that “Al Jaber is precisely the kind of ally the climate movement needs”. He has also added links to Al Jaber’s website and social media accounts.
The administrator wrote to Haddad: “The nature of your edits, such as the one you made to 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, gives the impression you have an undisclosed financial stake in promoting a topic.
“Paid advocates are very strongly discouraged from direct article editing.”
Despite later disclosing his conflict of interest and saying he would “refrain from further edits”, Haddad has continued to make minor changes to Wikipedia pages.
It has also come to light that Haddad made a series of edits anonymously – where only an IP address is visible – before he was “aware of the proper conflict of interest procedures”. Haddad revealed the information in response to more questions from the Wikipedia administrator after the Centre for Climate Reporting contacted the administrator.
Haddad also promoted Al Jaber’s green credentials anonymously. He added to Al Jaber’s Wikipedia page that he was “the first CEO to ever serve as Cop president, having played a key role in shaping the country’s clean energy pathway”.
A Cop28 spokesperson said: “Cop28 has and will continue to ensure online descriptions of the Cop28 presidency are accurate across all online platforms, including Wikipedia.” They added that the changes were “all evidence based”.
Edits have also been made by a user being paid by Masdar, the UAE government-owned clean energy company of which Al Jaber was formerly CEO and is now chairman of the board. They worked to make Al Jaber’s role at Masdar more prominent on his page the day after the Guardian revealed his appointment as Cop28 president in January. They added that Al Jaber’s “goal is to expand Masdar’s clean energy capacity to 100GW by 2030, making it the second largest renewable investor in the world”. Masdar did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Marwa Fatafta, who leads work in the Middle East by the digital rights group Access Now, said the “alarming” revelations were part of broader attempts by the UAE to “control the narrative” and “polish up the image of Al Jaber”.
“Once he was appointed, there was pushback,” she said. “And I think these criticisms will be amplified further and further as we get closer to Cop28, so I see it as a preemptive step to try and control and shape the narrative as much as they can.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/that-1980s-sports-blog/2013/may/01/neville-southall-player-year-award-1985 | Sport | 2013-05-01T09:14:56.000Z | Steven Pye | How Neville Southall won the Player of the Year award in the 1984-85 season | As someone who played over 10 years of youth football as a goalkeeper, I have often had a lot of admiration for anyone mad and/or brave enough to play in that position. Sometimes the respect has been grudging. As an Arsenal fan, Peter Schmeichel broke my heart on many occasions, but I'll argue with anyone that he was as influential in United's successes as Eric Cantona and Roy Keane.
Often the love has been based on a purely biased view. Pat Jennings, John Lukic, David Seaman, Jens Lehmann, even Alex Manninger for a few glorious months in 1998 (but never ever Manuel Almunia I can assure you). On the whole though, my appreciation of a decent goalkeeper has always lived within me. When I was growing up in the 1980s, there was one man who I wanted to be more than most: Neville Southall.
For Everton and Southall, the delights of the 1984-85 season must have seemed a million miles away on 6 November 1982. Southall had made a £150,000 move from Bury in the summer of 1981 and, after wrestling for a first team place with Jim Arnold, seemed to have the position sewn up come the end of the 1981-82 season, after making 26 league appearances.
But then came Liverpool, Ian Rush and a 5-0 defeat at Goodison on that fateful November day in 1982, which forced besieged boss Howard Kendall to ring the changes. Southall was one of the casualties, the former bin man appearing to be cast to the scrap heap.
Southall lost his place to Jim Arnold and also suffered the ignominy of being loaned out to Port Vale in the first two months of 1983, yet it turned out to be the making of the Welshman. His nine-match spell at Vale Park was such a success that the Fourth Division side tried to sign him, and his impact can be judged by the fact that he was voted number 21 in Port Vale's cult heroes on fansite One Vale Fan. By the start of the 1983-84 season, Southall was ready to claim Everton's number one jersey as his own.
The 1983-84 season was the turning point for both Southall and Everton. Although their league form was still shaky, the club embarked on two lung-busting cup runs that took the pressure off Kendall and laid the platform for what was to follow. Southall played a total of 54 matches, including 19 cup matches, as he firmly established his place in a rejuvenated side.
The tide may well have turned after that Adrian Heath goal at Oxford, but the FA Cup run was almost derailed by Third Division Gillingham in a fourth round replay, on a night when Southall ensured Everton were still in the competition. Unfortunately the quality of the video recording is nowhere near to that of Southall's display that evening, but his growing importance to Everton's cause was emphasised in this display. His semi-final performance was just as impressive, as he thwarted Southampton at various stages, enabling Everton to reach their second cup final of the season.
Everton would narrowly lose out to Liverpool in the League Cup final replay at Maine Road, but the consolation of an FA Cup triumph against Watford was none too shabby. Come the start of the 1984-85 season, hopes were high on the blue half of Merseyside for an improved league campaign, and the optimism grew after a Charity Shield victory over Liverpool.
Everton's 1-0 win was an early indicator that the balance of power could be beginning to shift. But the Everton balloon was well and truly burst during the first two games of the season – a catastrophic 4-1 home defeat against Tottenham and a 2-1 loss at West Brom – with Southall in particular putting in a poor display in the opening game. It would be a rare blip for both player and club, as their fortunes soon began to improve.
Everton would lose just one of their next eight league games before a belief-affirming success away at Anfield, their 1-0 victory secured via Graeme Sharp's Match of the Day Goal of the Season. Southall played his part, stopping Ian Rush in the first half and ensuring that Everton's goal would not be breached in the second half, giving the away team their first league win across Stanley Park since 1970.
This was followed up by a 5-0 shellacking of Manchester United at Goodison, and further clean sheets from Southall at home to Leicester and Stoke and away at West Ham pushed Everton to the summit of the First Division. There would be the odd blemish prior to Christmas – a crazy 4-2 defeat at Norwich and a 4-3 loss at home against Chelsea – but after December 22 the Everton juggernaut began rolling.
Analysing Everton's record over the next 18 league games reveals a staggering run of results that took them to their first league title since 1970: P18 W16 D2 F43 A9 (including nine clean sheets). The championship was clinched during the 17th match of this run (a 2-0 win at home against QPR), and this combined with 10 other unbeaten matches in the FA Cup and Cup Winners' Cup, took Everton to the brink of a fine treble.
Through it all, Southall was the solid rock on which this run was built, his game in such good order that Everton skipper Kevin Ratcliffe claimed: "When you've got a keeper like that in your team you can gain an extra fourteen points." Two such examples that back up Ratcliffe's quote were Tottenham and Sheffield Wednesday away.
Under Peter Shreeves, Tottenham were second in the table behind Everton, before the two clashed at White Hart Lane on 3 April 1985. Although a win was not crucial for the visitors – Everton were three points in front with a game in hand – there could be no doubting that a win would put a serious dent in Tottenham's league hopes and push Everton that little bit closer to the championship.
Everything seemed to be going swimmingly when Andy Gray and Trevor Steven gave Everton a 2-0 lead, but a late Graham Roberts screamer set up squeaky bum time in the closing stages. And then came a moment that is still talked about to this day: Southall's stunning save to deny Mark Falco's point-blank header with just minutes to go won Everton the match and ripped the heart out of Tottenham's title aspirations.
Writing in his autobiography The Binman Chronicles, Southall was typically modest about the incident: "It was straight at me and I'd saved plenty like that on the training ground. I always knew I was going to get it," although interestingly at the time he claimed he was a bit lucky.
Elsewhere, the praise for Southall's save was gushing. "Southall makes it Everton's crown" declared the Express headline the very next day, with Steve Curry not alone in mentioning Gordon Banks' save from Pelé in 1970: "Not since the steamy Mexican afternoon when Gordon Banks kept out a header from Pelé in the 1970 World Cup, has a goalkeeper produced quite such an astonishing save as Southall conjured at White Hart Lane last night." The Mail's Jeff Powell was just as enthusiastic: "Southall twisted through the night air like a marlin on the hook to divert the ball over the crossbar."
The adulation kept on coming. "The talking point in my dressing-room has been that world-class save. It has prevented us from getting an important draw," said a disappointed Shreeves. Kendall was ecstatic at the outcome: "He's been doing it all season, but that one was something special." Not only had Southall provided Everton with two of the extra two points that Ratcliffe mentioned, but the importance of that evening in April, and the effect it had on both teams was telling. "For many people that was the moment we won the league title," said Southall, but there were even more heroics to come.
Sheffield Wednesday away was never an easy place to get a result in the 1980s. When Everton visited Hillsborough on May 4, Wednesday had only lost one league match at home all season, and despite the visitors taking the lead through Andy Gray's mishit shot, Everton's goal came under siege. "I don't think I've ever seen such intense pressure applied by a football team," announced a breathless Barry Davies as Wednesday hit Everton with all that they had.
Everton stood firm though, Southall producing a couple of moments of brilliance that Davies described as "two quite remarkable saves". The first save is the kind that keepers dream of making, Imre Varadi's shot almost appearing to be beyond Southall before he flicked the ball away.
Southall wasn't finished though, keeping out a Mark Smith header with a fine instinctive save, before the crossbar came to Everton's aid (although, if you believe some reports, Big Nev actually deflected Brian Marwood's shot on to the crossbar; my failing eyes have struggled to spot this however). Everton somehow got out of Sheffield with three points, and just two days later wrapped up the league title.
There were other moments of Southall brilliance: an acrobatic save in a 0-0 draw on QPR's plastic pitch; denying Gary Lineker not once but twice, before saving the best for last with a superb stop as Everton sneaked a 2-1 victory at Filbert Street; penalty saves against Manchester United and Southampton; the FA Cup semi-final against Luton at Villa Park.
There are probably many more that I have missed out, and plenty that never made it to video tape during the course of the season. Fortunately, there are still enough clips to remind me that I hadn't imagined just how good Southall was.
At the beginning of May, Southall's sublime season was rewarded with the accolade of FWA Footballer of the Year. No goalkeeper has won the award since and Southall was only the third ever (after Bert Trautmann and Pat Jennings). As ever, Southall was the reluctant hero, claiming in his autobiography: "It was nice to get the recognition but part of me felt a little uneasy to get all the plaudits when the players in front of me had also done so much."
Ask Howard Kendall, or any Everton player or supporter, and they will give praise to one of the finest keepers of his generation. "I am a firm believer that you never win trophies without an outstanding goalkeeper," Kendall once said. In Southall he arguably possessed the greatest keeper in the world at the time, and for a young boy like me growing up at the time, watching Southall was a joy to behold.
Norman Whiteside may well have ruined Southall's perfect season in the FA Cup final, but it says a lot that the goal that wrecked Everton's treble dreams was special. The next season was very much a case of what if for Kendall's side. Would they have won the European Cup but for the Heysel ban? Would they have denied Liverpool at least one part of their double if Southall had not been injured while on international duty in March?
"I'm still convinced that if Southall had stayed fit until the end of the season, Everton would have won the double," wrote Jamie Carragher in his autobiography, a feeling no doubt shared by many on Merseyside. This isn't a criticism of Bobby Mimms, who hardly put a foot or hand wrong during his stint at the end of the 1985-86 season, but would Southall's presence made the crucial difference come the conclusion of the season?
It was quite fitting that Southall should return part way through the 1986-87 season to play a big role in helping Everton to another league title, and very apt that even during their steady decline over the next decade or so, he should remain the last line of defence during this turbulent period. Southall gained a bit of revenge for the 1985 FA Cup final defeat, when in 1995 he helped Everton beat Manchester United, proving even in his advancing years that he still had what it took.
During my research, I stumbled across an old Match magazine star spot on Southall after the 1984 FA Cup final. These were fascinating and detailed insights into the star footballers of the time. From this we learn that Southall's most difficult opponent was Ian Rush, his favourite TV programme was Minder, he thought 3-2-1 was absolute garbage, he didn't like smoking and bad football commentators, his food of choice was chicken and Dire Straits were his favourite band.
Strangely enough, That 1980s Sports Blogger has never been asked to fill out one of these questionnaires, but there would be no doubting that if I was asked for my favourite ever non-Arsenal player then one Neville Southall would be top of my list.
This is an article from our Guardian Sport Network
This blog first appeared on That 1980s Sports Blog
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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/apr/19/uneven-road-to-doing-business-burma | Global development | 2012-04-19T06:00:02.000Z | Salil Tripathi | Uneven road to doing business in Burma | Salil Tripathi | Businesses are interested in Burma because the country is rich in natural resources and has a vast pool of young people eager to work and to consume. They have been restrained because Europe and the US have imposed sanctions on the country ever since the military regime refused to recognise the opposition's victory in the 1990 elections.
But times have changed. The president, Thein Sein, has introduced political and economic reforms, the Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi led the National League for Democracy (NLD) to victory in parliamentary elections on 1 April, and last week David Cameron called for a suspension of sanctions. Given the current mood, the question is no longer whether business should invest in Burma – sanctions will eventually get lifted – but how?
With my colleagues, I spent a week recently in Rangoon to understand and explore how new investment in Burma can be consistent with international human rights standards. Reflecting on conversations with business leaders, diplomats, academics, human rights activists, journalists and development workers, it is clear the road ahead will be uneven. The challenges investors face in making sure their investments are not only profitable but also based on internationally accepted principles are going to be formidable.
The NLD's response to future investment plans will be crucial. Many potential investors say they have stayed away from investing because the NLD backed sanctions. The party says it welcomes "responsible investment". In her book Letters from Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi – who is due to visit Britain and Norway in June – wrote that the best investment is one in the future of democracy. Stressing how human rights issues are intertwined with business decisions, she wrote: "If businessmen do not care about the number of political prisoners in our country, they should at least be concerned that the lack of an effective legal framework means there is no guarantee of fair business practice, or in cases of injustice, reparation."
Burma has a staggering array of problems. Human rights activists mention fertile land being grabbed from farmers for commercial purposes. Workers have challenged management at a few plants, but their rights remain under threat. Major concerns remain over the use of forced labour in some parts of the country. Investors know too little about their likely local business partners or their antecedents.
Besides, there is competition. Think of Burma as a crowded cafeteria with eager waiters and chefs busy cooking. The restaurant is loud and messy, with some patrons eating with chopsticks, some with their fingers. The waiters don't wear the same uniform, they aren't unionised, and nobody knows the hours they or the chefs are expected to keep. It isn't known if the women get the same wages as men. The food is not organically grown, and much of it is imported and expensive. There are inexplicable surcharges.
In this metaphorical restaurant, there are a few seats at the back, where tables with white tablecloths are laid out with knives, forks and napkins, with overpriced wine on the menu. There are no patrons there yet, but it doesn't matter to the owners, because other patrons have kept the kitchen busy. Those patrons are companies from China, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia, with interests in oil, gas, shipping, light manufacturing and other resource-based industries. Burma is reminiscent of India and China in the 1970s: its bureaucrats regulate and control the economy as in India, just as they control China's politics, then as now.
The starting point for investors should be the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, adopted unanimously in 2011 by the UN Human Rights Council. The principles stress states' obligation to protect human rights as well as the corporate responsibility to respect rights, and the need for remedies where governance gaps exist.
Some key issues in Burma include access to land, workers' rights, the role of security forces, the quality of partners, the business environment, and the impact on communities. In practical terms, it means that when companies want to access land – as owners, leaseholders, or tenants – their human rights due diligence should include securing the free, prior informed consent of the affected people.
This isn't easy in a country where arbitrariness is the norm and where marginalised communities have been voiceless. Similarly, it means that in making hiring decisions, companies should recruit workers without discrimination and recognise their right to associate freely and bargain collectively. It means ensuring that investors do not partner business groups with an unsavoury record.
Much will depend on how Burma's government acts to avoid the resource curse that many countries with abundant natural resources have faced in the past. But foreign investors – potential and existing – will have to act in an accountable and transparent manner. Burma offers the opportunity to put human rights at the heart of investment and development decisions. The country's long-suffering people deserve no less. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/aug/18/tesco-to-sell-tiny-avocados-for-just-a-few-weeks | Business | 2017-08-18T15:55:59.000Z | Sarah Butler | Tesco to sell tiny avocados in response to fruit's global shortage | Egg-sized avocados are the latest weapon in the battle to meet growing demand for the creamy green fruit amid a global squeeze on supply.
The mini fruits, which weigh about 70g – nearly a third of the size of an average avocado – will be on sale at Tesco for only a few weeks.
The supermarket has bought 10,000 boxes of the undersized crop from South Africa, where farmers have been left with a higher proportion of small avocados after a hot and drier than usual summer. They will be sold six at a time in containers similar to an egg box.
“There has not been enough rain and there has been a lot more stress on the crop than normal and so it is that much smaller,” said Avnish Malde, the chief executive of specialist fruit importer Wealmoor.
“Tesco is being pretty innovative in getting those to market and utilising more of the crop.”
Malde said there had been no sign of a softening in demand for avocados, sales of which have been rising by about 30% in the UK this year.
That is despite a more than 50% surge in wholesale prices since the beginning of the year, according to data consultancy Mintec.
Poor harvests in some key producer countries, including Peru as well as South Africa, have combined with soaring demand from China to create a global shortage. Strikes by workers in Mexico, which accounts for up to 70% of global avocado production, have added to the problems.
The shortage has meant even the world’s biggest producer is considering importing what used to be a dietary staple as it has become too expensive for many ordinary Mexicans.
In the UK, sales have surged amid the Instagram-friendly trend for avocado on toast, as well as the popularity of using the fruit in smoothies and salads by those seeking a healthier diet.
The popularity of dishes such as avocado on toast has led to a surge in sales of the fruit in the UK. Photograph: Sarka Babicka/Getty Images
Earlier this year, the Morrisons supermarket chain tried to tackle rising prices by offering a “wonky” version of the fruit, with an irregular shape or blemished skin, for 39p each. This compares with an average supermarket price of just over £1 for a large, perfect fruit.
Tesco said its growers had worked hard to ensure its mini avocados were of the same quality as their larger counterparts.
The supermarket’s avocado buyer, James Cantoni, said selling the egg-sized fruit – branded as Zilla Eggs – was part of the company’s strategy to reduce food waste by finding an outlet for whole crops.
“These Zilla Eggs are a brilliant way to offer customers great tasting, high quality avocados, which previously would have been rejected by growers because of their size,” he said.
“They are perfect for customers who want to snack, without the usual fuss or worry of wasting the other half of the avocado. And it also helps producers who are able to sell even more of their avocado crop.”
Supermarkets have responded to pressure from their customers and government to tackle food waste in a variety of ways, including handing over unwanted goods to charities and working more closely with farmers to make use of all of their produce. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2014/dec/01/-sp-best-albums-of-2014-no-10-divide-and-exit-by-sleaford-mods | Music | 2014-12-01T11:03:52.000Z | Michael Hann | Best albums of 2014: No 10 - Divide and Exit by Sleaford Mods | You could drive yourself mad thinking about what Sleaford Mods “mean”, and why the lyrics of Jason Williamson began to resonate in 2014, after seven albums. The pat response would be to claim that it’s all about austerity Britain, and, yes, Williamson writes about the world of pound shops, of trying to get something for nothing. But plenty of his lyrics are also set in the world of work, rather than the dole queue (“I work my dreams off for two bits of ravioli/ And a warm bottle of Smirnoff/ Under a manager that doesn’t have a fuckin’ clue/ Do you want me to tell you what I think about you, cunt?”). If his writing is setting off bells in people’s heads now, then any connection with the state of Britain might be more to do with the sense of anger entering the public space: Williamson’s lyrics sound less like social commentary than the thoughts that would spill out of us all if only we dared speak them aloud.
