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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/may/16/danny-rose-tottenham-depression-battles-club-approach-check-crazy

Football

2019-05-16T23:01:46.000Z

Dominic Fifield

Danny Rose says a club wanted to check he was ‘not crazy’

Danny Rose has revealed a club seeking to sign him last summer had requested a meeting to check he was “not crazy” in the wake of the Tottenham full-back speaking out about his battles with depression. The England defender, who has been included in Gareth Southgate’s squad for next month’s Nations League, had apparently been sounded out by a suitor – there is no indication Spurs had given permission for an approach, and the player does not reveal the identity of the club – over a potential move. In the build-up to the World Cup Rose had gone public on his struggles with mental health, suggesting his depression had been triggered by the treatment of a knee injury coupled with family tragedy. “There’s still a long way to go in football because in the summer I was speaking to another club and they said: ‘The club would like to meet you, just to check that you’re not crazy,’ because of what I’d said and what I’d been through,” Rose said. “I was embarrassed, as whatever I’ve been through, I like to think it doesn’t affect me doing my job. I still know I’ll always give 100%. “In the end they didn’t put a bid in but to think that people assume I might be crazy is embarrassing and I’m still angry about it. If that opportunity came around again I’d definitely say no now.” The 28-year-old was speaking in conversation with the Duke of Cambridge in a BBC documentary, A Royal Team Talk: Tackling Mental Health, to be broadcast on Sunday. The film sets out to tackle the importance of talking about men’s mental health, with suicide still the biggest killer of men under the age of 45. Rose, a key member of the Tottenham team who have reached the Champions League final, had suggested his depression deepened as he contended with the triple trauma of his uncle killing himself, his mum, Angela, being racially abused and an assailant shooting at his brother inside the family home. The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email. In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email [email protected]. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international suicide helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/jun/05/brianwhitaker

World news

2000-06-05T01:19:38.000Z

Brian Whitaker

Ancient Egypt yields its underwater secrets

New archaeological techniques are helping to uncover the secrets of the lost cities of ancient Egypt, astonishingly well preserved beneath the sea. Relics and underwater video film of the cities - believed to be Herakleion and Menouthis - which lie in Aboukir Bay off Alexandria, were shown by an Egyptian-French team for the first time at the weekend. They were submerged more than 1,000 years ago. Although the existence of the cities was known from classical Greek writings, there had been little tangible evidence until now. "We are very excited," said Gaballah Ali Gaballah, head of Egypt's supreme council of antiquities. "We are used to finding the remains of a tomb, a church or mosque. This time we are finding complete cities." The area around Alexandria, linked to some of the most famous names of history -Alexander the Great, Anthony and Cleopatra, Julius Caesar - is rich in land-based archaeological treasures. Millions of people live on top of the ancient remains, about 12 metres below street level. Some relics have almost certainly been destroyed by the foundations of modern buildings, though there are still hopes of finding the tomb of Alexander the Great. The difficulty of working on land has led archaeologists to the sea, where ancient fragments have been turning up since the 18th century. The water is shallow and the ruins, relatively untouched, lie as little as five metres below the surface, covered by a thin layer of sand. "This century the sea is going to tell us a lot about the Ptolemaic and Roman periods," said Ibrahim Darwish, director of the department of underwater archaeology in Alexandria. In preparation, the degree in archaeology at the city's university includes diving lessons. How the cities became engulfed by the sea is still a mystery. "Most probably they disappeared because of seismic causes," said Franck Goddio, head of the Paris-based European Institute of Marine Archaeology, who has been leading the exploration. In 1934, a marble head of Alexander was recovered with the help of local fishermen who could spend long periods underwater without breathing equipment. But until now the detailed examination of the underwater ruins has been held back by a lack of suitable technology. Modern techniques used by Mr Goddio's team, including global positioning systems, sonar scanners and magnetic imaging, mean that only a few relics need to be brought to the surface. The rest will remain undisturbed on the seabed. Archaeology in Egypt has become increasingly influenced by politics and showbusiness. Mindful of its beneficial effect on the tourist industry, government ministers often become directly involved in projects, while major discoveries are carefully stage-managed and invariably televised. A team of 150 people from Fox Television recently descended on the Bahariyya oasis to record "Opening the Tombs of the Golden Mummies - Live!" For the two-hour £2m production Fox imported a mobile clinic and a chef from Los Angeles, as well as bringing in donkeys to add local colour. The council for antiquities reportedly collected £65,000 for the film rights. The sea may save Herakleion and Menouthis from a similar fate. "As recently as 1967 you could see the remains from the surface with a snorkel," Mr Darwish said. But pollution has since made viewing impossible. Only last month a Syrian cargo vessel sank in the bay, spilling 321 tonnes of nitric acid. Mr Darwish hopes that anti-pollution measures will have cleared the water sufficiently by 2003 to allow visits in glass-bottomed boats.

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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jul/28/commonwealth-games-open-with-celebration-of-host-birmingham

Sport

2022-07-28T19:50:35.000Z

Jessica Murray

Commonwealth Games open with celebration of host city Birmingham

With a 10-metre-tall raging bull, a union jack made from 72 cars, and an appearance by Malala Yousafzai, the Commonwealth Games kicked off on Thursday night with an unashamedly loud celebration of everything Birmingham. Crammed with references to the host city’s history and culture, the two-and-a-half-hour opening ceremony marked the start of Britain’s biggest multi-sport event since the London Olympics. The Brummie drag queen Ginny Lemon got a starring role in a lemon-shaped hot air balloon, while Duran Duran closed the show with a rendition of their greatest hits, as fireworks flared over the newly refurbished Alexander Stadium. The Brummie drag queen Ginny Lemon got a starring role in a lemon-shaped hot air balloon. Photograph: Tim Goode/PA “It feels like these games have come around at the right time for this city,” said the show’s artistic director, Iqbal Khan. “We are ready to make a statement to the world about ourselves. Birmingham is one of the most exciting places in this country at the moment and I think it’s a beacon to a lot of places around the world about how you can celebrate and enjoy living with difference.” The opening ceremony was 18 months in the making, the work of a creative team featuring the Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight and the Super Bowl half-time director Hamish Hamilton. Performers at the opening ceremony. Photograph: Glyn Kirk/AFP/Getty Although Brummies are known for their modesty and self-deprecation when it comes to their city, the show seemed to signal the start of what has been hailed as a “golden decade” and renewed confidence in the region. Dame Louise Martin, the president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, said she believed this year’s event would be “one of the greatest and most important editions of the Commonwealth Games in our 92-year history”. She said: “Our 72 nations and territories are all here, and Birmingham looks magnificent. The city and wider region will provide the perfect stage for our athletes to compete.” The opening ceremony followed the journey of Stella and the Dreamers, a group of young athletes from around the Commonwealth, through Birmingham’s history. Seventy-two red, white and blue cars formed a union jack as the Red Arrows flew overhead. Photograph: Stoyan Nenov/Reuters The most visually impressive element of the show was the raging bull, a giant aluminium and steel puppet constructed around a forklift truck-like machine from materials sourced in local factories. It was dragged into the stadium by 50 women representing chainmakers from the Industrial Revolution. There was also a group of giant puppets portraying regional pioneers such as Edward Elgar, William Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson, while another set piece involved a parade of trucks featuring Birmingham inventions such as pen nibs, police whistles and the Baskerville font. “We tried to give everything an edge. The canal water that the tower rises out of has an old bike and shopping trolley in it,” said the set designer Misty Buckley. “There’s a bit of humour and a bit of wit that says, ‘We’re still in Birmingham, we’re not taking ourselves too seriously here.’” Seventy-two red, white and blue cars, forming a union jack as the Red Arrows flew overhead, marked the entrance of Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, who arrived in a blue Aston Martin DB6 Volante. Malala Yousafzai addresses the crowd. Photograph: Alastair Grant/AP Nobel peace prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who settled in Birmingham after she was flown to the UK for medical treatment when she was shot by the Taliban, spoke about her love for her new home, including “the doctors and nurses at Queen Elizabeth hospital” and “the teachers who inspired me”. “Over the next two weeks, when we watch the incredible athletes of the Commonwealth Games, remember that every child deserves the chance to reach her full potential and pursue her wildest dreams,” she said. There were performances from the Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi and the alto-saxophonist Soweto Kinch, joined by rising Birmingham stars Indigo Marshall and Gambini. They played Hear My Voice, a reimagined version of the title track from the 2020 film The Trial of the Chicago 7. Khan said the show was designed to be “an unparalleled show of excellence for the live audience, but also a broadcast show that has an ambition that has never been conceived before”. Duran Duran closed the ceremony in Birmingham with some of their hits. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Reuters Earlier on Thursday, the culture secretary, Nadine Dorries, raised eyebrows when she told the BBC that the Commonwealth Games was “putting Birmingham on the map”. The city is England’s second biggest. Excitement about the Games has been building for months. A new aquatics centre in Sandwell opened earlier in the year, while Alexander Stadium in Perry Barr underwent a £72m renovation in time for the event, which Birmingham was awarded in 2017 as a replacement for Durban in South Africa, which was pulled as host over financial concerns. However, there have been growing questions about the relevancy of the Games in the 21st century and the event’s historical links to colonialism. The Queen was not present at the opening ceremony owing to ongoing mobility issues, so Prince Charles read out a message from her to mark the start of the Games. Fireworks explode over the stadium during the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games. Photograph: James Ross/AAP She described Birmingham as “a pioneering city which has drawn in and embraced so many throughout its history” and a place that is “symbolic of the rich diversity and unity of the Commonwealth”. A number of famous athletes made appearances to carry the Queen’s baton during the ceremony, including the Olympic diver Tom Daley, who ran alongside people from the 35 Commonwealth member states which outlaw homosexuality. Birmingham stars including Sir Lenny Henry and Joe Lycett also made appearances to introduce the Commonwealth nations. Before introducing competing teams from Asia, Lycett said: “I’m going to do something the British government doesn’t always do and welcome some foreigners.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/30/peak-polluters-last-chance-close-dutch-government

Environment

2022-11-30T17:00:08.000Z

Senay Boztas

Up to 3,000 ‘peak polluters’ given last chance to close by Dutch government

The Dutch government is offering to buy out up to 3,000 “peak polluter” farms and major industrial polluters in an attempt to reduce ammonia and nitrogen oxide emissions that are illegal under EU law. The nitrogen minister, Christianne van der Wal, said farmers would be offered more than 100% of the value of their farms to quit. For the first time, the government has said that forced buyouts will follow next year if the voluntary measures fail. The group of 2,000 to 3,000 “peak polluters” – who are “mostly farmers”, an agriculture ministry spokesperson told the Guardian – will be offered a final set of choices: innovate to drastically reduce emissions, transition to a new kind of business, extend in ways that reduce their impact, relocate or “voluntarily stop”. “For agricultural entrepreneurs, there will be a stopping scheme that will be as attractive as possible,” said Van der Wal in a series of parliamentary briefings. “For industrial peak polluters, we will get to work with a tailor-made approach and in tightening permits. After a year, we will see if this has achieved enough.” Top industrial polluters include the businesses Tata Steel, Schiphol airport, refineries owned by Shell, BP and Esso, Dow chemicals and industrial companies such as Olam Cacoa and Cargill Cacoa, according to a report in the Telegraaf. This is the first time the Dutch government has committed to a controversial mandatory buyout, or expropriation scheme, after it was first mentioned in a government research report outlining a 30% livestock reduction by 2030. The latest announcement follows months of furious farmer protests, strong support for a new pro-farmers party, tense negotiations and a 58-page report called “What we can do” by the parliamentarian Johan Remkes. It is seen as the last chance for an agricultural sector that emits an estimated 45% of greenhouse gases including ammonia and nitrogen-based runoffs from fertiliser. The government’s hand has been forced by a court case in 2019 that said the PAS-melding, a kind of nitrogen futures trading scheme for farmers and industrial firms, was illegal because it could not be shown that the development would not damage EU-protected natural reserves known as Natura 2000 areas. The court ruling led to a temporary building stop and 100km/h limit on roads, and made about 2,500 farms illegal at a stroke. A second Raad van State ruling this month said Dutch building projects needed nitrogen permission, putting government plans to build 900,000 desperately needed homes, windfarms and vital infrastructure at a standstill. Dutch pro-farming party fires up the anti-establishment vote Read more “[The reduction] is going to happen,” said Tjeerd de Groot, the D66 party agriculture spokesperson, who believes the country must reduce numbers of pigs and chickens by 50% and graze cows on grass. “I’m very hopeful now, because it’s not only voluntary any more. The whole economy has come to a stop because of this nitrogen question. “This makes the political pressure, also in conservative, farmer-oriented societies, big. A relatively small part of the economy is blocking the rest of society, quite apart from the problems with biodiversity and degradation. Now it’s going to happen because we have our backs against the wall.” Despite previous voluntary buyout schemes, only about 30 farmers stopped, according to the Volkskrant. New figures show that animal numbers have remained more or less the same in the last decade, with more than five times as many farmed animals in the Netherlands as its 17.8 million people. Farmers are furious. The BoerBurgerBeweging (farmer-citizen movement) said it was “astonished that farmers and their families have to continue living in uncertainty” for another year. Environmentalists are cautiously optimistic. Natasja Oerlemans, the head of the food team at WWF Netherlands, said while farmers were not to blame for following the system, reform had been needed for years. “In all, we think that this could lead to a promising pathway for the much needed agri-transition in the Netherlands,” she said, but added it was still uncertain how the government would enforce the shutdowns if its voluntary approach failed.

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https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2016/aug/01/crossword-blog-meet-the-letter-k

Crosswords

2016-08-01T08:23:46.000Z

Alan Connor

Crossword blog: meet the letter K

You’ve met A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I and J. Now it’s time for the voiceless velar stop, better known as K. Oh, K: here we are. Let’s talk about ... Is this going to be yet another piece about how “unpopular” I am? About how I come twenty-whateverth in the most-used letters? No, I want to discuss ... Because you know what? I may not crop up that often in written English, but some people love me. Eastern Europeans. Bohemians. And spelling reformers. Yes, I’ve seen that theory: that between Q, you and S, you’ve already covered all the jobs done by C. Kwyte so. In fakt, if you ask me, we kood give Q and C the kybosh: have them killed off (like the kull of G). I think rational spelling would be a great suksess. Yeah, good luck with that. By the way, not all Bohemians. Kafka ... I know, I know. That line from his diaries. Franz Kafka, 1914. OK, then how about the Greeks? When your readers see a word in a clue that means there’s a K in the answer, it’s probably Greek. Kilo, say, or kilometre. Or sometimes I’m indicated by just plain thousand. Except when that thousand is $1,000 (G). Or when they should be thinking of Roman numerals (M) ... Sure. Let’s move on to Scandinavia, then. Your basic Nordic currencies are abbreviated to K: krone, krona, not to mention króna. Or we could go to Asia. Cars from Cambodia have a K sticker ... ... because it used to be called Kampuchea. Those are the words that really stand out in clues. What are the common ones that solvers might miss? I’d say knight (even knighthood) or king. Again, though, in chess, a knight is an N. And on King George-era postboxes, the G is next to an R, not a K. What’s your point, Alan? I suppose ... that it’s not as simple as saying “Hey, we only need a K here.” Those spelling reformers? They would spell “knight” something like “nyte”. But in old English, it was pronounced “ker-nikst”! Knot know. No. And there, in a three-word exchange, are three examples of why our crazy spelling system can make words easier to identify. Hmm. So, know your place. Eleventh in the alphabet, twenty-somethingth in use. ... and – solvers might like to know for when they have got a K in a grid – probably followed by an E or an I, and most likely preceded by an O, an A or, most often, a C. A completely redundant C. Now, now. ’Kay then. Point taken.

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https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jan/22/nottingham-forest-derby-championship-match-report

Football

2022-01-22T14:55:52.000Z

Peter Lansley

Brennan Johnson sinks Derby as Nottingham Forest win after fiery finale

Nottingham Forest’s push for a place in the Championship play-offs was boosted by a dominant second-half display illuminated by goals from Lewis Grabban and Brennan Johnson but the only way Derby County will be going down is with a fight. Tom Lawrence’s late penalty gave Wayne Rooney’s team a whiff of yet another comeback before Ravel Morrison’s stoppage-time dismissal for a lunge on Philip Zinckernagel sparked one melee and the final whistle another, for which the former Manchester United player saw fit to come back on to the field to join in. Manchester United 1-0 West Ham, Leeds 0-1 Newcastle: clockwatch –as it happened Read more Forest’s third successive win extended the longest unbeaten league run in this fixture in history to nine games and while they aspire to playing their next east Midlands derby against Leicester in the Premier League next season, Derby would at the moment probably settle for knowing they will survive liquidation in order to play Burton in League One. Derby’s hopes of staying in business beyond 1 February were boosted on the eve of the game by news of a firm £28m bid from the US-based investment group Carlisle Capital but while Rooney did not have any fresh information on that, he could applaud his team’s heart. They had gained 13 points from their previous five league games to climb off the foot of the Championship before this defeat. “There was a lot of fight and character from the players,” Rooney said. “I don’t think it was a red card but the game management from the referee was not good. I didn’t know Ravel was back on the pitch [at the end]. It’s an emotional game, players get frustrated. I’m fully with the players and support them. It shows they are fighting and they care.” Derby had to sell academy graduate Dylan Williams to Chelsea on Friday but Rooney, who had already seen Phil Jagielka, Graeme Shinnie and David Marshall leave while the administrators seek new owners, has been assured he does not have to sell anyone else in this transfer window. He revealed he is continuing to line up potential signings, should a takeover be agreed soon enough, and that one, intriguingly, was now at Forest. “The next few days are crucial,” he said. “The administrators have said they are confident someone will come in this week. I take care of the football and they take care of the business. Hopefully there will be some good news next week. Ravel Morrison of Derby is shown a red card in added time at the end of the game. Photograph: Tony Marshall/Getty Images “Of course we have players lined up: we have to keep doing our job whether that’s reality or not. We have seen players who would like to play for Derby and there is one here today at Forest. I have to keep doing my work. But the existence of the club is far more important.” Lawrence, who after last week’s match-winning performance against Sheffield United gave Derby late hope here after he was scythed down by Steve Cook in the 87th minute, should have scored early on but slotted wide after a neat one-two with Colin Kazim-Richards. Steve Cooper changed the game by moving Ryan Yates out of a five-man defence into midfield, and after a cautious first half Forest took charge. “They didn’t press us as much as we thought so that’s why we had to change it tactically,” the Forest manager said. “With the [personnel] we field, we can play two formations, basically around Yates’s role, and we looked in complete control from then on. We were worthy winners.” The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email. Three minutes into the second half the game caught fire. Scott McKenna headed James Garner’s free-kick back into the middle for Keinan Davis to tee up Cook. His blocked shot fell for Grabban to score for the third successive game. Red flares sparked in the Bridgford End and police had to intervene as rival fans sought to get closer. “Derby are going down with a fiver in the bank,” gloated the Forest fans. Garner helped set up the decisive goal as his nonchalant pass ushered Zinckernagel down the left and from the substitute’s low cross, Johnson slid home his seventh goal of the season. These clubs may be heading in opposite directions, but on this showing there is plenty of life left in both of them.

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/22/my-home-finance-loan-scheme-trouble-affordable-finance-needed

Society

2016-03-22T14:00:40.000Z

Kate Murray

The My Home Finance loan scheme is in trouble, but tenants still need affordable finance | Kate Murray

It was heralded by Iain Duncan Smith as a great way of beating the loan sharks and doorstep lenders. But now the My Home Finance scheme, launched back in 2010 by the then work and pensions secretary, is on the brink of closure, potentially leaving housing associations out of pocket to the tune of £3.5m. Helping those who struggle to get affordable credit – the so-called financially excluded – is a priority for many social landlords. Research earlier this month showed that one in six UK adults is living with problem debt and tenants are twice as likely to be over-indebted as those who own their home. My Home Finance scheme a boost to excluded borrowers Read more When the National Housing Federation, which represents England’s housing associations, set up My Home Finance as a not-for-profit finance company, with the backing of the Royal Bank of Scotland, 26 housing associations and the Department for Work and Pensions, the idea was that it would offer fair loans at fair prices for those who would otherwise be forced to turn to loan sharks. But, after scaling back its original high street presence, it failed to grow loan numbers as expected and, in 2013 and 2014, it reported operating losses of more than £2.1m. In February, David Orr, chair of My Home Finance and chief executive of the National Housing Federation, wrote to the housing associations that have financed the venture, warning that while efforts to attract new investment were still ongoing, “time is very much against us”. The company would now need to more “vigorously” pursue plans either to dispose of the business or wind it down. This means that only a “small fraction ... (if anything at all)” of outstanding housing association investment, worth £3.5m, is likely to be repaid, although efforts to sell the loan book will continue until the end of April. The housing associations involved are unlikely to be destabilised by My Home Finance’s problems, given the small size of their stakes relative to the value of their overall businesses. But the reputational damage could be significant, when housing associations are already facing mounting criticism for inefficiency. And the saga also raises questions about attempts to scale up genuinely affordable finance for those who need it most. Part of the problem is that at 98.94% APR, interest rates are still high. That’s still considerably less than, the eye-watering 1,509% APR quoted by payday lender Wonga, but more than the rates credit unions apply, which are capped at a maximum 42.6% APR. With more than 7 million people needing credit at least occasionally to pay for essentials, there’s clearly a need to ensure that there are plenty of affordable options on offer. But as the My Home Finance story shows, it’s all too easy to dip a toe into the loan-shark infested waters, only for it to be bitten off.

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https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/dec/17/arab-spring-people-middle-east-poll

Global development

2020-12-17T05:00:29.000Z

Michael Safi

Life has got worse since Arab spring, say people across Middle East

Amajority in nine countries across the Arab world feel they are living in significantly more unequal societies today than before the Arab spring, an era of uprisings, civil wars and unsteady progress towards self-determination that commenced a decade ago, according to a Guardian-YouGov poll. Pluralities in almost every country agreed their living conditions had deteriorated since 2010, when the self-immolation of Tunisian fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi is credited with kicking off mass demonstrations and revolutions that spread across the region. Reverberations of that moment continued into 2019 with the overthrow of Sudan’s former dictator Omar al-Bashir and large protest movements in Lebanon, Algeria and Iraq. The results of the far-reaching poll of 5,275 people across genders and age groups suggest the feelings of hopelessness and disfranchisement that have fuelled this turbulent chapter in the Middle East have only increased, even if most people do not regret the protest movements – except for, notably, in the countries where they led to civil war. Worse off than before The feeling of being worse off than before the Arab spring was unsurprisingly highest in Syria (75% of respondents agreeing), Yemen (73%) and Libya (60%), where street protests gave way to civil wars and foreign intervention that have shattered each country . The survey also covered Egypt and Tunisia, where long-serving authoritarian rulers were overthrown in early 2011, as well as Algeria, Sudan and Iraq, which initially witnessed only small-scale unrest a decade ago, but where significant anti-regime movements have since emerged. Fewer than half of those surveyed in Egypt, Iraq and Algeria said they were worse off compared with before 2010; but in none of the three did more than a quarter of people say they were better off either. A generational divide In some countries, it was the youngest generation of adults – those who will inherit Arab societies and with less memory of life before the revolutions – who were the least negative about the changes. Algerians aged between 18 and 24, along with their counterparts in Tunisia, Egypt and Iraq, were all significantly less likely to say the mass protests and revolutions of the era were regrettable, according to the poll. Their parents were generally more pessimistic, with pluralities in each of the eight countries agreeing that children growing up today face worse futures than those growing up in the years before the Arab spring era. An unhappy democracy Even in Tunisia, a “success story” where democratic institutions have withstood assassinations and infighting, there was deep disillusionment. Twenty-seven per cent of those polled agreed they were better off since the revolution there, the highest among the countries surveyed. But amid stagnant economic growth and high unemployment, exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic, half of Tunisians said they were now worse off. Dramatic improvements in civil rights in Tunisia, where 86% of people said there was now more freedom to criticise the government and half said there was less chance of unlawful arrest, did little to dissolve a sense of dissatisfaction in the Maghreb country. Social contracts still broken The belief that social contracts had been torn up, with a small elite enriched at the expense of the majority, helped to have fuel the revolutions of the era. The poll showed that perception has deepened since 2010, and inequality is significantly worse. This was the view of 92% of Syrians, the highest result for any question in the survey, followed by 87% of Yemenis and 84% of Tunisians. At least seven in 10 Algerians and Iraqis said they felt the same way, as did 68% of Egyptians. Almost half Egyptians felt their right to express themselves was now diminished compared to in the Hosni Mubarak era, though a fifth said they were now freer to speak and more than one in three were ambivalent, saying they neither agreed nor disagreed. Ambivalent Egypt This uncertainty was consistent across the responses from Egypt, the most populous country in the Arab world. Asked if they had a better life today than a decade ago, a plurality said they were unsure. They felt similarly on the question of whether children based a better future today than in 2010. This carried through to their views on the January 2011 revolution that unseated Mubarak and first elevated the Muslim Brotherhood, and then the military-dominated rule of the president, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. Egyptians were virtually split on whether they had supported the uprising, and among those older than age 25, also evenly divided on whether they regretted the downfall of Mubarak and the tumultuous years that followed. It was unclear if the equivocation of Egyptians stemmed from concerns over security. YouGov said that all respondents were assured that their answers would be subject to a confidentiality clause and all responses would be anonymised.

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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/feb/19/eu-investigation-tiktok-online-content-child-safeguarding

Technology

2024-02-19T17:31:01.000Z

Dan Milmo

EU opens investigation into TikTok over online content and child safeguarding

The EU has launched a formal investigation into whether TikTok has broken online content rules including the safeguarding of children. The European Commission said it had opened official proceedings against the Chinese-owned short video platform over potential breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA). It said the investigation was looking at areas including protection of minors, maintaining records of its advertising content and whether its algorithms led users down damaging content “rabbit holes”. EU opens formal investigation into TikTok; Bank of England ‘could worsen recession’ without interest rate cuts soon – as it happened Read more Thierry Breton, the EU’s commissioner for internal market, said the protection of children was a “top enforcement priority” under the DSA. The investigation into child safety on TikTok includes age verification – an issue highlighted by a Guardian investigation into the platform last year – and the default privacy settings used for children’s accounts. “As a platform that reaches millions of children and teenagers, TikTok must fully comply with the DSA and has a particular role to play in the protection of minors online,” Breton said. “We are launching this formal infringement proceeding today to ensure that proportionate action is taken to protect the physical and emotional wellbeing of young Europeans. We must spare no effort to protect our children.” Last April, the Irish data watchdog fined TikTok €345m (£295m) for breaches of EU data law in the platform’s handling of children’s accounts. In the same month, the UK information commissioner fined the company £12.7m for illegally processing the data of children aged under 13 who were beneath the minimum age for using TikTok. Companies that breach the DSA face the threat of fines of up to 6% of their global turnover. TikTok is owned by the Chinese tech company ByteDance. TikTok said it would continue to work with experts and the industry to keep young people on its platform safe and that it looked forward to explaining this work in detail to the European Commission. “TikTok has pioneered features and settings to protect teens and keep under-13s off the platform, issues the whole industry is grappling with,” a spokesperson for the company said. The commission is also looking at “suspected shortcomings” in TikTok’s provision of publicly accessible data to researchers, alongside whether the company had complied with requirements to establish a database of ads that have appeared on the platform. No deadline has been set for the investigation. Brussels has said the inquiry depends on several factors including the complexity of the case and the extent to which the company under investigation cooperates. The scrutiny of TikTok marks the second DSA inquiry, after Elon Musk’s social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, became the subject of a formal investigation by Brussels in December last year. The proceedings against X are focusing on areas including failure to block illegal content and inadequate measures against disinformation. Apple is reportedly facing abig fine from the EU over its behaviour in the music streaming app market. The European Commission is investigating whether the US tech company blocked music streamers from telling users about cheaper ways to subscribe outside its app store. According to the Financial Times, Brussels plans to impose a fine of €500m, which would represent a landmark decision against Apple after years of complaints from companies whose services are delivered via iPhone apps. The commission declined to comment. Apple did not provide a fresh comment, but pointed to a previous statement that said the company would respond to the commission’s concerns “while promoting competition and choice for European consumers”. Apple has never faced a competition fine from the European Commission, although it received a €1.1bn fine from France in 2020 – subsequently revised down to about €370m on appeal – for anti-competitive agreements with two wholesalers. However, Apple and other big tech companies are under increasing scrutiny because of competition concerns. Google is appealing against fines of more than €8bn levied by the EU in three separate competition investigations. Apple defeated a lawsuit by the Fortnite developer, Epic Games, that claimed that the app store was an illegal monopoly. Epic in December won a similar case against Google, which operates the Android mobile phone software. Last month, Apple said it would allow EU customers to download apps without going through its own app store, a response to the bloc’s Digital Markets Act. The law introduces new obligations for digital “gatekeepers” including Amazon, Microsoft, Apple and Google.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/04/rudyard-kipling-india-first-world-war-mutiny-british-intelligence

Books

2017-11-04T15:07:57.000Z

Jamie Doward

How Kipling helped quell an Indian mutiny in first world war trenches

He was one of Britain’s most celebrated writers of the 20th century, the Nobel prizewinning author of The Jungle Book. But Rudyard Kipling’s work for British intelligence during the first world war has been lost in the mists of time. Now new research has highlighted the extraordinary role the author of Kim and the poem If played in pushing out pro-empire propaganda designed to temper the threat of an insurrection among Indian soldiers fighting in France. Dr Gajendra Singh, a historian at Exeter University, has been combing the archives of British intelligence for his forthcoming book, Spectres of Violence. He has revealed how, in the second decade of the 20th century, some 14,000 Indians living in the US were becoming an acute concern for the secret services. Drenched in pre-Bolshevik idealism, many were plotting revolution and the overthrow of the Raj. A powerful clandestine German intelligence unit – known as the Information Centre for the East – saw them as useful pawns and tried to manipulate them with anti-British propaganda. “Around half of the expats return to India in 1914 to sow insurrection, to smuggle arms and explosives, and to develop cellular networks,” Singh said. “They are responsible for a near insurrection in the early months of 1915. What causes most concern among the British is that these guys are pensioned soldiers. They know what they’re doing. They call themselves the Ghadar movement – Urdu for mutiny or rebellion – and they are constantly harking back to 1857.” This was the year of a bloody but unsuccessful uprising against the East India Company – an event that the British authorities were desperate to ensure would not be repeated. British intelligence was also worried about the thousands of troops India had sent to fight in France. Agents were monitoring their letters home to record any anti-British sentiment that could possibly mutate into insurrection. At the same time there was growing collusion between Irish and Indian revolutionaries, fostered by German intelligence, which spread stories about how poorly Indian soldiers were being treated. “Kipling was recruited by British intelligence in the first world war to write for American journals under his own name, to show the British in a positive light and undermine Indian nationalists,” Singh said. “In 1917 he’s asked by a branch of British intelligence to write a form of fictional Indian correspondence. He was given real letters sent home by Indian soldiers and asked to write his own version in order to spread propaganda in the United States.” Kipling was already making regular visits to Ireland to recruit troops for the war effort. Devastated by the death of his only son, 18-year-old John, in the battle of Loos in 1915, Kipling acted out of patriotism, Singh believes. “By this stage he’s a major literary figure,” Singh said. “His son has just died and he’s engaging in these tours to bolster recruitment in Ireland. He does it as a way to salvage his son’s memory, to do what he can for the war effort.” An illustration of representatives from Indian regiments fighting to the British in the first world war. Photograph: Getty Images It was the era of pulp fiction, when weekly magazines were popular, and Kipling’s letters were read avidly by audiences around the world. The letters sought to capture the essence of the Indian soldier abroad and painted his relationship with Britain in glowing, paternalistic terms. “He writes them to show how infused with loyalty and deference the Indian soldiers were to the British,” Singh said. Much is made by Kipling of the Indian soldier’s naivety, his astonishment at the achievements of Britain. A soldier who is recovering in Hampshire recounts how “when the emperor commanded me to his palace to receive a medal I saw all the wonders and entertainments of the city of London”. He talks about visiting a “palace filled with carpets, gilt furniture, marble, silks, mirrors, velvets”, and which had “hot water [that] ran in silver pipes”. “The idea is to try to construct the good Indian against the bad,” Singh said. “Britain wants to show that the majority of Indian opinion is on our side and that these Indians [plotting insurrection] aren’t representative of the whole.” Kipling’s role in spinning for the empire is unlikely to surprise his critics. George Orwell described him as a “jingo imperialist”. In recent years, as British colonialism has become an ugly subject, Kipling has fallen out of favour. But Singh suggests that Kipling is ripe for a spot of revisionism. “He’s not terribly fashionable now,” Singh said. “It’s a bit unfair as his work is far more ambiguous than it is being read now.” Indian soldiers convalescing in Brighton in 1915. Photograph: Jim Holden/Rex/Shutterstock