Then, watching them perform at the 100 Club in London earlier this year, another thought occurred. Williamson and his musical partner, Andrew Fearn, are nothing so much as some kind of darkworld equivalent of David Brent and Gareth Keenan. Fearn would press a button on his laptop, then stand swigging beer while giving the thumbs-up to people in the audience, grinning while the main event happened a few feet away. Instead of bringing Brent’s constant and often unsuitable cheer, Williamson would bring constant and unsuitable vituperation. Just as Brent would tighten his tie or flick back his hair with his fingertips, so Williamson’s hand would swipe from his waist to the side of his head, and he’d punctuate songs with a strange little circle of his mic stand, a preening inversion of a Mick Jagger strut. It was someone aware, in another inversion of Brent, that rock stars are really a bunch of knobs, that it’s all ridiculous. Once I’d got the Brent and Keenan comparison in my head, it was hard to shake it.
But there’s another comparison: like Brent and Keenan, Williamson and Fearn are funny. Sleaford Mods aren’t a novelty group looking for lols, but Williamson deploys language so pulverisingly, with such insistence, that you can’t help but laugh at the sheer audacity at the flow of words and at the connections that get made: “The smell of piss is so strong it smells like decent bacon/ Kevin’s getting footloose on the overspill/ Underneath the piss station.” And you can’t help but laugh because sometimes the lyrics are meant to make you laugh, in the same way Malcolm Tucker is meant to make you laugh – “You fucking tit-rifle,” from You’re Brave, was the best insult set to music this year offered.
Divide and Exit isn’t the sound of Britain in 2014. It’s the sound of someone’s imagination – but that’s what the best music has always been.
Which album has topped your own list this year? Tell us in the form below, and we’ll round up your picks in a readers’ choice top 10. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/mar/14/ricky-gervais-transgender-jokes-caitlyn-jenner-transphobia | Stage | 2017-03-14T18:06:10.000Z | Brian Logan | Ricky Gervais's transgender jokes show we're all in a kind of transition | Ricky Gervais sometimes gets people’s backs up and so, it transpires, do reviewers who write about him. “B4 you write another @guardian review endorsing jokes about #trans people,” I was advised on Twitter after covering Gervais’s recent show, “please consider the impact.” Gervais dedicates a section of his show Humanity to jokes about (specifically) Caitlyn Jenner but also, by sly association, the idea of transgendering more widely. “If I say I’m a chimp, I am a chimp,” one riff begins, as Gervais makes merry with the culture of identity as self-assertion – and scores dependable laughs with rudimentary monkey business too.
Ricky Gervais review – ruthless, self-revealing show is his best yet
Read more
I wasn’t surprised by that tweet, because I’d been brooding on Gervais’s trans material (and, indeed, his cot death material), and the degrees to which I found it appropriate, or offensive, or funny. Would I have reviewed him more harshly if those jokes had been, for example, about race rather than gender? I feel like I’m learning every day about gender right now, and I want to write about it sensitively and appropriately. Despite Gervais’s repeated assertions that he wasn’t being transphobic, it seemed clear that he was “othering” trans people and making them seem ridiculous. I stated that he could be “callous and objectionable”, and that his material was insensitive to trans people.
Sometimes, a comedian’s apparent opinions, or the way they express them, can be so unpleasant, that no amount of joke-writing skill, and fantastic material elsewhere in the set, can redeem them. (I’ve found that to be the case with Gervais in the past.) But here, while it would be disingenuous to exonerate Gervais’s trans routine by arguing that it was about Jenner alone rather than trans people generally, it was specific to Jenner to a substantial degree. And Jenner’s celebrity and her public sparring with Gervais over his Golden Globes speech are fair game.
Gervais argues forcibly in the show – as usual – that there’s no such thing as off-limits in comedy; there’s nothing you can’t joke about. I agree with that – just as I agree that comics, like anyone else, should take responsibility for what they say, do and effect. He deserves to be called out on his routine poking fun at the idea of transitioning, but I do think that the concepts he zeroes in on (“deadnaming”; identity as self-assertion) are fertile for comedy, precisely because they’re new, they’re destabilising, and (whether you welcome them or not) we’re still establishing where the boundaries around them lie. (A process with which comedy may help.)
Public sparring … Caitlyn Jenner. Photograph: Tibrina Hobson/AFP/Getty Images
So, that’s what I thought about Gervais’s trans material. A little snide, but (when it wasn’t being snide) childishly funny. Amusingly spiky about Jenner. Contrarily pushing back against what he sees as diktats and what others see as requests for courtesy or compassion. Does reviewing his show in those terms add up to an “endorsement” of his jokes? Is it even possible to endorse a joke? That would imply that jokes are vessels for opinions, which is only sometimes the case, and not clearly so here. Or is the problem that I endorsed the act of joking about trans people? If so, I didn’t single them out – on balance, I would endorse the principle of joking about anybody.
But I acknowledge that others wouldn’t. We’ve probably all got weak spots, sensitivities or ironclad principles, the monstering of which we just can’t find funny. Is it possible to laugh at a joke you “disagree” with? One of the challenges when writing about comedy is tracking those interactions between the head, the heart and the funny bone. Of course, the best comedy short-circuits them entirely, and you find yourself laughing at jokes that wholly up-end your politics, your sympathies and your expectations. But often I find myself sitting stony-faced in an auditorium, not because the jokes are bad per se, but because they’re promoting a worldview that I find cruel or cynical or rightwing.
I dare say that happens to theatre and music reviewers too, but less so – because those artforms address how we live now, its mores and ideologies, more obliquely. The artists in those fields tend to take less overt or provocative stands. But comedy often compels the critic (this one, at least) to take a political position; to not do so would feel dishonest. Sometimes, I fight that instinct: I have no desire to be the PC police, nor to rank comedians (add a star, subtract a star) according to their fidelity to left-liberal pieties. If I’d been that guy, I’d have marked down Gervais. But while I wish he’d curb his crasser instincts, and I don’t find his impulse to mock sympathetic, I do think it’s possible to appreciate a show without endorsing every opinion it seems to express.
Three to see
Like Father Like Son … Scott Gibson plays the Glasgow comedy festival. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian
Glasgow comedy festival
A cracking lineup on the west of Scotland, as Glasgow’s annual comedy carnival enters its second week. Local heroes featured include Frankie Boyle, Burnistoun duo Iain Connell and Robert Florence, Fern Brady and the Edinburgh festival’s best newcomer winner Scott Gibson with his new show Like Father Like Son.
Festival runs to 26 March.
Count Arthur Strong
There were no signs that unexpected mainstream success had blunted the sharp edges of Steve Delaney’s malapropping, senile alter ego when he last toured in 2015 [https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/apr/20/count-arthur-strong-review-reading-hexagon]. Now Delaney’s deluded ageing thesp hits the road once more, in a new confection rejoicing in the title The Sound of Mucus.
On 15 March at Palace theatre, Southend, 15 March. Box office: 01702 351135. Then touring.
Spoof of old-school sexism … Zoe Coombs Marr. Photograph: James Brown
Zoe Coombs Marr
Nominated for an Edinburgh Comedy award last year, the Aussie character comic’s follow-up to 2015’s show Dave is a cracker. Doubling down on her spoof of old-school sexism, Trigger Warning mocks Gaulier-style clowns too. It’s richly complex, but surpassingly silly too.
At Soho theatre, London, from 16-25 March. Box office: 020 7478 0100. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/19/there-is-no-alternative-last-resort-defending-morally-wrong-acts-gaza-rwanda | Opinion | 2023-11-19T07:30:43.000Z | Kenan Malik | ‘There is no alternative’ is the last resort of those defending morally wrong acts | Kenan Malik | ‘B
ut what is your alternative?” It’s an important question in political debates when a particular policy or action is being challenged. It can also be a way of deflecting from the flimsiness, both moral and practical, of the plan facing scrutiny.
So it is with two issues that dominated the news this past week – the government’s Rwanda scheme and Israel’s military assault on Gaza. In both cases, there is an important debate to be had about alternatives. But before we get to that debate, there are also cogent reasons for rejecting the original policy, irrespective of what the alternatives may be.
The dismissal by the supreme court of the legality of the Rwanda deportation policy has thrown the government’s “stop the boats” policy into disarray. After the verdict, Rishi Sunak announced that he would introduce a new law to declare Rwanda a safe country – a law to change the facts, as former supreme court judge Jonathan Sumption, no liberal, mockingly observed.
Supporters of the Rwanda scheme, when faced with criticism, generally fall back on the question, “But what is your alternative?” Alternatives there are. Nonetheless, to insist that one needs to provide an alternative before one can reject the forcible deportation of anyone who arrives without proper papers to a country to which none of them has ever been, or wants to go, and without any consideration of their claims for asylum in this country – a policy that not so long ago would have been limited to the far-right fringes – is to render moral lines meaningless.
Even if the Rwanda scheme were morally fit, it would still be practically useless. Its supporters claim that a surge in illegal migration is undermining Britain’s capacity to defend its borders. The real issue is not uncontrolled immigration but the closure of legal routes for asylum claimants, leading many to make the dangerous crossing across the Channel, and a sclerotic asylum system.
The demand must be for Hamas to release all the hostages and for Israel to cease its bombardment
Over the past decade, the backlog in processing asylum claims has risen about 15 times as fast as the numbers claiming asylum. The Rwanda scheme would mop up just a tiny fraction of that backlog. That is why, as I have suggested before, such schemes constitute performative policymaking, creating policy not to solve a problem but to allow politicians to be seen doing something.
The rejection of the Rwanda scheme is not dependent on having an alternative, but on its moral baseness and its pointlessness as a practical tool. Many campaigners have, nevertheless, set out realistic alternatives, the starting point for which is the creation of safe legal routes for asylum seekers, and of a claims process that does not leave them in limbo for years. It’s not opponents of the Rwanda scheme but opponents of safe routes and a properly resourced system who need to answer, “But what is your alternative?”
There are similarly both moral and practical issues at the heart of the debate over Israel’s assault on Gaza, in response to the Hamas terror attack on 7 October. The devastation being wrought on Gaza has led to increasingly vocal calls for a ceasefire. Supporters of the military campaign argue that such calls deny Israel the right to defend itself, embolden Hamas and ignore the plight of the hostages taken on that day.
And yet, among the fiercest opponents of the Gaza war and supporters of a ceasefire are friends and relatives of those killed or taken hostage. Ziv Stahl, who survived the Hamas slaughter in Kfar Azza, observes that “indiscriminate bombing in Gaza and the killing of civilians uninvolved with these horrible crimes are no solution”. In a eulogy for her brother Hayim, who was murdered in Kibbutz Holit, Noy Katsman urged Israel “not to use our deaths and our pain to bring the death and pain of other people or other families”.
It is a bitter irony that many of those murdered or abducted by Hamas were among the most committed to Palestinian rights and freedoms. Those who continue their work insist that Hamas’ savagery should not become a reason for collective punishment of the people of Gaza.
Punishment, though, is what many at the heart of Israel’s establishment now want to impose. “You wanted hell, you will get hell,” Maj Gen Ghassan Alian, coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, told Gazans. Or, as Giora Eiland, former IDF strategist and a previous head of Israel’s National Security Council, put it: “Israel needs to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, compelling tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands to seek refuge in Egypt or the Gulf … Gaza will become a place where no human being can exist.” Unless we believe that anything is permissible in the name of “Israel’s right to defend itself”, then somewhere there must be red lines.
The importance of the ceasefire debate is to address that issue, and to insist that in devastating Gaza and imposing collective punishment, Israel has crossed a line.
As with the Rwanda scheme, beyond the moral question lies the practical one: to what extent can Israel’s all-out assault achieve its aims of rescuing the hostages and eliminating Hamas as an organisation?
So far, laying waste northern Gaza has helped to achieve neither. There is little reason to imagine that doing the same to southern Gaza will make the goals easier to achieve. Even if Israel could eliminate every last member of Hamas, the devastation of Gaza will probably create a new generation of Palestinian resistance and, given the paucity of any political alternatives, may well drive many towards organisations even more nihilistic and extreme than Hamas.
“But what is your alternative?” The immediate demand must be for Hamas to release all the hostages and for Israel to cease its bombardment. To bring to justice the perpetrators of the 7 October attacks may be easier in conditions of relative calm than in all-out war.
Beyond that lies the reality that there can be no military solution to the conflict – the attacks themselves on that day made clear the illusions of security. The starting point for any political solution is the acknowledgement of Israel/Palestine as a shared land of 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians, and the need for equal rights for both, whether within a single state or two states.
“To hold everyone’s humanity – that is the task of the hour,” wrote Jewish writer and activist Joshua Leifer, citing a friend in Jerusalem. That may seem utopian. But what is your alternative?
Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/dec/17/labor-accused-of-being-more-concerned-with-ndis-costs-than-people-with-disabilities | Australia news | 2023-12-16T19:00:06.000Z | Sarah Basford Canales | Labor accused of being more concerned with NDIS costs than people with disabilities | A former ACT disability minister has accused the federal government of being more concerned with costs than people with disabilities after giving states and territories just one month to review a landmark report into the NDIS.
The ACT Greens MLA Emma Davidson, who was the territory’s disability minister until a cabinet reshuffle on Monday, said she agreed with decisions made by national cabinet this month but said they weren’t for the “right reasons” in a lengthy letter published on Friday.
Leaders met for a national cabinet meeting in early December where the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, agreed to extend the GST “no worse off” guarantee for a further three years, estimated to cost $10.5bn, in exchange for a joint funding agreement for additional disability services to complement the NDIS.
Albanese strikes $10.5bn deal with states to split cost of non-NDIS disability services in return for GST funding
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The states and territories will also be expected to front up more of the scheme’s escalating costs, lifting from the existing 4% ceiling a year to 8% from 1 July 2028. The commonwealth will continue to pay any additional escalating costs beyond the new cap.
The decisions follow the completion of the independent NDIS review, which was first handed to disability ministers at the end of October with a further 1,200 pages of supporting documentation provided to them at the end of November.
Davidson said she had shared concerns at an early November meeting with the NDIS minister, Bill Shorten, and her state and territory counterparts that discussion about the scheme was centering around its ballooning costs, rather than what it provides to Australians with disabilities.
The Greens politician said she also expected to discuss the review in more detail but was urged to agree to fast-track the review’s discussions to national cabinet.
“I was hoping to discuss our views on the recommendations, as is the standard process for any other review and report,” Davidson wrote.
“Instead, we were asked to agree to the express route to national cabinet. This tells you everything you need to know about the basis on which decisions are being made – not about people with disability, but about ‘costs’ to governments.”
NDIS: advocates call for ‘ironclad commitment’ no participant will lose support before new services in place
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Davidson said while she supported national cabinet’s decisions, she felt they hadn’t been made for the “right reasons”.
“For all my concerns about the process that led to the 6 December national cabinet decision, I support the decision – it just wasn’t made for the right reasons,” she wrote.
“There’s a mountain of policy details to be worked through, including ensuring people aren’t blocked from accessing the NDIS without having supports in place.”
The ministers’ council communique following the meeting said ministers had all committed to “good plans for implementation and good legislation – developed in partnership with people with disability and the disability community”.
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The financial sustainability of the NDIS has been a focal point for the Labor government since being elected, with estimates suggesting it could tip past the $100bn-a-year a mark within the decade.
In April, national cabinet agreed to a growth rate target for the scheme of 8% by 2026. The latest figures in the federal government’s mid-year economic and fiscal outlook, released Wednesday, show the NDIS’s average annual growth rate is at 10.1% – down from an estimated 10.4% at the 2023-24 federal budget.
The federal government hopes reforms implemented following the review’s release, expected to be unveiled and legislated in early 2024, will further reduce the growth rate and the scheme’s ballooning cost.
Shorten has said his goal is to keep Australians with disability at the centre of discussions on the next steps.
“We will just keep working with the disability community over coming months, as we strive to make these positive changes needed for people with disability,” he said at a Committee for Economic Development Australia event on Wednesday.
“We won’t just stop listening because the report’s been handed down.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/27/what-were-reading-writers-and-readers-on-the-books-they-enjoyed-in-october | Books | 2023-10-27T08:34:26.000Z | Ian Rankin | What we’re reading: writers and readers on the books they enjoyed in September | Ian Rankin, novelist
Mick Herron is our best and most topical spy writer but he takes a step back in time with The Secret Hours, which is partly set in Berlin in the aftermath of the Wall coming down. It’s vintage Herron though, with countless twists and turns, sharp writing and genius one-liners – plus it fills in some of the backstory for fans of his Slough House series. I loved it.
Ian Rankin’s new novel The Rise is out on 1 November, published by Amazon Publishing as part of Amazon Original Stories.
Mick Herron. Photograph: Antonio Olmos/The Observer
Peter, Guardian reader
I have been reading Emily Wilson’s new translation of The Iliad. Having thoroughly enjoyed Wilson’s Odyssey, I was eager to read this. Reading it has been a revelation. Vigorous, with echoes of Milton and a stunning sense of pace, Wilson displays a genuine poetic sensibility combined with meticulous scholarship. The depictions of violence and compassion, loyalty and love in the context of war-weary veterans seeking to find meaning brings this fine translation into the heart of contemporary agonies.
Liberty Martin, writer
Last month I was in Unnameable Books, a wonderful cave of a used bookshop in Brooklyn, hunting for some June Jordan poetry. I didn’t expect to find her only YA novel, His Own Where. Any summary of the book will tell you that it’s written in African American vernacular, which is true, but I think Jordan spins Black colloquial language into a rhythm of her own. Words skip and skate into a dazzling hybrid somewhere between stream of consciousness, prose and poetry. Jordan’s jazz-tinged writing scores the streets of New York City from the perspective of 15-year-old Buddy and his first love, Angela.
The novel muses on how architecture can build belonging into a community and radically reimagines what a neighbourhood can look and feel like. Buddy convinces his Bed-Stuy neighbours to tear down their backyard fences to create a park where everyone can gather together. He paints the curbs of the street in bright colours. Escaping the abyss of the social care system, he and Angela settle in a cemetery. Within the concrete matrix of Brooklyn, Jordan still finds the space to tenderly illustrate the devastating home lives of Buddy and Angela and the refuge that they find within each other. Tearing through the 112 pages of this spirited novel left me wondering how I could make the relentless bustle of a city breathe through a sentence.
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Liberty Martin won a special commendation at the 4thWrite prize for unpublished writers of colour for her story Bleach.
Cath, Guardian reader
I have been reading Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. It’s a beautifully told tale about a missing female pilot from the 1950s and the present day actor who plays her on screen. It’s a long book that meanders mesmerisingly, flitting between the two characters. Its length adds to its beauty – I am halfway through and do not want it to end. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/may/08/city-banks-jobs-uk-brexit-reuters-frankfurt-dublin-eu | Business | 2017-05-08T16:41:23.000Z | Jill Treanor | City banks could move at least 9,000 jobs from UK due to Brexit | Big banks in the City could shift at least 9,000 roles out of the UK as a result of Brexit, according to a tally of job warnings since the EU referendum.
Deutsche Bank is leading the threatened exodus, according to research by Reuters, while the two financial centres making the most gains from London’s loss are Frankfurt and Dublin.
Last month Deutsche warned that up to 4,000 UK jobs – nearly half its UK workforce – could move to Frankfurt and other EU centres. US bank JP Morgan is preparing to move up to 1,000 bankers out of the City to Dublin, Frankfurt and Luxembourg. Goldman Sachs, despite continuing to build a new headquarters in London, has said it would need more people in Madrid, Milan, Paris and other cities in the EU.
City firms say they won't be ready for Brexit in two years
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Other banks included in Reuters’ list are HSBC, Morgan Stanley, HSBC and Citigroup. However, many banks are yet to reveal their Brexit plans.
The triggering of article 50 by Theresa May in March sparked a wave of announcements, because only two years are permitted for the Brexit negotiations. A report on Monday called for a transition period for banks and other financial firms, in order to adapt their business models to a departure from the EU.
Commissioned by the lobby group TheCityUK and carried out by legal firm Freshfields, the report said: “There is a general view across impacted businesses that the two-year period for negotiating the UK’s exit arrangement provided for by article 50 will not be long enough either for the UK government ... or for firms to satisfactorily effect any required reorganisation and restructuring.”
The Bank of England has told financial firms to provide it with details of their Brexit plans by 14 July and to be ready for all possible outcomes, including a hard Brexit. Estimates of the impact of Brexit on financial jobs vary, although the highest is for 232,000 across the entire UK. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/nov/17/fin-smith-most-kids-watch-cartoons-i-used-to-watch-jonny-wilkinson | Sport | 2023-11-17T14:12:25.000Z | Robert Kitson | Fin Smith: ‘Most kids watch cartoons. I used to watch Jonny Wilkinson’ | For ambitious young Premiership fly-halves there is nowhere to hide. On Saturday Northampton’s Fin Smith is up against Handré Pollard, who kicked South Africa to World Cup glory three weeks ago. Six days later he has a Friday night date at Franklin’s Gardens with his namesake Marcus Smith. And then? A trip to north London to face that renowned softie Owen Farrell.
It would be a daunting to-do list for an old timer, never mind a 21-year-old who had the financial rug pulled from beneath him at Worcester last year and was on loan at Ampthill two seasons ago. How interesting, then, to hear Saints’ head coach, Phil Dowson, say he would back his youthful stand-off against anyone.
“Definitely,” says Dowson, who shared a Newcastle dressing room with Jonny Wilkinson for eight years. “Every day of the week. Because I know what he’s capable of, I know his character and I know the people around him. How we want to play is ingrained enough that he’s capable of standing in front of anyone.”
British & Irish Lions strike deal with Premiership to boost preparation time
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Dowson, on the eve of an east Midlands derby at Welford Road, has no desire to start making unfair Wilkinson comparisons but Saints clearly believe they have a good ‘un. While Farrell, Ford and Smith M are established Test options at No 10, Smith F could yet be England’s future. As yet he is not a household name beyond his family home in Stratford-upon-Avon but, on current form, he soon will be.
Last Sunday’s man of the match award against Exeter, Northampton’s third straight league victory, was merely the latest gentle nudge to England’s management. A quietly confident playmaker with a knack of finding space for others, a positive-minded tactician who kicks his goals, an impressively enthusiastic defender with a champion’s mentality? It is not often the complete package rolls into town.
The self-assured, personable Smith is also refreshingly candid about his desire to play international rugby in the near future. In the summer, having been beasted in England’s early World Cup training camps, he wrote down in a notebook his ambitions for the new season. “Top of that list was getting a cap for England this year. I’ve just got to try to play well and then hopefully those opportunities will come. But, yeah, I’m desperate to get picked for England. I just need to keep playing well here first.”
Fin Smith takes on Tom Cairns at Franklin’s Gardens. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images
The scheduled England A game against Portugal in late February could well be a stepping stone, despite his family heritage. Both his parents, a lawyer and a nurse respectively, are Scottish and his grandfather, Tom Elliot, a Borders farmer, propped for Gala, Scotland and the British & Irish Lions. “The Scotland thing is something I could turn to in the future but, for now, I’m doing my best to hopefully get into the England squad and get picked one day for them.”
As he reflects on his upbringing, it is easy to see why Gregor Townsend was so keen to put a thistle on his chest. Smith’s father – “Dad’s a massive Scottish rugby fan, he’s up at Murrayfield in his kilt pretty much every game in the Six Nations” – met his mother at a post-match curry night in the clubhouse at London Scottish. “Not so romantic but, 28 years later, I guess it’s worked for them. Dad was playing in the fifth or sixth team, Mum had gone to watch the first team and he was pestering her in the bar. The rest is history.”
Ever since his first visit, aged four, to Shipston on Stour RFC, however, Smith has been a product of the English system, educated at Warwick school and further shaped by formative sessions in the back garden with his elder brother Angus. “I quite enjoy defending which maybe some fly-halves are not necessarily associated with. I think that’s definitely come from having the crap kicked out of me in the garden from a young age. You either toughen up or you keep getting beaten up.”
Somewhere inside also lurks the same streak of steely determination that Dowson says he remembers seeing in Wilkinson. “Definitely, yeah. But I think that’s a character trait. Someone who pushes themselves, who’s never satisfied. At some point you try to say to Fin: ‘Keep enjoying it and don’t push yourself too hard.’ But that’s what’s got him to this point. It’s him being self-aware enough to say: ‘I’ve got to be better.’”
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Fin Smith catches the ball during the England captain’s run at Twickenham in February. Photograph: David Rogers/Getty Images
For good measure Wilkinson, once Smith’s childhood hero, has been helping him with his place kicking. The pupil still finds it faintly surreal. “We have a Jonny Wilkinson highlights video … I used to stick that on whenever I was bored. Most kids watch cartoons and stuff. I used to just sit there watching him.” Nowadays they meet for one-on-one kicking sessions. “He’s very good at telling you to believe in yourself. And to relax. He has been great and it’s been so cool. You do a session, then you go to the car park afterwards and he’s getting mobbed. You think, ‘Blimey, he literally is the man, isn’t he?’”
Having shared in England’s U20 grand slam in 2021, Smith is also lucky to have the enlightened Sam Vesty, once of Leicester, mentoring him at Northampton. Ultimately, though, every No 10 has to be ready to run the show themselves. “If you look at [Johnny] Sexton, Jonny, Faz … they all want that,” says Dowson. “When the spotlight’s on you and it’s your decision what to do next, they all say ‘Thank God.’ They want to be under that pressure. That’s what attracts them to that position.”
Mix in some of the other emerging talent in the Premiership and, reckons Dowson, English rugby “should be very excited” about the future. Smith is certainly keen to do more than simply leather the ball skywards. “Everyone wants to play attacking rugby. Ask any rugby player and they want to chuck the ball around. It’s more fun … I think I’m good at moving the ball to space.”
Time and space, however, is a rarity in a fast and furious east Midlands encounter. It will be Smith’s first derby experience – “It can make your whole season if you win a game at Welford Road. We’re buzzing for it” – and perhaps the biggest test of the young pretender’s mettle so far. Stand up to Pollard – “I heard he had a decent World Cup … hopefully he doesn’t kick too many winning penalties at the weekend” – Smith M and Farrell over the next fortnight and his notebook dreams will be swiftly realised. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/oct/31/tales-from-the-lodge-review-mackenzie-crook-johnny-vegas-horror | Film | 2019-10-31T07:00:20.000Z | Leslie Felperin | Tales from the Lodge review – schlocky country cabin scares | As the title suggests, this portmanteau film winks at the multi-stranded spookfest Tales from the Crypt (1972), but this time with even more winking and a fair few nudges thrown in for good measure. The umbrella narrative finds five university chums in their late 30s – two couples and another bloke, Paul (Dustin Demri-Burns) who’s brought along his trashy new girlfriend, Miki (Kelly Wenham) – assembling at a remote lakeside cabin to scatter the ashes of a sixth pal who drowned there a few years back, the result of a misadventure, suicide or maybe something more sinister.
There’s good-natured sniping over who forgot to bring food, moaning over the lack of phone signal and bitchier remarks from tart-tongued Martha (Laura Fraser) directed at Miki, who no one really likes. With well-timed rhythms and backchat, the ensemble is quite credible as a gaggle of slightly obnoxious, mildly likable millennials on the brink of middle age.
To pass the time, each of them contributes a scary story that’s acted out either by a whole new cast or by the characters we’ve already met playing themselves; and each of the six segments is directed by a member of the actual cast. For example, the tale by Johnny Vegas’ Russell is a slapstick gorefest with zombies, while Mackenzie Crook’s Joe recalls a lurid dream sequence in the style of David Lynch, but on laughing gas. Fraser’s mildly supernatural segment is perhaps the best written, a bawdy yet melancholy romp about marital disappointment. Wenham brings it all home with a goofy but satisfying revenge yarn.
There’s something primally satisfying about the episodic structure, a narrative pattern that after all goes back to Chaucer.
Tales from the Lodge is released in the UK on 1 November. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/may/09/art-books-second-world-war | Books | 2013-05-09T16:08:37.000Z | Sam Jordison | Art of fear: which are the best books inspired by the second world war? | The Rest Is Noise, a festival of 20th-century culture at London's Southbank Centre, continues this weekend with Art of Fear: two days of talks investigating the music and art of oppression and war.
Literary highlights include a talk by Will Self about Franz Kafka and his influence on totalitarian music; a look at Mikhail Bulgakov's Stalin-era satire The Master and Margarita, led by actor and director Simon McBurney (who himself adapted a version of the novel for the stage); a lecture on the political landscape of Europe between 1930 and 1950 from Pulitzer prize-winning author Anne Applebaum; a survey of the political and social upheavals during the same era led by pre-eminent Russian historian Orlando Figes; and a panel of poets and critics reading from and discussing the work of the Russian poets (and victims of Stalin) Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam.
Another essential talk will be given by Orange prize-winner Helen Dunmore about The Long Shadows of War – billed as a discussion of what "society chooses to memorialise and what to forget in the decades following periods of conflict". I don't want to second-guess this talk – beyond the fact that it should be very interesting, and draw on Dunmore's own explorations of memory in novels such as The Siege. But the root conceit is fascinating and provocative. How far have our memories of the war been curated by an earlier generation?
Far removed from the second world war, today most of us have no idea what has been forgotten – or how much remains in the minds of ageing survivors. Still less do we know about the decisions regarding which version of history was handed to us, and which jettisoned. It's hard to imagine much has been lost when there is so much vivid documentation, both remembered and reimagined. Especially, to return to books, when so much of it has fed into the literature of the postwar world.
The fact is that contemporary cultural life still draws from the terrible upheavals of the 1930s and 40s. It's also an uncomfortable truth that just as war produces beneficial technologies, it also inspires enduring and precious artworks. Evelyn Waugh's The Sword of Honour, Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time and Lawrence Durrell's The Alexandria Quartet are the first three works that spring to my mind – but you could add hundreds of works to that list.
Hundreds of wonderful, life-altering, uplifting books – all of which have their origins in terror. This is unsettling. Does it mean literary enrichment can come as a direct result of suffering? Are we the war's beneficiaries? But then again, there's cause for hope if so much that is worthwhile and enduring can emerge from such darkness and chaos; so much that speaks to the better part of humanity.
In a spirit of validation, it might be worth trying to compile a list of books inspired by the second world war in the comments below – and maybe adding a few words about why they matter. But we can only do that if we accept that it will be a list without end, as impossible and bewildering to complete as a list of the war's victims.
We might also go for a second list of great late-20th-century novels that haven't been somehow touched by the shadow of the second world war. But off the top of my head … Watership Down? Does that count? | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2024/apr/13/saving-uk-downsizing-home-mortgage-costs-property | Money | 2024-04-13T10:00:19.000Z | Suzanne Bearne | ‘It’ll be a massive saving’: why more people in the UK are downsizing home | When Richard Wise* moved from London to Margate in Kent three years ago, he did not expect to move again any time soon. But the music industry manager and his partner are planning to downsize from a four- to a three-bedroom property after their mortgage rate quadrupled.
“After Liz Truss’s bombshell [the September 2022 mini-budget that led to rising mortgage rates], our mortgage repayments doubled last year,” the 40-year-old says.
Although the couple had access to an inheritance, which they used to pay off some of the mortgage, their increased monthly outlay – the rate jumped from 1.09% to 4.9% – put a strain on their bank balance.
“We thought we could ride it out but think it’s going to be safer to downsize,” he says.
With the costs of moving will you still save money by downsizing? Photograph: Alamy
Their house went on the market in March, although Wise feels bittersweet about this. “It’s horrible; I feel a bit sick. We’re very fortunate we have the option to do that but I’m just going backward and forward thinking if this is the right thing for my family. My daughter said she didn’t want us to sell.”
However, he says they will only move if it will bring financial relief to the family. “We’re only doing it if there is a huge saving; it’s not worth it otherwise.”
Ever since that notorious mini-budget sent mortgage rates soaring – in July 2023, the average cost of a two-year fix peaked at 6.86% – and many have struggled to cope.
Although rates have fallen back – new two- and five-year fixed deals are now priced at an average of 5.81% and 5.38% respectively – many people coming to the end of their existing deal are still seeing their mortgage costs leap. This has prompted many to take a hard look at ways to lower their costs, with one option being downsizing.
This includes Sophy Dale, 50, a copywriter who moved with her husband and daughter from a three-bedroom to a two-bedroom flat, both in Edinburgh, in March.
“We’re significantly cutting our mortgage loan amount, which means that whatever happens to the rate, we should be fine,” Dale says. They have had to deal with some extra financial stress after she was left with a mild traumatic brain injury from a fall in late 2021 that means she has to limit her working hours to four a day.
When their fixed-rate mortgage ended, the couple moved on to a tracker deal that set them back £750 a month. Their new five-year mortgage in their smaller home is costing them £330 a month.
As is the case with Wise, the aim is to cut bills and reduce the potential for financial stress. “It’s more a fear of what could happen,” Dale says. “I was a teenager when mortgage rates went crazy … and so I’m worried about those kind of scary figures and [rates] going out of control with the current government. With everything increasing, it feels like one piece of the puzzle we can have control of.”
With a lower mortgage rate, she says they can see the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of eventually paying it off. “Even if mortgage rates go sky-high, we would still be able to manage to pay, whereas with the larger mortgage, if the rate was to go up to 10%, it would obviously have a much bigger knock-on effect, and because my working hours are limited, I wouldn’t necessarily be able to find a way round that.”
A 2023 report from the comparison site Confused.com found that the biggest gain from downsizing, based on property values, was made by going from a four-bedroom to a three-bedroom property with an average price difference of £110,000.
We’re kind of pre-empting any potential issues and getting things as financially good as they can be for the family
Jason Webb
Jason Webb*, 35, who lives with his wife and two children aged two and five in Westbrook in Thanet, Kent, is looking to switch from a three-bedroom property to a two-bedroom one after putting their house on the market a few months ago.
“With one thing after another, with the war in Ukraine, what’s going in the Middle East, energy issues, everything just feels more pressurising and volatile at the moment, and this is one element we can control,” he says.
“We’re kind of pre-empting any potential issues and getting things as financially good as they can be for the family.”
The physiotherapist says they are looking for houses priced at approximately £40,000 less than the value of their current property, and adds that moving to nearby Birchington would also save on transport costs. He says that with food prices rising and high energy bills, “we want to create more of a buffer and have more for emergencies or if things get more expensive”.
But what about the costs involved? The average cost of moving home is about £15,000 once you add up things such as estate agents’ fees and removals – and depending where you live stamp duty will be an important part of the calculation. There may also be mortgage fees to pay.
Many would argue that almost as important is alleviating the mental strain that the extra financial burden caused by higher mortgage rates and the cost of living crisis has placed on households.
This is why Wise believes that, despite all the associated costs of moving, downsizing will still be worth it.
“It’s a long-term plan for the future,” he says. “It’s not going to be immediate savings as we’re going to have to port the mortgage, so we won’t save in the next year, but this is about the future – it’ll be a massive saving.”
In addition, it will help with his overall wellbeing: “It’s also about mental health and stress.”
The pros and cons of downsizing
Brokers are reporting a growing number of inquiries from homeowners considering downsizing or first-time buyers opting for smaller properties as a way to keep mortgage costs down. But is this a good financial move? We spoke to experts about the pros and cons.
“In prior years, when interest rates were very low, it seemed the norm for first-time buyers in particular to buy a larger property than their needs dictated,” says David Sharpstone, a director at the mortgage brokers CIS Mortgage Advice.
“Now that we’re in a period of higher interest rates compared with the past 13 years, I’ve definitely seen a trend for homeowners downsizing to reduce their mortgage payments, and first-time buyers purchasing smaller properties, or even flats rather than houses.”
The mortgage adviser Simply Lending says it has received double the number of downsizing inquiries in the past six months. “This has been led by clients coming out of fixed deals and being faced with a monthly payment they are unable to afford,” says David White, its chief operations officer.
Simply Lending has received double the number of inquiries about downsizing in the past six months. Photograph: sturti/Getty Images
However, he warns that this might not necessarily produce the financial blessing that people expect. “Although downsizing frequently alleviates the financial strain, given persistently high interest rates and property prices, clients often find the relief from downsizing less substantial than anticipated.”
Karen Noye, a mortgage expert at the wealth management firm Quilter, says rising mortgage rates have made more people think of ways to unlock cash and lower their outgoings. “Even though mortgage rates have gone down, we have seen people see their new payments skyrocket. This inevitably leads to thoughts of downsizing.”
However, she says anyone considering this should ask themselves if they are moving to save money or to survive this tough period. If people have calculated that they won’t be able to afford their mortgage payments on top of high food and energy bills, then they need to downsize and unlock some equity and achieve lower monthly costs.
Although rates have fallen back, many people coming to the end of their existing deal are still seeing their mortgage costs jump. Photograph: Rosemary Roberts/Alamy
“How much you downsize by will be influenced by your specific circumstances and how much room you need to accommodate your family,” she says. “Moving home comes with costs like estate agent fees, legal costs and stamp duty.”
However, if you are considering downsizing as a kneejerk reaction to the current economic climate, it is important to think through your options.
“Your house is typically your most valuable asset, and leveraging the equity in it and downsizing when you get to retirement rather than downsizing early can be a crucial element of your retirement provision,” Noye says. “Therefore, pressing the downsizing button too early in your life if it’s not absolutely necessary can make you worse off financially in the long run.”