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https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/sep/05/tokyos-closing-ceremony-the-ideal-send-off-for-a-memorable-paralympics

Sport

2021-09-05T15:52:05.000Z

Paul MacInnes

Tokyo’s closing ceremony the ideal send-off for a memorable Paralympics

The theme of the closing ceremony of the Paralympics was “Harmonious Cacophony”. It’s the sort of phrase you might find on a T-shirt in Tokyo’s bustling Harajuku district, one that is just about in English but doesn’t quite feel like it. In the bowl of Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium on Sunday night, it all made sense. Bright discordant lights, loud technicolour music (including some from a man with a prosthetic synthesiser arm), they all came together in a manner that was stirring. There was also a gaudy papier-mache city being assembled at the same time; although, to be fair, that bit was confusing throughout. Beyond making for a modern, digital spectacle, the theme had a broader point. It was one the Paralympic Games have been trying to make from the start: that there are great differences in this world and they are not weaknesses but strengths, which, by coming together, can help to bring about a better future. Walking round Tokyo in the stifling heat or continual rain that has served as the backdrop to these Games, or through the empty infrastructure for an event that never came to pass, a better future has been less visible than an oppressive present. At the 21 venues, and on the world’s TV screens, however, there has been a different sense, a much more hopeful one. With a nod to the organising committee and the legions of volunteers who were just as friendly, committed and occasionally officious as they were in the Olympics, any sense of optimism was the work of the athletes. Competitors from 163 nations took part in these Games, every single one overcoming great challenges to make it to Tokyo. When they arrived they expressed gratitude but also a determination to compete; they wanted to make the most of the small window that people with disabilities are afforded by the attention of the world. ParalympicsGB’s wheelchair rugby team celebrate winning the gold medal. Photograph: imagecomms/ParalympicsGB/PA The sport over the past two weeks in Japan has been memorable on its own terms. The gold medal performance of the British wheelchair rugby team was a case in point. A final against the howling vikings of the United States, it was a match decided not just by the sport’s infamous brute force but graceful movement and, above all, cunning strategy. It was made for primetime. One of 124 medals in an undoubtedly triumphant games for ParalympicsGB, who finished second in the medal table, British success was just one story of excellence among many. There was the power of the visually impaired Cuban sprinter Omara Durand who claimed three more gold medals in the T12 sprints and ran 100m in 11.49 seconds, and the grace of the French wheelchair tennis player Stéphane Houdet, who retained his men’s doubles title in a relentless sport at the age of 50. Then contemplate the final of the Boccia BC3 class, in which Grigorios Polychronidis and Adam Peska played out a see-saw match of precision and power with only plastic mouth pointers to implement their will. There was sporting brilliance at every turn. David Smith, Britain’s own “Ronnie O’Sullivan of Boccia” as he anointed himself after retaining his title last week, carried out the union jack on to the field at the closing ceremony. He believes that these games could prove a “seminal moment” in para-sport. “Everything has come together into this beautiful games”, he said on Sunday, “which has definitely changed perspective on para-sport back home and gives me a lot of hope for the future.” Estimates suggest 1 million people watched the Channel 4 stream of Smith’s BC1 class final, and the commitment to the Paralympics shown by the broadcaster was evident even in Japan. That interest is spreading, and organisers claimed the Paralympics attained unprecedented TV reach this year, including in 49 sub-Saharan countries. The possibility of a hopeful future for people in all their infinite varieties is not one that can be manifested by just two weeks of action every four (or five) years. That is a point constantly repeated by the athletes, when talking about their sports (when can you watch Jonnie Peacock or Sarah Storey outside these Games?) or about the advance of disability rights. The International Paralympic Committee used Tokyo to launch the We the 15 campaign, which asks that “persons with disabilities must be seen, heard, active and included” and that such a change should begin “When the floodlights went out. And the cameras stopped rolling”. How We the 15 hopes to affect any change remains unclear, but what is sure is the need for increased rights and recognition for people with disabilities is an issue the Paralympic movement has at the forefront of its mind, athletes more than anyone else, and it is not about to go away. Sign up to The Recap, our weekly email of editors’ picks. After a video projecting the We the 15 message, featuring the Duke of Sussex, and a speech from the head of the IPC, Andrew Parsons, repeating it, it was time for the Tokyo games to close and the torch to pass to Paris. There was a chic, not at all cacophonous dance routine, and a quick cut to the French capital. There a crowd without masks, a stark contrast to Tokyo, were coaxed into a frenzy by the artist Pone, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and DJ-ed using eye-tracking software. The final image of the night, unsurprisingly was of the Eiffel Tower. But when the camera pulled back, and with the assistance of CGI, one of its four legs had been replaced by a blade.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2019/jul/04/bullish-frank-lampard-lifts-chelsea-mood-no-favours

Football

2019-07-04T21:59:00.000Z

Dominic Fifield

Bullish Frank Lampard lifts Chelsea mood but knows he will get no favours | Dominic Fifield

The buzzword was realism, a theme maintained whether Frank Lampard was raising the new Chelsea shirt to the pop of the flashbulbs in a cluttered suite high in Stamford Bridge’s west stand, or had retired to the directors’ lounge for a marginally more intimate assessment of what awaits as the club’s head coach. And yet, even with the star player sold and a transfer ban blocking significant incoming business, it rapidly became clear the new man is not one to flee from expectation. Frank Lampard insists playing honours count for nothing as Chelsea manager Read more A sense of positivity permeated Lampard’s first public outing in the job. Yes, his arrival could be considered surprising given his coaching experience does not extend beyond a season finishing sixth in the Championship with Derby. Sure, the particular circumstances he inherits will make chasing down Manchester City – 26 points away last season – and Liverpool feel distinctly daunting. Yet a head coach who witnessed Roman Abramovich dismiss seven managers over the 11 years he played under his ownership is not going to be kidded into thinking too much has changed. He will just trust in his ability to justify the faith placed in him. “The reality is the owner has won 16 trophies in 16 years, enjoyed huge success, and runs it as he sees best, and his desire has always been the best for the club,” said Lampard, 41. “He has chosen me on that premise. I played here for many years and know there are standards. There is a baseline of being competitive. That expectation, quite rightly, will remain. Quick Guide How many days for Chelsea's managers? Show “We know about the transfer ban. We know City and Liverpool pulled away slightly last year, but we should never stop trying to be up there. As Chelsea, we should be. Things have slightly aligned for all this to happen: the previous manager [Maurizio Sarri] leaving, the situation at the club ... but I was ambitious as a player and I wanted to manage at the top. Maybe this is a bold move but I am willing to take that risk. I have belief in myself.” There may be awkward times to endure when the true depth of a squad Lampard insists remains strong is exposed, but this club’s soul already feels restored. That was the immediate Lampard effect. He may have been rather guarded in some of his responses, wary of offering dangerous soundbites and warding off potential headlines, but it was still so refreshing, and not just because the man he had replaced used to smoke 60 a day. The fanbase is instantly appeased and enthused. Frank Lampard is back at familiar surroundings in west London. Photograph: Darren Walsh/Chelsea FC via Getty Images Ander Herrera signs five-year deal with PSG after leaving Manchester United Read more Those in the front row of the audience – the director, Marina Granovskaia, the chairman, Bruce Buck, and the recently appointed technical and performance adviser, Petr Cech – could bask in the slick positivity that has greeted their appointment. Here, after all, was a man who had not felt the need to call any of those managers under whom he had learned so much as a player before deciding whether this was a sensible move. He had apparently not even spoken first‑hand to Abramovich, although that call will come. “I have spoken with Marina in depth because it is about how I work with the club and how they want me to work with them,” he said. “I will be speaking with the owner in pre-season, but one of the benefits of me being here is I don’t need huge conversations with him. The conversations I had with Marina were exactly as I expected: we want to be competitive; yes, we want to bring young players through, but that is something I should look to do anyway; and we want to win. The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email. “I felt that from the minute the owner came in years and years ago. I remember him landing at Harlington [the training ground at the time], coming and speaking to us and, for me, the landscape of the club changed in an instant because of his desire for excellence, whether in training facilities or on the pitch. Those levels have not dropped since. When I do speak to the owner I expect him to demand the same things I demand of myself and the team.” Worn-down West Ham to sell disruptive Marko Arnautovic for €25m to China Read more His team will be “aggressive with plenty of energy, bravery on the ball, moving it quickly”, emulating the standard City and Liverpool have set. There will be opportunities for academy graduates to prove they merit greater involvement. “But they have to show they are good enough because we can’t lower our levels too much. This is Chelsea, so I’m not going to be doing young boys favours and put them in the team. They need to prove themselves. “We talk about losing Eden Hazard, one of the greatest players in the world, but it is still a hugely talented team. We haven’t been decimated, we still have a very strong squad. “My job is now to push on and be successful. The Chelsea job should never be a home run. It should have people lining up down the King’s Road, [candidates] of great stature. I will be judged on what I do. It’s up to me to show they made the right decision.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/25/jeremy-corbyn-populist-democracy-mps

Opinion

2016-07-25T09:59:47.000Z

Julian Baggini

Jeremy Corbyn is a great populist. But that’s no good for our democracy | Julian Baggini

Think of populism and you’ll likely think of the nasty rightwing nationalism of Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders or Nigel Farage. But if Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected as Labour leader, it will be a mild-mannered socialist who will have led the most successful populist campaign in Britain in decades. Populism is not defined by right and left, nor even by the virtue of its goals: think Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Populism is rather a way of doing politics that has three key features. First, it has a disdain for elites and experts of all kinds, especially political ones. Second, it supposes that the purpose of politics is simply to put into action the will of the people, who are seen as homogenous and united in their goals. Third, it proposes straightforward, simple solutions to what are in fact complex problems. The campaign to re-elect Corbyn is populist to its core. It is based on the absoluteness of the “democratic mandate” given by Labour members and supporters, which renders null and void any dissent from Labour’s “elites” in Westminster or Brussels. It means that Corbyn does not even need the support of the MPs he is supposed to be leading in the House of Commons. To do anything other than “get behind the leader” is to thwart the will of Labour’s people. Corbyn warmly talks of “reaching out”, but those who take his hand must be willing to be led by it. This is populism in its purest form, with the people as the final and best judges. Its simplistic purity obscures the complex messiness of real political problems, the greatest of which is that an effective opposition leader needs to command the support of the party in parliament. Corbyn’s supporters do not entertain the possibility that those who dedicate their lives to serving their party and the country might have good reason to believe their man is not up to the job. Rejection of Corbyn is taken as proof that they are traitors, to be replaced by people who will do what their electorate tells them without daring to question its judgment. The party members and supporters are always right, so any of its MPs who disagree must be wrong. 'Representative democracy balances giving the electorate a direct say and elected politicians the power to run things' Like all populists, Corbyn’s supporters believe they are simply upholding pure democracy, based on one person, one vote. This way of understanding democracy reduces it to a simple matter of the people speaking and their leaders acting accordingly. This tears up a basic principle of democracy, that MPs are not delegates who follow instructions blindly, but autonomous representatives with the responsibility of making up their own minds. Our tradition of representative democracy rests on a rejection of all three pillars of populism. It accepts that a well-run society needs specialists and full-time politicians whose judgments often carry more weight than those of voters who put them into power. It accepts that the “will of the people” is diverse and contradictory, and that the job of politics is to balance competing demands, not simply to obey them. It follows that there are few, if any, easy solutions and that anyone who promises them is a charlatan. Making the case for representative democracy therefore means telling the electorate it doesn’t always know best, a truism that populism has turned into an elitist heresy. Not even the EU referendum was as populist as Corbyn’s new politics. Representative democracy balances giving the electorate a direct say and elected politicians the power to run things. It has always allowed for the possibility of major constitutional issues on which the electorate should be entirely sovereign. The leave campaign certainly capitalised on what is often termed “populist sentiment”, meaning disillusionment with elites. The nadir of this was Michael Gove’s comment that “people in this country have had enough of experts”. But we need to distinguish between the drivers of populism and populism itself. Some disdain for mainstream politics is justified, as is the demand for greater accountability from those who govern us. The task of democratic parties is to listen to these grievances and try to come up with credible solutions. The task of populism is to offer the pseudo-solution that if only politicians did exactly what the people demanded, all would be well. Corbynite populism is destroying the Labour party by pitting the membership against the PLP and making effective opposition, let alone government, impossible. This is no way to defeat Corbyn’s “five ills” – inequality, neglect, prejudice, insecurity and discrimination. That Labour could be transformed from a democratic movement into a populist one is deeply troubling. If Corbyn wins, previous populist successes would pale in comparison. Ukip’s rise was bad enough, but it was clearly a populist insurgency against the mainstream. Corbyn’s re-election would mean populism had conquered one of the bastions of British representative democracy.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jun/01/inside-the-nba-tnt-best-show-tribute

Sport

2022-06-01T18:17:06.000Z

Andrew Lawrence

Inside the NBA: the sports gabfest that became late-night TV’s best show

For supporters of the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics, this is a joyous time indeed; their teams are in the NBA finals. But for me, it’s bittersweet because, well, the only TV show in the game worth watching has ‘Gone Fishin’’. I’m referring of course to TNT’s Inside the NBA program and its uproarious tradition of sending off ousted playoff contenders with one last team photo – with the heads of their marquee players and celebrity fans photoshopped onto the bodies of random anglers. It’s just one in a slew of running gags that will have viewers missing Inside that much more as NBA coverage moves to ESPN for the finals. Jimmy Butler’s late Game 7 miss cost the Heat. But he earned chance to fail Read more Don’t get me wrong. ESPN is a fine network, and its NBA Countdown studio show is a more than credible source for insights on the game. But that’s just the thing. With Stephen A Smith et al, basketball isn’t basketball. It’s The Game of Basketball. It’s statistics as theatre and legacy quests; it’s sport as a very grave subject. I don’t watch sports for seriousness. Mostly, I watch for fun. And Inside never ever fails to deliver that score and then some. The chemistry on their set fizzes. It starts with longtime anchor Ernie Johnson, the son of a major league pitcher and a consummate setup man in his own right. Kenny Smith, the sly New York City point guard, stirs the pot. Charles Barkley, the round mound who be loud, drops the bombs. And Shaquille O’Neal plays the mischief, a role that’s hardly beneath his 7ft frame. As star lineups go, only the Warriors come close in entertainment value the Inside guys have provided over the past decade. But then again Inside isn’t just another talking head exhibition. It’s the best damn show on late night. It’s basketball as it was meant to be watched: with four guys who have been there, seen that and want Underdog (aka senior researcher Joe Underhill) to “put that on a T-shirt.” What’s more, the real genius of Smith, Barkley and O’Neal is how quickly they’ll drop the authoritative tone for the joke and how far they’ll take it, even if a player at the butt of the joke doesn’t find it funny. After Brooklyn were swept from the playoffs in the first round, Barkley took aim at Nets star Kevin Durant. “I don’t want to bad-mouth the dude,” he started. “You guys always talk about that championship stuff. I try to tell y’all. All these bus riders, they don’t mean nothing to me. If you ain’t drivin’ the bus, don’t walk around talking about you a champion.” Translation: Durant, who won his only two titles with Steph Curry’s Warriors, should bear the brunt of responsibility for the Nets’ disappointing season because he’s the man. Unsurprisingly, Durant not only didn’t appreciate the analogy; he posted pictures of the famously ringless Barkley surrounded by Hall of Fame teammates. Over one picture of Barkley flanked by erstwhile Sixers teammates Julius Erving, Moses Malone, Andrew Toney and Maurice Cheeks, Durant wrote: “Where would Chuck be without the big homies.” No one faulted Durant for his post; throwing shade is par for the course for the NBA’s most thin-skinned superstar. His mistake was giving Inside’s production team too much lead time to photoshop Durant and co into a scene from the Office. (Instead of the Dunder Mifflin crew turning a bus into a mobile workspace, it was the Nets speeding off to a Cancun vacation.) The kicker: after rolling that footage, Johnson led the crew out of the studio to a waiting bus of their own. Barkley took the wheel, and the quartet rode off, through the security gate, into the night. At home viewers, live crowds – they can all get the business. The show is better than any other at sustaining conversation with its audience, taking the piss all the while. It’s no wonder that last year the whole production was inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame. It’s the only show that could make a whole documentary about itself without coming off the least bit self-aggrandizing. When Inside moved to Saturday Night Live’s iconic Studio 8H ahead of Barkley’s 2018 hosting gig, the show looked right at home. Suffice to say, you’re not gonna catch anything as clever as Inside on ESPN. Much of the reason for that comes down to Inside executive producer Tim Kiely, a comedy nerd who wanted to build a sports studio show that more closely resembled SNL than the NFL on CBS. Once the league gave him the green light to let Barkley and crew outright say that games were bad, nothing was out of bounds. And so out went the hackneyed debates around LeBron’s historical import and the Knicks’ future fortunes. In came Smith’s knock-kneed sprints to the video board, Shaq’s blooper reel and the game show that never fails to stump Barkley: Who He Play For? Sometimes, when I’m feeling down, I might fire up the Inside clip of Shaq breaking down fuel efficiency or Barkley breaking up a perfectly good predictions segment with a wild tangent about Jussie Smollet’s 2019 hate crime hoax. “America,”he started, as Inside stage dissolved into titters, “lemme just tell you something: do not commit crimes with checks.” Smith: “Because you writing a check that, what?” Barkley: “Your behind can’t cash.” But Inside will get serious, too. After the middle school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the show opened with crew riffing on Steve Kerr’s emotional reaction to the tragedy. “It’s been a rough couple weeks, man,” Barkley said, alluding to the preceding mass shooting in Buffalo. “What’s heartbreaking to me is … these last two attacks were carried out by young kids. What is happening in your life – at 17, 18 years old – that makes you so angry that makes you react like this?” I’m sure the finals will be great and that ESPN will do a perfectly fine job of broadcasting the NBA’s denouement. It’s just that when the Inside guys aren’t driving the bus anymore, basketball becomes a different sport – less funny, less soulful, less fun simply for the sake of it.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/aug/17/what-does-the-uk-governments-u-turn-on-exam-results-mean

Education

2020-08-17T17:42:51.000Z

Kevin Rawlinson

What do the U-turns on exam results mean for the UK's students?

Major policy U-turns mean that pupils throughout the UK will now have their grades awarded based on the recommendations of their teachers. The moves come after an outpouring of anger over the decision to use an algorithm to determine grades that led to almost 40% of predicted results being downgraded. How will the new grades be calculated? As part of the original process, teachers in England were asked to put together a set of predicted grades that were fed into the Ofqual system to produce the much-maligned algorithmic results sent out last week. The Department for Education said they took into account the “full range of available evidence when they graded students – including non-exam assessment; the results of any homework assignments or mock exams; and any other existing records of student performance over the course of study”. Officials in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland used similar systems. It was the downgrading of so many of those “centre-assessed grades” by a system that took more account of a school’s past results that caused the furore. Ministers have now said they will revert to using them. When will I get them? Officials have said exam boards will issue new grades to pupils in England as soon as possible, though they were unable to put a firm date on it. For AS and A-level students, Ofqual said students should speak to their school, college or exam board to find out their grade. The body said updated data will be sent to Ucas before the end of the week. For GCSE students in England, schools can tell pupils their centre-assessed grades on Thursday but official notification will be delayed until next week to allow for rare cases where the Ofqual moderated grades were higher than the teachers’ grades. In Northern Ireland, the devolved education minister, Peter Weir, said the council for the curriculum, examinations and assessment is working to release the revised results as quickly as possible. The administration in Wales has not yet given timeframes. In Scotland, schools were told new grades will be provided by 21 August. They will then tell pupils and fresh exam certificates will be issued soon afterwards. What if my first choice university has already rejected me? Pupils in England will be asked to go back to the university they applied to and discuss the issue with them – and the DfE has said it expects the institutions to be flexible in their approaches. A spokesman confirmed the recently announced plan to cap the number of students English universities can recruit is to be removed to allow extra capacity to deal with the changes. The government is also dropping a controversial policy limiting the number of English students who can go to institutions in other UK nations. Universities UK, the representative body for universities, said the decision to revert will “cause challenges at this late stage in the admissions process – capacity, staffing, placements and facilities – particularly with the social distance measures in place”. Its chief executive, Alistair Jarvis, said: “The government will need to step up and support universities through the challenges created by this late policy change.” What happens if the grade I was given last week was better? Ofqual announced on Monday that students in England would be able to keep whichever grade is higher, meaning some pupils will stick with their original one. That is the same in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Will the systems differ around the UK? In a word, no. After the Scottish government’s own U-turn last week, Wales, Northern Ireland and England followed on Monday. Each has said centre-assessed grades will now be used for post-16 examinations cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2012/oct/01/the-atlantic-quartz

Media

2012-10-01T09:11:00.000Z

Frédéric Filloux

The Atlantic's Quartz: interesting … but will it make a profit?

Two years ago, Atlantic Media's president Justin Smith was interviewed by the New York Times. The piece focused on the digital strategy he successfully executed:"We imagined ourselves as a Silicon Valley venture-backed startup whose mission was to attack and disrupt The Atlantic. In essence, we brainstormed the question: What would we do if the goal was to aggressively cannibalise ourselves?"In most media companies, that kind of statement would have launched a volley of rotten tomatoes. Atlantic's disruptive strategy gave birth to a new offspring: Quartz (URL: qz.com), launched a couple of weeks ago. Quartz is a fairly light operation based in New York and headed by Kevin Delaney, a former managing editor at WSJ.com. Its staff of 25 was pulled together from great brands in business journalism: Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist and the New York Times. According to the site's official introduction, this is a team with a record of reporting in 119 countries and speaking 19 languages – not exactly your regular gang of digital serfs or unpaid contributors that most digital pure players are built on. This professional maturity, along with the backing of the Atlantic Media Company, a 155 years-old organisation, might explain the set of rather radical options that makes Quartz so interesting. Here are a few: Priority on mobile use. Quartz is the first of its kind to deliberately reverse the old hierarchy: first, traditional web (for PC), and mobile interfaces, second. This is becoming a big digital publishing debate as many of us strongly believe we should go for mobile first and design our services accordingly (I fall in that category). The Quartz founders cited market research showing their main target – people on the road interested in the global economy – uses 4.21 mobiles devices on average (I love those decimals...): one laptop, one iPad, and two (!) BlackBerrys. (Based on multiple observations, I'd rather say, one BB and one iPhone.) No native mobile app. Similarly, Quartz went for an open HTML5 design instead of apps. We went through this before in the Monday Note. Apps are mandatory for CPU intensive features such as heavy graphics, 3D rendering and games. For news, HTML5 – as messy as it is – does the job just fine. In addition, Quartz relies on "responsive design", one that allows a website to dynamically morph in response to the specific connected device (captures are not to scale): Here is how it looks on a desktop screen: ... on an iPad in landscape mode: ...on an iPad in portrait mode: on a small tablet: ..on an iPhone: and on a small phone: (I used Matt Kerlsey Responsive Design Test Site to capture Quartz renderings, it's an excellent tool to see how your site will look like on various devices.) A river-like visual structure. Quartz is an endless flow of stories that automatically load one below the other as you scroll down. The layout is therefore pretty straightforward: no page-jumps, no complicated navigational tools, just a lateral column with the latest headlines and the main windows where articles concatenate. Again, the priority given to mobile use dictates design purity. A lightweight technical setup. Quartz does not rely on a complex content management system for its production but on WordPress. In doing so, it shows the level of sophistication reached by what started as a simple blog platform. Undoubtedly, the Quartz design team invested significant resources in finding the best WP developers, and the result speaks for itself (despite a few bugs, sure to be short-lived...). Editorial choices. Instead of the traditional news "beats" (national, foreign, economy, science...), Quartz went boldly for what it calls "obsessions". This triggered a heated debate among media pundits: among others, read CW Anderson's piece What happens when news organisations move from "beats" to "obsessions"? on the Nieman Journalism Lab. Admittedly, the notion of "beats" sounds a bit old-fashioned. Those who have managed newsrooms know beats encourages fiefdoms, fence-building and bureaucracy... Editors love them because they're much simpler to manage on a day-to-day basis; editorial meetings can therefore be conducted on the basis of a rigid organisational chart; it's much easier to deal with a beat reporter or his/her desk chief than with some fuzzy "obsession" leader. At Quartz, current "obsessions" appear in a discreet toolbar. They includes China Slowdown, The Next Crisis, Modern States, Digital, Money, Consumer Class, Startups, etc. (More in this statement.) To me, this "obsessive" way of approaching news is way more modern than the traditional "beat" mode. First, it conveys the notion of adjustability to news cycles as "obsessions" can – should – vary. Second, it breeds creativity and transversal treatments among writers (most business publications are quite boring precisely due to their "silo culture".) Third, digital journalism is intrinsically prone to "obsession", ie strong choices, angles, decisions. For sure, facts are sacred, but they are everywhere: when reporting about the last alarming report from the World Bank, there is no need to repeat what lies just one click away – just sum up the main facts, and link back to the original source! Still, this shouldn't preclude balanced treatment, fairness and everything in the basic ethics formulary. (Having said that, let's be realistic: managing a news flow through "obsessions" is fine for an editorial staff of 20, certainly not so for hundreds of writers.) Quartz's business side. Quartz is a free publication. No paywall, no subscription, nothing. Very few ads either. Again, it opted for a decisive model by getting rid of the dumb banner. And it's a good thing: traditional display advertising kills designs, crappy targeting practices irritate readers and bring less and less money. (Most news sites are now down to single digital digits in CPM [cost per thousand page views], and it will get worse as ad exchanges keep gaining power, buying remnant inventories by the bulk and reselling those for nothing.) Instead, Quartz started with four sponsors: Chevron, Boeing, Credit Suisse and Cadillac, all showing quality brand content. It's obviously too early to assess this strategy. But Quartz business people opted for being extremely selective in their choice of sponsors (one car-maker, one bank, etc), with rates negotiated accordingly. Two, brands are displayed prominently with embedded content instead of the usual format. Quartz is obviously shooting for very high CPMs. At the very least, it is right to try. I recently meet a European newspaper that extracts €60 to €100 CPMs by tailoring ads and making special ad placements for a small list of advertisers. Again: such strategy is fine for a relatively small operation: as it is now, Quartz should not burn more than $3m to $4m a year. Betting on high CPMs is way more difficult for large websites – but niches can be extremely profitable. (For more on Quartz economics, read Ken Doctor's piece also on Nieman.) To sum up, three elements will be key to Quartz's success. 1. Quickly build a large audience. Selected advertisers are not philanthropists; they want eyeballs, too. Because of its editorial choices, Quartz will never attract HuffPo-like audiences. To put things in perspective, the Economist gets about 7 million unique browsers a month (much less unique visitors) and has 632,000 readers on its app. 2. Quartz bets on foreign audiences (already 60% of the total). Fine. But doing so is extremely challenging. Take the Guardian: 60 million unique visitors a month – one third in the UK, another in the US, and the rest abroad – a formidable journalistic firepower, and a mere £40m in revenue (versus $160m in advertising alone for NYTimes.com). 3. Practically, it means Quartz will have to deploy the most advanced techniques to qualify its audience: it will be doomed if it is unable to tell its advertisers it can identify a cluster of readers traveling to Dubai more than twice a year, or another high income group living in London and primarily interested in luxury goods and services (see a previous Monday Note on extracting readers' value through Big Data). 4. In the end, Quartz is likely to face a growth question: staying in a niche or broadening its reach (and its content, and increasing its staff) to satisfy the ad market. Once its audience levels off, it might have no other choice than finding a way to make its readers pay. It should not be a problem as it focuses on a rather solvent segment. –[email protected]

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jul/01/zahid-mubarek-murder-could-happend-again-chief-inspector-of-prisons

Society

2014-06-30T23:01:00.000Z

Alan Travis

Zahid Mubarek murder could happen again, warns chief inspector of prisons

There is a serious danger that a murder like that of a young British Asian man, Zahid Mubarek, by his violent racist cellmate 14 years ago could happen again, the chief inspector of prisons has warned. Nick Hardwick says that despite positive changes in prisons since the murder, the drive for reform has been weakened or forgotten. Mubarek, 19, was murdered in Feltham young offenders' institution in March 2000 by Robert Stewart, a known violent racist with mental health problems who had bragged about committing the first murder of the millennium. A judicial inquiry was only held into Mubarek's death after the House of Lords ordered it following a four-year campaign by his family. The inquiry, chaired by Mr Justice Keith, identified 186 failings in the prison system, describing it as "institutionally racist". The murder has been described as the prison service's "Stephen Lawrence moment". Hardwick's assessment, published on Tuesday, says Mubarek's death was preventable and there are now better systems in place to make it less likely that a violent racist could be placed in a cell with a vulnerable prisoner. A list of violent racists serving sentences in England and Wales is believed to have 75 names on it. "However, it could happen again," said Hardwick. "Risk assessment procedures are often delayed or poorly completed and information sharing is still a considerable weakness across the prison estate. Too many prisoners still share cells designed for one regardless of sentence status, age or other issues of compatibility. Prisoners from black and ethnic minority groups consistently report a worse experience than white prisoners." Hardwick added that while the national offender management service had said it fully implemented most of the inquiry's recommendations, they were no longer being given enough priority when decisions were made about to use the prison service's diminished resources. Mubarek's uncle Imitiaz Amin said the new report showed the authorities had failed to make a long-term impact. He added that he hoped the report provided a catalyst for further action given that violence and deaths remained alarmingly high in prisons in England and Wales. The latest figures show that more than 20,000 prisoners are "doubled up". While inmate-on-inmate assaults have fallen for young offenders by 2,500 incidents a year, they are up by 1,500 a year for adult male prisoners. Four prisoners were murdered inside jails in England and Wales last year but this was unusual. There were 26 murders in the decade before the introduction of a cell-sharing risk assessment in 2000, since when there has been 20 homicides in 13 years. Amin, who is also chief executive of the Zahid Mubarek Trust, which works inside 10 prisons across London, said: "Discrimination and equality work is no longer on the agenda. It is deeply worrying that where the implementation has succeeded in satisfying tick boxes, the authorities have failed to achieve the long-term impact to address the areas of concern described by the Zahid Mubarek inquiry. We hope this report provides the catalyst for further action."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2011/jan/03/premier-league-chalkboard-analysis

Global

2011-01-03T10:42:29.000Z

Michael Cox

Premier League chalkboard analysis | Michael Cox

Until recently Samir Nasri was unconvinced that he was a wide player – he prefers playing centrally but has been forced into positions on the flank due to the presence of Cesc Fábregas. Nasri has spent much time on the right so far this season, but Arsène Wenger's preference for Theo Walcott over Andrey Arshavin in the games against Chelsea and Birmingham pushed Nasri to the left. Still, the Frenchman barely stays on the flank – the heatmap of his passes shows that he frequently comes inside to the centre of the pitch, and attempts a lot of his passes from the edge of the penalty box, an area he also scored from against City. Match of the Day delved into the world of analysis with diagrams this week, with a chart showing how Fernando Torres touched the ball twice as many times in the 2-1 win over Bolton as he did in the 1-0 defeat to Wolves. It's worth noting, however, that Torres frequently gave the ball away after these touches – he completed only 17 of 33 attempted passes. Manchester United's 2-1 win over West Brom showed the different attitudes of their centre-backs when in possession – Rio Ferdinand attempted 60 passes, almost double the number of his partner Nemanja Vidic, who attempted just 34. Furthermore, it's notable that Vidic's passes are frequently square balls across the back to Ferdinand, who tries more ambitious balls into the opposition half although these were mostly unsuccessful. Carlos Tevez scored 26 Premier League goals in 2010, more than any other player. He failed to get this year off to a good start, however – including his miss from the penalty spot, he had nine attempts on goal in the game against Blackpool, failing to get on the scoresheet. That's a joint record number of shots without scoring in a game this season, along with Didier Drogba against Birmingham and Clint Dempsey versus Sunderland. Michael Cox is the editor of zonalmarking.net

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/feb/12/tara-june-winch-happiness-is-in-the-moment-just-before-the-thought-to-take-a-photograph

Culture

2023-02-11T19:00:04.000Z

Tara June Winch

Tara June Winch: ‘Happiness is in the moment just before the thought to take a photograph’

I’ve never struggled with a question more. Am I happy now, as opposed to before? And if before I was happy by some measure, why would it have changed? How can I think of happiness now, when everything is terrible? Even if I know that this moment doesn’t differ from any other moment in history. That is to say that these new days are full of old sorrows, and long after I am dead and gone, the same will be true. But just because all this has happened to generations before and will beyond us, it doesn’t feel any less painful in its proximity. It’s a simple question, something you’d ask on a first date perhaps. Yet I don’t think I’ve asked that question of myself before. I’d asked what I need to do in the moment, to feel better, to give back, to be productive, but never what would make me happy in the grand arc. I argue that I must have been looking for it all this time, yet when I approach the question head on, when I vow to improve at life, health, work and in turn happiness – it always feels like a brand-new prospect – a thing I hadn’t considered before. Melissa Lucashenko: ‘Hiding from an assassin concentrates the mind wonderfully’ Read more When I’ve tried to grasp the concept of my happiness, it falls from the hand like sand, but the sun-hardened, unsealed sugar type of sand, an almost-form rendered formless. It’s like I can see the thing, consistent happiness, but I lose the will to hold it gently enough. I get in its way. I think I’m constantly overthinking the basest of emotions and perhaps the question will always be complicated unless its answer is the most salient, most unembellished, gut response. On my morning dog walk the other day I was happy. It’s roughly an hour, past the end of the street into the fields and pockets of forests and back. There’s our favourite place – something about the way the paddock undulates that makes pools to splash at a certain time of year. Then the meadow is a thriving ecosystem of spiders stitching, and robins bathing – those magical birds that can see magnetic fields. Rumi the shepherd was running in the long grasses and crashing face first, a mouthful of a stick, into the paddock’s soft landing. Me, I was looking into the undergrowth and found two cèpes that I carried home in the palm of my hand. I collected warm eggs from the straw bed of Veronica and the Heathers, kale stems from the remaining garden, and made a breakfast for two. I remember feeling genuinely happy that the food was gifted from its natural state. Connecting with the seasons makes me happy. When I can know and name the plants, when I can forage for food – buckets of blackberries in summer, crouching in the spring fields of sorrel, filling endless bags, the mounds of chestnuts collecting in the fall, and the slow watchful hunt for mushrooms in winter. When I swim and allow the days to slow down in summer and not push against the heat, when I’m in a part of the forest so deep and still that animals appear, when I’m out there as the sun is setting, and feel its warmth on my face. When I sleep early in winter. When I live seasonally, I can find joy in not having everything at once. Just as I can’t have strawberries in the off-season, I can’t will something that isn’t ready – like a work in progress. When I’m connecting like this to nature’s pace, I can better reckon with the fact that things come and go and take time. When I’m in tune with the season I feel relieved by the truth that our lives can be abruptly, painfully short – and it connects me to my family, to those whose lives were cut short, to the process that gave my grandparents joy – fishing and growing food, to what gave my ancestors purpose. It connects me all the way back. What makes me happy now is what I think will always make me feel – this emotion and its depth. That I can feel something so eviscerating is what happiness is There are other things that make me happy – if I close my eyes and imagine the scene of happiness, so much seems as if it is the undocumented type – dancing with the few people I love more than breath and wishing that the song never ends, laughing over the phone across oceans, those enormous Sunday sleep-ins on fresh sheets, waking to bird and road traffic instead of alarms, wading out into the ocean with my husband, our backs bent and our hands padding the surface of the water, coaxing our weary dog to swim, going to the gym with my teenager at 5am – only the stars as witness and apostle. There in my mind’s eye are those joys, the moment just before the thought to take a photograph, not a photograph itself. Helen Garner on happiness: ‘It’s taken me 80 years to figure out it’s not a tranquil, sunlit realm’ Read more But there lives pain too, the big cuddles and tears together when my arms are needed, and I am clinging on to the world, in those moments there is something so, not happy, but significant, about being emotionally available for my 17-year-old in a way I never imagined I could be. I think, as a parent, wellbeing is fused between us – that I’ve got to be well to give well. That I’m responsible for this young person’s life and livelihood gives me so much joy and gratitude and happiness, but also, because it is filled with fear and dread and stress that it could be taken away, makes it so tragic. I think happiness looks so close to sadness because death’s threat hangs over all of us. Because it’s just once, our life and the lives of the people we can’t live without. I think what makes my life happy is what makes my life meaningful – it’s what I’ll miss most if I were to leave tomorrow. Not yet a year after my brother’s death and still trying to battle the grief, I’d walked about Darwin with the late artist and elder Uncle Jack. I’d told him about this pain, about how I thought I was sick, or an alcoholic, that I’d never make it out of sadness. He told me that I’d already obtained all the help I’d ever need for my ailments. He said, “You’re a writer, all you have to do is your art and you’ll be well”. Back then I thought writing was the source of my illness, but as time goes, I think Uncle Jack was right, that it’s part of my cure. Not because it is easy, but because it is so painfully difficult. I think its significance is the way through to happiness. Through the writing I am drawn back to myself, I can work the existential problems on the page, reckon the past. I feel as if every day is a wrestle attempting to conquer myself, week after week, and month and year and decade after decade. It’s as if I’ve been trying to arrive at a moment in time where I’ll be peaceful, where I’ll have answered the emails, become a good friend, have met all my deadlines, when my family is perfectly healthy and content and where I’ve commanded a balance over my life. But its destination is only a mirage on the horizon that I’ve been trying to reach either by bordering on burnout, or curled under a mound of blankets, willing the world away. That’s where I think I’ve always swung – between action and arrest. In writing this all down, I’ve been thinking I know more about what grief is, what fear and isolation are, what self-sabotage and depression are than I do happiness. But those things won’t go away even if I can hold on to this formula for happiness. I’ve realised, only now, that I have to write those intrusions silent. I have to walk them tired. I have to swim them drowned. And that every day I’ll have to slay them again. So that life gets in. That’s the best part – the life bit, the surprising, silly stuff. The accidental part, the playful bit. Play, like foraging, is stored as some of the most joyous moments of my life. But they remain there in a sort of pain, a sort of sorrowful happiness – because they, both nature and my loved ones, are attached to the fleeting preciousness of these moments, and our lives together. What makes me happy now is what I think will always make me feel – this emotion and its depth. That I can feel something so eviscerating is what happiness is. That I can remember my brother’s laugh, my grandparents voices over the telephone. That I can soothe my child in anguish. That I can reach the end of the water’s depths or forest and make it back. That I can feel those things that are painful is happiness. Maybe it’s something I learned, like most things, only when I arrived there, here, now. Tara June Winch is the author of The Yield, After the Carnage and Swallow the Air

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2016/mar/23/libraries-offer-sexual-health-services-cancer-support

Healthcare Professionals Network

2016-03-23T09:44:40.000Z

SA Mathieson

Sexual health and cancer support: libraries in Coventry 'reach people that the NHS won't'

You expect to see books in a library. You might not expect free sperm keyrings – available in classic white or translucent with red sparkles – along with the offer of sexual health advice and 60-second HIV tests. That is why staff from the Coventry and Warwickshire partnership NHS trust’s integrated sexual health service set up a stand in Coventry’s Central Library every Thursday. “Being here, we get to the people who can’t get to us,” says Steven Clay, a senior sexual health nurse. People who don’t want to visit a sexual health clinic after work can visit the library on their lunch break, where staff can carry out tests and provide advice in a private meeting room. “Some people say I’ve seen the sign but I don’t want to come over because I’m embarrassed. So I text back and say come straight to meeting room three,” says Clay. Public library services are increasingly providing health information, but Coventry city council takes this further than most. It runs health-related events, with a women’s wellness and fun day held on International Women’s Day, including a Zumba class, sari-tying and a writer’s workshop. Regular ones include free over-40 health checks, a mental health drop-in service and support with breastfeeding. A sexual health stand offering 60-second HIV tests at Central Library in Coventry. Photograph: SA Mathieson The last event is held alongside Rhymetime, whose infant participants fill the library with Hokey Cokey. Sorrelle Clements, service development manager for Coventry’s libraries, says that some people with health worries rush to their GPs and demand attention, but “the people who are reticent, or don’t have English as a first language, or have so many multiple things going on in their lives that they put themselves last don’t have that option”. However, they may visit Coventry’s Central Library to use its 50 free computers, to read books in 12 foreign languages or to bring their children or grandchildren to Rhymetime. “We use these events and opportunities to push life-changing messages,” Clements says, over the sound of Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. As well as the local NHS, Coventry is working with cancer support charity Macmillan. Last summer, the city installed Macmillan information points in five of its 17 libraries, providing leaflets and CDs, and has trained 73 of its library staff in effective listening and local cancer support services. “We wanted to have that place in the community where people could access quality cancer support information, but also to provide training to library staff so they would be able to signpost on when the information needs were more complex,” says Ceri Brettle, the city’s Macmillan library services co-ordinator, whose 18-month post is funded by the charity. Brettle moved from a training role at pub chain JD Wetherspoon, where she raised money for cancer charities. As well as setting up the training, she has worked on where to place Macmillan’s information in libraries. Central Library has two large stands and smaller displays within specific sections, including the library’s health and wellbeing zone and the children’s ‘Books to help with life’s up and downs’ section. The foreign zone has leaflets from the charity on cancer symptoms in Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu as well as details of its multilingual support line, which are unmissable in the middle of the library’s books in these languages. The city asked Macmillan to provide this information in Romanian following work with the local Roma community, and this is now available online. So far, 2,300 leaflets and CDs have been taken from the information points, with 90 enquiries or conversations. Macmillan’s multilingual leaflet stand at Central Library in Coventry. Photograph: SA Mathieson Kim Diprose, information and support programme manager at Macmillan, says that about a dozen of its 200 information services are run with library services, with Glasgow city council having set up information points in all its 33 libraries and regular advice sessions in more than half. The charity is assessing their effectiveness. Most of its information services are based in NHS buildings, but Diprose says libraries offer a useful alternative for those who are ending treatment and have seen enough of hospitals. “People tell us they want to be able to access information when they need it in the place that suits them,” she says. “Some people find it daunting to go into something that’s clearly a cancer-related environment, and sometimes libraries can be less intimidating.” Coventry also uses books to boost users’ health. It provides books on prescription for mental health and dementia, and will soon add titles for children and teenagers. This is a national scheme in which 87% of public library authorities participate and through which GPs and other NHS staff can prescribe a book by printing and signing a form available locally on Coventry and Rugby clinical commissioning group’s GP Gateway intranet. Clements says few people hand in the prescription form at a library, with many preferring to find the book anonymously; the titles, which are displayed in special stands, are borrowed a lot. The library service manages the stock carefully and if a title isn’t available on the shelf, “we’ll go to the ends of the earth to get it,” she says. Libraries are about the general health and wellbeing of the population City library staff have also attended quarterly training days run by the clinical commissioning group for GPs to promote the service, but Clements says it can be difficult to make links with the NHS, particularly large organisations such as the local acute trust. “It’s like learning a new language for the library service and library professionals.” She has found that it is useful to highlight specific books that professionals can recommend as support for patients who are ending a stage of treatment, “so they see their library almost as a support mechanism”. “Librarians have the expertise to point you to quality information sources that meet your specific needs,” says Nick Poole, chief executive of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals. “They can’t offer diagnoses or offer tailored healthcare.” But there are big variations in health outcomes across the country that are not caused by the quality of local NHS services, he adds. “There’s an awful lot you can do prior to providing actual healthcare advice.” Does using libraries for healthcare advice dilute their main purpose of providing access to reading? “People are always keen to paint this as an either/or,” says Poole. “What we’re finding is it’s cumulative.” “Libraries are about the general health and wellbeing of the population,” says Peter Barnett, head of libraries, advice, health and information service at Coventry council. “We’re valuable as a neutral space that people don’t have any great hang-ups about. We can reach different people that the NHS won’t through its own locations.” Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/05/how-emma-transformed-a-dilapidated-shed-into-a-home-office-with-recycled-materials-and-biowaste

Australia news

2024-04-05T14:00:08.000Z

Rachel Signer

How Emma transformed a dilapidated shed into a home office with recycled materials and biowaste | Rachel Signer

Plant stylist Emma Sadie Thomson looked every day at the unused shed outside the entrance to the home where she lived with her partner and their two young daughters in the Adelaide Hills. Could it be a better place to work than the kitchen table, where her children and housework provided constant distractions? ‘Every household needs to work out a system for their fridge’: how to throw out less food Read more “It was just a junk heap,” says Thomson. “We never used it. I wanted somewhere to go, even if it’s taking 20 steps, rather than sitting on the kitchen table.” She decided to convert the shed into a studio. Aiming to spend no more than $10,000, Thomson opted for recycled materials for the windows, door, and wood exterior panelling. Working with plants has shaped Thomson’s worldview over the years, highlighting the need for sustainability in all aspects of life. Her instinct was to use salvaged materials when possible. The Australian construction industry generates more than 12m tonnes of waste a year. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, the construction industry generated the second largest amount of solid waste in Australia in 2020, behind manufacturing. Thomson saw secondhand goods as a way to not only reduce building waste but eliminate excess packaging. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Thomson’s mother had the good fortune of finding some cedar panels in incredibly good condition in a skip. All they needed was a quick oiling and varnish. They didn’t quite cover the entire front of the shed, so Thomson used them on the section above the support beam. For the section below, which would frame the doors, Thomson ordered some new cedar panels, creating a flattering juxtaposition of the two woods. The doors and windows were also secondhand, from a salvage shop up the road. Emma Sadie Thomson’s shed before the transformation. Photograph: Emma Sadie Thomson Inside, Thomson’s main concern was how to insulate. From a friend who was working for Joost Bakker’s Future Food System project in Melbourne, Thomson learned about Durra Panel, a wheat straw insulation, originally designed in Sweden and made in Bendigo, and decided to use it for the inside walls and ceiling. Wheat straw for Durra panels comes specifically from what is known as ‘stubble’ from food crops. This significant agricultural by-product – consider that the world produces around 680m tonnes of wheat annually – would typically be burned, contributing to carbon dioxide pollution. Durra sources its wheat straw from within 100 kilometres of its Victorian factory, which has the local effect of reducing this burning in the immediate area. Thomson was aware that straw was a waste material across the world.“[It] is a great building solution, which provides alternative incomes for farmers.” She liked the idea of using an underappreciated natural material that also has fire resistant properties. Using a process that activates the straw’s naturally high lignin content allows the straw to stick together in this way, earning a fire resistant level of one hour. With bushfires a seasonal threat in the Adelaide Hills, a structure’s fire resistance was always an important consideration. Inside the finished studio Photograph: Emma Sadie Thomson “Durra had been using [the panels] mostly for commercial projects, but they wanted people to take it up for residential,” says Thomson. Price-wise, running about $4,000 (nearly half her budget), Durra’s product was somewhat higher than other insulations, but the shed was small enough (about 48 sq m) that the difference wasn’t so significant, and the use of biowaste increased the product’s value in an ethical sense. Thomson worked with a local builder, Ben Turner, on the installation, which involved cutting the panels to size before mounting them, although in hindsight, Thomson says, it may have been worth it to have the panels pre-measured to size to save the work. She also says that she might have added an insulation gap to prevent moisture buildup – a constant concern in the rainy Adelaide Hills district. For finishing touches, she installed a split AC/heating system, and energy-efficient, unobtrusive LED downlights recessed into the ceiling. Nontoxic Porter’s Paints on the floors and doors finished off the job. The result is a cheerful, light-filled finished studio where Thomson can now answer emails and plan projects distraction-free. Do you have any waste-saving tips for renovations? Share them in the comments below

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/27/bob-menendez-pleads-not-guilty-bribery

US news

2023-09-27T19:10:49.000Z

Léonie Chao-Fong

Chuck Schumer says he is ‘disturbed’ by Bob Menendez bribery charges

The Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said on Wednesday he was “disturbed” by the fraud indictment against his fellow Democratic Senator, Bob Menendez, and that the New Jersey lawmaker has fallen “way short” of senatorial standards. Menendez pleaded not guilty earlier in the day to charges of taking bribes from three New Jersey businessmen, as calls for his resignation from his fellow Democrats escalated. He was released on a $100,000 bond and then left federal court in New York without speaking to reporters. US urged to withhold military aid to Egypt in wake of Bob Menendez charges Read more Federal prosecutors in Manhattan last week accused Menendez, 69, and his wife, Nadine, of accepting gold bars and hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash in exchange for the senator using his influence to aid Egypt’s government and interfere with law enforcement investigations of the businessmen. Schumer was the most senior Democrat yet to comment on Menendez’s alleged crimes, though he stopped short of calling for the senator to resign, as almost 30 of his colleagues in the congressional upper chamber have done. However, Schumer, from New York, said: “Tomorrow, he will address the Democratic caucus and we’ll see what happens after that.” The majority leader said he was disappointed and disturbed by the indictment. “We all know that … for senators, there’s a much, much higher standard. And clearly when you read the indictment, Senator Menendez fell way, way below that standard,” Schumer said. Menendez entered the plea at a hearing before the US magistrate judge Ona Wang in Manhattan. Wang said Menendez could be released on a $100,000 personal recognizance bond. The Democratic senator will be required to surrender his personal passport, but may retain his official passport and travel abroad on official business. His wife, Nadine Menendez, 56, and businessmen Jose Uribe, 56, and Fred Daibes, 66, also pleaded not guilty. A third businessman, Wael Hana, 40, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday. Menendez, one of two senators representing New Jersey, stepped down from his role as chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, as required under his party’s rules. But on Monday he said he would stay in the Senate and fight the charges. More than half of all US Democratic senators – including Cory Booker, the junior senator from New Jersey and historically a close ally – have called on Menendez, a powerful voice on foreign policy who has at times bucked his own party, to resign since the charges were announced on Friday. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the number two Democrat in the Senate, on Wednesday joined his colleagues in urging Menendez to step down, saying on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he believed he could no longer serve. Democrats narrowly control the Senate with 51 seats, including three independents who normally vote with them, to the Republicans’ 49. The Democratic New Jersey governor, Phil Murphy, who would appoint a temporary replacement should Menendez step aside, has also called for him to resign. The indictment contained images of gold bars and cash investigators seized from Menendez’s home. Prosecutors say Hana arranged meetings between Menendez and Egyptian officials – who pressed him to sign off on military aid – and in return put his wife on the payroll of a company he controlled. Sign up to First Thing Free daily newsletter Our US morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The investigation marks the third time Menendez has been under investigation by federal prosecutors. He has never been convicted. Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic caucus, called for Menendez to resign during a news conference with House Democratic leadership. Menendez has had “an incredible track record” of service to the people of New Jersey and of having “lifted up issues that the Latino community cares about”, Aguilar said. “It doesn’t bring me or any of us joy to say that he should resign. But he should for the betterment of the Democratic party. For the people of New Jersey. It’s better that he fights this trial outside of the halls of Congress.” Almost 30 Democratic senators had called on Menendez to resign by mid-morning on Wednesday. 28 Senate Ds calling on Menendez to resign: Fetterman Brown Welch Baldwin Tester Casey Rosen Warren Heinrich Klobuchar Bennet Kelly Booker Gillibrand Markey Massan Hirono Warnock Peters Duckworth Murphy Blumenthal Stabenow Sanders Ossof Van Hollen Hickenlooper Durbin — Frank Thorp V (@frankthorp) September 27, 2023 On Wednesday, the judge ordered him not to have contact outside of the presence of lawyers with his co-defendants except for his wife. He also cannot have contact outside of the presence of lawyers with members of his Senate staff, foreign relations committee staff or political advisers who have personal knowledge about the facts of the case, though it is unclear how those restrictions would impact his work. Reuters and the Associated Press contributed reporting

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2008/feb/18/match.middlesbrough

Football

2008-02-18T00:08:50.000Z

Louise Taylor

FA Cup: Blackwell's set-piece slapstick offers light relief in the heavy going

When a game's most imaginative moment comes dressed up as a set piece, invention is invariably in short supply and it certainly seemed absent without leave here. If an appalling playing surface was hardly conducive to slick, one-touch passing, this was a day when the ball spent far too much time in the air and possession was conceded horribly cheaply. "An afternoon few will remember," reflected Gareth Southgate, Boro's manager, who appeared relieved to have secured a replay a week tomorrow. Indeed just about the only thing likely to linger in the memory was a witty Sheffield United dead-ball routine just before half time. When Julio Arca hauled Stephen Quinn down just outside the penalty area both Michael Tonge and James Beattie hovered over the ball before colliding as they moved to take the free-kick. With Boro unsure whether it was a case of carefully choreographed pretend or a humiliating mess, Quinn swiftly tapped the ball to Beattie whose fierce low shot struck a post after taking a slight deflection off Stewart Downing's ankle. "We worked that one out yesterday," said Kevin Blackwell, United's new manager who has been appointed until the end of the season in the wake of Bryan Robson's departure last Thursday. A previous incarnation at Bramall Lane saw the warmly received Blackwell, more latterly in charge of Leeds and Luton, working here as Neil Warnock's assistant and that dead-ball routine was intended to jog a few memories. "It's something I did when I was here before and I wanted to use it for the fans, I knew it would be significant to them," he explained. "Boro supporters thought we'd made a right old cock-up, though, their players weren't sure, the wall and Mark Schwarzer relaxed a bit and Beattie nearly scored." While Schwarzer was required to divert Matthew Kilgallon's volley and the unmarked Jon Stead directed a near-post header narrowly wide following Lee Martin's corner, Paddy Kenny spent the first half under-employed in United's goal. Indeed it took Southgate's side around an hour to fathom out that they could not pass their way through midfield and might as well resort to United's tactic of lofting long balls forward in the hope of turning defenders. When Boro finally did, they looked the more dangerous side with United's Chris Morgan and Kilgallon left even more ruffled than David Wheater and Emmanuel Pogatetz. "The pitch made it very difficult, you had to take a touch to get the ball under control," complained Southgate, who had four players booked and could conceivably have seen Wheater and Luke Young sent off for fouls on Billy Sharp. "But we adapted in the second half." Blackwell was amused by the visitors' early travails. "Julio Arca couldn't get the ball down, he couldn't play," he said. "We're a working man's club and you saw glimpses of that today. We ask no favours and don't give any. Boro have quality players who will hurt you if you let them but we didn't." With Arca and Fabio Rochemback ruthlessly closed down at every turn by the impressive Quinn, Downing generally kept well in check by Derek Geary and Mido worryingly overweight, United would probably have won had they possessed more incisive finishers than the disappointing Beattie, Sharp and Stead. Mido may be far too fat but he retains a sharp goalscorer's brain and the Egyptian's overhead bicycle kick brought belated action for Kenny, who did well to tip the ball over the bar. While Wheater looked uncommonly shaky at the back, he appeared far more convincing when advancing to power in a header, again adroitly tipped to safety by Kenny. Downing had spent too much of the afternoon being forced to defend Geary's overlaps but, finally escaping the right-back's clutches, he bent a lovely left-foot volley fractionally wide of the far post. Newly optimistic, Southgate sent Afonso Alves, his £12m record attacking buy, on in Mido's trundling stead but the Brazilian failed to adjust to the frenetic tempo. When Morgan's flick from a long throw struck the substitute George Boateng on the arm, United appealed for a handball penalty. If that would have been harsh on Boro, Blackwell's side deserved the subsequent slice of similar luck in which they somehow blocked Pogatetz's late goalbound header on the line following Gary O'Neil's fine cross. Blackwell has a week to maximise such fortune by dreaming up some ingenious new set plays to try out on Teesside. Man of the match Derek Geary (Sheffield United)

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jul/18/they-erased-a-bit-of-my-life-windrush-generation-on-home-office-treatment

UK news

2018-07-18T21:00:26.000Z

Amelia Gentleman

They erased a bit of my life': Windrush generation on Home Office treatment

‘We were invited here, then thrown away’ Tony Perry, 62, pictured above, arrived in Britain in 1959 from Jamaica to join his parents. He spent time serving in the navy and later became a social worker for Haringey council, helping troubled children. He has also worked as a pastor. He first realised there was a problem with his immigration status in 2001 when he applied to get a passport and was refused. He was unable to travel to see his mother, and was told by the Home Office: “We’re sorry to inform you that you are not a British citizen.” He was devastated. “I didn’t want to tell anyone what happened; I felt ashamed,” he said. “It was like a punch in the stomach. I can’t explain how it made me feel. I served on Her Majesty’s behalf. I’m a British Jamaican West Indian Caribbean, but someone came and crossed a bit of that out; they erased a bit of my life.” He was worried he would lose his job working with children if anyone found out about his immigration issues. “I fell apart for about 10 years.” When he went to the Windrush taskforce in May, they took his fingerprints and issued a biometric residency card. “There was a young guy there, he was really nice; he said you’ve always been British.” But he is upset that his status as a British citizen has been downgraded to resident. Perry has not applied for citizenship because he feels he shouldn’t have to as he has always been British. “We were invited here, and then thrown away again, like so much rubbish,” he said. “This is a very dark chapter in British politics.” ‘I didn’t see my dad before he died’ Noel Smith at home in east London. Photograph: Richard Saker/Observer Noel Smith, 57, is the oldest of seven brothers and sisters, and the only one born in Jamaica – his younger siblings were all born in London. His parents left him behind in 1963 with his grandparents in Jamaica while they travelled to the UK to work; they planned to return after five years but their plans changed. They struggled to bring him to the England, and Smith was 29 before there was money for him to visit. On that trip in 1990, he was only given a one-week visa by officials at the UK border; his mother cried when she found out she was only going to be allowed to spend one week with him. In 1993 he returned, and officials gave him just a two-week visa. In 2002 he came for a third time and was allowed to stay for six months – he was happy finally to spend time with his family. That time he was given leave to extend the visa, was allowed to work, and got a job in a hotel. He was required to sign in with the Home Office on a monthly basis, but on one occasion missed an appointment due to sickness. At the next visit he was deported without warning to Jamaica, and told he could not return to the UK for five years. His father died while he was there and he was unable to speak to him or see him before he died. He was only able finally to return in 2015 and now has citizenship. He is wondering if the Home Office will apologise for its treatment of him over three decades as he tried to spend time with his parents and six siblings in the UK, and if he is eligible for compensation. “The Home Office messed up my life. Because of them I didn’t see my dad before he died and it really shakes me; when I think about it sometimes I cry.” Stuck in limbo waiting for news Euen Herbert-Small moved to the UK in 2003. Photograph: Richard Saker/Observer Euen Herbert-Small, 38, is a second generation Windrush descendant and has spent 15 weeks in immigration detention centres over the past decade, as he has struggled to secure his immigration status. The IT engineer was born in 1980, automatically becoming a British subject citizen of the UK and Colonies by birth in Saint Kitts and Nevis, which was a British colony until September 1983. His grandfather came to the UK in 1955 from British West Indies Nevis, and is British. His parents were also born British subject citizens of the UK and Colonies. He moved to the UK in 2003 (although he believes he spent some time here as a baby with his now deceased father), and has been repeatedly detained by the Home Office, spending 12 weeks in detention in the autumn of 2011. Frustrated by the lack of clarity around his immigration status, he went to the police in December 2017 and asked to be detained; he was held for nearly 24 hours under immigration powers and then released. He was told by the immigration enforcement teams at London Bridge that he could not be detained as there was no prospect of him being removed from the UK, he said. He feels stuck in limbo: he wants to continue his career as an IT engineer, but is not allowed to work. He was unable to travel to New York for his father’s funeral in 2011. He met and spoke to Theresa May and Sajid Javid outside Westminster Abbey on Windrush day in June, and they promised to look into his case, but there has been no news. ‘I was born under the British flag’ Lydden Lewis, 68, arrived in the UK in 1961, aged 11, from Jamaica the year before it became independent. He still has his original passport he travelled with from Jamaica which describes him as a citizen of the UK and Colonies. For years he has been trying to get a passport so he can travel – but was unable to pay the £900 fee for citizenship and felt he should not have to, because he argued he was already a citizen. He visited the Windrush taskforce in their London headquarters seven weeks ago. He says he saw four different people that day, but no decision was taken. Instead his passports and other documents were retained and have not been returned to him. He was told that officials needed to investigate his spent criminal convictions before they can process his application for citizenship. He served time in prison in the early 1970s for robbery, but he points out that he served his sentence and was released from prison over 40 years ago. “I was born under the British flag. When I came here, Jamaica didn’t have its own passport or flag,” he said. He said got in trouble with the police in his 20s, when he was “young and wild”. “I didn’t hurt anybody; it wasn’t anything major – so I don’t see why almost 50 years later the Home Office are bringing it up,” he said. He is worried about the ongoing delay in processing his application, and is confused about why the Home Office has not immediately recognised that he was born a British citizen and remains one.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/mar/30/20-best-iphone-ipad-apps-and-games