She adds that downsizing “is a short-term solution to potentially a short-term problem if rates start to come down later this year. Before you downsize, it is important to look at your finances holistically and see if there are any areas where you can save before you consider this.”
* Names have been changed | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/oct/06/kurt-cobain-nirvana-sappy-listen-montage-of-heck-home-recordings | Music | 2015-10-06T11:15:24.000Z | Marc Burrows | Kurt Cobain's Sappy – listen to a track from Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings | Following Nirvana’s three studio albums, three compilations, three live albums, three bonus-rich reissues and an extensive four-disc box set, it was assumed that material by the Seattle outfit, whose career lasted just seven years, had finally run dry.
However, next month sees the release of Montage of Heck: The Home Recordings, a set of lo-fi acoustic performances by Kurt Cobain that were taped on a boom box between 1986 and 1994. The songs were collected to soundtrack this year’s documentary on the singer, Cobain. Today, the first official fruits from his posthumous debut solo album have emerged, in the form of a fragile acoustic demo version of Sappy, recorded at some point between 1986 and 1988. It will be accompanied on a 7” by a cover of the Beatles’ 1964 song And I Love Her.
Sappy is, in many ways, the great lost Nirvana classic. Cut from In Utero at the 11th hour, it got an official release as a secret track on the 1993 charity compilation No Alternative. Written around 1987, Cobain would attempt to record the track numerous times, in different keys and arrangements, and was never satisfied with the results. The song was first attempted with Bleach producer Jack Endino in 1990. “Even [Nirvana’s first label] Sub Pop was kind of puzzled by it,” he said later. “[T]here was no reason to record it right then, no single was planned or anything.”
A few months later the band re-recorded the song with Butch Vig as part of an aborted Sub Pop album, this time much less raw and heavy than Endino’s take, but neither version was released. A third stab was made during the recording of Nevermind a year later, again with Vig, at Sound City. It was intended to be grouped with Polly and Sliver, among others, as a collection of “Boy” songs that would make up one side of the album (a second side of “Girl” songs would include tracks written about Cobain’s ex-girlfriend, Bikini Kill’s Tobi Vail, including Drain You and Lounge Act). By now the key had shifted down and the lyrics had changed, but again Cobain wasn’t happy, abandoning the take after the guide vocal claiming he was “not into it right now” and jettisoning the boy/girl idea altogether.
A final attempt was made to record Sappy during the In Utero sessions with Steve Albini in 1993, and though this version is easily the most impressive – heavy, immediate and emotive – Cobain again cooled on the song, dropping it from the record and gifting it to an Aids benefit compilation on the proviso it was unlisted.
This latest release is the earliest known version of the track. Recorded at home with a tape-recorder, it’s a fragile sketch, stripping the song back to its bare bones and perhaps revealing why Cobain was so keen to get a definitive take down: its sad, aching melody was among his very best. Take a listen to the track below. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/29/new-labour-20-years-on-tony-blair-david-miliband-peter-mandelson-alastair-campbell | Politics | 2017-04-29T08:00:25.000Z | Jonathan Freedland | What do we do now?': the New Labour landslide, 20 years on | They all remember the sunshine. Talk to those who were there on 1 May 1997, and everyone mentions the way the whole country seemed to glow under bright blue skies and a warm sun. It had been that way for much of the campaign, but those at the centre had barely had a chance to enjoy it. Now, on polling day, time at last seemed to slow down. For those few hours, there was nothing more that the small, tight group at the heart of New Labour could do, except wait.
Thanks to Theresa May’s decision to call an early election, the campaign of 2017 will encompass a poignant milestone: the 20th anniversary of the biggest landslide in British political history. On Monday, two decades will have passed since Tony Blair led Labour to a triumph so complete it eclipsed even the groundbreaking win of 1945. While Clement Attlee racked up a Commons majority of 145 seats, Blair managed 179. Nothing like it had been accomplished before – or since.
When you’d lost as many elections as we had, you believed right until the end that some unforeseen event could derail us
Drawing on conversations with the key players who propelled Blair and Gordon Brown into power – Alastair Campbell, Peter Mandelson, Ed Balls, David Miliband, Anji Hunter, Jonathan Powell and others – it’s possible to glimpse again that extraordinary day when Britain turned its back on 18 years of Conservative rule and stepped into an unknown future, led by a group of people who, as one puts it now, had “no idea what the inside of government even looked like”. They tell stories of jubilation and mild panic as the results came in – and of landmark achievements and enduring regrets, as that victory turned into a 13-year spell in government.
On the day itself, no one was allowed to celebrate, not until all the votes were counted. For Blair, it was part superstition (don’t jinx it by taking it for granted), part bitter experience. “When you’d lost as many elections as we had by 1997, you believed right until the end that some unforeseen event could derail us,” says Mandelson, then MP for Hartlepool and campaign director.
Blair had been in that frame of mind throughout. When he saw the front page of the Observer on the Sunday before polling day – with its headline, above a portrait of himself, “Starting this week: a new era” – he was “appalled”, remembers Hunter, who until 2001 served as the leader’s gatekeeper and unofficial voice of middle England. Blair had refused to say or do anything that smacked of presumption or complacency, even when every poll showed he was on course for Downing Street.
On 1 May, he allowed himself a small exemption: since there was no more campaigning to be done, he agreed to discuss tentative plans for the Labour government that might – all conversations had to be framed in the conditional – begin the next day. At Myrobella, the former pit manager’s house he had in his Sedgefield constituency, he took his first peek at the document chief of staff Jonathan Powell had drafted, outlining a plan for Labour’s first 100 days in office. Until then, Powell says, “He hadn’t wanted to look.”
Blair alternated between pacing inside the house and sitting in the garden. “He was apprehensive,” Powell recalls. “He’d call Sally [Morgan, a senior political aide] and say, ‘What’s going on?’ She’d make stuff up: ‘Oh, turnout’s good in the East Midlands.’ It was complete nonsense. Anything to get him to shut up.”
Mandelson, Campbell, Powell and Hunter were all there. John Prescott came over from Hull, before heading back to his own count. In the garden, “We permitted ourselves a theoretical discussion of who might fill various posts,” Mandelson remembers. But mainly they remained in the same curious state of limbo, halfway between opposition and government. “There was a sense that everything was happening in slow motion,” he says.
Tony Blair during the 1997 election campaign with his team including, from left, Ed Balls, Peter Mandelson, Alastair Campbell and Gordon Brown. Photograph: Tom Stoddart Archive/Getty Images
“I was completely exhausted,” recalls Campbell, then Blair’s spokesman and right-hand man. The campaign had been relentless and Campbell had been fierce about maintaining discipline, including over his own emotions. But the night before, he had been on the phone with his 10-year-old son, Callum, who asked, “Are we going to win?” That “we” was too much. “I put the phone down and I started crying. I cried for about half an hour.”
Meanwhile, on the streets of Enfield Southgate, David Miliband, then Blair’s head of policy, was canvassing with Stephen Twigg, a former student leader whose hopeless task was to take on the Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo. They’d been leafleting big houses: obviously solid Tory ground. Eating lunch at a pub, Twigg laughingly revealed that Millbank, Labour HQ in those days, had sent him a draft victory speech. “No chance of that happening,” he said, unaware that a matter of hours later his sheepish grin, alongside a shell-shocked Portillo, would become one of the defining images of the election.
Eventually, evening came. A BBC contact had leaked to Hunter the details of the exit poll. But Blair shooed her away. “He didn’t want to hear it.”
At 10pm, David Dimbleby forecast an enormous Labour win. The early results confirmed it. But still the inner circle was counting no chickens. At one point, hearing that champagne corks were popping at Millbank, Campbell got on the phone to give the London team a carpeting. Not the right look for the cameras, he barked. Press officer David Hill told him, “We are about to win the biggest victory in our history and end 18 consecutive years of Tory government. I think it’s going to be a little hard to tell them all to look sombre.”
My pager kept going off: Labour gain, Labour gain, Labour gain, Labour hold, Labour gain, Labour gain…
Blair once told me of the moment Bruce Grocott, his parliamentary private secretary, came to him and said, “I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is, you’ve won by a landslide. The bad news is, landslides happen.” Even the prospect of massive victory was tainted by the familiar Labour angst: they might be voting you in, but they could just as easily throw you out.
Soon, John Major rang, conceding defeat. Blair took the call in the house’s small study; Campbell and Powell huddled around, trying to listen in. Campbell remembers that Blair was “wearing a rugby shirt, shorts and these ridiculous fluffy slippers. It didn’t feel like a historic moment.”
It was time to head to Blair’s count. His son, Nicky, couldn’t be woken and had to be carried to the car; this team of political sorcerers were still young. Campbell, who had intimidated the entire Westminster press corps, was 39; Blair was not yet 44. As he went into the sports centre where the Sedgefield votes were being tallied, Campbell gave a TV interview, again stressing that nothing could be taken for granted. His demeanour was downbeat. His pager, state-of-the-art technology at the time, started buzzing as colleagues asked the same question: “What is wrong with you?”
Mandelson flew to London alongside novelist Robert Harris, granted access for an insider’s account. “As we flew down, we listened to the radio – we must have been flying low – as one after another of these southern coastal seats began falling like dominoes.” Campbell was on another flight, with Tony and Cherie Blair. “My pager kept going off: Labour gain, Labour gain, Labour gain, Labour hold, Labour gain, Labour gain…”
Meanwhile, Ed Balls, then right-hand man to Brown, was dozing in the back of a car as he was driven to London from Castleford where his wife, Yvette Cooper, had just been elected as MP for the first time. At one point, Balls woke with a start: the driver, a trade union volunteer, had let out a roar on hearing the news of Portillo’s defeat.
I refuse to list Iraq as an upfront regret, because I don’t believe it
Once in London, the Blair team headed towards the victory party at the Royal Festival Hall. They arrived to a crowd of activists, MPs, trade unionists, celebrities and party workers in a state of near ecstasy. I remember it well: I was there, notebook in hand, watching as Richard Branson mingled with John Edmonds of the GMB, and as a delighted, relieved Neil Kinnock danced with Peter Mandelson. As the sun came up, Blair ad-libbed that line with its oddly Majoresque cadence: “A new dawn has broken, has it not?”
But the euphoria of the crowd, felt across much of the country on that Friday morning, did not fully extend to those on the inside. “I was scared,” Blair wrote in his memoirs. Hunter thinks “the weight, the awesome responsibility” pressed in on him. What was going through her mind? “Tony needs to have a sleep, that’s what I was thinking.”
The Blairs went back to their Islington home to get a few hours rest – a drowsy Cherie famously snapped by a waiting press pack as she opened her front door - but the others either got much less sleep or none at all. Powell went to Downing Street, charged with performing in a few hours a transition from one administration to another that in the US takes three months. Mandelson went to Millbank, partly to mug up on a parliamentary Labour party now boosted to 418, including scores of new MPs “who we’d frankly not heard of and knew nothing about”. Brown and Balls headed for the Treasury, where they handed stunned civil servants a letter announcing their intention to make the Bank of England independent. Immediately.
At around 6am, David Miliband and his wife, Louise, walked across Waterloo Bridge, stopping to watch the morning sun glinting on Big Ben. “I guess I thought, ‘What do we do now?’” he recalls.
I
asked these key players in New Labour to name three things they were proudest of in the years after the great landslide, and three regrets. The positives were easy, though not entirely what I predicted.
Naturally, Powell offered the Good Friday agreement, in which he was intimately involved, while Campbell cited the military intervention in Kosovo. (Campbell was sent to get a grip on the communications effort for Nato during that war in 1999, and has retained his interest: he’s lost count of the young adults he has met in Albania called Tony Blair, named for the man their parents believe saved their lives.) Balls was proud of the decision to keep Britain out of the euro, as well as the post-2001 rise in national insurance to fund the NHS, a tax rise levied explicitly to pay for a public service: “No left-of-centre government had done that.”
Blair works on a speech with David Miliband before election day. Anji Hunter recalls he was ‘appalled’ by the complacency of that Observer front page. Photograph: Tom Stoddart Archive/Getty Images
Others ticked off signature New Labour achievements, the kind that used to be listed on giant TV screens as the warm-up video for the leader’s speech at party conference: increased investment in schools and hospitals; devolution to Scotland, Wales and London; the minimum wage; civil partnerships; sharp reductions in poverty among pensioners and children; a massive redistribution of wealth to the worse off through the creation of the tax credit system.
Miliband said he was proud that the 1997 government created the Department for International Development, while speechwriter and strategist Peter Hyman says he still admires the fact that Blair “never pandered on immigration”, and that, in those years, the country felt, broadly, tolerant, inclusive and optimistic: “It was the best time to be British.” All of them cite Labour’s three consecutive election wins, a sustained success that, again, outstrips Attlee’s. “The 1945 government was a shooting star: it had lost all of its energy by 1950,” Miliband says.
Twenty years on, the regrets are harder to talk about. Balls is critical of himself and his colleagues over the “searing event” of the 2008 financial crash. Like their fellow governments around the world, he says, Labour failed to see the “building problem” in the financial institutions until it was too late.
Nothing is more damning than the fact that, 20 years on, Jeremy Corbyn is leader and Labour is about to be annihilated
Others speak of the 2003 invasion of Iraq that devoured Blair’s second term and destroyed his premiership – though not without prompting. Defiantly, Powell says that, in terms of its impact on Britain, “Iraq will be forgotten in five or 10 years.” Likewise, Campbell says, “I refuse to list that as an upfront regret, because I don’t believe it.”
Thanks to Brexit, self-criticism comes more easily over Europe. “We didn’t talk Europe up enough,” Hunter says. “Everybody slightly pandered to the Daily Mail agenda on Europe – ‘the gravy train’ and all that. We didn’t fight that.” Miliband puts it succinctly: “We won arguments in Europe, but didn’t win the argument for Europe.”
Most of the class of 1997 reject the idea that it was their actions that stored up so much of the current trouble, starting with the suggestion that it was the arrival of 1.5m eastern European immigrants after 2004 that ultimately led to last year’s Brexit vote. No, they say: while it would obviously have been better to have managed that influx more gradually, it did not lead ineluctably to Brexit. The case for migration could have been made more effectively; David Cameron could have got a better deal from his renegotiation with Brussels. (Blair would have, Hyman says.) Balls is more unforgiving: “We thought globalisation would be all about the movement of goods and services; we didn’t anticipate that it would mean the mass movement of people.”
Only in one area are the founders of New Labour ready to see a direct line of responsibility and blame, and that is in the area that wounds them most deeply: the current plight of the Labour party, a few weeks out from what promises to be a very different general election.
“We have to take some responsibility for the state Labour is in today,” Campbell says. “We can’t say Corbyn happened in a vacuum. We didn’t cement the legacy.” Hyman goes further: “Nothing is more damning than the fact that, 20 years later, Jeremy Corbyn is leading the party and Labour is about to be annihilated.”
There have always been parts of the Labour party that find the discipline of government, of compromise, hard
The architects of New Labour watched as their record was first questioned and then rubbished. For that, many of the 1997 veterans blame Ed Miliband, about whom they can be scathing – and not just for making the rule change that meant party members alone, including ones who’d just signed up, could now elect the party leader, with no extra weight given to the views of MPs. They say that, by declaring New Labour “dead”, Miliband prepared the ground for Corbyn.
And so now Labour is led by a man who either never speaks of the last Labour government or, if he does, seems to regard it as an embarrassment requiring atonement. While the Tories exult in their victories, lionising their winners and boasting of their time in office, Blair is mainly cast as a source of shame. For his part, as if to confirm how much the political landscape has changed since 1997, Blair now suggests that people vote in June for the most anti-Brexit candidate – even if that means voting Tory.
Tony and Cherie Blair in Downing Street. Photograph: Ken Towner/Evening Standard/Rex/Shutterstock
Part of New Labour’s failure was one of personnel. Most agree that they failed to bring on a new generation, that fresh talent struggled to grow in the shade cast by Blair and Brown. But it goes deeper than that. Balls thinks New Labour was, in part, a victim of its own success. “There have always been parts of the Labour party that find the discipline of government, of compromise, hard. I think the party was quite exhausted by government. But, to be fair to Ed Miliband, that discipline held for another five years.” When 2015 brought a second election defeat, Balls says, “People said, ‘Oh God, can’t we just get back to dreaming? Can’t we be outsiders?’ So, in some ways, the success of Blair and Brown, being in power that long, caused a pent-up resentment about all the discipline and compromise.” After a long, hard hike on the road to power, electing Corbyn felt like sinking into a warm bath.
Some of the New Labour team wonder how things might have been had their bosses, Blair and Brown, been able to repeat in government the effective working relationship they had during the 1997 campaign, instead of allowing the tension between them to gnaw at New Labour from the inside. Powell’s big regret is that nothing came of the “project” of convergence – maybe even merger – with the Lib Dems.
As for the future, no one – not even the truest believer – suggests a simple resurrection of New Labour. They know that the world of late 1990s Britain has gone and is never coming back. But it’s worth remembering all the same. David Miliband says that if the party keeps disdaining its 13 years in power, if “we forget why it’s worth having a Labour government, we end up not having one”.
New Labour’s mistakes and misdeeds were legion – and, whatever Campbell and Powell say, Iraq surely belongs at the top of that list. Still, its key insight – that Labour could do radical things, but only once it had reassured the electorate it was fit to hold power – holds as true now as it did in 1997.
The founders of New Labour look back with pride at the victory they won two decades ago, but the memory is bittersweet. For they know the prize eventually slipped out of reach – as bright and brief as a glorious May afternoon. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/the-womens-blog-with-jane-martinson/2013/jun/12/games-industry-problem-female-protagonists | Life and style | 2013-06-12T13:39:23.000Z | Belinda Parmar | Why does the games industry have such a problem with female protagonists? | After pop culture critic Anita Sarkeesian attended the Xbox One press conference in LA's E3 trade event, she spoke out on Twitter. "Thanks #XboxOne #E3 press conference for revealing to us exactly zero games featuring a female protagonist for the next generation." No doubt Sarkeesian, who runs feministfrequency.com, was expecting some lively discussion despite writing the truth. What she got was a stream of abuse.
"Shut up". "Hey there! Can you just stop. Stop being retarded and bitchy. No?" "Women don't belong in video games." "What did you expect? Cooking and cleaning games at a console launch?" "Maybe if women were more interesting and capable at life there would be more female led games, like super floral arranger." "Games with female protags don't sell. Maybe if more women started getting into the game market then they would make more, dumbass." Those were just some of the more thoughtful replies. Others accused her of being sexist, of perpetuating a victim culture, of being a "she-bigot" and that she was being childish. Then there were the obscenities and rape gags.
It's no secret that female protagonists in video games are a minority. But it's shocking that when someone points this out to one of the biggest players in the industry, this is the reaction (admittedly, only of some gamers). As Sarkeesian notes on the blog she posted showing some of the missives: "This is … a window into what it's like to be a female video game critic on Twitter." So why does the games industry – and the delightful gamers who responded to Sarkeesian – have such a problem with heroines? And what is going to change it?