Technology

2015-03-30T07:00:08.000Z

Stuart Dredge

20 best iPhone and iPad apps and games this week

Welcome to this week’s best iPhone and iPad apps roundup. As ever, prices are correct at the time of writing, and (Free + IAP) means the app is freemium and uses in-app purchases. More interested in Android? That’s a separate weekly roundup. APPS Periscope (Free) Twitter’s new live-streaming video app has a ton of hype, and it’s tempting to write it off as a novelty when you see endless broadcasts of cats, kids and parties you’re not invited to. There’s something more powerful brewing here though: watch for more interesting people who find themselves in interesting places to start using it. iPhone Layout from Instagram (Free) Another standalone app from a prominent social network: in this case Instagram. Layout is an app for creating collages of multiple photos before you upload them – not just to Instagram, but to its parent company Facebook too. It’s quick, slick and pretty flexible. iPhone Vessel (Free + IAP) Available in beta since early this year, Vessel has now launched properly. What is it? A service focusing on shortform video – from vlogging and how-tos to music videos – that promises to have the newest clips available for at least 72 hours before they go on YouTube. It costs £2.29 a month for a subscription. iPhone / iPad The Very Hungry Caterpillar & Friends – First Words (£2.49) The famous children’s-book caterpillar is back in this latest app from developer StoryToys, which is aimed at young children learning their first words. Specifically, 80 words, presented over a digital pop-up book. iPhone / iPad The Edit (Free) More and more people are shopping on their smartphones in 2015, even in categories – clothing – that were once thought impossible for e-commerce. Here, clobber, shoes and jewellery are on the menu, complete with a Tinder-style swiping system to like or reject individual items. iPhone / iPad Ditty for Messenger (Free + IAP) This is one of the first apps made for Facebook’s Messenger messaging platform, which was announced earlier this week. It’s a musical messaging tool: you pick a song from the choice available, add text then send the results to a friend via Messenger. iPhone / iPad Filters for iPhone (£0.79) If you’re really into your mobile photography, Filters looks like a keeper: an app promising more than 800 filters and overlays for your snaps to make them look prettier, stranger, older or other effects. You’ll have plenty of fun simply exploring what’s available, before saving your favourites for fast access. iPhone Beatport (Free) Best known as a downloads store for dance music, Beatport is getting into streaming – and for now, its service is entirely free. How long that lasts remains to be seen, but if you love your electronic music the app is well worth checking out. iPhone Shaun in the City - Sheep Spotter (£1.49) One for children, this, from Aardman Animation. Based on its Shaun the Sheep character, it gets kids out and exploring London trying to find 50 statues of Shaun decorated by artists. Later in the year, it’ll also work for a similar scattering of statues in Bristol. iPhone / iPad 850 Sports Digest (Free) If you’re a keen sports fan, this is definitely worth a download: it provides a daily digest of sports news covering football, cricket, rugby union and league, tennis, golf, Formula 1 and others. It’s a quick, simple way to dive in to the latest happenings. iPhone Silly Sausage in Meat Land for iOS. GAMES Silly Sausage in Meat Land (Free + IAP) It sounds ridiculous. It IS ridiculous. But it’s also brilliant fun: a game that’ll put a big smile on your face while keeping you coming back for play after play. It’s a carefully-crafted game starring a stretchy dog – nobody mention Adventure Time at this point – which works beautifully on a touchscreen. iPhone / iPad The Trace: Murder Mystery Game (£3.99) I’ve been itching for a proper murder-mystery detective game on mobile, and The Trace looks like it may be it. From rifling through the murder scene to studying forensics and testing deductions, it sucks you in. The case itself is quite short, but hopefully there’s potential for updates. iPhone / iPad Fast & Furious: Legacy (Free + IAP) Developer Kabam is becoming something of an expert in freemium movie games, with this new racer its latest accompaniment to the Fast & Furious films, just in time for the seventh flick. Expect various race modes, lots of ride-pimping, and social features to interact with friends. iPhone / iPad Final Fantasy Record Keeper (Free + IAP) A real treat for Final Fantasy fans, this is essentially a greatest hits package: not of the individual Final Fantasy games in full, but rather some of their most memorable moments. It’s a brisk adventure through the RPG series’ history, with a big roster of characters and weekly events in store. iPhone / iPad Stormblades (Free + IAP) Stormblades is cut from similar cloth to epic fighting game Infinity Blade, even if it’s not quite up to its standards. Warriors, weapons and a galoot of enormous enemies to take down provide plenty of fantasy fun. iPhone / iPad .Decluster: Into the Bullet Hell (£2.29) “A mass of bullets and enemies. All you need is just to dodge and to fire,” claims the App Store listing to Masayuki Ito’s shoot ‘em up. Don’t worry: there’s a beginner’s difficulty setting, although it’s on the harder settings that you’ll get the full bullet-hell experience. Marvellous. iPhone / iPad Star Wars Rebels: Recon Missions (Free + IAP) In theory, animated TV show Star Wars Rebels is for children. In practice, it’s appealing to a fair few nostalgic adults too, filling the gap before the next all-new Star Wars film. This is its first official game, throwing in Stormtroopers, TIE fighters and all sorts of other familiar Star Wars faces. iPhone / iPad Dungeon Hero RPG (Free + IAP) If you’ve grown up with dungeon-crawling adventures, this will ping all the right nostalgic synapses in your brain. Heroes, magic, hand-to-hand or ranged combat, and LOTS of monsters to fend off, with the promise of more story-based action to come. iPhone / iPad Compass Point: West (Free + IAP) Clash of Cowboys? There are definitely elements of Clash of Clans in this Wild West-themed game, but it’s got a spark of originality too as you build your posse, explore the wild frontier and protect your town. iPhone / iPad Mr Jump (Free + IAP) The new Flappy Bird? With millions of downloads in its first few days on the App Store, Mr Jump is certainly something of a craze. It’s more of an endless platformer than a flappy clone, as Mr Jump… well, jumps his way through the game. It’s brutally hard, but somehow keeps you coming back. iPhone / iPad What have I missed? The comments section is open for your recommendations, and your feedback on the apps above.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/sep/02/tripod-glamping-cornwall-kudhva-tintagel-padstow

Travel

2017-09-02T10:00:12.000Z

Lesley Gillilan

Comfortable up there? Tripod glamping in north Cornwall

In a disused slate quarry on Cornwall’s north coast, we follow a rough track along a high ridge of old spoil heaps, picking our way through thickets of gorse, heather, wild honeysuckle and ripe blackberry. Beyond the layers of shale that fall away from the ridge, we can see the Atlantic, the skull-like shape of Gull Rock by Trebarwith Strand and, in the distance, the Mouls, a dot of an island off Polzeath’s Pentire Point. Behind us is the tall chimney of a restored engine house, built in the 1870s to house a compound beam engine that used to pump water out of the slate pits. The slate quarries of Delabole have dressed the towns and villages of north Cornwall for centuries. This one – three miles inland from Tintagel Castle – didn’t last long. Within 20 years the engine fell silent, leaving nature to take over. Until recently, the only species that ventured up here were buzzards, badgers and walkers. But the former Prince of Wales quarry has just made a career change. Designer Louise Middleton (she makes leather belts) bought the 43-acre quarry two years ago, renamed it Kudhva (meaning “hideout” in Cornish) and opened it in July as a close-to-nature retreat, big on wild swimming, foraging, campfire cooking and, as Louise puts it, “roughing it”. Coastal views from Kudhva We meet her at Kudhva’s barn-like reception building – thrown together with scaffolding poles and corrugated iron – and along with a large brindled hound called Winter (who looks really scary but isn’t) she shows us to our very own Kudhva, an “architectural hideout” designed by Louise and her furniture-maker friend Ben Huggins. If a giant slate tip seems an odd place to spend the night, then the accommodation is suitably weird. An asymmetric cabin on eight-foot legs, it looks like something HG Wells might have dreamed up. There are four of these strange creatures lurking in the quarry’s woodland, all built from larch, glass and galvanised steel. Kudhva One (K1) has the best views (from the deck, you can see all the way across Port Quin bay to the Mouls). K4 is the hardest to reach and the most private. K2 is the closest to the communal toilets, the solar showers and the reception – where you can make tea, sit on a hay bale, or charge your phone. We drink Cornish gin out of metal cups at a rough and ready woodland bar, and eye up the neighbours: a loved-up couple celebrating their engagement; and another couple sitting quietly under a tree. As the kudhvas are all doubles, they mostly come in pairs. Inside the K2 pod We climb a ladder to reach K2’s steel platform. A heavy wooden door leads into a simple space furnished with bench seating, a torch and a candle. From a triangular window, we look at the tops of willow trees above a forest floor bright with ferns. So far so good, but climbing into bed entails ascending another, much smaller, ladder before sliding, with some effort, into a low bunk-like space, which my husband, of average height, fits into with only a couple of centimetres to spare. I am almost grazing my nose against the sloping ceiling. When it rains, and boy does it rain, I feel very close to nature. Tentsile tree tents are slung between tree trunks a few feet above ground According to Louise, the Kudhva experience is meant to be challenging, although at least we have a proper bed (Futon-style mattress, pillows, sheets, a light duvet). The budget option is to hang out in one of six Tentsile tree tents: a cross between a tent and a hammock, slung between tree trunks a few feet above ground. Hard-core wild campers can choose to hang their tree tent in a vast quarry cave by Kudhva’s own waterfall. Kudhva recommends several local cafes and restaurants for eating out but does offer an organic cook-it-yourself breakfast hamper providing enough food for two breakfasts for two people (including locally sourced bacon, sausages, homemade sourdough, homemade butter, freshly ground coffee, organic milk, field mushrooms, asparagus, tomatoes and fresh eggs)at a rather pricey £40. Tintagel Castle is a few miles away. Photograph: Nigel Wallace-Iles/PA The Kudhva concept may not be entirely for me (I’m no longer so keen on limbering up and down ladders and trudging to the loos in wellies at night) but the location is hard to beat. We are a mile from Trebarwith Strand, a surf-and-sand beach reached by descending slippery rock steps. The Mill House Inn restaurant is even closer: it does brilliant Sunday lunches for around £10 (I would happily pay a tenner just for the cauliflower-cheese side dish, let alone the tender roast lamb). On the doorstep is Tintagel with its Arthurian castle, the beach and cliff walks at Port Gaverne, the salty, slate-roofed villages of Port Isaac and Boscastle and bleak but beautiful Davidstow Moor, once an RAF station, where broken wartime runways melt into the backdrop of Bodmin Moor granite and the twin summits of Rough Tor. Kudhva’s next door neighbour is Delabole Slate – possibly the oldest working slate quarry in the world (tours are available in summer). Back at Kudhva, you can swim in a quarry-pit lake, soak in a wood-fired hot tub under the stars, cook over a fire-pit (each Kudhva has one) or take the Kud Truck to one of the area’s “secret” surf beaches. Louise also has plans for pop-up workshops, food events and music nights. If you’ll pardon the pun, this slate quarry rocks. The trip was provided by Kudhva: hideouts £114 a night, tensile tree tents £57.60 a night (both sleep two and must be booked for two nights’ minimum), open until 30 October, 21 December-5 January, and reopen in spring 2018 More unusual camping options North Yorkshire Camp Kátur offers an array of off-grid camping options, including transparent domes sleeping 2-4 with woodland views. From £38 a night, hostunusual.com Dorset For those with a head for heights, and cash to splash, cliff camping near Swanage might appeal. You abseil down a cliff face to a portaledge and cosy down for the night above the waves. £400 for two, cliff-camping.com Mid Wales In a meadow in the Cambrian Mountains, near Aberystwyth, Ty Barcud is a circular cedar-clad pod, with countryside beyond the glass doors. From £80 a night, coolcamping.com Devon The Bird Box, a romantic wooden hideaway near Okehampton, overlooks a forest and river, with outdoor hot tub. From £95 a night, canopyandstars.co.uk

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/13/from-boom-to-burst-the-ai-bubble-is-only-heading-in-one-direction

Opinion

2024-04-13T15:00:26.000Z

John Naughton

From boom to burst, the AI bubble is only heading in one direction | John Naughton

“A re we really in an AI bubble,” asked a reader of last month’s column about the apparently unstoppable rise of Nvidia, “and how would we know?” Good question, so I asked an AI about it and was pointed to Investopedia, which is written by humans who know about this stuff. It told me that a bubble goes through five stages – rather as Elisabeth Kübler-Ross said people do with grief. For investment bubbles, the five stages are displacement, boom, euphoria, profit-taking and panic. So let’s see how this maps on to our experience so far with AI. First, displacement. That’s easy: it was ChatGPT wot dunnit. When it appeared on 30 November 2022, the world went, well, apeshit. So, everybody realised, this was what all the muttering surrounding AI was about! And people were bewitched by the discovery that you could converse with a machine and it would talk (well, write) back to you in coherent sentences. It was like the moment in the spring of 1993 when people saw Mosaic, the first proper web browser, and suddenly the penny dropped: so this was what that “internet” thingy was for. And then Netscape had its initial public offering in August 1995, when the stock went stratospheric and the first internet bubble started to inflate. Second stage: boom. The launch of ChatGPT revealed that all the big tech companies had actually been playing with this AI stuff for years but had been too scared to tell the world because of the technology’s intrinsic flakiness. Once OpenAI, ChatGPT’s maker, had let the cat out of the bag, though, fomo (fear of missing out) ruled. And there was alarm because the other companies realised that Microsoft had stolen a march on them by quietly investing in OpenAI and in so doing had gained privileged access to the powerful GPT-4 large multimodal model. Satya Nadella, the Microsoft boss, incautiously let slip that his intention had been to make Google “dance”. If that indeed was his plan, it worked: Google, which had thought of itself as a leader in machine learning, released its Bard chatbot before it was ready and retreated amid hoots of derision. But the excitement also triggered stirrings in the tech undergrowth and suddenly we saw a mushrooming of startups founded by entrepreneurs who saw the tech companies’ big “foundation” models as platforms on which new things could be built – much as entrepreneurs once saw the web as such a foundational base. These seedlings were funded by venture capitalists in time-honoured fashion, but some of them received large investments from both tech companies and corporations such as Nvidia that were making the hardware on which an AI future can supposedly be built. Generative AI turns out to be great at spending money, but not at producing returns on investment The third stage of the cycle – euphoria – is the one we’re now in. Caution has been thrown to the winds and ostensibly rational companies are gambling colossal amounts of money on AI. Sam Altman, the boss of OpenAI, started talking about raising $7tn from Middle Eastern petrostates for a big push that would create AGI (artificial general intelligence). He’s also hedging his bets by teaming up with Microsoft to spend $100bn on building the Stargate supercomputer. All this seems to be based on an article of faith; namely, that all that is needed to create superintelligent machines is (a) infinitely more data and (b) infinitely more computing power. And the strange thing is that at the moment the world seems to be taking these fantasies at face value. Which brings us to stage four of the cycle: profit-taking. This is where canny operators spot that the process is becoming unhinged and start to get out before the bubble bursts. Since nobody is making real money yet from AI except those that build the hardware, there are precious few profits to take, save perhaps for those who own shares in Nvidia or Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Alphabet (nee Google). This generative AI turns out to be great at spending money, but not at producing returns on investment. Stage five – panic – lies ahead. At some stage a bubble gets punctured and a rapid downward curve begins as people frantically try to get out while they can. It’s not clear what will trigger this process in the AI case. It could be that governments eventually tire of having uncontrollable corporate behemoths running loose with investors’ money. Or that shareholders come to the same conclusion. Or that it finally dawns on us that AI technology is an environmental disaster in the making; the planet cannot be paved with datacentres. But it will burst: nothing grows exponentially for ever. So, going back to that original question: are we caught in an AI bubble? Is the pope a Catholic? What I’ve been reading Creation theory The State of the Culture, 2024 is an intriguing blogpost by Ted Gioia. Sign up to Observed Free weekly newsletter Analysis and opinion on the week's news and culture brought to you by the best Observer writers Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Pandemic awareness The Cambridge Econometrics consultancy’s report The Economic Burden of Long Covid in the UK makes for sobering reading. Mortal thoughts Doc Searls, one of the elders of the web, has posted the striking Death Is a Feature on his eponymous blog. This article was amended on 15 April 2024. An earlier version included an image captioned as showing a businessman, Walter Thornton, who was bankrupted in the Wall Street crash of 1929. However, its veracity could not be established and it has been replaced.

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/10/westminster-scotland-proposal-decriminalise-drugs-brave-enough

Opinion

2023-07-10T14:41:07.000Z

Simon Jenkins

Scottish politicians have the courage to decriminalise drugs, but Westminster is too timid to let them | Simon Jenkins

The Scottish government declared last week that it wanted to decriminalise the possession of drugs for personal use. Possession of drugs in Scotland remains under the pre-devolution Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 and, as the Scottish drugs policy minister Elena Whitham says, the current approach has “failed”. Scotland has the highest drug mortality rate in Europe. Drug use is polluting every public service from mental health and homelessness to welfare, policing and imprisonment. Scotland is supposedly in charge of these services. Yet the central government in London absolutely refuses to allow it to touch drugs policy. It reacted to Whitham’s announcement as though she were a lobbyist for the dealers. A horrified Rishi Sunak rushed out a statement reinforcing his government’s “tough stance” on drugs. An equally horrified Labour promptly agreed. All recent attempts by Scotland to “socialise” its drug predicament have been blocked by the Home Office. This included last year’s effort to set up consumption and treatment centres for addicts in town centres. The UK’s home secretary, Suella Braverman, reacted by saying that the right answer lay in tougher laws not weaker ones. She reportedly wanted cannabis to become a class A drug. In March she also suppressed a report supporting decriminalisation from her own Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, a body supposedly independent but long purged of members thought to favour reform. Its secret report is now dubbed a “confidential conversation with ministers”. Not just decriminalising but legalising and regulating supply of cannabis (and, in certain countries, other drugs) is the norm among progressive western democracies, as offering a civilised and realistic means of controlling demand and supply. In decriminalising cannabis, the UK trails behind the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal, Spain, Mexico, Uruguay, Canada and South Africa, not to mention 21 American states and cities, including California, New York City and Washington DC. It is estimated that more Americans, roughly 55 million, now use cannabis than smoke tobacco, apparently to the benefit of their health. Virtually all EU countries have legalised medical cannabis, which in Britain is controlled not by the medical authorities but by the home secretary, who has rendered it all but unobtainable. It is like leaving education in the hands of creationists. Drug-testing at festivals saves lives. Why does the Home Office want to end it? Daisy Jones Read more Many of the reformist countries still experience drug problems – though few on a par with Scotland’s. The Netherlands is pestered with drug tourists. North America’s various regimes offer useful lessons in what not to do as well as what to do. Colorado and Canada are worth watching. London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, who favours decriminalisation, might study New York, where legalisation was introduced last year. Portugal has found that decriminalisation means what it says: less crime, but also less addiction. This debate is not really about drugs but about political courage. It echoes the discussion on capital punishment in the 1960s. Then, politicians lived in mortal fear of pro-hanging constituents, who would summon them to meetings to agree that “hanging was too good” for criminals. Few dared advocate abolition, until a brave home secretary, Roy Jenkins, faced down his officials and got parliament to ban the rope. We do not have brave ministers today. Out of office they may be reformers. But in power they regard the Home Office as an in-house Daily Mail that can click its fingers, summon the diehards and silence debate or reform. But Scotland supposedly has a devolved administration. It has a devolved solution to a devolved problem. At the very least, it should be allowed to pilot its proposal. We might have hoped that Keir Starmer would agree. But he too lacks the guts. Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/nov/29/four-years-hottest-record-climate-change

Environment

2018-11-29T11:10:22.000Z

Fiona Harvey

Past four years hottest on record, data shows

Global temperatures have continued to rise in the past 10 months, with 2018 expected to be the fourth warmest year on record. Average temperatures around the world so far this year were nearly 1C (1.8F) above pre-industrial levels. Extreme weather has affected all continents, while the melting of sea ice and glaciers and rises in sea levels continue. The past four years have been the hottest on record, and the 20 warmest have occurred in the past 22 years. The warming trend is unmistakeable and shows we are running out of time to tackle climate change, according to the World Meteorological Organization, which on Thursday published its provisional statement on the State of the Climate in 2018. The WMO warned that, on current trends, warming could reach 3C to 5C by the end of this century. “These are more than just numbers,” said Elena Manaenkova, the WMO deputy secretary general. “Every fraction of a degree of warming makes a difference to human health and access to food and fresh water, to the extinction of animals and plants, to the survival of coral reefs and marine life.” What’s Trump hiding in the climate report? That global warming’s effects are here Ken Kimmell Read more The world has committed to keeping warming to no more than 2C above such levels, with an aspiration to limit rises to 1.5C, which the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said will cause the dieback of coral reefs, sea-level rises and extreme weather in many regions. Greenhouse gas levels were also recently found to be at record levels, and a UN report this week said the world must triple its emissions reduction efforts to stay within 2C – and to stay within 1.5C, those efforts needed to be five times greater. The IPCC found that continued rises in greenhouse gas emissions over the next 12 years could result in a breaching of the 1.5C limit. On Monday, the Met Office said summer temperatures in the UK could be 5C hotter by 2070, making this year’s heatwave the norm for the future, while winters could get much wetter. London could become increasingly vulnerable to storms and flooding owing to sea-level rises, with the water level in the capital likely to rise by 1.15 metres by the end of the century. The WMO found the extent of Arctic sea ice in 2018 was much lower than normal, with the maximum in March the third lowest on record and the September minimum the sixth lowest. The oceans have been absorbing record or near-record amounts of heat at certain periods. The year started with a weak La Niña event but by October there were signs of a return to El Niño conditions, which can raise global temperatures further. There were a greater number of violent storms than usual, including 70 tropical cyclones in the northern hemisphere, compared with the long-term average of 53. Storms brought devastation to the Mariana Islands, the Philippines, Vietnam, the Korean peninsula and Tonga, while hurricanes Florence and Michael caused substantial damage in the US. Wildfires raged in Greece, Canada, California and other areas, while floods devastated Kerala in India and displaced more than 1.4 million people. Japan also experienced serious flooding, as did east Africa. Petteri Taalas, the secretary general of the WMO, a leading authority on climate change, said: “We are not on track to meet climate targets and rein in temperature increases. If we exploit all known fossil fuel resources, the temperature rise will be considerably higher. “We are the first generation to fully understand climate change and the last generation to be able to do something about it.” Manaenkova added that every effort to reduce greenhouse gases and the impacts of climate change was worthwhile. “Every bit matters,” she said, citing the harm done by temperature rises to every aspect of life, including economic productivity, food security, glacier melt and water supplies, and the future of low-lying islands and coastal communities. Jens Mattias Clausen, Greenpeace’s head of delegation at the UN climate change conference (COP24) in Poland, said: “The evidence, if we needed any more, continues to stack up. The record-high heatwaves, record-low Arctic sea ice, above average tropical cyclones and deadly wildfires are an alarm bell impossible to ignore. We’re in the midst of a climate crisis and this meteorological report spells out the worsening threat in startling clarity. It’s no longer our future that is in peril; our today is at risk. “The recent IPCC report also showed that we still have hope. We have 12 years to move the needle and any leader who comes to COP24 unprepared to step up and take action needs to read the WMO report and understand it’s time to stop talking and start acting on climate – while we still have the chance.”

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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/feb/03/philharmonia-kurt-masur-review

Music

2012-02-03T18:30:45.000Z

Martin Kettle

Philharmonia/Kurt Masur – review

Increasingly frail now, the 84-year-old German conductor Kurt Masur is one of those podium veterans who nevertheless manage to obtain orchestral playing of stripped-to-essentials clarity. This was immediately apparent in the Philharmonia's unobtrusive but neatly shaped accompaniment to Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. It also greatly suited the crisply articulated phrasing of Arabella Steinbacher who, like Masur, avoided grand gestures while giving a thoroughly unified account of this most lyrical of concertos. Bruckner's Seventh Symphony, which came after the interval, would not strike many as a work that holds back on the grand gestures. Yet Bruckner's is the music of a solitary man as well as a fervent Catholic believer. And there is what could be called a Protestant school of Bruckner conducting, of which Otto Klemperer was an outstanding example. Masur is clearly also a follower, always at pains to keep the music within earthly bounds. He did this by maintaining a steady, moderately brisk pulse through the two opening movements, and by rigorously avoiding the musical equivalent of stopping to look at the view. The orchestra was kept on a tight rein throughout. Masur's Bruckner is always moving through those massive harmonies into the next passage, even at the crux of the adagio – no cymbal clash for the austere Masur there, naturally – so that the bleak chorale of mourning for Wagner, which follows, sounded more organic and less of an authorial addendum. The great virtue of this restrained approach is that it emphasises Bruckner's sense of structure and rhythmic pulse, particularly notable in the scherzo, as well as permitting you to hear the wealth of instrumental detail in the score. Fascinating and memorable, yes – but in the end (especially for anyone who has Claudio Abbado's Bruckner fifth from last October still in their head) definitely not the full story.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/nov/23/influential-syrian-activist-raed-fares-gunned-down-in-idlib

World news

2018-11-23T15:49:51.000Z

Emma Graham-Harrison

Influential Syrian activist Raed Fares gunned down in Idlib

One of Syria’s most prominent activists, known for eye-catching protest banners and influential “Radio Fresh” broadcasts, has been assassinated in the rebel-held northern enclave in Idlib province. Raed Fares took on the regime of Bashar al-Assad and the proliferation of Islamist extremists that grew out of Syria’s civil war with equal energy and commitment. Fellow activist Hamoud Jneed was murdered with him on Friday morning by gunmen who have not been identified. Their killers waited in a van outside an office the two men shared, followed them through the market, attacked their car then shot them when they tried to escape, according to a friend from their hometown. Raed Fares. Photograph: @RaedFares4/Twitter Fares lived in the small northern town of Kafranbel, and helped put it on the international map after Syria’s uprising began in 2011, with a series of sometimes witty, sometimes angry but always powerful posters he organised for demonstrations. “Syria has two conflicting parties: people who try to survive, and a regime that tries to crush them,” read one example from the first years of the war, spelled out in the block letters that became Fares’s trademark. They helped earn the town the nickname “the conscience of the revolution”. Fares was drawn into the movement against Assad because of a childhood spent watching the murderous legacy of the Syrian regime, he told the Oslo Freedom Forum last year. “The question is, was it worth starting a revolution and confronting Assad?” he asked, then answered himself: “It was indeed important.” Hamoud Jneed. Photograph: AP As the war escalated and armed fundamentalists proliferated, he found himself fighting on two fronts, squeezed between the dictatorship he first rose up against and the increasingly extremist armed groups spawned by the civil war, including Isis and former al-Qaida affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. “The truth is Syrians are victims of two forms of terrorism. From one side Assad’s terrorism, and from the other, Isis and other extremists’ terrorism,” Fares said. The offices of the civil society organisation he founded had been bombed by Assad and raided by Isis. Fares himself was targeted by assassins in 2014 and barely escaped with his life. He was arrested by al-Qaida, kidnapped and tortured, before being released. Throughout it all, he continued his work campaigning for education, democracy, women and children and, most of all, an end to the bloodshed. Increasingly disillusioned with the west, after its failure to intervene against Assad despite the president’s use of chemical weapons against civilians, he never lost his faith in the Syrian people, even as his struggle looked increasingly desperate. “We have decided to guide our future and our destiny with our own hands,” he said in Oslo. “Revolutions are ideas and ideas cannot be killed by weapons.” The deaths of Fares and Jneed were widely mourned on social media by friends, fellow activists and analysts. In Kafranbel, locals said more than 2,000 people gathered for his funeral, including many who travelled from other towns. “We feel extreme sadness for Raed and Hamoud and fear for ourselves,” said one friend who asked not to be named. “This was planned, and it sends a message to all activists to be silent.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/government-computing-network/2010/dec/01/ministry-defence-supplier-payments-foi-request-01dec10

Guardian Government Computing

2010-12-01T00:15:00.000Z

SA Mathieson

MoD reveals £806m in payments to HP

The firm was paid £806m by the Ministry of Defence in the 2009-10 financial year, according to Freedom of Information data released by the ministry to Kable. HP Enterprise Services is the ministry's prime contractor for IT technology and support, with BT – which received £276m – taking a similar role for communication equipment and services. The only other IT focused supplier in the top 100 was IBM, which was paid £52m. The amount paid to HP, which is exclusive of VAT, looks likely to be the single largest financial relationship between a department and an IT supplier in the last financial year. The Department for Work and Pensions has disclosed that it paid the same vendor £657m in that time, while HM Revenue and Customs paid £765m to the consortium, led by Capgemini, delivering the Aspire programme. A few departments, including the Home Office, have yet to disclose their spending with suppliers. HP leads the Atlas consortium, which provides the MoD with the Defence Information Infrastructure programme. DII aims to provide secure computing to 300,000 military personnel and MoD staff around the world, at an estimated cost of £7.1bn – or £23,700 per user. In January, the old government awarded a £540m extension to the programme. However, the coalition government has since said it may try to trim the overall cost. Last year, the Atlas consortium was criticised by Parliament's Public Accounts Committee for its lateness, with the DII more than 18 months behind schedule at that point. By the time of the contract extension in January, the government said that DII was on track, and would deliver benefits in excess of £1.6bn over 10 years. Despite the size of the payments to HP, it is only the fifth largest supplier to the MoD, which spent a total of £24.87bn with suppliers in 2009-10. The largest single supplier was Nato's agency for development, production and logistics management of Eurofighter and Tornado fighter planes, which received £1.77bn. However, the amounts paid to the 10 subsidiaries of BAE Systems in the top 100 totalled £3.98bn. Top 100 suppliers to the Ministry of Defence in 2009-10

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/15/ireland-six-nations-winners-in-all-but-name-bonus-points-cloud-issue

Sport

2024-03-15T12:59:18.000Z

Michael Aylwin

Ireland Six Nations winners in all but name but bonus points cloud issue | Michael Aylwin

Only sad old men in pubs indulge in “coulda, shoulda” talk, but we are legion among Six Nations followers, so why not? Dublin coulda, shoulda been a grand-slam decider. As it is, we will almost certainly witness Ireland’s procession towards a second consecutive Six Nations title. Even if they lose. The reason we are having to carry on like sad old men in pubs is, once again, because of the inconvenient truth of what actually happened. Ireland breezed into Twickenham last weekend and were met by a hurricane, inspired or not by the grand pronouncements of various recent internationals who opined that Ireland could not lose, or even that they were the most complete team in recent memory. Ireland lose their grip on grand slam in dignified but familiar fashion Read more It turns out that they are not. Or that England are better than we had realised. It does not really matter. These are golden times for international rugby, by far the most competitive and exhilarating it has ever been. Still, a grand-slam decider would have been nice. Over to the other half of the equation that never was – Scotland. To anyone who loves exhilarating rugby, they have been the next best team in this year’s championship but, as always, they have been ravaged by the caprice of the gods and their own eternal inconsistency. That TMO decision to deny them the win over France in round two still hurts anyone who is not French. Had Scotland gone into last weekend’s trip to Rome standing on three wins from three, with a potential grand-slam decider to come, would they really have let slip a six-point lead over Italy at half-time? Well, actually, it is quite possible they would. Turns out that they are as mercurial as ever. Or that Italy are better than we had realised. So, what we are left with is messier than it might have been, but there is skin in the game. Ireland will not want to claim the title with a second consecutive defeat. It is not quite as affirming a statement. Marcus Smith (right) celebrates after beating Ireland with his drop goal, England’s best win of the 2024 Six Nations. Photograph: Paul Childs/Action Images/Reuters Scotland have material motivation too. Win, and they will claim the triple crown. The last time they did that was in 1990, the year they won the most famous grand-slam decider of them all. Back then, the triple crown was, like the grand slam, an abstract notion. These days there is a trophy that goes with it, minted in 2006. Scotland are the only team never to have touched it. For the record, they have a mathematical chance of winning another trophy that did not exist in 1990 – the Six Nations trophy itself. If they beat Ireland by more than 38 points and deny them a bonus point, they will be champions, assuming England do not beat France with a bonus point, or France beat England by even more. Sign up to The Breakdown Free weekly newsletter The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. In the real world of what actually will happen, Ireland are all but certain to collect the main trophy. A bonus point in defeat would do it, unless England beat France by about 80 points. Even defeat without a bonus point would probably do. All this talk of bonus points highlights just how inappropriate the scheme is for a short home-or-away tournament such as the Six Nations. Without bonus points, “Super Saturday” would be far more super than it is going to be. True, Ireland’s massive points difference (plus 80) would serve as an effective bonus point, but they and England should be sitting level on points with three wins apiece, with Scotland and France on two. Instead, Ireland have been all but champions since round three. They are likely to complete the job this weekend. Of all the teams Scotland hate playing, Ireland are top. Scotland have lost nine in a row against them, and all but one of the past 14. They pulled off a surprise win in Dublin in 2010, but that was at Croke Park. They have not won at Lansdowne Road this century. Brilliant, inconsistent teams tend not to like teams that come at them again and again from all angles with ferocious power and athleticism. Scotland are lethal – and they roll out a big bruiser at inside-centre in Stafford McDowall to try to counteract Ireland’s power – but Ireland, particularly in Dublin, just keep coming. They are on an 18-match winning streak at home. They will be somewhat irked by events at Twickenham a week ago and field the same starting team, as if to make a point of their anger. Dublin might not be hosting the event it coulda, shoulda been, but the game will be fun. If only we could be less certain of who the champions will be.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2008/apr/26/heinekencup.londonirish1