One of the reasons that there is such a paucity of decent female leads is the long-held perception that, as one of Sarkeesian's detractors put it, "games with female protags don't sell". Late last year, EEDAR, a video game sales-forecasting and research firm, revealed findings that showed that out of 669 current titles that had protagonists of a specific gender, only 24 of these were exclusively fronted by women. And these games didn't sell as well as their brethren. "If you look at the first three months with the smaller quantity of female-led games, they did not sell as well," explained Geoffrey Zatkin of EEDAR. "The ones that were male-only sold better."
But what's this? "Games with a female-only protagonist … [received] only 40% of the marketing budget of male-led games. Less than that, actually." Less marketing spend means fewer sales which, it seems, means less marketing spend in the future. Who fancies a quick game of vicious circle? Then, of course, there's the games industry marketing that is sexist in its own right, such as the deeply unhilarious promotional ad for the Sony Vita handheld console in France. (It has two sides, so if it were a woman, it would have two sets of breasts. Right.)
Sarkeesian has spoken in the past about how to change the status quo. "The creation of great and complex female characters in video games is an involved process, but ultimately developers are going to have to take some risks and step outside of the expected or established conventions," she told GameSpot last year. Rhianna Pratchett, the writer responsible for two of the biggest female-led games titles (the recent Lara Croft reboot and Mirror's Edge), agrees that it's the responsibility of publishers to make changes, but that it's good financial sense rather than a risky business move. "It's not really about taking risks, it's about catering better for the existing audience. Publishers suggesting that the audience is male and therefore doesn't relate to female characters is ludicrous and short-sighted," she says. "Game of Thrones has some wonderful female characters, without putting off male viewers. Likewise, it has some great male characters without putting off female watchers. Tomb Raider wouldn't have sold 3.6m in its first month of sales if the audience had a problem with female leads."
In a UK gaming survey compiled by YouGov SixthSense and Lady Geek, the technology agency I founded to improve accessibility for women in the tech industry, we found that more than half of the women we questioned play video games and that three-quarters of women who game think the hobby no longer has anything to do with gender. Female gamers are not a minority, and female protagonists shouldn't be either.
Craig Stern, founder of Chicago-based indie design studio Sinister Design, passionately agrees. In a recent, heartening blogpost, he wrote that "the numbers don't lie. Women are every bit as much a part of the gaming ecosystem as men, and yet they receive only a small fraction of the leading roles. Is it any wonder that many women are upset? (I can assure the reader that men would not be happy in a world where male characters were constantly getting kidnapped or killed in games to set up the plot, and yet were actually heroes in only one out of every 30 titles.)"
He tells me that "the response to my own blog post has mostly been positive. The few comments I've received from men who disagreed with me are quite muted compared to the vitriol thrown at Anita Sarkeesian. There's clearly a difference there in how we're being treated."
Depressingly, he says this is far from the first time he has seen that difference in action. "Time and again, I've noticed that women who complain get abuse heaped on them; but the worst a man can expect to face for supporting women's concerns are accusations that he is a 'white knight' who is only saying what he's saying in the hope that feminists will sleep with him. Which, ultimately, just betrays a cynical worldview in which women cannot be empathised with, only manipulated for sex. It's all pretty vile, really, but women bear the worst of it."
There are two tiny pinpricks of light on the horizon, at least. Remember Me, which is released this month, is an action/adventure title set in a dystopian future, but one in which the heroine, Nilin, is a force to be reckoned with. Meanwhile, Mirror's Edge 2 and Faith, its free-running protagonist, is coming, albeit "when it's ready".
Sarkeesian herself has said: "Change is coming to gaming, and like all structural or institutional transformation, the process can be slow or painful for some in the old guard, but in the end it's imperative that the shift happens – and I think it will ultimately move the industry to a better, more-equitable place, producing better games with better and more dynamic female characters."
@belindaparmar is the founder of the social enterprise Little Miss Geek and the CEO of Lady Geek | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/aug/07/pension-shakeup-4bn-pound-windfall-osborne | Money | 2014-08-07T08:07:28.000Z | Julia Kollewe | Pension shakeup could net £4bn UK tax windfall | The government stands to reap a £4bn tax windfall as more than 650,000 people are expected to exploit George Osborne's changes and cash in part of their pensions over the next five years.
More than 130,000 Britons are preparing to withdraw money from their pension pots every year between 2015 and 2020 under the sweeping changes which scrap rules that force people to buy an annuity, according to HM Revenue and Customs documents.
However, pension experts have warned that the pension changes could turn into the next mis-selling scandal.
The Treasury expects to collect an additional £3.86bn of tax, as pensioners are expected to make larger withdrawals and get dragged into a higher rate tax band. At present, the tax rate rises from 20% to 40% when a person's income reaches £41,866.
The HMRC figures show that the extra tax could swell Treasury coffers by £320m in 2015-16, rising to £600m in 2016-17, £910m in 2017-18 and £1.2bn in 2018-19, before falling back to £810m in 2019-20.
Pension experts warned savers that they could end up losing almost half their pension pot to the taxman if they are not careful.
Tom McPhail, head of pensions research at financial services firm Hargreaves Lansdown, told the Daily Telegraph: "It is essential that suitable safeguards are put in place to ensure that they are alerted to the tax implications of taking all their money out.
"This is undoubtedly clever politics from the chancellor but if we're not careful he could end up creating a one-man pension mis-selling scandal."
He advised people to spread withdrawals from their pension funds over several years to avoid breaching the tax threshold and keep income tax to 20%.
The pensions minister, Steve Webb, caused a stir in March when he said that affluent people approaching retirement should be free to blow their pension pot on a Lamborghini – even if they then end up relying on the state pension. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/11/morrison-could-revoke-bob-katters-water-deal-if-mp-sides-with-labor | Australia news | 2019-02-11T05:58:13.000Z | Katharine Murphy | Morrison could revoke Bob Katter's water deal if MP sides with Labor | Scott Morrison has hinted he could revoke a $200m agreement with Bob Katter for Queensland water projects if the maverick sides with Labor and fellow crossbenchers to support an extension of the parliamentary sitting calendar against the government’s wishes.
With parliament set to resume on Tuesday, and with Labor and several crossbenchers lining up to extend the sitting weeks to allow consideration of the recommendations from the banking royal commission, the prime minister was asked twice on Monday whether Katter would lose his water deal in the event he forced the extension.
Rather than ruling it out, the prime minister said at the National Press Club he didn’t intend to “entertain” the question.
Morrison reached an agreement with Katter last November, in which he agreed to provide $200m for water projects to shore up Katter’s support in the House of Representatives following the loss of the government’s lower house majority.
An exchange of letters between Morrison and Katter at the time made it clear the government expected support during any motions and second reading amendments “that attempt to cause disruption to the good order of the House”.
Katter has not yet stated definitively whether he will support a motion extending the sitting program or not, although he has expressed some interest in doing so. The government opposes the move.
Last week, the mercurial Queenslander told Guardian Australia there “may be some merit” to extra sitting weeks of parliament to consider banking reforms and he would “seriously consider” it.
Katter complained the former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull had “gazumped the crossbench by putting in a toothless tiger” in setting up a banking royal commission on the government’s terms and wants to see more scrutiny on bank bosses than “little blokes selling mortgages”.
“But the prime minister [Scott Morrison] may threaten to go to the people and dump on us [at an early election] … There’s going to be a lot of brinksmanship here. We’ll see who blinks first,” he said.
Katter’s vote only comes into play if the other House crossbenchers side with Labor on the motion. Government sources are privately confident they have the numbers to repel the sortie.
With the political fight between the major parties escalating, Labor on Monday said it would no longer sign up to pairing arrangements for votes requiring an absolute majority of 76 MPs in the House of Representatives.
The government leader in the house, Christopher Pyne, responded that the “unprecedented” move would prevent members attending to sick family members or getting medical attention.
“The then-opposition never stooped this low even in the darkest days of the 43rd parliament,” he said, although the Tony Abbott-lead opposition was criticised for restricting the practice of pairing.
By cancelling pairs the ALP are saying they won’t let any Member of the HoR leave to attend to a sick family member or to get medical attention themselves. It’s unprecedented and the then Opposition never stooped this low even in the darkest days of the 43rd Parliament. #auspol
— Christopher Pyne (@cpyne) February 11, 2019
The implied threat to Katter was part of a wide-ranging speech from Morrison that focused on amplifying political conflict with Labor over national security.
The prime minister also confirmed the Coalition would announce measures on climate policy before the next federal election – something the government has been telegraphing for some weeks.
Morrison acknowledged that climate change was a factor in the frequency of extreme weather events Australia has experienced over the summer months.
The government is expected, as part of the reboot, to beef up the Emissions Reduction Fund, a vestige of Tony Abbott’s Direct Action program and possibly expand the fund’s remit.
There is also an internal push to increase funding for the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and Arena, as well as craft a package of measures targeted at households. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2016/feb/24/cocteau-twins-10-of-the-best | Music | 2016-02-24T13:22:47.000Z | Ned Raggett | Cocteau Twins – 10 of the best | 1. Wax and Wane
Twenty years since their last full-length release, the Cocteau Twins remain, for many, a gold standard of a band, a group that seemed to have emerged fully formed from some dark, shadowy intersection of Victorian elegance and post-punk moodiness. The Cocteaus’ initial releases –1982’s Garlands album, followed by the Lullabies and Peppermint Pig EPs – were almost proof-of-concept efforts with flashes of inspiration, something also borne out by sessions for John Peel. It’s easy to hear what fed into the dark, overwhelming flow of Garlands – Siouxsie and the Banshees, in particular – but at the same time, the rigid punch of their electronic beats gave them as much of a distinct mark, blended together with Liz Fraser’s understated, unusual vocals. If there’s a standard on Garlands, Wax and Wane is it – the buildup of percussion, Will Heggie’s murmuring bassline then Robin Guthrie’s cascading sheets of guitar sets the stage for Fraser’s still comparatively quiet but nonetheless strong singing turn. It signalled that the Cocteaus had a clear power; what emerged further was the beauty.
Listen to Wax and Wane, live
2. Musette and Drums
Heggie’s departure after the release of Peppermint Pig to form the band Lowlife led to the first of two phases in the Cocteaus’ life, during which Guthrie and Fraser recorded an album as a duo: 1983’s Head Over Heels. It was the perfect rebound: compared to Garlands’ striking but mostly monolithic impact, Head Over Heels demonstrated an easy variety throughout. Fraser’s singing was notably more direct in the mix, even as her lyrics, while often still perfectly understandable, began to shift away from conventional vocabulary towards enigmatic, emotional sound. Meanwhile, Guthrie’s arrangements, expanding beyond guitar and bass, ranged from the jazz-pop flow of Multifoiled to the sparkling, sax-tinged shimmer of Five Ten Fiftyfold to the steady cascade of Sugar Hiccup. Musette and Drums wrapped up the album on a dramatic note – which would become the hallmark of later releases. With the force of Garlands translated into a gripping combination of guitars and drum machine that sounded like waves constantly crashing on the shore, while Fraser sang with commanding, rich tones like an invocation of something from beyond, it was one hell of a marker to lay down.
Elizabeth Fraser: the Cocteau Twins and me
Read more
3. Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops
During the recording of Head Over Heels, Guthrie and Fraser participated in the initial This Mortal Coil sessions for their label 4AD, resulting in their cover of Tim Buckley’s Song to the Siren. Those sessions led to an acquaintance with Simon Raymonde, who joined as the replacement for Heggie. The first result was the stellar Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops single and The Spangle Maker EP in early 1984. The three songs featured across the two releases were not only equally striking, they were striking in different ways: The Spangle Maker featured a minimal, tense arrangement that suddenly exploded into a concluding, crashing swoon, while Pepper-Tree was one of their gentlest tracks to date, a serene and exquisite lope that could only be described as sunlight through curtains. But it was Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops that became the band’s biggest track to date, which led to other acts becoming compared to them. The stately pace of the song, in combination with Guthrie’s trademark sound of heavily reverbed guitars that might as well have been bells, that might as well have been keyboards, and beats that punched deep, meant the song sounded like an anthem. Fraser’s soaring vocals, now fully intertwining the easily understood and the utterly incomprehensible, turned it into one.
Watch the video for Pearly-Dewdrops’ Drops
4. Lorelei
Having started 1984 on that high note, the Cocteaus ended it on a higher one with the release of their third album, Treasure. If there was such a thing as a stereotypical 4AD album, Treasure might well have been it – Vaughan Oliver’s already noteworthy sleeve designs for the label and the band reached a new height with his combination of colour and photography. It wasn’t an image Guthrie was fond of, and the band members expressed dissatisfaction with Treasure being the product of the trio starting to work together, but for just about everyone else, the album was a start-to-finish triumph. The opening Ivo and the closing Donimo number among the band’s best work, but the remaining eight songs showed the trio’s capabilities to the full, touching on everything from serene, whispered contemplations to exultant, massive-sounding blasts that never so much crushed as engulfed, a drowning in light. Lorelei, the album’s second track, fit within that category, another anthem that sounded like it should be filling stadiums or something even bigger, but strictly all within the band’s own sonic terms: Raymonde’s graceful, powerful bass, Guthrie’s to-the-skies guitar and Fraser at her highest pitched, accentuated on the choruses and the break with a deeper swoop. Treasure inspired what would be one of the 80s’ most over-the-top critical statements – Steve Sutherland’s Melody Maker line “Surely this band is the voice of God” – but with a song like Lorelei, you could see what he was getting at.
5. Aikea-Guinea
1985 found the trio eschewing a new album for three EPs, all of which contain standout tracks. Tiny Dynamine and Echoes in a Shallow Bay, were released within two weeks of each other in November, while Aikea-Guinea surfaced on its own earlier that April. The Tiny/Echoes combination found the band shifting into a calmer mode, away from the sonic extremes that marked Treasure, so it’s no surprise to find that the earlier Aikea-Guinea is, if not a midpoint between the two, a way for the Cocteaus to make sure they weren’t simply trapped in Treasure’s shadow. While songs Kookaburra and Rococo have a brisk energy, the title track suggests a band now fully comfortable with a sound and happy to explore within it. Those sonic elements that had by now defined the band were all present; choral effects, something that had been a part of many earlier tracks, were also here, adding a further depth to the performance. But it’s Fraser’s showcase, singing with a sweet, compelling gentility that doesn’t float away into the ether.
6. Fluffy Tufts
In 1986, the band were again in creative overdrive, only this time in multiple forms – the core trio only released one EP as the Cocteaus, but under their individual names they collaborated with the American ambient pianist Harold Budd on the beautiful album The Moon and the Melodies. In the meantime, Raymonde worked on the second This Mortal Coil album, Filigree and Shadow, resulting in a second Cocteaus album recorded by Fraser and Guthrie as a duo, Victorialand. Raymonde’s absence made for a more dramatic difference than anticipated; rather than simply carry on without him, Victorialand steers away from obvious rhythms and low ends; indeed, aside from guest turns by Dif Juz saxophonist Richard Thomas on tabla, it has no percussion whatsoever. It’s not quite ambient, but it’s definitely not rock’n’roll even by the Cocteaus’ standards, building on the moments of guitar shimmer from the previous years’ EPs, while also stripping back at points to where it’s nothing but a Guthrie guitar line and Fraser’s voice. The whole album deserves a listen, but to single out Fluffy Tufts – one of several song titles that gave the Cocteaus an undue reputation for preciousness – conveys the sense of dreaminess the group could achieve.
7. Those Eyes, That Mouth
The one full-band Cocteaus release for 1986 came in October with the Love’s Easy Tears EP. It had become a bit of a holding pattern for the band. As such, it’s not talked about in such revered terms as many of their earlier releases, and while the band would release plenty of singles in later years, they never released a standalone EP of wholly new material again. But for all that, it’s still the Cocteaus, and one track in particular is my secret favourite. Those Eyes, That Mouth is an almost perfect concentration of the band in big and beautiful mode, Fraser’s singing demonstrating her ease at moving from a rhythmic swoop to a piercing keen while the music builds into a scintillating wash that Fraser almost disappears into as it fades. I don’t know if I’d ever want to pick a song for my funeral, but this is more of a candidate than most.
8. Heaven or Las Vegas
While the band made its American major-label debut in 1988 with Blue Blue Knoll and scored a US alternative hit with the hip-hop-beat-driven Carolyn’s Fingers, the album as a whole was almost stereotypically Cocteaus in a strange way – a lot of effects and skilled performances but not as many memorable songs. 1990’s Heaven or Las Vegas, which was the band’s farewell to 4AD in the UK, was a different affair all round. Whether it was Fraser and Guthrie becoming parents in 1989, the break from touring, general time for a rethink or more, Heaven was the band’s most accessible and immediate – one could almost say radio-friendly – album to date. Guthrie cut back but never completely removed his famed layers of guitar and reverb, Fraser’s singing was her most comprehensible in years, and both Raymonde’s bass work and the ever-present drum machine provided swing and backbone while pulling back just enough to match everything else. Cherry-Coloured Funk and Iceblink Luck became new standards for fans, while the title track, the album’s second single, was a lovely distillation of the Cocteaus’ knack for a slower but soaring singalong in the newer style, especially on the choruses and the conclusion.
9. Bluebeard
1993’s Four-Calendar Café, the band’s major-label debut in the UK via Fontana, was in many ways the logical product of Heaven or Las Vegas. Not only did the band, now well over a decade since their recorded debut, continue to explore calmer sonic approaches, but the two members of the expanded touring lineup – guitarists Ben Blakeman and Mitsuo Tate – contributed parts as well. Far from indicating smooth sailing, however, stress was starting to affect the Fraser-Guthrie partnership. Guthrie, as he admitted in later years, was battling addiction; Fraser, as she frankly discussed in her 2009 interview for the Guardian, suffered a nervous breakdown, went through therapy and would soon break up with Guthrie. Having been a band whose art allowed for lyrical and emotional projection on to it from the outside, on Four-Calendar Café, Fraser starts grounding all the perceived dreaminess with blunter realities even while the music continued to soar. The album-closing Pur was a lovely ode to Fraser and Guthrie’s young daughter Lucy-Belle, but it’s the single Bluebeard – with its retrospectively telling lyric “Are you the right one for me / Or are you toxic for me?” – that sums up one of the most sweetly sour albums you’ll hear.
10. Rilkean Heart
After an often fraught tour for Four-Calendar Café – the band’s performances were often striking, with a live drummer contributing for the first time, but Fraser was visibly and audibly not at her best – the band’s releases continued. There were two EPs in 1995, the acoustic reworkings of past songs Twinlights, and the Mark Clifford remix project Otherness, and then another album in 1996, Milk and Kisses. There was a tour, a couple of further songwriting projects and finally, in 1997, the collapse of the band during sessions for a follow-up album. Milk and Kisses is a bit of a retreat to the past – a little more obscure, less lyrically forthright – and as an unintentional final farewell, it’s an elegant if melancholic listen, one that Fraser in particular regards as the hallmark of a sad time. This was underscored in later years by the revelation that the album’s most direct song, Rilkean Heart, was written for and about Jeff Buckley, who she became close to following her split from Guthrie, though the relationship did not last. Given the young singer had already been entranced by Fraser’s take on his father’s work with the Song to the Siren cover and she, in turn, found his music and singing moving, one can sense the high emotions at play in this Cocteaus’ song, one that took on further tragic overtones when Buckley died in 1997. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/19/xbox-one-uss-enterprise-or-hal | Games | 2013-11-19T11:33:00.000Z | Cara Ellison | Xbox One: USS Enterprise or HAL? | The Xbox One is a games console pretending to be the computer from the USS Enterprise. A hypothetical Star Trek: The Next Generation episode where Commander Riker says, "Computer, tell me how handsome my beard is" and it obediently shows him mugshots of his face before he logs into Forza Motorsport 5, is sort of what they are aiming for.