Sport

2008-04-26T00:33:49.000Z

Robert Kitson

Rugby union: Irish innovators ready for next step

It will take something extra special for the big-time virgins of London Irish to upset Toulouse in this afternoon's Heineken Cup semi-final. No club embraces the ideals of total rugby quite like Guy Noves' classical troupe of strolling players who, on their day, operate on a different plane. Beating them at their own game is as easy as catching moonbeams in a jar. Only a certain breed of opposition coach would view the prospect as a) exhilarating or b) a chance to outdazzle the urbane sophisticates from the Midi-Pyrénées. Yet Irish scent an opportunity, their rising self-assurance apparent. It shows how far they have come under the enlightened managerial double act of Brian Smith and Toby Booth, not to mention Mike Catt and the rest of their backroom staff. "We don't want to beat people 3-0, we want to win 36-20 because the players enjoy it more," said Booth, more than happy to outline a rugby philosophy that sounds positively existential compared with, say, England's initial World Cup campaign. Only if the Exiles decline to make a flamboyant bow on the grandest stage in the club's history will their coaches take offence. "Brian and I both believe the game should be played with an attacking mentality, that attack will beat defence, that good will triumph over evil," Booth said. For a second it is almost as if the visionary French poet Rimbaud has been reincarnated as an English set-piece evangelist. The sceptics will counter that Irish's league position of seventh is a more realistic barometer of their romantic notions. But not many average teams get this far, let alone dim-witted ones. While Irish may not have the biggest of squads they possess one of the smarter management teams. Smith and Booth have instilled a way of working that grows more intriguing as each layer is peeled away. Did you know that the Exiles have been practising using blacked-out goggles to improve communication among their support runners? Or that they practice their lineouts in the swimming pool on the entirely sensible basis that it puts less strain on the jumpers' bodies to land in water rather than on solid ground? Clever. Very clever. Smith, the former Wallaby and Ireland international back, is more than happy to share the credit with the less celebrated Booth, whose playing career peaked at Folkestone and Blackheath. The latter is distinctly unimpressed, in the wake of Martin Johnson's appointment, at the idea that only former internationals can work wonders at elite level these days. "I don't have a criticism of leading ex-players becoming coaches but I don't buy the argument that you can't compete if you haven't been there," Booth said pointedly. "Hopefully I'm an advert that, if you work hard, you get your rewards. Look at Arsène Wenger and Jose Mourinho. Neither of them played at the highest level. A lot of former players just regurgitate how they were coached themselves. That way you don't evolve, especially when you're in a pressurised environment and worrying about results straight away." Booth, for his part, is far more likely to lob in the odd "curve ball session" which is where the goggles - "It's very amusing for people who aren't wearing them and quite unnerving for those who are" - come in. Catt describes his colleague's work on the Irish lineout and pack in general as "phenomenal" and the latter's promotion to the England Saxons set-up is a further nod of approval towards Booth, the one-time lecturer from St Mary's College in Twickenham who prefers to educate with a twist. "Coaching is about being ahead and coming up with innovative things that are a little bit obscure makes a massive difference. When I was lecturing physiology we were talking one day about endocrine systems and hormonal transfer, which is basically about things crossing membranes. I could see people glazing over so I stopped the lecture halfway through. I told them it was like getting into a nightclub; you have to walk down the queue and find a pretty lady to help you get in. When it came to revising for the exams they all said they were going to do 'the nightclub question'. I realised then I'd stumbled on something." Meeting Smith, who fetched up at Irish after coaching spells in Bath and Japan, appears to have been a case of serendipity. The Oxford-educated Australian was employed in advertising in Sydney when the coaching bug struck him like a lightning bolt as he stood behind the posts with friends watching the 1999 World Cup final in Cardiff. Booth's conversion was more gradual but also had a southern hemisphere element. "I remember Graham Henry coming over to Blackheath at a time when they were trying to develop a relationship with Auckland. Graham went around the room and asked the big-hitters, the senior players and former internationals, what the secret of rugby was. There were some wild and wonderful answers but Graham kept shaking his head. 'The key to rugby,' he said eventually, 'is getting across the gain-line on first phase.' It was a bit of a Eureka moment." There will be a similar sense of revelation at Twickenham today if Irish can pull it off, even among those who watch the Exiles regularly. "We've got to stay true to ourselves," Smith warned. "I don't care if we win or lose as long as we play our game. What's got us here has been a free spirit and a no-fear attitude. It's vitally important we maintain that. It doesn't really matter what the pundits say. If we've got a stranglehold after 20 minutes I think confidence will soar. It'll be very difficult to accept if we don't have a crack." Smith is a long-time admirer of French rugby and there is an element of wanting his team to measure themselves against consistently the most elegant attacking team in Europe. If Irish were to go into their shells, Smith reckons even their opponents would be disappointed. "I think Toulouse enjoy the fact we're not afraid and are ready to play." Victory would also further heighten the suspicion that Smith and Booth will coach at Test level one day. The only Premiership club the Exiles have yet to defeat both home and away is Leicester at Welford Road but Smith, currently linked with the contrasting vacancies at the Waratahs and England, is playing down all speculation. "I'm contracted to London Irish, I think the squad is getting better and the players still look me in the eye when I walk in." Booth simply quotes the former Exiles coach, Gary Gold. "He used to say there are only two types of coaches: 'Those who get sacked and those who are waiting to get sacked'." There are also two kinds of rugby team: those who cling to the orthodox and those who dare to dream. A different approach Blind-side tactics Toby Booth makes players practise off-loading in blacked-out goggles. "It's all about communication," according to Mike Catt. "He will get players doing two-on-ones wearing the goggles so the support players have to shout at the ball carrier in front to tell him which channel they are coming down." Leaping like salmon Lineouts put tremendous strain on the jumpers and the players lifting them. Booth's solution to the stresses that come from endlessly repeated drills is to practise in the swimming pool, where technique can be honed while the water takes some of the strain. The sincerest form of flattery If Toulouse recognise Irish's expansive style this afternoon, it may be because the French side helped inspire it. Toulouse's speed and fitness have helped them become one of Europe's dominant sides and the Irish coaches are happy to plagiarise. "They are masters of the off-load and picking the right lines," says Catt. "But I don't think many teams have tried to play them at their own game."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/jan/05/kate-miller-heidke-operas-former-bratty-upstart-tackles-a-tragic-australian-story

Music

2016-01-04T23:58:34.000Z

Nancy Groves

Kate Miller-Heidke: opera's former 'bratty upstart' tackles a tragic Australian story

The Rabbits review – triumphant adaptation of a deeply tragic story Read more Brisbane-born musician Kate Miller-Heidke might have trained in opera at the Queensland Conservatorium but by her mid-20s she was more focused on arias with a capital A, signing a Sony record contract off the back of her Triple J earworm Space They Cannot Touch. A decade later and she has come full circle, writing and starring in The Rabbits. An operatic adaptation of Shaun Tan’s and John Marsden’s picture book, it recasts Australia’s first people and British colonialists as marsupials and rabbits, caught in a tragic battle. After hit Perth and Melbourne runs, the Helpmann award-winning show reopens in Sydney with new material and some “uncompromising cuts”, says Miller-Heidke. It’s not every pop star who has sung in The Death of Klinghoffer at the Met. But with three projects at the Sydney festival, a forthcoming appearance at Mona Foma in Tasmania and her own headline tour in 2016, Miller-Heidke talks to Guardian Australia about keeping a foot in both worlds – without using the word “crossover” once. Kate Miller-Heidke in The Rabbits. Illustration: Georges Antoni/Shaun Tan/Opera Australia Did taking on The Rabbits feel like a risk, Kate? I didn’t realise how much until it suddenly dawned on me on opening night that real people and reviewers were going to be watching. Up until that point, it just seemed like a challenge. I’ve always wanted to write a full-length piece of music theatre and it seemed like too good an opportunity to pass up. But once we got deep into the book, the issues raised in it are so enormous that to speak to those issues, for me as a whitey, yes, it was scary. You realised there was a huge onus on us to do this justice. How did you overcome that and get the thing made? Two things really helped. The first was the metaphor of the animals: this beautiful, dream-like magical aspect to the story which gives it a bit of distance. Anyone can put themselves into the shoes of the marsupials. It was a stroke of genius on Shaun Tan’s part – and John Marsden’s. The other thing was our Indigenous advisor Rachael Maza, who was hugely involved from the very beginning. We needed that. It took quite a while even to find the marsupials’ voice. It was clearer with the rabbits: their early 19th-century, straight-down-the-line, fuddy-duddy opera. But with the marsupials, we were asking ourselves: how do they sound? Do we even give them words to sing? And Rachael said: “That’s absolute bullshit. They just sound normal. They sound like people.” We were like: “Oh my god, of course they do.” Kate Miller-Heidke as the Bird, appears with the Marsupials in The Rabbits. Photograph: Jon Green Were you working on this at the same time as your album, O Vertigo? The Rabbits was a long process, about two and half years in the making. As a composer, it was liberating. This was the first time I’d written for voices that weren’t my own and stories that weren’t my own. Normally, I write about my feelings, which can get pretty draining and tiresome ­– for the listeners too, probably. I need a little bit of mental space for each project, otherwise I feel a little schizophrenic and begin to forget where due north is. Sometimes I get a bit left-brain when I’m songwriting, a bit self-doubting. Keeping one foot in Rabbits land would jolt me out of myself. You made your first EP and your operatic debut a decade ago. Did you imagine yourself here today? Growing up in the Brisbane suburbs, a proper career in music seemed like a pipe-dream I can’t believe it’s been 10 years, thanks for mentioning that. No. Growing up in the Brisbane suburbs, a proper career in music seemed like a pipe-dream. I knew no-one who had anything like that. It just wasn’t on my radar. At that point, I thought I’d like to be an opera singer. I thought that was an achievable goal, which just shows how naïve I was back then. But at least there was a clear pathway. There was no pathway to what I’m doing now. I’ve just felt my way blindly through it. What did your opera training teach you, aside from classical technique? At the time I would have said it didn’t teach me anything­ – I was such a fucking bratty upstart. But in retrospect, it did teach me a lot. That sense of the drama, really, and how to use your voice as an instrument. That’s what gave me an edge in the pop world. I was never going to compete with down-the-line pop stars like Kylie Minogue or Jessica Mauboy. But I always loved writing songs and couldn’t stop doing it, even though my singing teacher at the Con said: “Stop singing like that, Kate!” Which is harder to crack: the pop or classical world? Nothing compares to the fickleness of the pop world. It’s such a crap shoot. I know there are those who say they want the opera stars to be hot now but generally it all comes down to the voice. Pop is luck and timing. It’s riding on the wave of the zeitgeist. And I’ve never been cool. It doesn’t come naturally to me. But I’m not too interested in labeling things or splitting my life into one thing or the other. The truth is that I couldn’t step in and do a Mozart opera tomorrow. What I have with my voice is a hybrid beast. And yes, I draw on elements of my classical training but, ultimately, I sing the way I want to sing. There are some in the operatic school of thought who’d say that’s not opera, but I don’t really care. You’ve sung with some amazing people over the years. Who’s stuck with you? Early on I got to play with Cyndi Lauper, opening for her Australian tour. The very first night, I heard my name called, “Kate, come out here and sing Girls with me”, and next thing I know I’m singing Girls Just Want to Have Fun with Cyndi Lauper. It was better than karaoke. Working with Chrissy Amphlett too, I feel so lucky to have been there at that time. Particularly as an Australian woman, she set the benchmark and gave a lot of frontwomen the courage to be rock’n’roll. Ben Folds is massive for me as I’ve probably spent about a year of my life touring with him. The way he approaches things has a lot of similarities with me. For a start, he’s into classical music: he’s just written a concerto and plays a lot with orchestras. He’s also one of the most spontaneous, irreverent performers I’ve seen. He makes up a song with his audience live every night – it’s what you aspire to. You must be good to your fans. They funded your last album. I’m not exactly sure what people mean when they say that: I’m good with my fans. I guess I’m polite. There is a generosity on social media, I get more from it than I put out. And it doesn’t hurt that my fans are discerning, intelligent people. I’ve had the occasional radio hit, but the through line of my career has been people coming to my gigs whether or not they’ve been advertised, whether or not I have a new album out. Yes, the internet is shit in all sorts of ways but it allows me to do what I do today. Look, it can be dangerous. Artists have different levels they are comfortable with. I don’t talk about my personal life and if I’m feeling down, I’m don’t go on there to get my ego stroked. Also I try not to bombard people, I fucking hate that. It’s more about being personable and keeping people up to date. On which subject, you’re involved in two other projects at Sydney festival. One is a digital project [called The Book of Sand], by Michel van der Aa, whose opera Sunken Garden I did at the Barbican – as a hologram. He’s another one of this new school of composers who’s less interested in traditional formats and more interested in breaking down boundaries. Nobody’s done an interactive online song cycle before. This one’s a mesmerising, choose-your-own adventure experience. I’m also writing songs for Meow Meow, a friend and one of my favourite performers on the planet. I’ve written a couple for her new show, Little Mermaid, one bemoaning the fact she doesn’t have a vagina. Isn’t the Little Mermaid the ultimate male fantasy: a woman granted legs and a vagina by the love of a man, but only at the cost of her voice? I would have thought traditionally the siren would be quite a feminist figure, because they lure sailors to their death … I’m sure Meow’s mermaid will be quite feminist anyway. The Rabbits is at Roslyn Packer theatre from 14 to 24 January as part of Sydney festival. Kate Miller-Heidke performs with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra at Mofo festival, Hobart on 18 January

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/28/sir-martin-sorrell-pay-uk-wpp

Business

2017-04-28T10:36:49.000Z

Mark Sweney

Sir Martin Sorrell's pay package plunges from £70m to £48m

Sir Martin Sorrell received £48m in remuneration last year as WPP, the marketing and advertising company he founded and runs, moved to curb the level of his future payouts to avoid further clashes with investors. Sorrell, who has been on the receiving end of a string of shareholder voting revolts at WPP’s annual meetings in recent years, received total pay, bonuses and incentive scheme payouts of £48.1m in 2016. The figure is 31.6% lower than the £70.4m he received in 2015, one of the biggest pay deals in UK corporate history, which was opposed by one-third of WPP shareholders at last year’s AGM. Forget the fuss – bumper paydays go on for UK's best-paid boss Sorrell Nils Pratley Read more The payout, the last to be awarded under WPP’s controversial “Leap” scheme, means Sorrell has received about £210m in total remuneration since 2012. WPP has introduced a less generous arrangement for Sorrell, which is expected to pay out £19m a year. It will be the subject of a binding vote at the company’s annual meeting in June. However, WPP said on Friday that it intended to tighten the policy further with a potential payout band of £14.9m to £19.2m maximum this year. From 2018, that will fall to between £18m and £13m as dividend equivalent payments are scrapped. The company has moved to stem further potential run-ins with investors at a time of renewed scrutiny of corporate Britain since the Brexit vote and the warning from Theresa May that she would curb boardroom excess. WPP’s chairman, Robert Quarta, appointed at last year’s annual meeting, also said planning to identify the successor to Sorrell, 72, had intensified. “Our succession planning process, which has always been rigorous, has become even more focused and detailed over the past year,” said Quarta, in WPP’s annual report published on Friday. “Whether it happens in the near or distant future, when Sir Martin leaves his role as chief executive, we will have an exceptional team of potential candidates on the bench.” Sorrell shows no signs of slowing down, having celebrated the birth of another child on the day of the US presidential election last year. He has no plans to step aside and said, on the question of succession, that there is “nothing to see here”. His pay has been a flashpoint in the past. In 2012, during what became known as the shareholder spring, nearly 60% of investors rejected his annual package for the previous year. Last year, Sorrell defended his remuneration, arguing that he had put three decades of his life into turning WPP from a maker of wire baskets into a global marketing business worth £22bn. “I’m not a Johnny-come-lately who picked a company up and turned it round [for a big payday],” he said. “If it was one five-year plan and we buggered off, fine [to criticise my pay]. Over those 31 years … I have taken a significant degree of risk. [WPP] is where my wealth is. It is long effort over a long period of time.” The question of a successor has exercised investors in recent years, with Guy Jubb, the former head of governance at Standard Life Investments, using his final appearance at a WPP annual meeting in 2015 to criticise the apparent “Sorrellcentricity” at the company. Quarta, writing in the annual report, said there is a list of internal and external candidates who could take over. “As part of our continuous assessment of those individuals who might one day become chief executive of the group, we have invited a number of leaders within WPP companies to present to the board and attend board meetings,” he said. “This exercise gives me greater confidence than ever in the strength of our people and their potential to succeed at the very top. “This internal pool is, of course, maintained alongside a constantly refined list of external candidates.” Quarta said internal candidates include those who report directly to Sorrell, as well as “many who currently occupy the senior tier below”.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2007/jan/12/tennis.australianopen20072

Sport

2007-01-12T00:19:35.000Z

Russell Thomas

Tennis: Davydenko is fined for dig at Sydney

Russia's Nikolay Davydenko was fined $10,000 (£5,150) yesterday by the ATP after making disparaging remarks about the Sydney International tournament. The world No3 had claimed the previous day that some of the top players - he was among them - had pulled out of the last major warm-up for next week's Australian Open because it was a small tournament that "nobody cares about". The ATP chairman, Etienne de Villiers, said that he was concerned about the high withdrawal rate in Sydney this week but that the Russian's comments were harmful. "I'm satisfied that the $10,000 fine for Davydenko is the appropriate sanction for the comments that . . . not only damaged the very fine tournament in Sydney but also sullies the reputation of our great sport," he said. James Blake, the defending Sydney champion, also criticised Davydenko, saying he had not shown "the respect the tournament deserves". The American was talking after reaching the semi-finals of the $1.2m event by beating Russia's Evgeny Korolev 6-1, 6-4. He meets Jürgen Melzer in the last four today after the Austrian upset the Czech fifth seed Tomas Berdych 6-2, 6-4. Marcos Baghdatis suffered an injury scare in his 6-1, 3-6, 7-6 defeat by Carlos Moyá but said he expected to play in the Australian Open, which will start on Monday. The Cypriot had collapsed in pain after twisting his ankle in the third set but immediate treatment quelled the pain and without any serious damage he resumed, only to lose the match on a tie-break. "I got scared in the beginning. I thought I twisted a tendon behind the left ankle," said Baghdatis, who reached last year's Australian Open final before losing to Roger Federer. In the semi-finals Moyá plays Richard Gasquet, who beat his fellow Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-4, 6-7, 6-0. In Melbourne Marat Safin, the 2005 Australian champion, declared himself in fine condition after he came within a whisker of taking Federer to three sets in the Kooyong Classic. The Russian was encouraged by his performance against the world No1 before losing 6-3, 7-6. "If I can compete on the same level with Federer it means that you are in good shape." After two injury-hit seasons in the last four Safin, the former world No1, has climbed from outside the top 100 in August to No26 but says he is no longer in a big hurry to prove a point. "For a year I've been travelling with a doctor who has been watching out for me, and after a certain age you need to do that," said the 26-year-old.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/22/debut-novelists-2017-honeyman-underdown-rooney-ellwood-geary-knox-brooks-sudjic

Books

2017-01-22T09:30:00.000Z

Hannah Beckerman

Meet the new faces of fiction for 2017

New year means new beginnings in the world of books, not so much for established novelists – their work tends to hit the shops in the autumn – as for first-time authors. Spring is the season when all the major publishers and, increasingly, the smaller houses too, unveil the fiction debutantes they’re plugging as the next Zadie Smith. The hype can grate but ignore it completely and you might miss a gem: Smith’s White Teeth was a debut, as was The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon and Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Other superb first novels picked out by the Observer New Review in our annual look at the coming year’s debut fiction have included Jessie Burton’s The Miniaturist, Emma Healey’s Elizabeth Is Missing, The Versions Of Us by Laura Barnett and Janet Ellis’s The Butcher’s Hook. This year’s writers take on subjects as diverse as PTSD, online obsession, alcoholism and witch-hunting. However, the scarcity of new black and ethnic minority writers is a problem publishers need urgently to address. (A recent survey revealed that writers called David are more likely to get into the bestseller charts than BAME authors.) Two new awards, the Guardian and 4th Estate BAME prize and the Jhalak prize, aim to redress this imbalance but at the last count the Jhalak prize had received only 51 submissions, a figure its chair, Sunny Singh, branded “pathetic”. Let’s hope 2018 tells a different story. Lisa O’Kelly, books editor Gail Honeyman: ‘It’s no handicap to be older. A bit of life experience is no bad thing’ Subject of a fierce eight-way auction: Gail Honeyman. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer The late starter from Scotland rewarded with a dream beginning to her writing career Having nursed a secret ambition to write through her 20s and 30s, Gail Honeyman sensed, as her 40th birthday loomed, that it was now or never. “Writing had always been at the back of my mind but it’s quite a wake-up call, that classic 40th-birthday thing when you think: this might be the time to try something different.” The decision turned out to be life-changing. Honeyman’s debut novel, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, is a warm, funny and thought-provoking story that has so far sold in 27 territories, reportedly racked up seven-figure advances and is already garnering rave reviews from previewers five months before publication. “Even now, talking about it, I’m still pinching myself,” says Honeyman over tea in a west London cafe. “Even in my wildest dreams it’s not a situation I ever imagined myself to be in.” She grew up in central Scotland, a voracious reader who was taken to the library “a ridiculous number of times a week”. She studied French at Glasgow University followed by postgraduate studies at Oxford, but decided against becoming an academic: “I started doing a PhD and then I thought I don’t really want to spend all this time on my own in the library. Now I’m on my own in the library all the time and I love it,” Honeyman laughs. “But I guess what’s right for you at 22 isn’t necessarily what’s right for you 20 years later.” Honeyman had a career in economic development and university administration before enrolling in a Faber Academy writing course – whose alumni include Rachel Joyce and SJ Watson – and deciding to write a novel: “I thought: even if I just put it away and don’t show it to anyone – I want to prove to myself I can get to the end.” She wrote in the mornings, evenings and at weekends, and began entering writing competitions. Success came rapidly. She was longlisted for the BBC’s Opening Lines competition, won a Scottish Book Trust award and her entry to the Lucy Cavendish prize was spotted by one of the judges, agent Madeleine Milburn, who immediately signed Honeyman to her list. Within a year, Eleanor Oliphant was the subject of a fierce eight-way auction in the UK and became one of the most talked-about books at the 2015 Frankfurt book fair. When did Honeyman realise that this flurry of activity was unusual? “I was managing my expectations the whole time. I wasn’t particularly confident about it. But having more than one publisher want to publish it – that was huge.” It’s easy to see why Eleanor Oliphant is generating so much buzz. The novel’s heroine is a socially awkward 30-year-old with a traumatic family history, a protagonist who forces readers to question their attitude to society’s outsiders. The book occupies that sweet spot between literary and commercial fiction: a highly readable but beautifully written story that’s as perceptive and wise as it is funny and endearing. “Eleanor was so much fun to write, because there’s a brutal honesty about her. She’s got no filters and no concept of social norms.” Honeyman cites Jane Eyre as the biggest influence on her heroine. “Jane is hard to love when she’s a kid. She’s a weird kid. There are reasons for that – she’s had a difficult start in life. So I was thinking of that with Eleanor – she doesn’t make it easy for herself. She’s not a people pleaser, not naturally charming, and that can make life really difficult for people through no fault of their own.” With publication still five months away, wWhat does Honeyman hope readers will take away from the novel? “That kindness doesn’t need to be some massive philanthropic Bill Gates-style donation. Tiny little acts for the right person at the right time can be transformative.” Honeyman joins a growing band of novelists – the likes of Claire Fuller, Kate Hamer and Joanna Cannon – who subvert the fascination with literary wunderkinds, and I wonder how she feels about publishing her first novel at 45? “It’s one of those jobs where the more life experience you have, the better – so it’s absolutely not a handicap to be older. Look at Diana Athill. A bit of perspective and life experience isn’t a bad thing. Anyway, if you start a new career at 40, you’ve still got another 35 years to go.” HB Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine will be published by HarperCollins on 18 May Beth Underdown: ‘There are edges of our minds that don’t belong to the daylight’ Up at 5am to write before the office: Beth Underdown. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer A footnote, a great uncle, and her hometown near Pendle combined to inspire this writer’s debut, set among East Anglia’s infamous witch trials Inspiration takes many forms, but Beth Underdown’s route into writing about Matthew Hopkins, the notorious “Witchfinder General” immortalised on film by Vincent Price, is particularly striking. She was reading about 17th-century midwifery – unusual in itself, given that she was neither historian nor academic – when she came across him in a footnote, and suddenly found herself sucked into his world. “Something chimed with me about it,” she tells me, as we sit in her publisher’s office on the Strand. “All of this history that isn’t really taught, and isn’t really known about. You spend all your childhood looking at Vikings…” She’s right: we have an image of Cavaliers and Roundheads in our mind, but they are somehow less familiar to us than the Tudors or Victorians. And yet, as Underdown points out, the country was gripped by seismic change in the 17th century: “They thought the world was ending.” England was in turmoil, taking “lurching, imperfect steps” towards trying to find a new way, culminating in what Underdown memorably describes as “basically like the protest vote, but with swords”. At the same time, women were not passive. Hundreds of midwives massed outside parliament to protest that not enough babies were being born because so many men were away fighting, and violent politics permeated even the most domestic of scenes; Underdown found a commonplace book in which a woman had noted the execution of an archbishop next to worries over a colicky baby. And, as the activities of Matthew Hopkins and others demonstrate, women were as vulnerable as ever to being singled out as disruptive, sinister forces. The Witchfinder’s Sister takes a sideways look at Hopkins, whose determination to root out East Anglia’s “witches” in the 1640s led to a reign of terror that saw hundreds of women die. But Underdown was interested in what allowed Hopkins to flourish, and to that end invented for him a sister, Alice, who has returned to the Essex family home in unconscionable circumstances: pregnant and without husband. What fascinated Underdown was the question of Alice’s complicity in her brother’s sadistic and misogynistic quest, and her attempts to subvert it: “The idea of what makes somebody stand by while something happens is, in a way, scarier. Because Matthew is there, and of course terrifying, but you’re always going to have people like Matthew: and a huge amount depends on what the bystanders do.” It wasn’t simply that footnote that turned Underdown on to the period: she was brought up near Pendle, scene of one of the most famous witch trials in English history. And there is also a family connection: her great uncle, David Underdown, was a distinguished English civil war historian, who spent most of his career teaching in the States. Because he was absent, Underdown wasn’t much aware of him until he was diagnosed with cancer and came back to Britain to visit. “I remember thinking, wow, cool guy. And he’d come because he thought he was going to die imminently, I suppose, but he didn’t - and he did this goodbye visit every year for about 10 years. It was great. On one of those visits – I was about 17 – he gave me his book.” She put it aside. Years passed and she moved to London, starting working as an editorial assistant in publishing. She also began to write, getting up at 5am for a stint before the office; but she lacked a subject, and writing about contemporary life wasn’t working. She certainly didn’t want to write anything autobiographical: “I feel like quite a dull person. I’m not the staying up all night and going to literary salons type. I go to bed at 10. So I don’t want to write about me. That’s boring. There’s all this world out there that’s amazing.” She picked her great-uncle’s book from the shelf, and was impressed by his “very human approach… The book is about this big fire in Dorchester during the English civil war, and it’s looking in detail at ordinary townspeople, digging through parish records – who’s been hauled up for brawling, and who’s been fined for not going to church – and thinking about their experience on an ordinary level. I hadn’t read a lot of history that was like that.” She began to read more widely in the period, and eventually came across Hopkins, and a whole world of religious mania, superstition and persecution that gripped her: “I like to think I’m a rational person,” she says, “but I pray on aeroplanes – I promise I’ll be good if the plane lands safely. I think a lot of people are like that. There are edges of our minds that don’t belong to the daylight.” A period of ill health slowed her down but it also intensified her interest in the way women’s bodies are looked at and medicalised. Now recovered, she teaches at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing, and is embarked on her second novel, a move away from the 17th century but still firmly set in the past. Which, in her hands, is not so much another country but very recognisably our own. AC The Witchfinder’s Sister is published by Viking on 2 March (£12.99). To preorder a copy for £11.04 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 Sally Rooney: ‘I had to walk out of my job to force myself to finish it’ Interested in ‘ambiguous relationships’: Sally Rooney. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer The 25-year-old Dublin graduate stormed out of her restaurant job… and wrote a novel that started a bidding war When I meet Sally Rooney, she has just come from her Observer photoshoot and has the air of someone trying to remain calm and process what is happening to her. How was it, I ask. “Mortifying,” she replies, then quickly corrects herself. “Listen to me complaining! Oh, it’s so terrible getting my photo taken to promote my first novel.” She pulls a face. “I know this doesn’t actually count as a problem.” She might be forgiven for feeling some shellshock. Rooney, a Dubliner, is just 25, and her debut, Conversations with Friends, sold to Faber last April after a seven-way auction among publishers. Rights have been sold in 12 countries; the deal was, she says, enough that she now doesn’t have to work “for a couple of years”. Faber’s Mitzi Angel describes her as a “phenomenal talent”, a Martin Amis or Jay McInerney for the Snapchat generation. The change in her life has, she says, been “so colossal that I almost haven’t been able to react”. Until late 2015, Rooney was doing an admin job in a restaurant while she tried to work out what to do with her life after graduating with a master’s degree in American literature from Trinity College. She had been writing “failed novels” since she was in her teens, and while at university had a short story published in Winter Papers, an anthology edited by Kevin Barry and Olivia Smith, and an essay in the Dublin Review. Then one day she received an email from Tracy Bohan, of the Wylie Agency. “She had seen my story and wondered whether I had anything else she could read.” Rooney had the first draft of what was to become Conversations with Friends. “But I didn’t send her anything for ages,” she says. “I don’t know why. I didn’t want her to see this shoddy draft.” What she did, however, was to walk out on the restaurant job. “I came in one day and somebody had left a note on my desk, just a list of things I needed to do that day. I thought the tone was a bit snippy. So I did this really quite dramatic walk-out.” She laughs. “I don’t know why I didn’t just send them an email.” Perhaps she had to make it impossible for herself to go back? “Yes, I think that’s it. I had to really mess it up and leave myself no choice but to finish the book.” She worked on the draft until March, and then sent it to Bohan. From her response, Rooney realised there was a real possibility it would be published. “It’s really weird. You’ve been locked away working on this thing, and suddenly you start thinking about, like, your mum reading it.” Rooney cites Salinger as a key influence, and that is evident in Conversations With Friends, which combines poise with emotional acuity. It tells the story of Frances, a 21-year-old aspiring writer, and her best friend (and erstwhile girlfriend) Bobbi. The pair have been inseparable since school, but their relationship is forced to change when Frances begins a passionate, turbulent relationship with Nick, an older married man. Rooney is, she says, interested in “ambiguous relationships”, those which resist neat labels like “girlfriend”, “friend”, “gay” or “straight”. Ambiguity is a word that comes up several times during our conversation. Rooney was involved in competitive debating at university, and was the top speaker at the European University Debating Championships in 2013. The skill set, she says, is fundamentally the same: “exploring concepts in language”. However, debating is structured around binary choices: “there is no ambiguous position. And I think that might actually have helped me to critique that approach.” The book is coming out in June, and Rooney has finally taken the plunge and sent it to her mother. What did she make of it? “I don’t know. I’m kind of waiting for that curt two-line email: I read your book.” The last few months have certainly been quite a journey for Rooney. And I have no doubt that this is just the beginning. AO Conversations With Friends will be published by Faber in June Nuala Ellwood: ‘Angelina Jolie would be my top choice to play my heroine, Kate’ Interested in war reporting and PTSD: Nuala Ellwood. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer A fascination with war reporting helped turn this journalist’s daughter from singer/songwriter to novelist Whenever you read a book – whether you like it or not – an image of its author takes shape in your mind. Nuala Ellwood’s formidable debut thriller, My Sister’s Bones rivals The Girl on a Train as a compulsive read (and beats it for style). As I wait for Ellwood – a girl on the train herself today, about to arrive from York to London’s Kings Cross – I am already picturing a person as guarded as her novel, a manager of secrets. But then, through the ticket barrier, steps a smiling 37-year-old who proves not only transparently talkative but ready to put up with the rather strange pub in which we fetch up for pre-elevenses coffee. In April 2014 Ellwood secured Arts Council funding, with her illustrator husband, Nick Ellwood, to research post-traumatic stress disorder – she already knew this would be at the centre of her novel. She interviewed human rights organisations, war-reporters and Anthony Feinstein, professor of psychiatry at Toronto university. “A female war reporter had been referred to him, suffering nightmares and extreme anxiety after returning from Bosnia,” she explains, and Feinstein subsequently discovered that, incredibly, there was, at that time, no literature on the link between PTSD and war reporting. War reporters, we reflect, often behave as though they lead charmed lives. Ellwood says: “They do not admit to PTSD, for fear of being demoted.” In My Sister’s Bones, Kate Rafter is a war reporter, just returned from Syria. Her mother has died and she moves into the family house but is harrowed by PTSD. Her home becomes her war zone. Sally, her alcoholic sister, is a casualty. Her brother-in-law, Paul, tries to be caring, but can he cope with the two sisters? And what is to be done about Kate’s insistence that she has seen a disturbed Iraqi boy in the neighbour’s garden? Ellwood’s novel is dedicated to her father, television journalist Luke Casey. “He won the RTS best documentary for Crying in the Dark, an investigation into the Cleveland child abuse crisis. He also covered the aftermath of civil war in Beirut. I’m the youngest of five – we grew up near Darlington. And although Dad never had PTSD, his experiences made him extremely protective of us.” Ellwood’s mother, she says, was “like Barbara from The Good Life – able to live in the middle of nowhere with horses, cats, dogs and five children”. Her sister has worked for ITV and she has an actor brother – performance is in her genes. Ellwood always wanted to write but the urge started “song-shaped”. After studying sociology at Durham, she worked at London’s Chelsea Arts Club (frequented by the late and legendary war reporter Marie Colvin – another inspiration for the novel). She loved working there: “It was my home from home.” During the same period she performed her songs at the piano in venues around Soho. It was only when she became pregnant with their son, Luke, that she and Nick took the “big step” of moving back up north. The novel, however, is set in Kent. In February 2015 Ellwood travelled to Herne Bay (chosen for its proximity to Dover) and stayed there for two weeks: “I walked from the town up to Reculver’s twin towers. It is the most eerie and unsettling landscape – Turner painted it. There is this sense of otherness. Is that blur ahead of you a person? Or sky? Dog walkers would disappear in and out of the dunes. I thought: this is fabulous.” She and her husband are to produce an illustrated booklet, The Story Behind My Sister’s Bones, to be published by the Arts Council later this year (an earlier version can be viewed on Ellwood’s website). Nick, she explains, volunteered in the Calais camps over Christmas 2015 (the drawings that grew out of that experience were recently exhibited at Oxo Tower). And his chilling accounts helped fuel the novel. Ellwood also read war reporters on Syria and steeped herself in footage. Even the researching, she recalls, made her feel anxious, hyper-vigilant, protective of her son. “In a strange way, it was like PTSD by osmosis.” In literary terms, the writers she has been most drawn to have included Edgar Allan Poe, Virginia Woolf, Ian McEwan, Pat Barker and MR James. But it is Martha Gellhorn whose mission she hopes to share, making “an angry sound against injustice”. I tell her that I can imagine My Sister’s Bones making a powerful film (discussions about rights are ongoing). She laughs: “Angelina Jolie would be my top choice to play Kate.” She volunteers that she is already at work on a second thriller, set on the West Yorkshire moors, about a GP who wakes after a car crash to find everything changed. And this leads us to talk about the way that in her writing – as in life – there is always more to a person than meets the eye. Sometimes, she says, she plays with the idea of reimagining herself. “I’ll think about being Lydia from Maidstone.” And now it is my turn to laugh: Lydia from Maidstone does not convince. But we are all about to be convinced by Nuala Ellwood. KK My Sister’s Bones is published by Penguin on 9 Feb (£12.99). To preorder a copy for £11.04 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846 Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 Karl Geary: ‘My life was transformed because of the written word’ ‘Class is a huge part of the book’: Karl Geary. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer The Dublin boy with a learning disability has gone on to become an actor, New York hipster… and now a dedicated novelist “It’s about that feeling of freedom...” says Karl Geary when I notice the bird with spread wings tattooed on to his hand. A feeling of freedom is what the characters crave in Geary’s powerful Montpelier Parade, the story of 16-year-old, working-class Sonny who yearns to escape from 1980s Dublin where he is violently bullied. One day, while helping his father build a wall in well-to-do Montpelier Parade, he meets the troubled, enigmatic Vera. “Class is a huge part of the book,” says Geary. “Sonny builds walls with his dad and all he wants to do is leap over them. Vera introduces him to other possibilities. It’s really about two people who free each other in some way.” Through Vera, Sonny discovers the power of books: “Books give him the strength to climb over that wall. His journey towards literature is one of understanding that the narrative he has grown up with isn’t completely true”. Sonny’s family warn him against “getting ideas above his station”: “His mother has the burden of readying her children for a life of poverty and doesn’t want him to be hurt,” Geary explains. Were books a part of his own childhood? “No, I had a learning disability growing up so I didn’t discover them until much later. But when I did, my life was transformed because of the written word.” Born in 1972, Geary grew up in Dublin, then left for America aged 16. “I left for economic reasons and it worked out well for me. I loved the freedom of New York – the community of the East Village, with the artists, the people who didn’t fit in anywhere else. I was a bike messenger for six months. Then someone approached me to do a film with Peter Fonda [the post-modern vampire movie Nadja, directed by Michael Almereyda]. I could not believe it was happening – the only poster I had as a kid was Easy Rider.” His acting roles after that were as diverse as Sex and the City, Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story and Hamlet. He also owned a bar in downtown Manhattan called Scratcher and co-owned another club, Cafe Sin-é, in the East Village, where he waited at tables alongside Jeff Buckley. Regulars included Marianne Faithfull and Sinead O’Connor. Iggy Pop, PJ Harvey, Johnny Depp and U2 were also known to pop by. Although Geary drew on memories of his childhood in Ireland, the novel is not autobiographical: “There are parallels but my personal experience and Sonny’s are not exactly the same. Chekhov said: ‘It should be enough for a writer to walk past a barracks and understand something of the life of the lieutenant.’ I think there’s a lot of truth in that.” The rural and oral traditions in Irish writing were an inspiration for Montpelier Parade, which is narrated in a haunting second-person voice. The novel was written mostly in a dilapidated house in upstate New York. “I was on my own – that sense of isolation seeped in,” Geary says. “Every character is solitary in some way, and they’re filled with longings, fears and anxieties but can’t express them, so these feelings get played out in what’s not said. It’s almost like music where it’s the beat of silence between the notes that’s important.” He moved to Glasgow a year ago and now lives there with his wife, the Breaking Bad actor Laura Fraser, and their daughter, Lila. (The couple met in 2003 while filming Coney Island Baby, which Geary wrote and appeared in.) Writing is intrinsic to Geary’s daily life. “I get up early – 5am. I try and do 500 words a day.” Finally getting a publishing deal has been “amazing”, he admits, but “if I hadn’t, I would still be writing. It wakes me up to my environment in a way that nothing else does – and I would never give that up”. AS Montpelier Parade is published by Harvill Secker (£12.99). To order a copy for £11.04 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 Joseph Knox: ‘I had to make it happen: it was life-or-death’ Inspired by The Great Gatsby: Joseph Knox. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer This fiction-buyer knew how hard a successful writer must work… but never expected his own debut to take eight years After six years of working on his noir thriller, Sirens, Joseph Knox finally had a finished draft. “By this point, everyone I know and love does not believe this book exists,” Knox smiles. “It’s a fantasy. It’s a mental illness almost. I know I’ve got to make it happen and all this pressure is coming from internally basically, but it’s very, very real to me. It felt life-or-death to me to finish it.” Knox, whose day job – perhaps helpfully, maybe not – is crime-fiction buyer for Waterstones, read the manuscript through: the first half was exactly what he was hoping for, tight and atmospheric; the second half wasn’t. It felt limp and loose, the ending derivative. “I thought, ‘This could get published but it’s not going to stand next to anything I love. It’s not even going to be in the same room.’ Even thinking about that moment makes me feel sick. I walked around for many days with this weighing on my mind and I realised that the answer was just to delete the second half and start again. Which is what I did.” Two years later, Sirens was again finished, and this time Knox, who is 30 and writes under a pseudonym, was completely happy. It was sent out by his agent to publishers, and a staggering 10 came back with offers. Knox decided to go with Transworld, because they were the most excited about developing the book into a series. “Eight years!” says Knox, shaking his head. “Nothing should take that long! I thought about getting a tear tattooed on my face for every one of them.” Sirens follows the mostly nocturnal adventures of a junior detective in Manchester called Aidan Waits. He is sent undercover to track a 17-year-old girl, the runaway daughter of an MP, and finds himself caught up with a drug dealer who uses exotic female cash collectors, and the long-unsolved disappearance of one of them. Waits goes native, indulging fairly liberally in drugs and sex – old-fashioned cop work, I think it’s called – and scrabbles to keep a grip on fast-unravelling events. It is thrilling, breathless stuff, and Knox swingingly evokes an underworld both seedy and alluring. The idea came to Knox when he was an English student at Manchester University. One evening he found himself at a party – a pill party to be precise, where revellers bring prescription and over-the-counter medicines and mix them up – with no idea who owned the rather grand house they were in. “I was reading The Great Gatsby and it went off in my head right there that you could update that into a noir-ish criminal setting,” he recalls. “Instead of Gatsby throwing these jazz-age shindigs, you’ve got a criminal throwing raucous pill parties. And instead of Gatsby’s lost love, you’ve got the criminal’s – literally missing – lost girlfriend. And instead of Nick entering this world as a naive young man, you’ve got a young detective who has been seduced into it. “That just dropped into my head immediately as a really fun thing to do,” he goes on, “but that idea is looking pretty thin when you’re seven years later and still banging your head against a wall.” Knox really means it: he is a cheery fellow to have a beer with in the Waterstones cafe in London, but he clearly has an obsessive streak. He uses every spare second he has to write, and – as a lifelong insomniac – works long into the night. Surely now Sirens is being published, it must be a relief? “It’s like coming out of a coma in a way,” says Knox. “You call up all your friends and the phone numbers don’t work. You look in the mirror and you’re like, ‘Who’s this old guy?’ So I had this brief fleeting window of relief and then I found myself stood in the shower and I remembered, ‘Oh yeah, that depressing prick that you were for all the years up to the point where every minute was accounted for? He’s back! He’s back with a vengeance.’” Knox laughs. “And that day, I just started the second book.” TL Sirens is published by Doubleday (£12.99). To order a copy for £11.04 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 Mahsuda Snaith: ‘Anyone who tells you there’s only one way to write is wrong’ A believer in persistence: Mahsuda Snaith. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer The Bangladeshi British girl from Leicester spent 20 years writing her debut – her own way As the daughter of Bangladeshi parents growing up on a Leicester council estate, Mahsuda Snaith shares much of her protagonist’s backstory in her original and affecting coming-of-age novel. But, she warns, the two shouldn’t be confused. Crucially, Snaith has never experienced chronic pain, the mysterious and debilitating condition that has afflicted 18-year-old Ravine Roy for a decade, preventing her from leaving her flat and, often, her bed. It’s Ravine’s pain – physical and emotional – that is at the core of the novel, together with the mysterious disappearance of her childhood best friend, Marianne. And just that story in itself, suggests Snaith, is a sign of the way in which the publishing industry and its attitude to diversity has evolved. “As I was growing up and reading books by Asian writers, there was a very big force to have a stereotype of headscarves, or terrorism, or arranged marriages. And those stories are important, but there are other stories.” Snaith’s clear-eyed depiction of estate life at the turn of the millennium also resists cliches. “My experience of growing up was that there were lots of brilliant, eccentric people, and a sense of community,” she recalls. Both are present in her novel – one character’s nickname is Mr Eccentric, although he’s no match for Ravine’s convention-defying, pneumatic trainer-wearing mother. “Amma never believed in fashion sense, just common sense,” her daughter reflects ruefully, “though hers seemed common to no one but herself.” In earlier drafts of the novel Ravine was in a coma, but Snaith granted her a reprieve as she discovered there were limits to how passive a central character could be. The effects of chronic pain would, she realised, still isolate Ravine, as her narrative required, but allow for rather more in the way of both agency and hope. Snaith doesn’t mind admitting that her novel has had a long gestation. Having decided at the age of eight that she wanted to be an author, she had completed a first draft of the book by the time she was 16. Studying English literature and education at Leicester’s De Montfort University temporarily “killed” her enjoyment of writing, but in 2011 she returned to the manuscript, drawn by her love of the characters and the realisation that “if I don’t write, something feels wrong”. Working part-time as a supply teacher, she spent a year revising the book before sending it out, although it wasn’t until 2014 that things began to happen. Then, in the space of a few months, she was selected as a finalist for the Mslexia novel writing competition and won both the SI Leeds literary prize and the Bristol short story prize. (Snaith also has a play on the backburner: “I’ve always loved dialogue so it was quite a natural way for me to go after doing short stories and novels… I’ll have a go at everything”.) Finally, and on the day that she was due to give birth to her first baby, a two-book deal with Transworld was announced. Needless to say Snaith is a believer in persistence, but also in learning from rejection and seeking feedback. She found her membership of Leicester Writers’ Club “incredibly helpful”, although she has no regrets about not pursuing the creative writing MA route to publication. “I wouldn’t have been able to afford it, but part of me has always thought that writing is the one area where you shouldn’t have to spend a lot of money to get better at it.” How-to guides and the internet can be just as effective, she argues, although nothing beats poring over the pages of favourite novels, “trying to figure how other authors have done it and then just getting on with it yourself”. Having keenly studied previous Observer new faces of fiction, Snaith confesses that being picked as one herself is “a dream come true”. So what tips would she offer those hoping to make the lineup 12 months from now? Find your own way of writing, she says; listen to advice and get all the opinions you can, but be prepared to go with your gut instinct. “Anyone who says there’s only one way of writing is wrong, basically!” SC The Things We Thought We Knew will be published in June by Doubleday Xan Brooks: ‘It’s like pumping water out of a well. The first stuff is going to be brown and sludgy and stink’ ‘I’ve only just told my dad about the book, what it came from’: Xan Brooks. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer The former Guardian film editor quit journalism to work on his first novel, a dark and funny fairy tale – based on a strange reality Given its dark subject matter, The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times is a thrilling, disturbing, and somehow very funny first novel: a twisted fairy tale, set in 1923, with touches of magic. Xan Brooks started on the book when he left Guardian, bashing out a chunk of the work in the first three months. In order to focus, he took on no journalism (although a young baby provided some distraction). He finished a first draft in the first six months of 2015. I tell him I can’t imagine that the disturbing events in this book can be taken from reality, but they are. There are two groups of characters – four ex-soldiers from the first world war, named after characters from The Wizard of Oz, and a group of four teenagers from north London – Winifred, John, Edith and our hero, Lucy. Every Sunday night the two groups meet in Epping Forest. It is not immediately obvious why, and it is not comforting to find out. The title is a line Brooks’s wife once said about the erratic timepieces in their own home, while the dark subject matter of the narrative originates in his own family history, he says: “In 2014 I spent some time with my dad in New York, which is where he lives. His aunt had recently died, knocking 100, I think, and once, in a hasty two-minute conversation in the kitchen, she told my dad that she used to be taken to the woods to meet “the funny men from the war”. I think she was so unnerved saying it, that he felt he couldn’t ask any more questions about it. But it stayed with me. And I looked into it. I’ve only recently told my dad about the book, how it came from that.” The mystery of what happens in the woods unfolds each time we follow the kids into the cover of the canopy away from their broken families in Walthamstow, depleted by fathers who didn’t come home from fighting or mothers who fell to the flu. The damage the war has done is rooted in the book, like the great trees in the forest – damage that’s passed on and gathers speed. Characters shift their identities to cope and we are never sure whether a grimace is in laughter or in pain and quite often it’s both. One particular method of coping is the most sinister of all. Brooks didn’t just want to write a straight novel about the war and he rejects the label of historical fiction, telling me “a story is a story”. He grew up in the West Country rather than north London, but that’s where what happened to his great aunt took place. He didn’t get too bogged down in research either – “then you end up focusing on washing-machine brands” – and there are touches of Angela Carter and Salman Rushdie in the magical elements of the narrative. He believes being a journalist helped him as a writer of fiction, he tells me, because journalists just have to get on with it. “But I do remember the first thing I did in my early 20s in the 1990s, was ghostwriting film reviews for the Radio Times. They didn’t even have my name on, and I thought no matter what I did these blurbs of films will be the most widely read of all.” The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times looks set to be widely read: it is a bold, ambitious, weird novel with a lot of foliage to get lost in. It wasn’t his first attempt, he adds. “It’s like pumping water out of well. The first stuff that comes out is going to be brown and sludgy and stink, but you just have to keep doing it.” He eschewed the agent route and took it straight to publishers. Salt – which since its move into fiction has a habit of choosing quirky books which go on to resonate (see Wyl Menmuir’s Booker-longlisted The Many) – picked the book up. Wise decision on Salt’s part. Brooks hopes so. “The worst thing is fear,” he says. “The path is made by walking it.” HP The Clocks in This House All Tell Different Times is published on 15 April by Salt (£8.99). To order a copy for £7.64 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 Olivia Sudjic: ‘I do feel I’ve shared too much information’ Her parents were ‘understandably’ concerned: Olivia Sudjic. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer She tried to write a historical novel but ended up with a fascinating story about how we connect in the digital age Imagine Alice Through The Looking Glass for the Instagram generation and you’ll get a sense of Sympathy. Set largely in New York in 2014 – the disappearance of flight MH370 is among the real-world events that penetrate its narrator’s filter bubble – it explores the obsession of one young woman with another, an obsession fed by social media feeds and resulting in a slow but devastating slippage of identity. Given its bang-up-to-the-minuteness, it’s a surprise to learn that the book was originally set 350 years in the past. “I had this idea in my mind that to be taken seriously your first novel has to have a historical element, and preferably something intergenerational,” Olivia Sudjic muses, “and then after a while, I was just like, ‘Mmm, that’s not coming naturally.’” Sudjic’s plan was to write about sympathy powder, a “crackpot” form of 17th-century medicine “which turns up in lots of funny books like Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before and Longitude by Dava Sobel”. But then she realised that her ideas could be translated to the present. “Our technologies are like a modern form of that – medicine, magic – where we can connect across time and space, so the seeds are still there but I got rid of most of it.” You might assume from this that Sympathy was a slow write but Sudjic, now 28, only began the book in 2014. “At university I read a lot of novels but was very used to breaking them down and seeing them from behind the scenes and it didn’t really facilitate a sense of ‘I could create one as well,’” she reflects. Sudjic read English literature at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and “basically did a job a year” before joining a brand consultants. Unhappy, she decided to take the plunge, to quit and work on Sympathy full time, despite not having written creatively since her school days. Sudjic’s parents were, she says, “understandably” concerned. However her grandmother was supportive and, turning fairy godmother, offered her a base in New York for three months while she got under way. “[New York] was a good place to write and then it became the book itself,” Sudjic recalls. If the author’s name is familiar it is because her father is Deyan Sudjic, currently the director of London’s Design Museum and formerly the Observer’s design and architecture critic; Sudjic’s mother, Sarah Miller, founded Condé Nast Traveller magazine. “When I first said I was going to write the book my parents were like, ‘Oh! Well obviously it’s going to be about us!’” she laughs. “And I said, ‘Well no, it’s definitely not, but at the same time the characters will probably have parents.’” Sympathy’s narrator, the knowingly-named Alice Hare, in fact has many parents: adopted into a white family, she is herself mixed-race, though that fact isn’t immediately apparent Sudjic wanted to surprise readers. “You imagine you’ve understood someone else’s way of thinking or lived someone else’s life, but actually what you’ve done is replayed your own.” At more than 400 pages, Sympathy serves up David Mitchell levels of plot; it is also subtly mimetic. “I liked the idea that someone would be reading a physical book, but feeling almost as though they were in a different medium,” Sudjic says, and she has succeeded: Sympathy’s narrative advances like a search, link by link, as Alice follows her nose through meat – and cyberspace – leaving not breadcrumbs but photos behind. With so much going on – did I mention the particle physics…? – I can’t help wondering if Sudjic ever felt in danger of vanishing down the wormholes into which her protagonist dives. Did Sudjic do a Franzen and disconnect entirely while she was writing? No, she says, but her own relationship with social media has definitely changed. “I look back and I do feel like I’ve shared too much information… Writing the book has made me a lot more self-conscious about my relationship to technology.” But if Sympathy is in part a cautionary tale, its author is very far from po-faced: abuzz with ideas and enthusiasm, she leaves you convinced that there’s much, much more to come. SC Sympathy by Olivia Sudjic is published on 4 May by One (£14.99). To preorder a copy for £12.74 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99

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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/11/signs-are-clear-our-destiny-lies-with-europe-not-sovereign-global-britain-fantasy

Opinion

2022-12-11T07:00:25.000Z

Peter Hain

The signs are clear. Our destiny lies with Europe, not a ‘sovereign global Britain’ fantasy | Peter Hain

It’s now official. Brexit has caused lasting damage to the UK economy and, with the Tories in denial, Labour needs to lead the way with a new policy agenda. Yet it’s almost a taboo topic: the Tory government won’t admit it and Labour is understandably reluctant to rekindle old Brexit flames. The governor of the Bank of England, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) all agree that, notwithstanding Covid or the Ukrainian war, Brexit is the main reason why the UK is the only economy in the G7 still below its pre-pandemic size. Real wages fell by 2.9% following Brexit, according to the Resolution Foundation. London School of Economics researchers found Brexit triggered food price rises by 6% in the two years to the end of 2021. Business investment, dogged by post-Brexit uncertainty, has also flatlined since 2016, compared with EU and US trends. Since 2021, trade growth has been lower for the UK than the G7 average, reflecting non-tariff barriers after Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal. The OBR found UK trade 15% lower than if we’d remained in the EU. Tory leaders promised a new nirvana of foreign trade deals now that the UK had “broken free” of the EU. Yet among the very few new ones, Liz Truss’s much trumpeted Japan deal has actually seen exports to Japan fall by £0.4bn, or 3.2%. Her deal with Australia has been denounced as “not actually a very good deal for the UK” by the pro-Brexit former cabinet minister George Eustice. As for the promised “bonfire of red tape” for business, Brexit has in fact piled up extra form filling and costs for businesses attempting to access our largest and nearest market. The chemical industry has spent £2bn complying with the UK’s duplicate of the EU’s regulatory system for absolutely no benefit, leading the Treasury to admit that the UK’s Brexit divorce bill could rise to £42.5bn, up to £7.5bn higher than initially estimated. This kind of nightmare will only be repeated for numerous other sectors of the British economy if the abominable “Brexit freedoms bill” ever reaches the statute book. This would, at the end of 2023, revoke around 3,800 EU measures, which were continued by Theresa May’s administration in order to provide business with regulatory certainty after the referendum result. The resulting chaos would also be incompatible with the requirement in Johnson’s UK-EU trade and cooperation agreement to maintain a level playing field with the single market in order for the UK to retain tariff-free access to it. Brexit, supposed to “control” immigration, has in fact delivered both chronic labour shortages and a dramatic jump in net migration in the year to June 2022, to a record 504,000 – deeply ironic given the racist undertone to much of the Brexit campaign. Nobody at the top of the EU trusts the UK any more. Why should they, after the Tories sign treaties then break them? As these Brexit failings become more evident, support for Scottish independence appears to be edging up. Unless Labour does something about it, we could get independence driven at least in part by Brexit, which Nicola Sturgeon continually stresses in making her case. Brexit is proving a disaster and if re-running a referendum is out of the question, how do we “make Brexit work”, to quote Keir Starmer? Even if the real solution – rejoining the single market and customs union – is ruled out for the foreseeable future, there are a number of practical steps that Labour as an incoming government should prioritise. First, rebuild trust. Nobody at the top of the EU trusts the UK any more. And why should they, after the Tories sign treaties then break them? Yet without mutual trust, problem-solving negotiations will not succeed – I know that, as a former Europe minister. Like ironing out unnecessary travel restrictions (such as the “90 days limit in any 180 days” for UK citizens, whether on business or for tourism, to the Schengen area). More urgent is sorting out the Northern Ireland protocol, which triggered a collapse in Stormont self-government. Having investigated the protocol as a member of a Lords committee for over a year, I know how that can be done, but it requires give and take on both sides, especially less fundamentalism and more straight dealing by the UK. Building on the EU-UK trade agreement, we need to ensure continuation of a “level playing field” on regulation. Enabling, for example, Nissan Sunderland to continue exporting 70% of its production to Europe. Cooperation on energy policy is essential, including on net zero and on security of supply (as we depend on imports from mainland Europe for around a third of our energy). Britain faces a multiplicity of crises that can only be overcome in cooperation with our immediate European neighbours: catastrophic climate change, the Ukraine war, economic growth, energy affordability and security. It’s high time that we all confronted the Brexit fantasy of a “sovereign global Britain”. The writing is on the wall. Our destiny lies, if not within, then certainly with Europe – and Labour needs practical policies to deliver that. Something, given the current prosperity-killing shambles, that even Brexit voters would surely welcome? Lord Hain is a former Labour cabinet minister. His new thriller The Elephant Conspiracy: corruption, assassination, extinction is published by Muswell Press

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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/07/cameron-sri-lanka-war-crimes-inquiry

World news

2013-11-07T22:22:21.000Z

Rowena Mason

David Cameron presses for Sri Lanka war crimes inquiry

David Cameron has said an international inquiry into allegations of war crimes in Sri Lanka may be needed, as he prepares to attend a Commonwealth summit there. The prime minister has previously said Sri Lanka's controversial government needs to hold an independent investigation, but has now turned up the rhetoric by calling for an inquiry with international oversight if the country does not order its own review. Members of the Tamil community urged him at a Downing Street meeting to boycott the summit due to take place next week. Failing that, they called on him to leave William Hague, the foreign secretary, behind in London as a mark of his dissatisfaction with Sri Lanka's human rights record. They also urged him to press for Sri Lanka to be stripped of its two-year chairmanship of the Commonwealth. Cameron and Hague argue they will make more of an impact by turning up to the summit and making the case for Sri Lanka to investigate thoroughly accusations of abuses in the country. There have been allegations the government, headed by president Mahinda Rajapaksa, has been complicit in kidnappings, torture and other human rights abuses. The prime minister will be the first leader to visit the war-ravaged north of Sri Lanka since the country's independence in 1948, where he will meet people directly affected by the 25-year civil war, which ended in 2009 after the deaths of tens of thousands of people. Writing in the Tamil Guardian, he said: "Some, including many in the Tamil community here in Britain, have called for me not to attend because of the Sri Lankan government's poor record on human rights and cruel treatment of Tamils. "Four years after the conflict, no one has been held to account for grave allegations of war crimes and sexual violence, journalists are routinely intimidated and thousands of people have yet to find out what has happened to their missing relatives. "I want to see that change. And I do not believe boycotting the Commonwealth meeting will achieve that. The right thing to do is to engage. To visit the country. To shine the international spotlight on the lack of progress in the country. And to have frank conversations with the Sri Lankan government about what they must do to address the concerns of the international community and to improve the daily life of thousands of Tamils and civilians across all communities." Cameron will demand the Sri Lankan government investigate "alleged war crimes and allegations of continuing human rights abuses, guarantee freedom of expression, and stamp out intimidation of journalists and human rights defenders – including by bringing those responsible to justice". "This will not be an easy conversation," he said. "But diplomacy is not about ducking the difficult discussions. It is about talking to those that you may not agree with precisely because you want to change their approach.". The controversy over Sri Lanka's human rights has overshadowed the Commonwealth heads of government meeting, which is held every two years. Suren Surendiran, spokesman for the Global Tamil Forum, said the group was "not satisfied" that Cameron was refusing to boycott the summit, unlike Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada. However, he said it would be a big step forward if Cameron presses for an international inquiry when he meets the Sri Lankan government. A Number 10 spokespon said: "We have consistently called for an independent inquiry into the allegations. To date, that has not happened. And the PM believes that in the absence of an independent investigation, an international inquiry would be needed."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jul/04/from-the-observer-magazine-archive-the-monuments-of-thatcherism-1989

Life and style

2021-07-04T05:00:12.000Z

Chris Hall

From the archive: the monuments of Thatcherism, as seen in 1989

As Thatcherism was about to enter its second decade and the Channel Tunnel was being dug there were ‘still more striking manifestations of the last 10 years’ according to the Observer Magazine’s writers (‘Thatcher’s Monuments’, 23 April 1989). Peter Conrad chose the Lloyd’s building in the City (completed in 1986) – which ‘wearing its profits on its walls, looks more like a giant coffee percolator than the coffee house in which the insurance firm started’ – contrasting it with cardboard city, less than a mile away under the Bullring: ‘Their impromptu shelters seem to imitate the whimsies of Richard Rogers, whose building can afford to joke about its own flimsiness. But on the embankment the joke is sourer.’ The Lloyd's building looks more like a giant coffee percolator than the coffee house in which the insurance firm started ‘This country still looks like the same jolly tumble-down old place,’ he wrote, ‘but now it’s run not by lovable fuddy-duddies but by a pack of wolves. Lloyd’s sums up the imposture.’ Malcolm Bradbury picked Cambridge Science Park (AKA Silicon Fen) as his Thatcherite exemplar. ‘Cambridge is one of the hard-driving cities of the Thatcher Revolution, capitalising on two key intellectual assets. One is the Newtonian tradition… the other is the tradition of Tarmac, which has given the windswept Fenland capital fast motorway connections with the world outside.’ Peter Kellner eschewed buildings altogether in favour of the highways that were blockaded by the police during the miners’ strike in 1984 to prevent secondary picketing: ‘It is not the only time Mrs Thatcher has shown a casual willingness to infringe what were taken to be inalienable liberties.’ Jeremy Seabrook chose the cynical right-to-buy scheme for council tenants. ‘One of the great contradictions of this decade has been that the appeal to prudent housekeeping has gone hand in hand with the irredeemable slide into indebtedness.’ And, more pointedly: ‘Where the opportunity for making a killing becomes the highest endeavour, we must not be surprised if society is pervaded by an odour of corpses.’