But Xbox One is not running on spaceships and it has no holodeck yet. At least, that is not written on the fact sheet that I was given. Perhaps the holodeck is DLC. What I do know is that Microsoft wants to conveniently integrate every living room service – TV, games, apps and internet browser – into one black box the size of a breeze block and have you sternly give it instructions like it's a naughty puppy.
This is more exciting than I've made it sound: the joke where you say, "Xbox, sit. Good Xbox. Xbox, go to Bing. Xbox, search for Google," actually has more longevity than you might first assume – not least because voice commands really work now. But it does come off as an incredibly nosy piece of surveillance equipment – sometimes you wonder if all this integration is just so that metrics can be taken on how long you can stand watching someone murder a hit song on X Factor before you boot up Call of Duty to shoot virtual people in the neck.
But such a feat of technological wonderment as a next generation-console takes hard work to conceive, execute, manufacture and distribute. I asked Phil Harrison, corporate vice president at Microsoft EMEA, on his feelings about the launch logistics of his beast of the future, the Xbox One. "It's a fascinating exercise of orchestrating and conducting an amazing array of talent and engineering resources," he told me. "You've got hardware engineering creating a future, you've got creative and engineering around the software that makes your hardware show up in the most incredible way, you've got the online services and cloud set up to support the online experience.
"You also have the logistics of building hardware and operating systems and content, all at the same time … and now, it's the logistics of shipping the hardware all around the world into retail stores and ultimately into people's homes. That's really where it culminates into this enormous crescendo where the people we've built this for get their hands on the experience."
Which all sounds pretty exciting.
Snap, switch, share
Everything has moved on since the Xbox 360, that old clunky overheating beast of the last generation. The new incarnation gets a 64-bit x86 architecture, with a whopping 8GBs of RAM, a Blu-ray drive and a 500GB onboard hard drive and all manner of other flibbertigibbets. Two virtual machines and three operating systems run on it. One machine handles your games, the other deals with entertainment applications. The extra operating system – or 'hypervisor'! – handles switching between functions, so you can seamlessly flip from a Skype chat to TV if the conversation is boring, or from the Machinima app to a multiplayer game as soon as your friends appear online. It works smoothly and quickly, and is much less hassle than juggling remotes.
The ability to 'snap' one window to an already open window also means that you can watch TV in the top corner of your screen as you play a game, or Skype call someone as you search the internet. You can do two things at one without having to switch any inputs or wait until it's convenient. This console gets plus-12 on a scale from 'none' to 'smoothly integrated TV, games and apps', if you need some sort of scoring system.
On top of this, and similarly to PS4, new apps give the ability to extend content made in your living room straight to the gaming community. "From launch," Phil Harrison assures me, "the consumers, the players, the gamers will be the people who give our games personality online. They will be using features like Upload, our personal broadcasting system inside of the console, to share and edit their own video creations with the world. Now it's the community that takes Xbox One to the next level."
Ready to rumble
The gamepad apparently has 40 (yes 40!) improvements. I got a bit bored of counting them after just two. The things you need to know are that the analogue sticks are smaller, more sensitive and have textured edges for comfort; the X, Y, A, B buttons are closer together ("it's better for thumb transit," Keith Stuart tells me) and more press-enjoyable than the last set. The battery pack has been moved inside the body, making the backside more toned. Stop it. And trigger buttons have individual rumble motors in them! That's right. They can rumble you individually, and there's also a greater increase in grades of rumbling. They can simulate a heartbeat, or a gun running out of ammo, in Forza, they simulate the tyres on either side of your car losing traction when braking too hard or over-steering. And Microsoft calls them "impulse triggers". All in all, a score of fifty-squillion comforts out of rumbles.
Pester Power
In June this year, the Xbox One team received heavy criticism for announcing digital rights management policies restricting the sharing of Xbox One's games, and the requirement of daily online authentication of the console. Many decisions were hurriedly reversed to give the consumers the choice they demanded.
According to Microsoft's statement, "After a one-time system set-up with a new Xbox One, you can play any disc-based game without ever connecting online again." In addition to that, the company was keen to point out that it would now enable gamers to gift, resell, share or rent any Xbox One game titles without limit. And there will be no region locks on any of the games. An unusually positive triumph for consumer entitlement.
For Phil Harrison, Microsoft's willingness to listen to its consumers and enact change has given the Xbox One owner a real advantage. "We have given [players] the ability to choose how they consume content, whether it's on disc as a physical media, or online through our store," he said.
Added in to this is the fact that anyone in your house can access your digital games even if you're not at home or signed in. You can also sign in on a friend's Xbox One and access your own digital games.
The Xbox One receives five stars out of no DRMs.
Venting and planking
The Xbox One allows horiziontal orientation only – planking across your living room. Photograph: KeystoneUSA-ZUMA / Rex Features
To address the problems that the 360 had with cooling, the entirety of the Xbox One console resembles one giant air vent. The side of the console looks like those air conditioning slits in your car dashboard but on a large scale. Heat is being taken seriously.
At the same time, Microsoft has made the sentimental pastime of kicking the console over from its vertical perch difficult this time round. Xbox One allows HORIZONTAL ORIENTATION ONLY, planking supine across your living room. This means that it will be less likely I will kick the console over accidentally when drunk, laser burning my Hamish Macbeth DVDs. I give this console 28 horizontals out of 32.
The biometric system
You can voice command your Xbox One, TV, set-top box, and AV system via the Kinect, which comes bundled with the Xbox One. The Kinect, for those that don't already know, is a motion and audio sensor, and this version is much more powerful, having the ability to track six different people at once in a variety of lighting conditions and much smaller rooms. The camera is apparently so precise, it can track individual fingers from three metres away.
The previous version could hardly figure out what was arse and what was elbow and was terrible at scoring me at Just Dance. However, this new sensitivity has allowed the creators of Just Dance 2014 to add six-player choreography, including human pyramids. And the new game Xbox Fitness uses Kinect like a heart-rate monitor. According to Microsoft, the technology, "detects micro-fluctuations in your skin optically to read your heart rate, absolutely touch free, from up to 10 feet away".
Assessing arousal
This led me to question what else the new Kinect can tell about my body from far away. Can it detect an unborn child's heartbeat? If it can see far away fingers and take a pulse, can it detect let's say "fluctuations" in … intimate areas? As a journalist, I decided it was necessary for me to see if this was possible. Nick Burton, development director and Kinect specialist at Rare was my unfortunate victim, sorry, chosen specialist. He said, "Kinect for Xbox One cannot detect skin heat – rather it can detect skin colour, using RGB and Active IR, and human blush response from that. Coupled with player movement analysis, you could potentially infer excitement levels, but we could not speak to the accuracy of this data right now."
That's an acknowledgement of possibility, I'd say. I would like someone to use this information to make a game that amounts to arousal chicken, where the person who gets turned on is out. This may be somewhat unrealistic though, and I accept that even if this game were possible, it would probably only sell to me. However, recent reliance on metrics to gauge player attention opens up the possibility that in future, Kinect information could be used to manipulate players' excitement in new ways. Yes, it is all rather daunting to think about.
Light blasting
Kinect 2: The Return works so well because it includes an infrared blaster array, which they assure me is perfectly safe despite its name. In other words, it drenches your whole room in infrared light, allowing accurate control of your TV, console and set-top box with voice and movement. From your home screen, you can tell Xbox One to load up a game or to find your favourite TV show, or you can say "Xbox Mute" if it's making a nuisance of itself. Skype functions in fullscreen HD in conjunction with Kinect, and the Kinect camera can follow you around the room mid-call, as though you're delivering a soliloquy. You can pin preferred Skype contacts, games, films, albums and apps to your homepage, creating a custom front-end.
Every person in your household can have a sign-in, and you can both have a jolly good fight with each other by yelling '"Xbox show my stuff!" to see whose voice it will obey more fervently. It's impressively good at recognising and picking out separate voices, immediately changing the user setup for the last person who shouted at it.
After a while "show my stuff" seems like an oddly intimate command, and you're not sure you want it to show too much stuff. Unless you're me.
Butt Recognition
As soon as you have made a biometric profile of your appearance, it can sense that you are in the room and logs you into your personalised home screen automatically. I've done tests to see if I can sneak past it without it noticing. I entered the room arse first once and indeed, it failed to recognise me. From this I deduce that the Kinect login recognises only facial features, and that my arse thankfully doesn't resemble my face. This also means that if the Xbox One rises up against us one day, we can fool it just by walking butt-first everywhere.
Paranoid android
The powerful capabilities of the Xbox One can come off as quite creepy. Wander into the path of the Kinect's vision during the configuration process and it'll put a little tag above your face on the screen to say it's seen you. Once it knows you, the camera follows you around the room as you go about your embarrassingly mundane tasks, silently judging you as you pick your nose and drink orange juice out of the carton. And while Kinect doesn't have to be connected up for the Xbox One to function, if you do leave it on, it's always listening so you can tell your console to turn on via voice command.
Part of me wonders whether, if I'm on the phone to one of my many boyfriends describing unspeakable things, it may be spitefully searching Bing for chastising terms to attack me with when I start the console up. However, this succinct post by Microsoft attempts to put all my Kinect paranoia to rest with a sweeping finality:
"The system will navigate you through key privacy options, like automatic or manual sign in, privacy settings, and clear notifications about how data is used. When Xbox One is on and you're simply having a conversation in your living room, your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded."
"You are in control of when Kinect sensing is on, off or paused: If you don't want the Kinect sensor on while playing games or enjoying your entertainment, you can pause Kinect … When the system is off, it's only listening for the single voice command – "Xbox On," and you can even turn that feature off too."
"Your conversation is not being recorded or uploaded" does have a somewhat haunting vibe to it, though.
The future
‘I just can’t let you beat me at Dead Rising 3, Dave.’ Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive
I'm slightly conflicted: this is the stuff of the future, and it is amazing when you can ask Xbox One via voice recognition to switch seamlessly between game, TV or app – but it's problematic when you regard exactly how much information it's possible to store about yourself. Biometric information isn't any minor thing. Microsoft claims that no personal details leave the console to be stored in the cloud without explicit permission, and has assured us privacy is taken very seriously.
But all I remember is the last time Sony was hacked, or how HAL just can't do that Dave. If the Xbox One became sentient, the chances are all it would know is that I like to make my desktop bright pink and login to my profile with my bum, but, well, recently governments have been getting really cosy with technology companies. I am increasingly sensible of how we slowly adapt to each new technological intrusion until it's normalised. Then, companies change the terms and conditions we are accustomed to by updating before sending us a dialogue box that we'll click 'Yes' on without reading. They want us to buy it, and they ask us to say yes to amendments later, when we're drunk on its magic.
And yet, Zoo Tycoon is so very, very magic.
The games
The real reason we're all here is for the games, right?
"We've got the best launch line-up of any console," Phil Harrison tells me, incredibly confidently. And this may be true, particularly for what everyone calls the "core" gamer, who is broadly interested in killing things. Ryse is certainly a beautiful game about Ancient Rome, if entirely made up of creatively stabbing people in the neck using quicktime events, and Dead Rising 3 looks like a larger-mapped, more extravagantly-outfitted zombie-slaughter game than the previous two capable Dead Rising titles. Call of Duty's there too, if you like war-shooting and that.
Forza Motorsport 5 features the unique technology of the 'Drivatar', described on the Microsoft Research site as a "clone" or a "replicant" of you, the player: a driving avatar that can learn and mimic your own driving style and then recreate it in AI form. "You teach it to drive like you do and you can keep on training it until it reaches the dizzy heights of perfection," according to the website. You can also download your friends' Drivatars from the cloud and race them. But I woke up in a cold sweat the other night thinking about what if my Drivatar came to envy my fleshly body, and offed me in the night by possessing next door's Volvo and driving it over my bed.
By far the most wonderful launch title on the Xbox One is Zoo Tycoon, created by Frontier Developments, the company founded by industry legend David Braben. A game essentially about creating and running a zoo in the vein of Simcity, Zoo Tycoon also works closely with Kinect capabilities, so that you can walk around the wildlife idyl you have made, and then interact in first person view with the animals by gesturing in several different ways. You can feed them, wash them, and even prat about making silly gestures for them to copy. I spent an hour last week making faces at a virtual monkey, winking and waving and giggling at the furry thing's mirror expressions. It's almost like a kind of very gentle therapy.
"I actually just find myself watching the animals to see what they get up to," David Braben says, like a technologically advanced David Attenborough. "Just putting two animals in an enclosure and waiting to see them together, seeing how an animal and a baby interact, or how two animals interact. A lot of it is quite subtle – it's not the sort of thing that you can expect from a game. And yes, we don't have a gunsight. And that for me, in many ways, is a positive."
And much of the games that might not have included the traditional gunsights could have been independently-made games. Though Sony has made a big deal of courting independent developers, not much has been said by Xbox One about indies apart from about their ID@Xbox scheme, which is a gatekeeping process that invites indies to register, to receive development kits, submit game information, and then publish on Xbox One Marketplace. It also provides studios with a free licence to develop using the popular Unity engine.
There has been some positive progress. Microsoft's London-based Lift Studio is currently 'incubating' the small indie developer Dlala, founded by industry veteran, Aj Grand-Scrutton. "The relationship we are in right now is this mixture of co-development, mentoring and publishing," he explains. "The support we've received as a studio has allowed us to be able to grow the team and it's helped us adapt and get ready for next year when we go out into the big scary world again.
"We're personally really excited for Xbox One. It's a fantastic piece of hardware and MS are really putting some force behind the indie push. The fact they are looking to make all consoles dev kits at some point next year, the free Unity licences and the support network they have in-house all mean it's a great console to develop for."
But this isn't a universal viewpoint. Independent developer Byron Atkinson-Jones' experience of submitting to the Microsoft process hasn't been entirely positive so far. "I've given up on actively pursuing Xbox One developer status," he said by email, "and I've set Microsoft a challenge – the only way I will believe that they are truly being indie friendly is when I see an Xbox One dev-kit arrive at my front door within the next month. They know where to find me. Until that happens, my feeling is that they are treating most indies as second-class developers. Sony aren't doing that – they are embracing us with open arms and being incredibly supportive."
More should become next year when the ID@Xbox program really kicks into gear.
Final thoughts
Rumours that the Xbox One will be delivered to your house by one of these are totally untrue. Photograph: Chris Polk/WireImage
Discussing with Phil Harrison what sort of vision he had for Xbox One, I say it's interesting that they want to make a games console that can become such a focal point for the living room, a futuristic hub of our times.
"We think the largest screen in the house, typically in the living room, is the place where the most amazing entertainment experiences are always going to be," Phil replies. "Whether it's playing games, whether it's watching movies, or whether it is using Kinect as a communication device with Skype – being able to put Skype in HD in your living room transforms the nature of communication in a really amazing way.
"That's what we wanted to do with Xbox One, to create an entertainment device that was the best place to play games, was the place where all of your entertainment, including your television, could be enjoyed, and to have the power and simplicity and ease of use to allow any user to get the most out of the system, whether they're a core gamer, or someone more interested in the entertainment offerings."
Part of me wonders quite what we're getting ourselves into, and part of me really does want to live on the USS Enterprise. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/16/jane-birkin-a-tremendous-screen-presence-with-a-gift-for-creative-collaboration | Film | 2023-07-16T17:22:53.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Jane Birkin: a tremendous screen presence with a gift for creative collaboration | Peter Bradshaw | Jane Birkin was the elegant, delicate, heartstoppingly beautiful singer and movie star with a fascinatingly elusive and free-spirited screen presence. She was a performer with that interesting distinction of being Anglo-French, which somehow added to her unlocatable quality: she was quite at home with both languages, like other stars Charlotte Rampling, Kristin Scott Thomas and, indeed, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Birkin’s daughter with Serge Gainsbourg.
It was her destiny to be thought of as a public figure and national treasure in France, where she made a great many films, and to be placed on an odd kind of pedestal as icon or 60s darling. She had been a fashion model in real life and played them on screen, like the ones in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up, where she made her startling first proper screen impression. And yet this doesn’t do justice to her distinctive screen work, her later character roles and her tremendous capacity for creative friendship and collaboration with film-makers such as Agnès Varda and Jean-Luc Godard.
Birkin, right, with David Hemmings and Gillian Hills in Blow-Up. Photograph: MGM/Allstar
Birkin’s sensational and notorious 1969 pop single with Serge, Je T’Aime … Moi Non Plus, with its moany-breathy coital vocals, in fact mutated interestingly into a provocative movie of the same name, released in 1976 and written and directed by Gainsbourg. It’s an essay on what might now be called queerness, with Birkin as the boyish Johnny, working in a cafe, who falls in love with a gay trucker, played by Warholian muse Joe Dallesandro, another performer who knew what it was like to be fetishised.
But Birkin really started out as the wide-eyed ingenue in the 1966 classic Blow-Up, who simpers at David Hemmings’s haughty photographer and trying unsuccessfully for a modelling gig. She was – again – a model in Joe Massot’s non-narrative swinging-60s groovefest Wonderwall in 1968, with its George Harrison soundtrack and a very Beatles-ish name for Birkin’s pert character, Penny Lane; she poses insouciantly for her boyfriend while being spied (and perved) on by her weirdo neighbour, played by Jack MacGowran. She was also considered to have burned a hole in the cinema screen as the enticingly innocent-fatale teenager Penelope, who sexily entrances Alain Delon’s moody, disenchanted writer by the shimmering pool on the Côte d’Azur in La Piscine – a role replayed by Dakota Johnson in Luca Guadagnino’s A Bigger Splash remake/rework.
In the 70s, Birkin worked with Roger Vadim, that other great French player and impresario of liberation, who directed her in his gender-flipped Don Juan of 1973; it is quirky, freaky and a bit preposterous, with Brigitte Bardot as the woman who believes herself to be the reincarnation of the great seducer, and Birkin as one of the women s/he seduces. In the same year, Birkin found herself in the cult giallo shocker Seven Deaths in the Cat’s Eye, directed by the prolific pulp-maestro Antonio Margheriti; it is set in a Hammerish Scottish castle, in which many creepy people are resident and a gorilla is kept in a cage.
Jane Birkin in Death on the Nile. Photograph: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy
In later years, Birkin was held in great regard by producers and directors as a class act, able to deliver finely judged small character roles, and her presence may often have been instrumental in cementing international coproduction financing. She made witty, poised contributions to two Agatha Christie movies: Death on the Nile in 1978 and Evil Under the Sun in 1982, both with Peter Ustinov as Poirot. In the late 90s, Birkin acted for James Ivory, playing the idiosyncratic Mrs Fortescue in A Soldier’s Daughter Never Cries, utilising Birkin’s always very patrician English accent.
But it was for the great directors of French cinema that she also did her most interesting work. In Jacques Rivette’s La Belle Noiseuse (or The Beautiful Troublemaker), she plays the wife of Michel Piccoli’s painter Frenhofer, who had abandoned a painting he began 10 years before when Birkin was his model – but is then inspired to complete it, with a new model, the comely young Emmanuelle Béart. The film makes a shrewd and poignant comment on what Birkin must have experienced only too often: the extravagant condescension and fickle cynicism of being thought of as a “muse”.
Godard then gave Birkin a cameo in his freewheeling 1987 cine-triple-sketch Soigne Ta Droite, featuring, firstly, a wacky director (played by Godard himself) carrying the cans of his film around; secondly, the French pop group Les Rita Mitsouko recording a track; and, thirdly, three actors performing a variation on the fable The Grasshopper and the Ant, with Birkin as a hedonistic young woman zooming around with her lover in a convertible. Birkin spoke with humour and generosity about the bizarre experience of being directed by Godard on his most cantankerous and difficult form.
Birkin, right, with Alain Delon in La Piscine. Photograph: Tritone Cinematografica/Allstar
But the director who was most passionately committed to Birkin as a real screen presence, and who believed in her in a way that most of the industry didn’t, had to be Agnès Varda, who constructed one of her wittiest and most playful reveries around Birkin: Jane B par Agnès V was a 1988 docudrama that was an “imaginary biopic”. It is a surreal kaleidoscope of images and personae, imagined and curated with real love and veneration by Varda.
Perhaps it was impossible to capture exactly what Jane Birkin was to the French and to everyone else, but Varda came closest. Birkin was a unique, beguiling and energising force in music and movies. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jun/13/eddie-redmayne-stephen-hawking-theory-of-everything | Film | 2013-06-13T10:16:37.000Z | Ben Child | Eddie Redmayne set to play Stephen Hawking in biopic | Les Misérables star Eddie Redmayne is tipped to play the physicist Stephen Hawking in a new biopic titled Theory of Everything, reports Deadline.
James Marsh, the British Oscar-winning director of documentary Man on Wire who made waves in the dramatic arena with last year's taut Troubles thriller Shadow Dancer, looks set to take charge. Redmayne is being courted by production company Working Title after his standout turn in Les Misérables, which followed impressive outings in My Week with Marilyn in 2011 and the TV war drama Birdsong last year.
The best-known biopic of the scientist to date is the BBC's 2004 TV film Hawking, which centred on his time at Cambridge in the early 60s and starred a Bafta-nominated Benedict Cumberbatch. Deadline compares Theory of Everything to films such as Jim Sheridan's My Left Foot and Julian Schnabel's The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, suggesting it could cover later periods in Hawking's life, as he begins to suffer the debilitating effects of motor neurone disease.
The British physicist, now 71, was diagnosed with the condition in 1962 at the age of 21 and given just two years to live by doctors. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/oct/16/spectre-star-wars-force-awakens-record-us-box-office | Film | 2015-10-16T14:54:21.000Z | Henry Barnes | 2015 predicted to be record-breaking year at US box office | This is expected to be a record-breaking year at the US box office, according to analysts at Morgan Stanley – after which film-industry profits will dip in 2016.
The firm predicts that blockbusters such as Jurassic World and Avengers: Age of Ultron, as well as the forthcoming James Bond film Spectre and JJ Abrams’s Star Wars reboot, will push domestic receipts to $11bn (£7.1bn) in 2015, reports Variety. That’s 2% higher than in 2013, when The Hunger Games: Catching Fire and Iron Man 3 helped set the current record.
The film team review Spectre Guardian
However, Morgan Stanley suggests that profits will fall in 2016, despite the planned release of reliable franchise money-makers such as Captain America: Civil War and Zack Snyder’s Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.
2015 has proved a bumper year for two studios in particular: Disney, which owns Marvel, and Universal. Universal had an exceptional year, with a string of surprisingly good domestic results for Pitch Perfect 2 ($183m to date), Minions ($334m) and Straight Outta Compton ($160m), each of which topped the US box office in their opening weekends. Jurassic World, a reboot of the franchise that began with Michael Crichton and Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park, took a record-breaking $500m in its opening weekend, with $204.6m of that coming from the US.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens – watch the new trailer Guardian
Disney’s books were bolstered by the Avengers sequel, which has taken $459m, and the Pixar animation Inside Out ($354 million).
Morgan Stanley predicted in June that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will make $1bn in profit after its worldwide release in December. Disney bought the rights to the Star Wars universe for $4.05bn in 2012. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jan/22/trump-tax-cuts-will-bring-short-term-global-growth-surge-says-imf | Business | 2018-01-22T17:15:51.000Z | Richard Partington | Trump tax cuts will bring short-term global growth surge, says IMF | The global economy will grow faster than expected this year and next as Donald Trump’s corporate tax cuts provide a short-term shot in the arm, despite fears over rising inequality and overheating financial markets, the International Monetary Fund has said.
Launching its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO) report at the annual Davos gathering of the global political and business elite in Switzerland this week, the IMF upgraded its growth forecast for the world economy by 0.2 percentage points to 3.9% for both 2018 and 2019.
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Christine Lagarde, the IMF’s managing director, said there were encouraging signs a decade on from the financial crisis, although she warned that too many people were being left out of the recovery.
Lagarde also warned global leaders against complacency despite the boom in growth, employing the words of John F Kennedy – also used by former British chancellor George Osborne – that the “time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining”.
She said a fifth of emerging and developing countries had seen income per head decline in 2017, and argued for countries to retrain workers displaced by technologies and globalisation. “We are quite upbeat for immediate future, but what we’re seeing in the more medium term gives us ground for worry,” she added.
Despite the global recovery, the International Labour Organisation said not enough new jobs were being created to match the growth in the number of workers. According to the UN agency, the global unemployment rate is expected to fall only slightly to 5.5% this year, from 5.6% in 2017 - although the number of people out of work is expected to stay about the same, at more than 192 million.
The ILO also said progress made to curb vulnerable employment had essentially stalled since 2012, and was set to get worse, with an estimated 1.4 billion people in precarious work. “The global economy is still not creating enough jobs,” said ILO director general Guy Ryder.
Trump’s tax cuts, passed into law at the end of last year, should encourage businesses to invest in additional economic output – which the IMF said should provide a positive, albeit short-lived, boost for the US and its trade partners. But it also said there were risks on the horizon from a potential sharp drop in markets after the recent surge in equity valuations.
Maurice Obstfeld, the IMF’s economic counsellor, warned leaders gathering at the Swiss ski resort that the next economic downturn could “come sooner and be harder to fight” than expected. “Political leaders and policymakers must stay mindful that the present economic momentum reflects a confluence of factors that is unlikely to last for long,” he added.
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The IMF’s upgrade comes amid a synchronised global upswing as the economies of the US, the eurozone and Asia recover from the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. However, the current economic sweet spot has been helped by central banks around the world keeping interest rates low and pumping billions of dollars into their economies via quantitative easing.
Obstfeld said the conditions were not the “new normal” and might fade. A sharp rise in inflation could come about as a result of growth in developed nations, while central banks could unsettle financial markets by putting up interest rates more quickly than anticipated.
The US president is due to address the ranks of politicians and billionaires on Friday. His tax cuts have been labelled by critics as a gift for rich people, with the fear that bumper corporate profits could simply be used to line the pockets of wealthy shareholders rather than be reinvested in greater production capacity and higher wages for workers.
Much of the IMF upgrade to the global growth outlook comes as a result of the US tax changes, with the fund anticipating that the US economy can now expand at about half a percentage point more than it thought in October. US growth is forecast to accelerate from 2.3% in 2017 to 2.7% this year, before falling back to 2.5% in 2019.
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The IMF said that effects of the cut would begin to fade from 2022, as temporary spending incentives for firms began to expire. It also revised up its growth estimate for the eurozone, though it said it still anticipated the rate of expansion to fall from 2.4% in 2017 to about 2.2% this year and 2% in 2019.
While the world economy benefits from a global upswing, the IMF held its outlook for growth in the UK, forecasting the rate of GDP expansion to moderate from 1.7% in 2017 to 1.5% this year. It also lowered its forecast for 2019 from 1.6% by 0.1 percentage points to the same level as 2018. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/may/03/driverless-cars-dent-motor-insurers-volvo | Business | 2016-05-03T05:00:46.000Z | Rob Davies | Driverless cars to dent insurance industry, warns Volvo chief | It is predicted that driverless cars will prevent the vast majority of crashes and dramatically reduce the cost of insuring a car, according to industry experts.
Volvo’s chief executive will tell a seminar on driverless cars on Tuesday that autonomous vehicles are the “single most important advance in automotive safety” in years.
The Swedish carmaker’s boss, Håkan Samuelsson, will cite US government research predicting that driverless cars will lead to an 80% fall in the number of car crashes by 2035.
Even when an accident cannot be avoided, the impact speed will also drop due to automatic crash avoidance systems, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Volvo to test self-driving cars on London's roads next year
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The result will be a huge decrease in the cost of car insurance premiums, according to separate research by insurer Swiss Re and the technology group Here.
Premiums in the 14 largest car markets in the world are set to drop by $20bn (£13.5bn) by 2020 alone, according to their projections.
“Car connectivity and the introduction of increasingly sophisticated driver-assist technologies and autonomous driving will lead to significantly improved road safety,” they said.
The report predicts that by 2020, more than two-thirds of cars sold worldwide will have some form of connectivity to the internet and other cars.
Vehicle safety firm Thatcham Research said existing technology such as Autonomous Emergency Braking (AEB) had already reduced the frequency of road accidents.
Its chief executive, Peter Shaw, said technology that allows drivers to “drop out of the loop” for parts of the journey would be available as soon as 2021.
“Without doubt, crash frequency will also dramatically reduce,” he said.
While drivers will welcome tumbling premiums, motor insurance experts warned that the industry will need to be overhauled or face extinction.
“Volvo believes the insurance industry will have no choice but to react to these seismic challenges to its existing business model by fundamentally restructuring – or face competition from new entrants into its market from technology-savvy disrupting companies,” said Samuelsson.
Insurance analyst Barrie Cornes, of stockbroker Panmure Gordon, warned that firms with a strong presence in motor insurance, such as Admiral or RAC, were under threat.
He said specialist motor insurers would have to diversify into other areas. “Businesses will have to transform or motor insurers are going to die,” Cornes said. “It’s a number of years before we get there and there will be a transition period during which premiums are still going to be high. But it could well be that [motor insurers] move into home insurance, pet insurance and other areas.”
Volvo will begin the largest driverless car trial yet seen in the UK next year, with around 100 autonomous vehicles set to hit the streets.
Britain is hoping to be at the forefront of autonomous driving, partly due to a legal loophole. The UK is one of the European countries not to have ratified the 1968 Vienna convention on road traffic that stipulates a driver must be in the front seat of a car.
However, the government is still working on its own regulations to keep pace with changing technology.
Samuelsson called on the government to help carmakers get driverless cars on the road as soon as possible. “The automotive industry cannot do this on its own,” he said.
The business secretary, Sajid Javid, said he was determined that the UK should lead the way in making the technology a reality.
“Such advances in technology prove the fourth industrial revolution is just around the corner and our determination to be at the forefront is why we are attracting top names from across the globe for real-world testing,” he said.
However, the Association of British Insurers warned drivers not to get complacent about driving safely before the technology was fully developed. “Automation could be the biggest breakthrough in road safety since the invention of the seatbelt and insurers fully support its development,” said James Dalton, the ABI’s director of general insurance policy.
“However we need to get there safely. The growth in features like automatic braking and lane assistance systems may give drivers a false sense of security that they can relax while their car looks after them. But unless a vehicle is fully automated and able to respond appropriately in an emergency, drivers still have to be ready to take back control at a moment’s notice.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/apr/06/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries | Global | 2006-04-06T09:12:48.000Z | Adam Sweeting | Obituary: Gene Pitney | For more than 40 years, the singer Gene Pitney, who has died aged 65, was able to count on loyal audiences for his regular tours of Britain. The night before his body was discovered in bed in his room at the Hilton hotel in Cardiff, he had played an enthusiastically received concert at St David's Hall in the city, and had been due to travel to Bristol for the next night's show.
"I love what I'm doing, to pick and choose where I want to go and what I want to do," he said before the 23-date tour began. "He said it was the best tour he had done for quite a few years," added Mark Howes, of Pitney's management company, In Touch Music.
Pitney was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and started writing songs while still attending the local Rockville high school. He formed a band called Gene Pitney and the Genials, and in 1959 recorded his first single, one of his own songs called Classical Rock And Roll, as half of the duo Jamie & Jane.
At first he seemed destined to be best known as a songwriter, and his persistence in sending demo recordings of his songs to a New York publisher paid off when Roy Orbison recorded Today's Teardrops as a B side. Better still, in 1961 Bobby Vee, then moving towards the peak of his success on both sides of the Atlantic, cut Pitney's song Rubber Ball and took it into the higher reaches of the American and British charts. Later that year, Ricky Nelson scored a British and American hit with Hello Mary Lou, which would prove one of Pitney's most durable compositions.
Meanwhile, Pitney was pursuing a parallel career as a performer, and his unique voice - a piercing yet panic-stricken tenor - quickly seized the ear of the listening public. In an era when songs from movies were part of the stuff of the charts, he began 1962 by climbing the hit parade with Town Without Pity, the theme song from the 1961 Kirk Douglas US army melodrama of the same name set in Germany. "It was," he recalled, "a huge career song for me and I was on the Academy Awards singing it, the first pop artist to sing on the show. But I never had any relationship with the film itself."
Then he did even better with (The Man Who Shot) Liberty Valance. This was another song for a movie, this time the 1962 John Wayne-James Stewart western, and first of a string of successful collaborations with composers Burt Bacharach and Hal David.
In November that year, Pitney hit number two in the US with Bacharach and David's Only Love Can Break a Heart but was denied the number one slot by his own composition, He's a Rebel, which he had given to producer Phil Spector to record with the Crystals. "When my publisher in New York played He's a Rebel, Phil's eyes lit up," Pitney said. "He just took that thing and trucked out the door, he was gone."
Pitney enjoyed more success in 1963 thanks to Bacharach and David's True Love Never Runs Smooth and the immortal 24 Hours from Tulsa, the latter climbing to number five in Britain in early 1964 and fixing Pitney securely in the affections of British listeners. Fate had apparently decided that Pitney and the British belonged together, and the process was hastened when Pitney was introduced to the flashy, fast-talking Andrew Loog Oldham.
Oldham was then the Rolling Stones' manager and became Pitney's publicist. Hence, Pitney recorded the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards composition That Girl Belongs to Yesterday, taking it into the British top 10 and making him the first artist to have a hit with a Stones song while the Stones were still recording cover versions. Pitney even featured on the first Rolling Stones album.
Henceforth Pitney became a regular attraction in Britain and also built a loyal following in Italy, Spain and Germany, so much so that he became far better known in Europe than in his homeland. Italians were doubtless beguiled by Pitney's rendition of Nessuno Mi Puo Guidicare, which won him second place at the San Remo Song Contest in 1966.
Pitney developed a routine of touring Britain twice a year, earning himself a plaque from the Gene Pitney Appreciation Society in the process, and most of his biggest hits would be in Britain. In 1966, Backstage reached number four, while Nobody Needs Your Love hit number two after failing to chart in the States. When Something's Gotten Hold Of My Heart ascended to number five in 1967, it was his last major hit until the same song went to number one in 1989, re-recorded as a duet with Marc Almond of Soft Cell.
In the latter part of his career, Pitney earned the bulk of his income from touring rather than recording, and never lost his appetite for treading the boards in front of a suitably appreciative crowd. None the less, in 1990 his bank account was boosted to the tune of $188,000 following a lawsuit against Gusto Records, after Pitney had taken legal action in pursuit of improper payment of royalties.
In 2003, he recorded some of his thoughts about death to the Daily Mail. "If I could choose a season in which to die it would be late autumn, when it's still nice and warm here and all the leaves are changing colour. I'd love the Rolling Stones to come and play at the party - I'm sure they'll still be touring long after I am dead."
He is survived by his wife Lynn and sons David, Todd and Chris.
· Gene Pitney, singer and songwriter, born February 17 1941; died April 5 2006. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jul/02/ordinary-human-failings-by-megan-nolan-review-a-page-turning-tale-of-scandal-and-misery | Books | 2023-07-02T10:00:39.000Z | Holly Williams | Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan review – a page-turning tale of scandal and misery | Megan Nolan’s lauded debut novel, which excavated with painful precision the interior life of a young woman beholden to a toxic partner, was called Acts of Desperation. Her follow-up could share the same title: in Ordinary Human Failings, the Irish-born, London-based author and journalist proves desperation is her special subject.
Her canvas, however, is considerably wider this time – a welcome development – and Nolan paints a horribly compelling, more narrative-driven tale. It begins in 90s London with a young tabloid journalist, Tom, who craves a good story at any cost while expressing contempt for the “peasants” who read his rag. He is first on the scene when a toddler goes missing from an estate and sniffs a potentially huge story. Local gossip quickly lays the blame at the feet of a 10-year-old girl, Lucy, member of the mysteriously troubled, benefit-claiming Green family, who arrived from Ireland and have never fitted in.
When the infant is found dead, Lucy is taken into police custody. Tom’s newspaper sets the Greens up in a hotel, supposedly for their safety – but really so he can ply them with booze, winkle out their secrets and scandalise the country with tales of the monsters who raised a murderous child.
A novel that initially resembles a satire of a nasty media circus becomes a deep dive into an averagely unhappy family
As a device for telling multiple backstories, you can sometimes feel the gears turning, as the focus shifts to Waterford (Nolan’s hometown) and the thwarted lives of the Green family members. But Nolan’s telling of their stories is page-turning and written with aching, compassionate insight. Each account leaves your heartstrings taut as cheese wire.
A novel that initially resembles a satire of a nasty media circus, or a We Need to Talk About Kevin-style consideration of what breeds “evil”, becomes a deep dive into an averagely unhappy family. Primarily, this is the tale of Carmel, Lucy’s mother, and her journey through a secret teenage love affair, a dissociated refusal to accept her pregnancy and a depressive struggle with unwanted motherhood. She is a flickering character; proud and strong in her refusal to be defined by her mistakes, but weak in her ability to face reality. Descriptions of her attempt at a DIY abortion, and her mental gymnastics when it fails, are strikingly vivid.
Despite this being a relatively slim book, Nolan also accommodates tightly bound tales of the rest of the Greens: of Carmel’s saintly, dutiful late mother, Rose, and her marriage to the withdrawn, hard-drinking John – a man who never recovered from humiliation in a previous marriage. Most excruciating is the story of the son from that union: the lonely, alcoholic Richie, who drinks to try to feel connected but only succeeds in pushing life away.