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2021/jun/26/roberto-martinez-belgium-portugal-euro-2020

Football

2021-06-26T09:37:04.000Z

Jonathan Liew

Can Belgium’s world-beaters win a major trophy? It may be now or never | Jonathan Liew

There is a moment towards the end of the recent BBC documentary Whistle to Whistle in which, after an hour of fixating on the details and minutiae of his job as Belgium coach, Roberto Martínez finally allows himself to take a broader view. “I just feel that this generation deserves silverware,” he says. “They deserve something that will be talked about for the next 50, 60, 70 years. But that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen.” In those few sentences, Martínez expresses the fundamental paradox of his job, in many ways the fundamental paradox of international football. Since taking over from France in October 2018, Belgium have now been top of the Fifa world rankings for almost three years. They have, by most statistical and qualitative measures, been the world’s best team. The problem, when you get to the sharp end of an international tournament, is that you only get 90 minutes to prove it. Euro 2020 power rankings: Italy lead the way after impressive group stage Read more It is a problem that has been occupying Martínez’s days and nights ever since he took the job in 2016: how to convert that weight of talent, that mountain of expectation and longing, into one result on one evening. This is the ornate violence of knockout football: that stark contrast between the dozens of games that don’t really matter, and the handful that mean absolutely everything, upon which legacies and careers rise and fall. On Sunday afternoon Belgium will face Portugal in Seville as strong favourites to progress to the last eight. They cruised through their group with three wins. All the noises from the camp suggest a harmonious, confident team slowly building, slowly sharpening to a point. The attacking trident of Romelu Lukaku, Kevin De Bruyne and Eden Hazard is just coming to the boil. This all matters. You could also make a case that none of it matters. Prominently displayed in Martínez’s office in Tubize, just south of Brussels, is a graphic print representing Nacer Chadli’s winning goal against Japan at the last World Cup. Belgium won 3-2 after trailing 2-0 in the 69th minute, and for all that came before and after, there is a strong case for anointing Chadli’s 94th-minute goal as the most important in the recent history of Belgian football. Had Belgium gone out in the last 16, the tale of their tournament – and perhaps this generation – would again have been one of lavish underperformance. The tag of tournament chokers would have been almost indelible. The clamour for purgation and revolution – starting with Martínez himself – would have been irresistible. Nacer Chadli is surrounded by teammates after his winner for Belgium against Japan in the 2018 World Cup last 16. Roberto Martínez has a graphic print of the goal in his office. Photograph: Francis R Malasig/EPA And so Belgium’s trilogy of knockout performances in Russia serves as a salutary lesson in the fine margins at this rarefied level. After the escape against Japan, Martínez decided on a wholesale tactical shift in the quarter-final against Brazil, converting an attacking 3-4-3 into a counterattacking 4-3-3: a change enacted with just 20 minutes of training in advance. “What’s he doing?” Hazard remembers the baffled players asking each other before the game. But it worked: Belgium comprehensively peeling Brazil open on their way to a 2-1 win. The semi-final against France was different again. Belgium dominated possession and territory, only to lose to an inspired defensive rearguard and a single set-piece goal. Yet amid the anger and injustice – “We lost against a team that was not better than us, and which did not play,” said Thibaut Courtois – there was also a measure of self-culpability in the way one of the world’s finest attacking teams had ended up swinging crosses on to the head of Marouane Fellaini. This, then, is the moment when we discover whether Belgium have learned how to navigate the unique currents of tournament football: a task that requires a little luck and an ability to roll with the punches, to manage games with intelligence, to find the little moment of coolness and class that unlocks elite defences. Portugal are not the team they were five years ago: they feel passive and flat-footed at the back, too vulnerable to pace, too reliant on the goals of Cristiano Ronaldo. Increasingly this is beginning to look like a tournament too far for Pepe. Belgium should win if they concentrate on their own strengths. But in that “should” is buried a multitude of curses as well as blessings. Romelu Lukaku watches Hugo Lloris save a shot from Toby Alderweireld as Belgium came up just short in the 2018 World Cup semi-final against France. Photograph: Martin Meissner/AP The other factor here is time. This is the second-oldest squad at Euro 2020, after that of Sweden. Ten of the Belgians are over 30; all but Tielemans and the promising striker Jérémy Doku are over 25. The first golden generation – Vincent Kompany, Fellaini, Mousa Dembélé, Toby Alderweireld, Dries Mertens, Jan Vertonghen – have already either departed the scene or are on their way out. Meanwhile, the under-21s didn’t even qualify for this summer’s European Championship, while the under-19s are officially ranked the 16th best in Europe. There is still plenty of talent there – Doku, Milan’s Alexis Saelemaekers, the Stuttgart midfielder Orel Mangala – and a fine infrastructure in place to nurture it, much of which put in place by Martínez in his dual role as technical director. But given Belgium’s size, and the improbability of unearthing another generation remotely like this one, you still feel Belgium’s time is either now or not at all. The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email. And so, for all their years of peerless excellence, the legacy of Belgium’s greatest generation really boils down to these next four games. Of Belgium’s last 58 opponents, only two have managed to prevent them from scoring. One was France in the World Cup. The other, in a goalless draw in Brussels in June 2018, was Portugal.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jul/01/the-terminal-list-review-chris-pratts-amazon-action-series-is-terminally-dull

Television & radio

2022-07-01T05:17:02.000Z

Benjamin Lee

The Terminal List review – Chris Pratt’s Amazon action series is terminally dull

While Amazon Prime would, of course, like to be seen as a one-stop shop for all kinds of content (and like its competitors, the headache-inducing number of shows and films being spewed out does mean that there really is something for everyone), there has become a notably strange sweet spot for the streamer. The retailer’s first show might have been Joey Soloway’s intimate family drama Transparent, exploring gender and sexuality with sensitivity, and its most awarded might be The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, a female-fronted comedy about female comedy, what’s being most watched continues to be a very different story. Only Murders in the Building season two review – a brilliant layer cake of meta-murder fun Read more For it’s the red-blooded, dad-would-like action narratives that seem to have connected the most, from the long-running success of Bosch to the much-watched Tom Clancy adaptations Jack Ryan and Without Remorse to the impressive numbers for the army v aliens thriller The Tomorrow War to, most recently, the record-breaking viewership of Lee Child’s Reacher (one could superficially nestle The Boys alongside for those who haven’t quite grasped the show’s pretty easy-to-grasp satire). It’s not all been bad per se but it’s mostly been indistinctive, a gung-ho formula of guys and guns that offers very little in the way of surprise. The Terminal List is an inevitable algorithmic amalgamation of the above with The Tomorrow War’s Chris Pratt heading up an adaptation of a Jack Carr novel, whose military adventures file next to both Clancy and Child, writers he’s expressed admiration for. But it’s familiar to a fault, a tired and tiring series unfurling on Independence Day weekend for those looking for a low-stakes post-barbecue watch, a slab of barely heated red meat that’s all extremely hard-to-chew gristle. Pratt plays James Reece, whose life is turned upside down after his platoon of Navy Seals is killed during a botched mission overseas. Upon returning back to his family (an adoring wife and a young daughter he takes hunting) memories of what happened shift and Reece convinces himself that some sort of conspiracy is afoot, one that might threaten the lives of those that he loves. In a recent interview, Pratt, who on the same press tour has shown understandable annoyance over Twitter voting him “the worst of the Chrises”, revealed that the allure of a return to television was the ability to see a story that would have felt rushed and shallow at 90 minutes get the expansive eight-hour treatment, allowing ancillary characters depth and development. What’s most head-scratching about this reasoning, which has oftentimes turned good stories into great ones, is just how much this particular tale suffers from the long-form format. The Terminal List is the kind of straight-to-Redbox three-beers-deep actioner made by the dozen, usually starring Chad Michael Murray or Bruce Willis or Chad Michael Murray and Bruce Willis, that works best with little to no thinking time. When spread across eight, punishingly dull episodes, all of its many, many cracks star to tear the whole thing apart. Drably directed in part by Antoine Fuqua (who, since Training Day, has specialised in anonymous point-and-shoot action fodder), it’s astonishingly pedestrian and aggressively unexciting stuff, a flat and all-too-easy-to-predict revenge saga that plays by the basest of rules, our embittered hero violently working his way through the bad guys like he’s in a video game, all the way up to the boss level (hilariously he does cross them off on a hand-written list which allows for the unintentionally incredible line: “Stay off my list!”). What the show fails to reckon with is just how deranged Reece’s mission ends up being, his methods often hewing closer to those of Jigsaw (a torture scene involving intestines is as gratuitous as it is stupid) and quite often possessing not an iota of interest in how many other, innocent lives could be affected. A more interesting script would have grappled with his sadistic selfishness but creator David DiGilio is far too busy cheering from the sidelines (at one point a character says of Reece: “Guy’s a legend, total patriot”). It’s a passion project for Pratt, who hasn’t been shy about his military obsession, but you would not know from watching the actor giving arguably his laziest performance to date, lethargically shuffling through scenes like he’s just here for the cash, unable to bring any real shades of humanity to an admittedly half-a-note character (how Carr has turned Reece into a five-book franchise is a genuine mystery). What made Pratt such a revelation in Guardians of the Galaxy was his ability to transplant his well-trained sitcom timing to a genre that can often feel rigid and humourless, a leading man that prized freewheeling goofiness over staid stoicism. But his choices have since lost any of that fizz, turning him into yet another bland gym lug, promise squandered. There’s little of interest for anyone else to do, from a mostly unconvincing Constance Wu as an exposition-spouting journalist to a cartoonishly evil Jai Courtney as a big tech baddie to Taylor Kitsch slumming it as a quippy soldier pal to a bizarrely thankless role for the wonderful Riley Keough on wife duty. The only real fun is watching Jeanne Tripplehorn as secretary of state, relishing a much-deserved second career wind. If Amazon’s recent history is anything to go by, this will probably be an easy win but for those who might have curiously added it to this summer’s watch list, I’d recommend crossing it straight off. The Terminal List is now available on Amazon Prime Video

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/apr/13/moominvalley-sky-tv-rosamund-pike-kate-winslet

Television & radio

2019-04-13T10:00:17.000Z

Joel Golby

Why are Rosamund Pike and Kate Winslet stuck in the CGI Moominvalley?

Always got slightly disconcerted by the Moomins. Can’t quite drill down as to why without the necessary therapy; their curious blob-like shapes? The idea of a family of hippopotami walking upright on two legs? Their near-pathological lack of a mouth? The way they always moved just two beats too slowly on the screen? That one who looked like a baby witch? All the ghosts? But they always made me nervous as a boy and, if we’re being honest, still do now. The original Moomins series more or less split the children who watched it into two adult camps: those who are still filled with a deep abyss of dread (me), or those who still buy Moomin-themed cups and Moomin-themed plates and Moomin plushies, even though they’re 40. And so this week to Moominvalley (Friday 26 April, 5.30pm, Sky One), where the Moomins are back, moving in that way they do, with their big eyes and their animal nudity, ready to either terrify or delight a new generation of children and keep the novelty teacup industry ticking over well into 2049. The latest iteration has everything: a crowdfunded pilot episode; an Oscar-winning director (Steve Box); and an all-star cast, featuring Taron Egerton (too big for this), Rosamund Pike (too big for this) and Kate Winslet (it’s Kate Winslet!). Things are still wholesome and sprinkled with woodland magic – you always feel as though someone’s day can be unutterably altered by a mushroom – but now the ink-and-primary-colours of the original art style have been switched out for squishier, blander computer animation. It is Easter, so I suppose this is what we want now: CGI remakes of beloved old children’s books, voiced by British actors Americans have heard of. It happened already with The Gruffalo (nice, colourful, smoothly made and very cute!) and Watership Down (horrible, but not quite horrible enough! Seemingly rendered on a chipped PS2!), featuring, variously, Helena Bonham Carter, James Corden, Robbie Coltrane, James McAvoy, Nicholas Hoult, John Boyega and, because he’s always about, Ben Kingsley. We are, frankly, about three Christmas–Easter weekend cycles away from a gritty reboot of The Very Hungry Caterpillar featuring Tom Hardy; a completely method performance where Hardy yells “I’M HUNGRY!” in a Bane voice through huge mouthfuls of plums and sausages. I suppose the all-star cast is, if nothing else, a paean to the enduring appeal of the Moomins. Spiritually, Moominvalley is still the same as the beloved comics and cartoons that spawned it: the first episode sees Egerton’s Moomintroll tormented by Bel Powley’s Little My, so he (spoilers!) sulks off to build a wooden house on the back of a giant turtle, because of course he does. And the creators have veered away from giving the Moomins, like, breaks to take selfies, or a top #100 rank on Fortnite, or a segment where Moomintroll teaches Moominpappa how to clumsily floss. Listen, it’s not going to change your life, but it’s nice enough to sit down and watch with your family after a roast. Sit back and let the threatless world of the Moomins soothe your battered soul. Try not to fixate on how eerie it is that they never really blink.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jan/06/no-10-refurb-lord-geidt-criticises-pm-but-says-he-did-not-deliberately-mislead

Politics

2022-01-06T14:30:29.000Z

Aubrey Allegretti

No 11 flat refurb: Lord Geidt criticises PM but says he did not deliberately mislead

Boris Johnson has been criticised by his ethics adviser for acting “unwisely” but cleared of being deliberately misleading during an investigation into the funding of his Downing Street flat refurbishment. The prime minister gave a “humble and sincere” apology for failing to disclose crucial messages after facing questions from Christopher Geidt over an undeclared WhatsApp exchange with a Tory peer who funded a makeover of the No 11 residence. Johnson said he “did not recall” the messages with David Brownlow, the man who provided £58,000 to cover some of the cost for the renovations, and blamed “security issues” – thought to relate to when his mobile number was discovered online – for not having access to the phone. Complaining that parts of his No 11 flat looked a “bit of a tip”, Johnson asked Brownlow on 29 November 2020 for “approvals” so his decorator, Lulu Lytle, could “get on with it”. He added: “Ps am on the great exhibition plan Will revert.” In reply, Brownlow said he would “get it sorted ASAP” and reassured Johnson: “Approval is a doddle as it’s only me and I know where the £ will come from.” He also thanked Johnson for “thinking about GE2”. Asked what the great exhibition plan Johnson referred to was, his spokesman said it was an “idea that wasn’t taken forward”. He added that instead, “Festival UK” would be going ahead in 2022 – but could not explain the difference between that event and the great exhibition plan. Lord Geidt, who produced a report last spring which said Johnson told him he knew nothing of the flat payments until “immediately prior” to newspaper reports in February 2021, was deeply critical of having not been provided what he called the “missing exchange”. Download original document While he said the new evidence did not alter “the fundamental assessment” that Johnson did not break the ministerial code, Geidt said he doubted if he would still have concluded that Johnson took all steps to make the correct donation and seek advice when he first became aware of the payments. Although Johnson’s phone was “no longer available to search”, Geidt said it “was again accessed” for “another purpose” in June, after the initial inquiry concluded. It also emerged Brownlow had offered the message exchange to the Cabinet Office – but this was declined, in a move Geidt described as “extraordinary”. He concluded: “The greatest possible care should have been taken to assemble all relevant material and this standard has not been met.” In another thinly veiled furious letter to Johnson sent on 23 December, Geidt said: “The episode shook my confidence precisely because potential and real failures of process occurred in more than one part of the apparatus of government.” Johnson wrote to Geidt two days earlier offering a “humble and sincere apology” and saying he wanted to “draw a line under these events” by offering “more dedicated support from officials” for the adviser’s future work. The prime minister resisted committing to beefing up Geidt’s powers to let him open investigations without needing sign-off, as several bodies have recommended. However, a subsequent report compiled by the Electoral Commission unearthed that Johnson messaged the man behind the payments, David Brownlow, in November 2020 asking him to authorise further refurbishments to the flat. The discrepancy prompted a senior Labour MP to allege Johnson “may have lied”, and Geidt sought an explanation from the prime minister in several letters exchanged over the past month. The Conservatives were fined £17,800 in December for not reporting the £52,801 the party received via Lord Brownlow’s company (Huntswood Associates Ltd). Johnson blamed not sharing the WhatsApp message with Geidt on having changed phone numbers, saying he “did not have access to my previous device and did not recall the message exchange”. Geidt, who is the government’s independent adviser on ministerial interests, said he had concluded his initial finding Johnson did not break the ministerial code still stood: “The new disclosure did not in fact result in change to my original assessment of your interests insofar as they related to the ministerial code.” However, Geidt made clear his disdain at not having been given all the evidence originally and is expected to push to be given greater powers in subsequent investigations. He said the episode “shook my confidence precisely because potential and real failures of process occurred in more than one part of the apparatus of government”.

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https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/nov/06/guy-pearce-broken-bones-exclusive-album-stream

Music

2014-11-06T17:03:07.000Z

Monica Tan

Guy Pearce – Broken Bones: exclusive album stream

After decades of hesitation, actor Guy Pearce has finally bitten the bullet and released his debut album. Up until now, Pearce’s musical ambition has flown well under the radar: there was the occasional low-key gig, and only a few musical roles in his long and acclaimed acting career, like 1999’s A Slipping-Down Life, in which the actor played a musician, and both sang and played the guitar on the soundtrack. In Broken Bones, Pearce uses his husky singing voice to strong effect, with self-penned songs that borrow in style from bands like Crowded House and Augie March. So before you dismiss the actor outright as yet another former Neighbours star with pop star ambitions, take a listen to Broken Bones using the player below and let us know your thoughts in the comments section. This album stream ended on 10 November 2014

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/aug/19/the-festival-film-review-inbetweeners

Film

2018-08-19T07:00:14.000Z

Simran Hans

The Festival review – pitch perfect spiritual sequel to The Inbetweeners

Exams, virginity loss, lads’ holidays and gap years; British writer-director Iain Morris has spent the last 10 years taking the piss out of teenage rites of passage, humiliating four dweeby sixth-formers better known as The Inbetweeners in the process. Morris’s hit sitcom spawned two spinoff films that took its characters on tour: the first, on an all-inclusive trip to Malia, the second, to “find” themselves in Australia. His new film, The Festival, takes on the myths – and the mud – of Glastonbury; though no characters cross over from The Inbetweeners universe, the film works as a kind of spiritual sequel. When Nick (Joe Thomas, who played Simon in The Inbetweeners) is unceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend Caitlin (Hannah Tointon) at their university graduation, he vows to spend the summer confined to his bedroom, cry-wanking while surrounded by empty boxes of fried chicken. His best friend, Shane (Hammed Animashaun), a guilelessly optimistic EDM obsessive, convinces him that the best way to get out of his head – and over Caitlin – is to attend a music festival, and so, travelling on children’s tickets (“It’s so much cheaper!”), the pair take a train and pitch a tent in a field that “literally stinks of shit”. Shane hopes they will get to meet “DJ Hammerhead” (I won’t spoil which British comedian takes this role ) and play his idol some of his own tunes (“Wait for the drop – it’s just three more minutes”). Along the way, they pick up Amy (Claudia O’Doherty of the Netflix series Love), a motor-mouthed Aussie equipped with a Tupperware container of “Chafney”, a mysterious, nutrient-packed grey slop that Shane decides is “quite good, actually”. O’Doherty is subtly tragicomic as the friendless festival veteran, playing up her unflappably positive attitude, whether hanging out in the queue for the Portaloos or, better still, in the paramedic’s tent. Drug misuse is a predictable plot point, but the details are perfect: under the influence of MDMA, the otherwise straight-edge Nick falls for a girl dressed as Smurfette (Emma Rigby), on the run because she “stole some fruit from Tame Impala’s yurt”, while Gordy (Theo Barklem-Biggs), the crew’s resident dealer, confuses ketamine for cocaine, snorting five lines then immediately declaring he’d better “put on some Norah Jones and ride this one out”. Hammed Animashaun and Joe Thomas in The Festival. Photograph: Nick Wall Indeed, it’s the specificity of the stereotypes that Morris hangs out to dry that make the film so funny. From character archetypes like posh blonde Lucy (Lizzy Connolly), who is constantly introducing herself to Shaun, despite the two having met about 40 times previously, to the names of the acts (“Yung Boner” being my personal favourite), the laughs land because the gags are so very precise. As with Morris’s previous projects, the cringe comedy quotient is high; the film’s visceral, squirm-making moments involving an ill-advised nipple piercing and an unsavoury stain on Nick’s graduation gown are unlikely to convert those left unconvinced by this particular brand of boyish humour – and it’s worth noting that perhaps I am predisposed to it, given that The Inbetweeners ran from 2008-10, concurrent with my own time at sixth-form college. Yet these set pieces are used sparingly, with the filth-encrusted minds of young writers Keith Akushie and Joe Parham (who collaborated on the BBC3 sitcom Siblings) drifting towards weirder, funnier scenarios. Flight of the Conchords star Jemaine Clement plays Shane’s overbearing oddball stepfather Robin, who does carpool karaoke to a Crowded House track; Shane and Amy encounter a creepy community of druids (“We’re druids, not cannibals!”). The boys perform an inspired, Magic Mike-esque striptease to David Guetta and Akon’s 2009 track Sexy Chick. Some of the film’s reference points feel a little dated; I’d have expected more memes and less Mr Brightside, but that’s a minor quibble. The Inbetweeners Movie (2011) took £45m at the box office, becoming – believe it or not – the most successful British comedy of all time. The Festival, I think, is better. It delivers its “lessons” with a light touch, allowing Nick a couple of moments of genuine, relatable pathos (“Why did I think I could be happy?” he laments, after running into Caitlin at the festival), but encouraging the audience to take his self-loathing with a pinch of salt. Robin consoles him, using cyclist Lance Armstrong as an example of a redeemable “problematic fave”. “Yeah, he’s a cheat and a bully, but he’s donated a lot of money to charity, and he’s got a great podcast.” The Festival – trailer

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/apr/11/we-want-to-keep-her-name-alive-charitable-trust-for-sarah-hughes

Science

2021-04-11T07:00:28.000Z

Lisa Bachelor

‘We want to keep her name alive’: charitable trust for Sarah Hughes

The friends and family of Sarah Hughes, the Observer and Guardian journalist who died last week, have set up a crowdfunding website in her name with the aim of raising £10,000 to set up a charitable trust in her memory. Sarah died at home on Monday, aged 48, after a long battle with cancer. She was a regular writer for the Observer for more than 20 years, primarily writing on arts and culture but more recently a series of moving and powerful pieces about living with a terminal illness. The Sarah Hughes Trust will aim to establish an annual lecture in Sarah’s name to be given at the History of Medicine Society at the Royal Society of Medicine. It will raise funds for the furtherance of education and research in the humanities and the history of medicine, and to provide support for aspiring journalists from less privileged backgrounds. The family and Sarah’s friends are asking for donations from those who knew Sarah or who were affected by her work. “It’s so cruel that Sarah has been taken from us all at such a young age; aside from the loss to her family and friends, she had so much more work still to write, so many more words left unspoken,” said her best friend and author, Harriet Tyce. “We want to keep her name alive, and we would be very grateful for any donation that those who were touched by her life and work might be able to give.” Tyce is also in the process of planning an online memorial event at which she hopes many of the authors and actors whose work Sarah championed over the last two decades will read tributes. Those wishing to donate to the trust should visit justgiving.com/crowdfunding/sarahhughestrust. Harriet Tyce can be reached via that page or messages can be sent to her via Twitter @harriet_tyce

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/dec/09/favourite-film-star-trek-wrath-khan

Film

2011-12-09T16:40:00.000Z

Chris Michael

My favourite film: Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan

The souls of North American men are riven. Behind our slick professional personas and chiselled, rugged features, a battle rages. Star Wars or Star Trek? As a shellac-skinned and starry-eyed Canadian six-year-old, my head full of hockey and Hasbro merchandise, I had no doubt as to the true faith. I watched The Empire Strikes Back 23 times from a VHS tape so worn out it barely made it to the credits. I dreamed of the Dagobah system. At dinner I mimicked the call of the tauntaun. And I can only thank the galaxies I had no such tool as YouTube to broadcast my impeccably choreographed lightsaber routines. As a putrid, festering teenager who smelled, as one did, vaguely of goat, my allegiance expanded to include the soothing bleeps of the bridge, the tidy phaser blasts, the two-tone uniforms, the whole warm cultural bath of Star Trek. During endless 2am reruns I laughed at the cardboard sets and cheered Kirk’s fistfighting technique and practised saying “Bones!” “Jim!“ STAR TREK II:THE WRATH OF KHAN Photograph: Cine Text/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar It took me time to warm to The Next Generation, but eventually I grew to appreciate Picard’s Earl Grey tea and his “Make it so”, and even tolerated Commander Riker, known to us as He Who Walks Around Trying to Drive His Forehead Through an Invisible Forcefield. Then I became a man, and put away my childish things. Except of course I didn’t. At heart, we’re all either children or teenagers. Don’t ask me to choose. But Star Wars, that juggernaut of cross-platform media franchising, led by the fat-cheeked mediocrity who didn’t even direct his own best film, whom I guarantee even God himself thinks of as the luckiest man in the world, needs no defence. In public, Star Wars won. It’s the quarterback star. It’s got all the trophies. Which brings me to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. STAR TREK II:THE WRATH OF KHAN Photograph: Cine Text/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar Let’s leave aside the fact that Kirstie Alley made a very hot uptight Vulcan. Let’s ignore the strong contender for creepiest supporting monster – a big slug extracted from between the scales of an even bigger slug, then inserted into the ear to improve suggestibility. Let’s even put aside whether Ricardo Montalbán, looking positively Gaddafi-esque as he staggers around in a blood-soaked pashmina declaiming stuff like “From hell’s heart I stab at thee!”, is wearing a fake chest. And can I also ask that we don’t judge The Wrath of Khan – the first Trek film to elbow Gene Roddenberry out of the way – by the unholy Star Trek content-universe it not only saved from death but has artificially animated ever since: the Final Frontiers and Generations, the Deep Space Nines and Enterprises and Voyagers and all the thousands (thousands!) of hours of zombie acting and lack of sexual chemistry that were to come. (It’s no accident that JJ Abrams’s sexy, successful 2009 rebrand “borrowed” most of its big themes from The Wrath of Khan.) STAR TREK II:THE WRATH OF KHAN Photograph: Cine Text/Allstar/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar Instead, consider William Shatner. In 1982, he’s 51. His most recent screen appearance has been on the TV farce Police Squad! in the less than prestigious role of Poisoned Man. And here he is, wheeling himself and his crew of similarly unhirable D-list actors back on to the deck of the Enterprise for what they must have imagined (considering the flop that was Star Trek: The Motion Picture) would be one last voyage. “I feel old,” Kirk says. Well he might. A new generation has taken command, one that plays by the book, led by efficient but humourless young captains like Saavik (Alley in her first film role), who in an aside to Spock says of the legendary James T Kirk: “He’s not what I expected – he’s so human.” “Nobody’s perfect,” says Spock, the driest guy since Peking Man. Ricardo Montalban as Khan Photograph: Insight Editions But then Khan storms into the picture: a genetically modified genius with a 200-year-old grudge and a hammy delivery rivalled only by that of Shatner himself. Suddenly Kirk is back in charge, giving amused orders, tearing up the rule book and still turning the ladies’ heads. Watch him marooned in a featureless corridor at the centre of a dead planet, with only an ex-girlfriend and the love child who hates him for company: oh, the yell he produces, shaking with overacting, through clenched teeth as though he’s SO ANGRY HE CAN’T EVEN OPEN HIS MOUTH … KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN! Shivers. Or take Spock himself, science fiction’s greatest character, expressed by Leonard Nimoy entirely through the finely graded raising and lowering of a single eyebrow. A rigorous logician with his emotions in a vice lock, here he reveals a heart big enough to save an entire crew of human beings. “I have been, and always shall be, your friend” – heartbreaking stuff from the great Vulcan to his polar opposite. What bravado to kill this character off! “Of all the souls I’ve met, his was the most … yuman [sic].” I cry every time. Set phasers to stunning … Kirk and Spock in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan If Star Wars is spiritually akin to Top Gun – Tom Cruise in jackass aviators blasting around in fighter jets – then Star Trek, here in its most dashing manifestation, is The Hunt for Red October: submarines, tactics, cantankerousness. It’s a fundamentally naval representation of life in space, with all that entails: formality and cryptography and bold decisions taken from a seated position. It’s about defeating intellects more than evil – about saving things, not destroying them – and the needs of the many outweighing the needs of the few, or the one. The Wrath of Khan is the best of true nerdom on film. And as for whether or not it’s Montalbán’s real skin, I think we can all agree: it’s still a fake chest.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/28/post-your-questions-for-the-killers-brandon-flowers-ronnie-vannucci

Music

2023-11-28T12:43:01.000Z

Aneesa Ahmed

Post your questions for the Killers

At 389 weeks, the Killers’ Mr Brightside holds the record for the most weeks in the UK singles chart – but the song’s popularity hasn’t eclipsed the band who made it, who are gearing up to their second best-of compilation. To mark it, frontman Brandon Flowers and drummer Ronnie Vannucci will be answering your questions. Formed in Las Vegas in 2001 after frontman Brandon Flowers was fired from synth-pop trio Blush Response and understood his desire to be in a rock band after watching an Oasis concert at the Hard Rock Hotel, the Killers would sneak into the music practice halls of University of Nevada, Las Vegas – which is where they wrote and practised the majority of the tracks that appear on their 2004 debut album Hot Fuss. Playing pop-rock informed by the insistent pulse of New Order, the widescreen Americana of Bruce Springsteen and other similarly epic touchstones, the band have become one of the UK’s most cherished, and have released seven consecutive chart-topping albums here, with other hit singles including Somebody Told Me and Human. They have headlined Madison Square Garden, Wembley Stadium, Coachella, and Glastonbury festival (twice, in 2007 and 2019) and toured to more than 50 countries. Now, after two decades in the game, the band are releasing a new best-of album Rebel Diamonds (out 8 December), featuring 20 songs including a brand new one Spirit. Post your questions in the comments section below about anything to do with the band’s career and music, before Friday 1 December. Their answers will be published in the 15 December edition of the Guardian’s Film & Music section, and online.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/24/john-lewis-to-close-eight-more-stores-putting-1500-jobs-at-risk