For the tabloid’s purposes, though, the family’s troubles are not dramatic enough to make a compelling origins story; not traumatic enough to explain why a child might kill. Nolan denies Tom the satisfaction of a big reveal or shocking twist. What she invites the reader to see, instead, is that even very ordinary human failings – the ability to make mistakes; the inability to communicate or ask for help – can fill a life with existential despair.
I thought therapy would bring me happiness – why does it feel more elusive than ever?
Megan Nolan
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Still, the book begins with Tom’s perspective: his ambition and anxiety, his charm and cynicism. One minor gripe would be that while the future lives of the Green family members are hinted at towards the end, the equally interesting Tom simply slips away. Perhaps he just moves on, unaffected; perhaps, as Carmel thinks to herself, he “didn’t understand and would never feel the consequences of” the cruelty of his job, insulated by power and money. But early on, Nolan hints at a character too intelligent for that, and Tom is plagued by self-loathing. When he can’t stop the phrase “I’m the loneliest man in the world!” from “screaming” round his brain, he foreshadows the isolation that also defines each of the Greens. It’s clear that his work – hateful as it may be – is his own act of desperate distraction. I wondered what became of him, too.
Ordinary Human Failings by Megan Nolan is published by Jonathan Cape (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/may/23/how-to-use-the-guardian-university-guide-2017 | Education | 2016-05-23T10:00:11.000Z | Judy Friedberg | How to use the Guardian University Guide 2019 | An overall table and 54 subject tables
The Guardian Guide features a league table of universities in the UK, plus tables of each of the subject areas.
The Guide is different from the other university guides you may have come across because it is aimed specifically at students who are trying to choose a course.
So it ranks universities on all the factors that are most important to students: how much they will benefit from the teaching, whether other students liked the university and the subject, and what their chances are of getting a good job. It does not include research scores, because these are of limited relevance to students.
For the first time this year, we’ve included a continuation score – this tells you what percentage of first-year students go into second year. It is a good indication of how successful the university is in supporting all students, including those who may be struggling.
To get started on picking your course, you need to know a bit about each part of the Guide. So let’s take a look at what we’ve got here.
What’s in the Guide?
There’s a league table of universities in the UK
We have ranked universities according to the various factors we think are important. You can look at these factors in more detail in the key to the table headings, further down this article.
The higher up the university is in the league table, the harder it will be to get in. So it may be a good idea to discuss your choices with a teacher or careers adviser. Column 9 tells you the typical Ucas score of a person doing the subject you are interested in.
To qualify to be in the main table, a university will need to be ranked in at least eight subject tables. So small or specialist UK universities that teach a limited range of subjects are not ranked in the overall league. They will feature in the subject tables though.
Then there are rankings for every subject
The Guide also has 54 subject tables, so you can see which universities do well at teaching your subject area.
There’s a difference between subjects and courses
Within each of the 54 subject areas, there are many different courses. Here’s an example:
You may be interested in doing a course in illustration. Illustration falls into the subject area of design and crafts. So you could go to the design and crafts table, look at which universities do well at it, click on the plus sign next to the name of the university and look for the illustration courses.
Or you could put “illustration” directly into the course search at the top of the tables and see what comes up. Then you could go to the design and crafts table to see rankings.
More about the subjects
You might need to know a bit more about the subjects universities offer, because there’ll be lots that you didn’t encounter at school. Have a look at the subject profiles, which were all drawn up with the help of the academics who teach them. You’ll see the job prospects for each subject, and find out where students come from. The links to the subject profiles are at the top of each subject table.
More about the universities
Clicking on the name of a university in the tables will take you to the university’s profile – you can read about what makes each institution special and get the info you need on fees, accommodation and bursaries. You’ll see how many students are male/female, and where they come from.
Key to the table headings
1. Guardian ranking for this year
2. Guardian ranking for last year
3. Name of university
4. The Guardian score, out of 100, is a rating of excellence based on a combination of all the other factors
5. Course satisfaction: the rating for the overall quality of the course, given by final-year students in the latest National Student Survey (NSS)
6. Teaching quality: the rating for the quality of teaching on the course, given by final-year students in the NSS
7. Feedback: the rating for the quality of feedback and assessment, given by final-year students in the NSS
8. Staff-student ratio: the number of students per member of teaching staff
9. Spend per student: money spent on each student, excluding academic staff costs, given as a rating out of 10
10. Average entry tariff: typical Ucas scores of young entrants (under 21) to the department
11. Value-added score: this compares students’ degree results with their entry qualifications, to show how effectively they are taught. It is given as a rating out of 10
12. Career after six months: percentage of graduates who find graduate-level jobs, or are in further study at professional or HE level, within six months of graduation. It reflects how good the university is at employability
13. Continuation rate: the percentage of first-year students continuing to second year
A few points about the methodology
At some universities, there are so few students studying a particular subject that we can’t include them in the statistics. Courses with small numbers of students are listed at the end of each table, but are not given a ranking. That should not be taken as any comment on their quality.
In compiling our tables, we have been advised by an expert review group of professionals from UK universities. The group meets regularly to monitor changes in subject areas and the way data is collected, and makes sure we produce the best possible guide.
The tables have been compiled for the Guardian by Intelligent Metrix, an independent consultancy that specialises in measuring performance in higher education. The rankings are based on official data collected by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) and on the NSS, published by Hefce.
If you want to know more about the methodology used to compile the tables, read the full explanation from Intelligent Metrix.
The tables compiler goes online the day of the launch to answer questions - here’s the live chat.
And if you’re the kind of person who likes raw data to play around with, check out the spreadsheets – they have all the numbers you might want to crunch. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/dec/04/coalition-mps-grassroots-nuclear-power-survey-linked-to-consulting-firm | Australia news | 2022-12-03T19:00:04.000Z | Daniel Hurst | Coalition MP’s ‘grassroots’ nuclear power survey linked to consulting firm | A Coalition frontbencher conducting a “grassroots” survey about nuclear power is using a website registered by a business that helps an American small modular reactor company, records reveal.
Ted O’Brien, the shadow minister for climate change and energy, issued a statement on Friday saying he was “launching a grassroots community engagement program” under the banner “Time to Talk Nuclear”.
NUCLEAR ENEGY - HAVE YOUR SAY
Today I launched “Time to Talk Nuclear”: a program of community engagement that puts the Australian people at the centre of a national discussion on advanced nuclear technology.
Take the two-minute survey today https://t.co/VkzPA5U3Pu#auspoll pic.twitter.com/aHUVM3pVJC
— Ted O'Brien (@tedobrienmp) December 2, 2022
He urged Australians to “join the conversation” by completing a short survey on the website, with the first question being: “What do you think could be the benefits of nuclear energy in Australia?”
Guardian Australia can reveal the web domain was registered by Helixos Pty Ltd, a Sydney-based consulting company whose projects include “supporting the commercialisation of new nuclear energy technology”.
Helixos lists the US company NuScale Power as one of its clients.
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Helixos says on its own website that NuScale Power “is reinventing nuclear energy and Helixos is helping them bring it to market”. It adds: “Helixos also provides training for employees to become technology ambassadors and engage with stakeholders and the public.”
A search of domain records for O’Brien’s website shows the contact name for the domain registration is Lenka Kollar, a nuclear engineer who co-founded Helixos in 2020. She previously held the role of director of strategy and external relations for NuScale Power.
In that previous role, Kollar was “working to bring NuScale’s small modular reactor to market through business plan development and clean energy outreach”, according to a profile published in 2017.
Kollar addressed a Global Uranium Conference in Adelaide last month on the topic “reaching net zero with nuclear energy”.
In tweets summarising her speech, Kollar said: “The time is now for Australians to have a conversation on nuclear energy and potentially overturn the ban.”
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It is understood O’Brien engaged Helixos – which also does design work – as a contractor to support the development of the website. As part of designing the website it also registered the domain name.
A source close to the matter said O’Brien’s team had sought out Helixos, believing it was ideal for the job because of its familiarity with the topic of nuclear energy.
But the source said O’Brien had come up with the idea of the survey and the questions, and paid for the work himself.
In a written response, O’Brien said the purpose of the survey and the use of collected data had “all been openly and accurately communicated”.
“I’m personally paying for the grassroots community campaign ‘Time to Talk Nuclear’ out of my own back pocket because I think it’s an important conversation to have with the Australian people,” O’Brien said.
“As we assess the prospect for nuclear energy moving forward, I will continue to seek assistance from people who are experts in the field.”
The vice-president of marketing and communications for NuScale Power, Diane Hughes, said: “Helixos does in fact provide services for NuScale Power.
“However, outside of providing an example image of our small modular reactor technology, NuScale does not have any involvement in the website, survey, nor outreach on advanced nuclear technologies being conducted by Mr O’Brien.”
Helixos and Kollar were also contacted for comment.
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Helixos describes itself as a business that works “at the intersection of strategy consulting and technical advisory, specialising in cleantech commercialisation” and says it acts in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Helixos’s projects are listed openly on its own website.
It works with the Energy Policy Institute of Australia “on editing public policy papers to promote progressive, technology-inclusive energy policy”, including one focusing on “the ability of small modular reactors (SMRs) to support a ‘just transition’ for coal communities in Australia”.
Helixos states it worked with SMR Nuclear Technology Pty Ltd “to develop a proactive stakeholder engagement strategy” to “help achieve the main goal of having nuclear energy considered as part of Australia’s future energy mix”.
Robert Pritchard, who is both chair of SMR Nuclear Technology and executive director of the Energy Policy Institute of Australia, declined to comment.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, said in his budget reply speech that the Coalition wanted “an intelligent conversation on the role that these new-age nuclear technologies might or might not be able to play” in Australia.
Announcing the “grassroots community engagement program” on Friday, O’Brien said the starting point would be “an online survey that will open a two-way conversation with the Australian public about the benefits and concerns of advanced nuclear technology becoming part of Australia’s future energy mix”.
“Other countries are reducing their emissions while keeping costs down and their network secure with nuclear energy,” O’Brien said.
“The question is - should we? Together with the Australian people, let’s find out.”
The survey has only three mandatory questions, starting with views on the benefits of nuclear energy in Australia.
It then asks what concerns, if any, the participant holds about nuclear energy, followed by any questions they might have. There is an optional section to “stay informed” by submitting an email address and postcode to O’Brien’s team.
O’Brien’s website also sets out frequently asked questions such as: “Is nuclear energy clean?”
The answer states: “Yes! Nuclear power’s total life-cycle carbon emissions and raw material requirements are the lowest among other energy sources, even lower than wind and solar.”
The climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, has previously accused the Coalition of pushing the nuclear debate as a “rearguard attempt to undermine and deny the transition to renewables”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/us-news-blog/2013/jul/12/justin-bieber-celebrospective-five-acts | Culture | 2013-07-12T19:11:00.000Z | Amanda Holpuch | Justin Bieber 'celebrospective': from mop top to mop bucket | Justin Bieber has turned from adorable pop star to Tasmanian devil in the blink of an eye. One minute he's singing with Elmo on Sesame Street, the next he's getting kicked out of nightclubs and cursing the legacy of a former US president on camera.
How did this happen?
Act I: Origin of the Biebs
Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, a golden angel by the name of Justin was born in the little town of Bethlehem Stratford, Ontario.
The good, Canadian people of Stratford (known for its annual Shakespeare festival) gave Justin his first taste of loonies, when they tossed handfuls of oversized Canadian coins into his guitar case on the steps of the Avalon theatre.
Those marble steps are the setting of this video of Biebs singing a *very* high pitched gospel song, one of the first ever recorded.
The pop star's hometown is now pretty much mecca to Beliebers everywhere, who come in droves to take the Official Justin Bieber Tour. Stops include King's Buffet (the site of his first date), Boston Pizza and Subway ... so that's great.
Act II: The Beliebers descend like locusts and Justin finds Selena
El Biebo quickly rocketed to fame, but was relegated to teenybopper status for the first few years. This is sort of how we all thought of him. Right?
But soon, his followers, known as Beliebers, started to change all that. Any public criticism of Bieber was met with swift punishment from rabid fans of all ages. It was all fun and games -- and 3% of Twitter’s total traffic -- for awhile. These days, Beliebers will literally dismantle your life if you’re too vocal a critic. But back in 2011, Biebs hit Harmless Teen Idol status as he started dating Selena Gomez, got some haircuts and started hanging out with Ellen DeGeneres.
Aw. Via Bieber's Instagram Photograph: Guardian
Interlude: Beliebers Learn How to File Paternity Suits
But it wasn’t strictly support from Belieber Nation that rocketed our Justin’s career into another stratosphere. For some celebrities, it is the rumor of a sex tape -- or actual sex tape -- that brings their career into mainstream focus. For others, it’s a bombshell of another sort: The Paternity Scandal. There was a bit of a turning point in Bieber’s celebrity in 2011, when a woman named Mariah Yeater filed a paternity suit claiming that she was carrying his unborn baby after a backstage encounter. The claim turned out to be false, but Biebs claimed he almost quit music because of it.
Sad. Next!
Act III: Biebs matures
Where are we now. 2012? More haircuts. Biebs has also apparently learned how to drive, which he sucks at.
Between the moving violations and harmless youthful carousing, a soulful side of Bieber starts to emerge. On a few occasions, Bieber is spotted spending quality Nice Guy time with several baby friends, which is actually very endearing. While cohorts like Rihanna tend to show up late to their own concerts after getting too obliterated to stand up straight, Bieber actually delayed a concert in early 2013 to visit a sick child -- a move that, his reps say, was not a public relations stunt.
Act IV: The breakup. The pot. The Segways.
Biebs and Selena broke things off in November 2012. Since then, Canada has watched in horror as their once and future king drives down Heartbreak Road – on a Segway.
While taking a spin on that hot slice of energy-efficient transportation he also apparently likes to partake in a bit of the Jolly Green Giant. The JGG, also known as cannabis, has also been detected on his tour buses. Just remember: he's hurting, people.
We Beliebers care about Justin more than ourselves. It breaks our heart seeing him heartbroken.
— Justin Bieber (@KidrauhlsDiary) July 5, 2013
Act V: "We were all fans and now we hate him."
While Heartbreak Road is paved with millions of fans and millions more dollars, the post-Selena era finds Bieber turning to burly bodyguards for comfort as he stumbles outside far too many Hollywood clubs.
He also faced the wrath of hordes of British fans after showing up two hours late (he says 40 minutes) to a gig at London's O2 arena. "We were all fans and now we hate him," said one disappointed father.
Usher tried to defend Bieber on Ellen, but no one cared because it's too late, the Biebs hath fallen.
... which brings us to where we are today, dear reader. The Biebs of yore – of innocent dates at King's Buffet and gospel songs – appears to be a thing of the past. Along with an appalling monkey abandonment, pissing in mop buckets and cursing out presidents is hardly surprising given his recent behavior. And yet ... And yet ... the Biebs did call up ye olde Clinton (who knows a thing or two about apologies) and give him his most sincere "I'm so sorry, boss". Is it possible that there's still a glimmer of Canadian goodness within his cold, cold heart? Let's hope so. Biebs. Come back. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/mar/27/landcare-funding-boost-to-include-15m-for-new-indigenous-protected-areas | Australia news | 2017-03-26T20:51:21.000Z | Helen Davidson | Landcare funding boost to include $15m for new Indigenous protected areas | A $100m funding package to Landcare will include $15m for new Indigenous protected areas, raising hopes of further federal support for the environmental policy and its related Indigenous ranger program.
The funding, secured by the Greens last year in a deal with the government over the backpacker tax, has been undetailed until now, and will also support Landcare projects, the work of Landcare Australia and the National Landcare Network, and a small grants program for sustainable agriculture.
The breakdown of the restored funding was revealed last week in a letter from the finance minister, Mathias Cormann, to the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale.
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It reiterated the money was front-end loaded in the next two financial years and said precise funding allocations would be finalised in the federal budget.
In the 2014 budget, $484m, or half of Landcare’s ongoing funding, was cut. Landcare has run for almost 30 years and operates 5,400 volunteer groups around Australia with links to more than 55 natural resource management areas.
The $15m in Indigenous protected areas (IPA) funding will be administered by the Department of Environment and Energy portfolio.
IPAs are parcels of Indigenous-owned or managed land and sea country voluntarily dedicated and cared for by Indigenous groups. The 75 current IPAs make up more than 40% of the national reserve system and cover more than 67.3m hectares.
IPAs are currently funded by the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet on behalf of the Department of the Environment with about $64m from 2014/15 through to 2017-18.
The Indigenous ranger program, which employs Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to care for country, including IPAs, has funding commitments to 2020, but the industry consistently calls for expansion.
“This funding means more land in the national reserve system and more Indigenous ranger jobs for families to stay on country if they wish to do so,” Di Natale said.
“The Indigenous ranger and Indigenous protected area programs are standout successes in remote Australia, successfully protecting nature and transforming lives.
“Securing additional government investment not only means the creation of meaningful jobs, it means healthier communities.”
A 2014 cost-benefit review of five IPAs found that between the 2009 and 2015 financial years, an investment of $35.2m from government and third parties generated $96.5m worth of social, economic, cultural and environmental outcomes.
The glowing report was welcomed by the Indigenous environmental sector but also sparked concern as it was released without fanfare by the government.
Indigenous groups say ranger program is working, but needs more funding
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Patrick O’Leary of the Pew Charitable Trust said there was strong interest among traditional owners in developing new IPAs, and while the scale of the work needed was “enormous”, the system provided a strong framework for balancing environmental needs with cultural ownership and control.
He said he hoped the $15m signified the government’s intention to renew existing IPA funding and bolster the verbal commitment by the Indigenous affairs minister, Nigel Scullion, to extend funding for the ranger program by two years.
“On the face of it this is a really positive injection of support for new Indigenous protected areas,” O’Leary said.
“The detail is yet to be seen but it’s a great way for [environment minister] Josh Frydenberg to use the extra funding to help tackle threatened species management and some of the bigger pressures across the landscape like feral animals, invasive weeds and fire management by working in conjunction with traditional owners.”
The $100m funding return to Landcare, announced last December, came after the Greens made a deal in return for its support for a 15% backpacker tax and a drop in the clawback of superannuation payments.
Tessa Jakszewicz, chief executive of Landcare Australia, said the funding boost was welcome, and the earmarked programs were “definitely the areas we’d like to see supported”.
“We’re very pleased that the Australian Greens and the government have negotiated those funds to go to the IPAs,” she added.
“Obviously from our perspective the Indigenous community has been doing land care way, way, way before the Landcare movement came about, and we’re always very keen to engage with the Indigenous community and leverage their knowledge where possible, and when they want to.”
The $100m Landcare package was redirected from the axed green army program, but the lack of detail on how it would be spent sparked confusion among Landcare groups.
There was also criticism that Landcare’s pre-2014 funding was not fully restored, and the peak body for community Landcare groups said overall cuts saw a $124m loss of funds.
Jakszewicz said the contract for Landcare Australia ended on 30 June and she hoped the funding boost was an indication of ongoing support. | Full |