Business

2021-03-24T11:37:25.000Z

Sarah Butler

John Lewis to close eight more stores, putting 1,500 jobs at risk

John Lewis has confirmed plans to permanently close eight more outlets, including department stores in York, Peterborough, Sheffield and Aberdeen, with the potential loss of almost 1,500 jobs. The staff-owned group, which reported its first-ever full-year loss earlier this month, said it would also permanently close four “at home” stores, which specialise in homewares, in Ashford, Basingstoke, Chester and Tunbridge Wells. All stores are currently closed because of the government’s coronavirus high street lockdown but the eight will not reopen when the rules change on 12 April. British high street lost 11,000 shops in 2020, study shows Read more The latest closures come after John Lewis permanently shut eight stores in 2020 amid a shift to online shopping, which has been accelerated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Online trading now accounts for three-quarters of the department store’s sales and the closures indicate the retailer thinks that won’t change when the shops reopen. City and town centres around the UK are reeling from dozens of department stores shutting in the past two years after the collapse of Debenhams, which two years ago still had more than 160 stores, and Beales, which had 22 stores. House of Fraser and Marks & Spencer have also been closing outlets. Department stores, which have been the focal point of town centres for more than 100 years, and more recently the crowd-pulling anchor stores of big shopping centres and retail parks, have suffered from a mix of rising costs and changing consumer habits. The switch to online shopping was hitting department stores hard before the pandemic forced them to close. While some buildings are being converted into housing, offices, indoor markets and for leisure uses, such as bowling and crazy golf, there are concerns that a number of town centre landmarks could now be left vacant for years. John Lewis said that department stores remained important to provide a “sensory experience” not available online. However, it said that cutting down on the number of large stores would enable it to invest more in the 34 remaining outlets. It also wants to open smaller neighbourhood shops and John Lewis sections in its Waitrose supermarkets. Sharon White, the chairman of John Lewis Partnership, the department stores’ parent group, said: “Today’s announcement is incredibly sad news for our affected partners, for our customers and for the communities we’ve served over many years. “The high street is going through its biggest change for a generation and we are changing with it. Customers will still be able to get the trusted service that we are known for – however and wherever they want to shop.” Five of the shops that are closing have been opened since 2010 – a £20m refurbishment of the Peterborough store was only completed in 2019. Sheffield city council, which last year paid £3m to John Lewis as part of a deal to retain its department store, said the retailer was still tied to the lease agreement and would have to pay to exit that. Nalin Seneviratne, director of city centre development at the council, said: “The planned closure of John Lewis is sad news. As Cole Brothers in 1847, then as John Lewis, it has been a retail landmark in our city for decades. “But Sheffield is a resilient city, and we already have in place ambitious plans for a city centre that competes on a global stage.” Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDesk John Lewis said it would make “every effort” to find new jobs for those affected by the closures, including at its Waitrose supermarkets business. Those who leave will have access to a £3,000 retraining fund and payments of two weeks’ pay for every year of service, regardless of age. Those being made redundant with less than one year’s service will receive one week’s contractual pay. The company is also outsourcing its Waitrose distribution centre in Leyland, Lancashire, to the logistics firm XPO, affecting 436 staff. Those workers will no longer be JL “partners” with access to the group’s annual bonus scheme, but will be transferred to XPO this summer. The company said Leyland remained an important part of its operation but “remains significantly underused”.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/07/patti-davis-ronald-reagan-daughter-nancy-actor

Books

2024-03-07T10:00:27.000Z

John Harris

‘We’ve all been wounded’: Patti Davis on secrets, abuse and life as Ronald Reagan’s daughter

When I ask Patti Davis what she’d like people to take from the new memoir she has written about her long and often mind-boggling family history, she has no trouble finding an answer. “You have a choice,” she says. “You can live as the person who you were … I did that for a long time – like, ‘Let me tell you what a victim I was, let me tell you how I was wounded.’ But we’ve all been wounded in some ways. And it’s not about going into denial about that – it’s about looking at it from a different perspective.” From someone else, those words might sound like psychobabble. But in Davis’s case, they highlight what has arguably defined her life – trying to make sense of being the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan – and a story that mixes politics and power with the more human themes of anger, emotional estrangement, damage and broken relationships. Davis talks to me via video call from her home in Santa Monica, having just taken her dog for a very early morning walk. We begin at 8am, her time, and I wonder if it’s too early to plunge into the complex and often traumatic experiences that have been scattered through her 71 years. But, with bracing honesty and a warm sense of humour, she talks about them all: her lifelong sense of distance from her parents, her hugely difficult relationship with her mother, and how politics always threatened to remove her father from her life – something that reached a hideous extreme when he underwent an assassination attempt in 1981. A White House aide and a police officer lie wounded outside the Washington Hilton after the assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in March 1981. Photograph: The Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum/AFP/Getty Images Davis has been writing professionally since the mid-1980s. In 1992, she poured seething anger about her family into The Way I See It, the autobiography she now calls “the book that shall not be named”. It was peppered with revelations and allegations – not least about her mother’s problems with prescription tranquillisers and bursts of violent rage, and her father’s questionable take on the Watergate scandal that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency: a “witch-hunt”, as he apparently saw it. More than 30 years on, she has now tried to make amends with Dear Mom and Dad, which takes the form of a moving, elegantly written letter to her parents – intended as “a final chapter” in her family’s saga, which combines bracing honesty with glimpses of a closeness and warmth that, at one point in her life, she had seemingly almost forgotten. She was reminded of this part of the story, she says, while going through home movies that she had considered compiling into a documentary with the working title The Reagans Before the World Moved In, until she decided to use them as the starting point for the new book. The most striking thing she saw centred on her mother. “My father had one of those roll-up screens and a projector,” she tells me. “We’d sit there in the living room, and he’d play these home movies. It took me a long time to look at them from a wider perspective and say, ‘Look – there was love there. My mother was really tender, seemingly getting a lot of joy out of this chubby little toddler paddling around like I was.’ “That’s part of our story, too,” she says. In its own modest way, this seems to have been a revelation. D avis was born in 1952, 14 years before her father left behind his career as an actor and was elected governor of California, the office he held until 1975. Nancy – like her husband, a screen actor – was Reagan’s second wife. Two children from his earlier marriage to the actor Jane Wyman only became part of Davis’s life when she was eight, within limitations that often seem cruel: in the new book, she recalls that when the rest of the family went on shared summer vacations, her stepbrother Michael would be sent – alone – to summer camp. ‘It took me a long time to say, “Look – there was love there”’ … the Reagans in 1967. Photograph: Rex Shutterstock Meanwhile, Davis’s own relationship with her mother was gradually consumed by Nancy’s habitual bursts of rage, and what the new book calls “arctic winters” of motherly disapproval. In one particularly bracing passage, Davis says that she cannot remember “ever walking into our home with a sense of security and a feeling that I belonged”. What life with Nancy did to Davis’s view of motherhood was symbolised by her decision, aged only 24, to opt for tubal ligation. She later described this as “a quick surgery that cuts and cauterises the fallopian tubes so that the eggs are stopped in their tracks”. “I think it changed when my brother was born,” she says. That’s Ron, born in 1958. “My mother always did better with males than females. I was growing into a little girl and she had a new baby boy. So, you know, the tenderness got shifted there.” A different story … Davis promoting her autobiography The Way I See It in 1992. Photograph: William Nation/Getty Images Davis eventually learned about one key aspect of her mother’s backstory. Nancy’s mother, Edith Luckett Davis, had been a touring stage actor – and for six of her daughter’s formative years, she had been almost completely absent, leaving her in the care of an aunt and uncle. “Three to nine: that’s a very formative time in a child’s life,” Davis says. “And she was dumped with relatives who I believe she’d never even met before that. Her mother came back when she was nine and said: ‘Oh, I met this wonderful doctor. We’re moving to Chicago. You have a new father.’” Did Nancy ever talk to her about any of that? “No, never. My mother was such an expert at editing and redacting her own history. She would say: ‘Oh, you know, Mother had to go on the road and do her acting work. I completely understood.’ She was three. She didn’t understand anything, except: ‘Mommy just left me.’ But in her mind, she was an expert: she could just turn something around and make it what she wanted it to be.” Dear Mom and Dad contains an even more horrific story about Edith Luckett Davis sexually assaulting her granddaughter: “It was always when no one else was around, so I knew I could never say anything about it and be believed.” “I never spoke about that to anyone, for all the reasons that people don’t: it’s embarrassing and it’s shameful, and all of that,” Davis says now. “And I want to be really clear about the reason that I put it in this book: to say that this was why I didn’t go to her funeral service. But if I were the person then that I am now, I would have gone. That’s the point I was trying to make.” Full immersion … Nancy and Patti, aged nine. Photograph: CBS Photo Archive/Getty Images That’s quite a thing to imagine yourself doing. Most people would not even consider it, would they? “Exactly,” she says, before she explains what she means. “I think to rise above something that another person has done to you means that you can be the bigger person. You remember that person, and what they forgot about themselves: that they’re supposed to be kind and nurturing to people, that they aren’t supposed to touch children like that … So you are the bigger person and you remember that about them, right? Because they’re gone now. They’re going to have to atone for what they did on the other side.” Did she ever tell Nancy about what her grandmother had done? “I would never have told her.” Why not? “Well, first of all, she would have called me a liar. Although when I was writing this book, it suddenly occurred to me that I might not have been the first person my grandmother did that to. I mean, I’m not making an accusation. I don’t know. It’s entirely possible that a similar thing happened to my mother, but she would have blocked that out. And she never would have forgiven me for saying it. It just would have been too hurtful. Too damaging.” Davis in Santa Monica last month. Photograph: David Hume Kennerly E arly in her life, Davis knew that her father – whose family history revolved around an alcoholic dad – had big political ambitions, and a set of very clear ideas. “There were lots of dinner table conversations about government being too big: ‘We’re being taxed too much and government’s too much in our lives.’ All I wanted to talk about was, you know, how this kid was bullying me on the school bus, and what happened on the playground that day. But he saw something that he didn’t think was right. And obviously, that grew and grew.” When he was first elected president, in 1980, Davis – who had long since adopted her mother’s maiden name – was placed under the constant supervision of a security detail. By that point, she had moved in a very different direction from her parents, in terms of both her lifestyle and her politics. For a while, she lived with Bernie Leadon of the Eagles (they co-wrote I Wish You Peace, the closing track on the band’s 1975 album One of These Nights), and tended homegrown weed. Her chosen political cause, meanwhile, was ending the US’s arms race with the Soviet Union, which once led her to share a platform with the civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, who led 200,000 people in a chant of “Get a new president!” The memory is still clear: “I remember one of my secret service agents giving me this look – like, ‘You’d better get out of here right now.’” Forty years on, her views on some of the most questionable aspects of Reagan’s political career are nuanced and complicated: as a matter of instinct, she wants to defend the father she loved, whatever their differences. But at the same time, she knows why some things he did – or failed to do – attracted such opprobrium. When we talk about Reagan’s record on racism, she mentions clear memories from her childhood (people, he told her, “come in different colours … they are all God’s children”), and an episode in his first presidential term, when he and Nancy publicly stood alongside a black family in Maryland who had been targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. But she also acknowledges a taped conversation between her father and Richard Nixon made public in 2019, in which he used a vile racial epithet about African delegates to the United Nations. “I do believe that if my father had been confronted with that tape, then he would have apologised, and he would have felt awful,” she says. “That doesn’t excuse it, by the way. But that’s not the man I knew. That’s not the man who raised me.” Ronald Reagan at the 1980 Republican national convention with, from right, Ron Jnr, Davis, Nancy, and children Michael and Maureen from his earlier marriage. Photograph: Historical/Corbis/Getty Images And then there is the mess of questions that swirls around how woefully late her father was to act on the Aids crisis. In many respects, she says, he and Nancy were less conservative than their reputation has subsequently suggested – in private, at least. “I grew up around gay people,” she says. “There was a lesbian couple, Aunt Glesca and Aunt Emily. This was the time when all the parents’ friends were called aunt and uncle, you know … When my parents went on a vacation to Hawaii, they stayed at our house. They slept in my parents’ bed. I mean, to me, they were a married couple. So it was like nothing to me, and there were other gay people around. I wanted to give that perspective – that my father was not homophobic. My father was not insensitive to gay people. “There were people in his administration who were very homophobic, who did believe that Aids was God’s wrath on gay people. And one of my father’s character flaws was that he delegated things to other people and didn’t really follow up. It was like, ‘Oh, we’re handling this …’ He just trusted that they would do whatever they were supposed to be doing.” To that, there is an obvious rejoinder: the Aids crisis quickly became so clear that it was surely deeply remiss of him to delay action. For a man whose timing was usually pretty impeccable, his timing on Aids was wrong, every step of the way “Absolutely. I’m not excusing anything. For a man whose timing was usually pretty impeccable, his timing was wrong, every step of the way. I can’t sugarcoat that, nor would I ever try to. I simply wanted to explain that if anybody judges it as, ‘Oh, Ronald Reagan didn’t care about gay people’ – I don’t want you to think that. It was a whole mess of mistakes and failures.” When I ask her about the looming US election, she refuses to engage with one subject in particular: “I’m not going to talk about the large orange man because I’m just so tired of it all,” she says. But she talks in mournful terms about her father’s respectful dealings with Democratic politicians, and an optimistic style of politics that she thinks has now gone. “I have no idea what my father would do about some of the issues that are facing us now. But I know how he would feel about the sort of demoralised weariness of this country. I feel like there’s something collectively broken in us … We’re seeing things being splintered away. And we hear very knowledgeable people talking about how fragile our democracy is and how easily it can fall apart and go away. And if it goes away, it’s not going to come back any time. Not in our lifetimes.” The first lady who looked away: Nancy and the Reagans' troubling Aids legacy Read more In March 1981, Davis’s father was shot in Washington DC. The security services thought his family might also be assassination targets, and she was soon transported from California to the US capital by the military. “I remember being in this cavernous plane and we had headphones on because it was so noisy. I remember thinking, ‘If this is it, I’m never going to get to know my father.’ You have to remember: when we landed at two in the morning, all of us were just getting the news reports that everybody else was getting, that my father was still alive. But that’s all I knew. And then he got some kind of infection. So it was way more serious than people were told at the time.” It was during this horrific episode that she once again caught a glimpse of ther mother’s emotional, vulnerable side. “I remember going into her room really early in the morning, like at dawn. And she was lying in their bed, clutching a shirt of his to her face, breathing in his scent.” Davis speaks at the interment ceremony for her father on 11 June 2004 in Simi Valley, California. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images The longer we talk, the more I get the sense that these small, very moving recollections – capped by her father’s last 10 years, when he had Alzheimer’s disease – are what has finally allowed Patti Davis to make some sense of her past. “There was something my father told me from the time I was a child,” she says. “He said: ‘God put all of us here for a reason.’ And that has tugged at me my whole life.” She pauses. “I don’t know why any of us were born to the families we’re born to,” she tells me. “I don’t know why any of us have the fate that some of us have. But I do know that we’re supposed to grow. And learn.” Dear Mom and Dad by Patti Davis is published by Liveright in the UK on 19 March (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply

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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/28/small-axe-picks-up-15-nominations-for-bafta-tv-awards

Television & radio

2021-04-28T08:14:13.000Z

Lanre Bakare

Small Axe picks up 15 nominations for Bafta TV awards

Steve McQueen’s ground-breaking five-part series Small Axe has dominated the Bafta TV nominations with 15 nods, in a year when diverse talent was recognised across the board. McQueen’s anthology series, which was set in the 1960s, 70s and 80s based on real-life stories from London’s black Caribbean communities, led the pack, with Netflix’s royal drama The Crown (10), I May Destroy You (eight) and Normal People (seven) also doing well. Small Axe is up against Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You, Normal People and Channel 4’s porn drama Adult Material, which took five nominations in total, for best mini-series. The coveted best drama award will be between Gangs of London, The Crown, Save Me Too and Lucy Prebble’s and Billie Piper’s celebrity drama I Hate Suzie, which is up for five awards. The acting nominations were diverse for the second year in a row, with talent from Small Axe and I May Destroy You dominating. First-time TV nominees Shaun Parkes and John Boyega are both up for lead actor for their roles in Small Axe, along with I May Destroy You’s Paapa Essiedu, Normal People’s Paul Mescal, Josh O’Connor, who played Prince Charles in the Crown, and Baghdad Central’s Waleed Zuaiter. Best lead actress is between Daisy Edgar-Jones (Normal People), Billie Piper (I Hate Suzie), Letitia Wright (Small Axe), Michaela Coel (I May Destroy You), Hayley Squires (Adult Material) and former winner Jodie Comer for her role in Killing Eve. I May Destroy You’s Weruche Opia is up against Helena Bonham Carter (The Crown), Sophie Okonedo (Criminal), Leila Farzad (I Hate Suzie), Rakie Ayola (Anthony) and Siena Kelly (Adult Material) in the supporting actress category. Small Axe’s Malachi Kirby and Michael Ward are nominated in the supporting actor field, alongside Kunal Nayyar (Criminal), Tobias Menzies (The Crown), Michael Sheen for his performance as Chris Tarrant in Quiz and first-time TV nominee Rupert Everett (Adult Material). There was a posthumous nomination in the best male performance in a comedy for Paul Ritter for his role in Friday Night Dinner. He’s joined by Charlie Cooper (This Country), Guz Khan (Man Like Mobeen), Joseph Gilgun (Brassic), Reece Shearsmith (Inside No.9) and Ncuti Gatwa (Sex Education). Best female performance in a comedy is between Emma Mackey and Aimee Lou Wood for Sex Education, which received six nominations, Daisy Haggard (Breeders), Daisy May Cooper (This Country), Gbemisola Ikumelo (Famalam) and Mae Martin (Feel Good). The current affairs award is between Al Jazeera’s The Cyprus Papers Undercover, Channel 4’s Dispatches programme The Battle for Hong Kong, and BBC Two’s Italy’s Frontline: A Doctor’s Diary, and ITV’s investigation into reproductive rights, America’s War on Abortion. BBC Two’s Once Upon a Time in Iraq was the most successful documentary with four nominations, including best factual where it is up against Channel 4’s Crime and Punishment and Losing It: Our Mental Health Emergency, and BBC Two’s Hospital. In the entertainment performance category, Bradley Walsh is recognised for the first time while Adam Hills (The Last Leg), Strictly Come Dancing’s Claudia Winkleman, David Mitchell (Would I Lie to You?), Graham Norton and Romesh Ranganathan are also in contention. Best comedy entertainment programme is between Charlie Brooker’s Antiviral Wipe, Sky One’s Rob & Romesh Vs, The Big Narstie Show and BBC Two’s The Ranganation, which is Romesh Ranganathan’s second nomination in the same category. The Virgin Media must-see moments, which are voted for by the public, include Nigella Lawson pronouncing the word microwave as “mee-cro-wah-vay” on Nigella’s Cook, Eat, Repeat, and Diversity’s Black Lives Matter-inspired routine on Britain’s Got Talent.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2000/aug/04/efinance.budget2002

Technology

2000-08-04T00:34:46.000Z

David Teather

Tax boost for hi-tech investors

The government's willingness to show its support for the e-economy was further in evidence yesterday with a series of measures to help small businesses go online and encourage the growth of web-based companies. But while the measures were welcomed by the dot.com industry the feeling was the chancellor hadn't gone far enough. Among the announcements was the introduction for small firms of 100% tax relief on new technology including computers, software and internet-enabled mobile phones in their first year of purchase. That means the entire cost of the equipment will be included in a company's tax allowance in year one, reducing its taxable profits immediately and freeing capital to invest elsewhere. Costs are normally written off against tax over a number of years. The 150,000-strong Federation of Small Businesses forecast that one million small firms would be looking at e-commerce and information technology this year, "and this boost announced today will accelerate that move. It will make the vast majority of them take the plunge." There were also changes to make the Enterprise Investment Scheme and Venture Capital Trust initiative - which allow individual investors to target hi-tech businesses - more attractive. A package of cuts to the capital gains tax taper rules was also announced to reflect the shorter investments common in the new economy and encourage so called serial entrepreneurs. A maximum CGT rate of 10% will apply for business assets after just four years instead of ten. All employee holdings, of whatever size, will benefit from the tapered relief, stripping away the previous 5% threshold. The Enterprise Management Scheme which governs option awards for small firms increased the number of people that can receive rewards of up to £100,000 from 10 to 15 people employees. The key change which the dot.com community had been looking for did not appear. Industry watchers were hoping for the removal of national insurance contributions on exercised share options outside the existing approved schemes but the issue was only put out for consultation. Most schemes in dot.com companies are unapproved because those given the Inland Revenue's blessing either need to be offered to all staff or have a ceiling of £30,000. Approved schemes also need to be held for three years. John Browning, a co-founder of the First Tuesday networking group for the internet community, described the Budget measures as "small steps." He had been hoping for changes to the NI rules on share option schemes. "Potentially this is a very big cashflow item that a company has no control over. The Inland Revenue will put a company out of business one of these days. What they've done is a fudge, which is a shame." Mark Bernstein, co-founder and chief executive of Gameplay.com agreed. "We've just had to put a provision in our accounts for £2.5m to cover the liability and that's a lot of money." There was also anger over the chancellor's decision to press ahead with the clampdown on IR35, a loophole which allows companies to hire individual contractors without paying national insurance - a broad practice in the IT industry. The Federation of Small Businesses said: "We are dismayed that the chancellor did not take the opportunity to climbdown on IR35 - the attack on flexible personal service companies." Conservative technology spokesman Alan Duncan said: "The chancellor's policy is absurd. On the one hand he has introduced the dreaded IR35 e-tax which is already provoking a massive brain drain of IT specialists who are leaving the UK, and then the chancellor has to make good his own folly by introducing incentives to attract new people to fill the skills gap. This is a ridiculous, self-defeating brake on e-commerce in Britain."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jun/22/colorado-wildfire-evacuees-return-home

World news

2012-06-22T13:22:00.000Z

Ryan Devereaux

Some Colorado wildfire evacuees return home but fire is far from contained

It was about two in the morning on Sunday, June 10, when Ron Thaemert – a lifelong Colorado resident of 71 years – saw flames approaching his backyard. "It was roaring a pretty bright orange directly behind us," he said. The fire "cast an eerie glow over the landscape". The most destructive private property fire in Colorado's history had arrived. The High Park fire began with a random lightning strike on June 9. In the weeks that followed a blaze fuelled by dry timber and unpredictable winds scorched well over 65,000 acres, destroyed nearly 200 homes, claimed one life and displaced thousands. Close to 2,000 firefighters supported by 18 helicopters and 135 fire engines have responded to the High Park fire, an around-the-clock effort that has already cost over $19m, resulting 55% containment. By the time the fire reached Thaemert's property, he and his wife Norma had already received an evacuation recommendation by phone. It's time to go, he told her. "I gathered up a couple changes of clothes, some underwear and what guns I wanted to take out," Thaemert told the Guardian. Norma, meanwhile, collected photographs the two had taken during their travels overseas. They put their belongings in a pick-up truck, along with their dog, Blitzen, and their cat, Grau. By three in the morning they had evacuated. They left everything else behind. The couple drove to the nearby city of Fort Collins, at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where a junior high school was housing fire evacuees on cots in its gymnasium. They logged into a database that loved ones could access to make sure they were OK. The system would also alert them if they could return home, or if they could not. For the next few days they shuttled themselves between the homes of various friends in the Fort Collins area. "Can't say enough good things about friends from church," Thaemert said. Each day Ron and Norma attended briefings held at the local fairgrounds, where mountain residents were updated twice a day on the status of their property. With numbers at the junior high increasing, evacuees were also sleeping at the fairgrounds. The Wednesday after they were evacuated the couple received good news: their home was still standing and they would be allowed to return to it. Thaemert praised the efforts of local authorities, "I have to say, the sheriff did an excellent job in all this." Thaemert built his home on seven acres of property about a mile and a half – "depending on how you measure" – outside the tiny mountain town of Bellevue in 1973. He and Norma raised their two children there. He explained what was going through his mind as he left his home, unsure if he would see it, or the things inside of it, again. "You go through a thought process about what's valuable here," he said. "This house we have built ourselves, and while you don't leave it without a little misgiving, you recognize that really God's in charge and that things will work out the way they're supposed to work out." "All this stuff is material," he said. "It's all replaceable." The Thaemerts were lucky. Others were not. To date the High Park fire has destroyed 189 homes with authorities anticipating the number to rise. Three days after the flames took hold, the Larimer County sheriff's department reported the death of Linda Steadman. The 62-year-old lived alone and received two evacuation notifications the day the fire began. "Linda Steadman, mother, grandmother, sister and wife, perished in the cabin she loved," her family said in a statement. On Wednesday, one week after the Thaemerts were permitted to return home, reporters were given their first glimpse of the fire's devastation at recreation area near Poudre Canyon, one of four canyons impacted by the blaze. There they saw a home reduced to its foundation, nothing but ash and debris. Nearby a wooden outhouse remained intact, a reminder of the fickleness of wildfires. Moderate, seasonal weather has afforded firefighters an opportunity to respond aggressively, fortifying their lines in hopes of bolstering containment but high temperatures are expected to return over the weekend. Thaemert, who fought fires with the forest service in his younger days, says the High Park fire is one of the "most difficult" he has ever witnessed. "This one had a lot of unpredictable aspects about it because the wind was so shifty," he said. "And we are really in a period of just tinder dry that makes a lot of combustible material available." Thaemert says the firefighters battling the blaze have done "a very commendable job". While he acknowledges that his home could be threatened again, he has reasonable faith in the fire line around the area his property rests on. Thaemert has no doubt that the mountains will recover from the flames: "I think in a lot of ways this fire will have a restorative effect."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jan/19/what-to-eat-in-2023-genius-labneh-phenomenal-soup-and-a-tartare-that-outshone-them-all

Food

2023-01-19T14:00:12.000Z

Ann Ding

What to eat in 2023: ‘genius’ labneh, ‘phenomenal’ soup and a tartare that ‘outshone them all’

It is probably really hard to remember the one best thing you ate over the course of an entire year. Nevertheless, we asked chefs, food writers, growers and producers to give it their best shot and come up with an edible bucket list for 2023. You’ll be hard-pressed to find dishes and restaurants that come more highly recommended, or more expertly chosen – from tips to recipes, and a handful of far-flung travel inspirations. Here are the meals to seek out this year, chosen by those who remember them most fondly. Sign up for the fun stuff with our rundown of must-reads, pop culture and tips for the weekend, every Saturday morning Paté en croute at Aru, Melbourne Chosen by Alice Zaslavsky, cookbook author and culinary correspondent for ABC News Breakfast Khanh [Nguyen] makes this with the flavours of banh mi and it’s a traditional paté en croute – so wrapped in pastry, layers really clearly defined … We went there with a three-year-old and she loved it too. Grilled hairtail on Jeju Island, Korea Chosen by Dan Hong, executive chef of Mr Wong, MuMu and Ms G’s in the Merivale group The hairtail on Jeju is a lot more oily, fatty and thicker than a lot of hairtail found around the world. It was simply grilled whole with salt and expertly deboned right in front of us by the waitress. It was so moist, gelatinous and flaky all at the same time: really some of the best cooked fish I have ever eaten. Allow Instagram content? This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Allow and continue Afghan sheep’s trotter soup (recipe) Chosen by Adam James, the pickle and ferment enthusiast behind Rough Rice Mahmood Fazal came in with his mum, Gulshan, and did a whole Afghan banquet at the Future Food System in Melbourne. Mushroom walls and waste-fuelled stoves: inside the self-sufficient home of tomorrow Read more The highlight for me was a sheep’s trotter soup. It was just phenomenal. But I think even more so, it was just kind of [the experience of] having Mahmood and his mum explain it. It’s very much a peasant food, even in Afghanistan, but it was delicious and nourishing. It was super gelatinous and really viscous, and just really, super delicious. Honestly, I can still kind of taste it. Afghan sheep’s trotter soup Recipe by Mahmood Fazal Serves 6 1-2 kg sheep trotters 1 x 400g tin organic black-eyed beans 4 garlic cloves, peeled 2 carrots, roughly chopped 1 tsp ground cumin 2 tsp ground cinnamon 1 bay leaf 4 potatoes, diced 2 cups pearl barley 2 loaves Afghan bread (or a round of Lebanese bread, per guest) Plain yoghurt, to serve The night before, wash the sheep’s trotters under cold running water, and cut at the joints into three or so pieces. Place the trotters in a large stockpot, cover with cold water and bring to a boil. Strain and discard the broth. Once more, in the stockpot, cover trotters with fresh cold water and bring to a boil, occasionally skimming off any foam and impurities that rise to the top. Simmer on low heat for one hour. Add garlic, carrots, bay leaf, cinnamon and cumin. Continue to simmer for another three to four hours. Poke the trotters with a fork; the flesh should fall off the bone and the trotters should be gelatinous. Turn off the heat and leave to cool, then place in the fridge overnight. The next day, when about to serve, bring the pot to a boil, then lower to a gentle simmer. Add potatoes, beans and barley. After 45 minutes, season to taste. Tear up bread into bite-size pieces and fill a large serving bowl. My preference is Afghan bread, but you can also use wholemeal Lebanese flatbread or naan. Pour the soup over the bread. Add a dollop of plain yoghurt, freshly cracked pepper and a pinch of salt.Nooshe jan (may it nourish your soul). 水餃 (sui gau) at The Eight, Sydney Chosen by Alex Lynn of Blood’s Bakery The sui gau is just a really tasty pork and prawn dumpling, and then they pour a soya-shallot sauce over it at the table. Sui gau at The Eight in Sydney: not something that goes round on the yum cha trolley. Photograph: Alex Lynn It is something that doesn’t really go around on the [yum cha] trolley. You have to grab one of the waitstaff and try your best to explain it if you don’t speak Mandarin or Cantonese. Because it’s not on the trolley all the time, they basically make it to order, so it comes over to you proper steaming hot. And there’s a little bit of the theatre of [the server] pouring the sauce on top. I just smash about four plates every time. Ayam bakar at Ayam Goreng 99, Sydney Chosen by Kevin La who runs the Instagram account @sydneyfoodboy [Ayam bakar, or Indonesian grilled chicken, is] one of those things where everyone has their own recipe, but it always tastes brilliant. [It] really makes use of all the heat, all those flavours, so you get the sweet, savoury, the spicy, like it’s “bang!” in your mouth. It’s very cool. Vietnamese barbecued chicken is delicious but it will hit you with the aromatics like lemongrass, but with Indonesian grilled chicken, you have that really nice balance of sweet, savoury and spicy. I would say my favourite in Sydney is probably the one at Ayam Goreng 99 in Kingsford. Duck meat koay teow (duck meat rice noodle soup) in Kimberley Lane, Penang, Malaysia Chosen by Junda Khoo, head chef and co-founder of the Ho Jiak restaurants in Sydney On the streets on Penang, eating this bowl of noodles in 32C weather beside a gutter that smelt so bad, I thought to myself: “Oh God, it’s great to be back home.” It had been more than two-and-a-half years – my first trip back after Covid. Allow Instagram content? This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Allow and continue Mutton tartare at Onzieme, Canberra Chosen by Al Reed, a minimal intervention winemaker and co-founder of Konpira Maru with Sam Cook I ate an excessive number of tartares this year, literally all around the world, but this one was absolutely brilliant and outshone them all. The mutton had an incredible texture and was flavour-plus. Allow Instagram content? This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Allow and continue ไข่ปูดองยำ (khai pu dong yam, or pickled crab) in Bangkok, Thailand Chosen by Palisa Anderson author, restaurateur of @chatthai_official and grower of organic produce at Boon Luck Farm I took a trip to Bangkok this year with some of my colleagues from Chat Thai, and as we do when we go on these R&D trips, we just ate, like, 10 meals a day. The one thing that we constantly go back to talk about is – it’s not quite street street food, they call it a ร้านข้าวต้ม [ran khao tom] which is a very casual diner-type situation that serves late supper. You get a bowl of very plain rice congee and then you order a bunch of different things. And one dish – this was a pre-dinner meal – we just gorged ourselves on, ไข่ปูดองยำ [khai pu dong yam], which is a blue swimmer crab that has been pickled for three days through a lactofermentation process, and then frozen to kill off any residual bacteria or anything. Sign up to Saved for Later Free newsletter Catch up on the fun stuff with Guardian Australia's culture and lifestyle rundown of pop culture, trends and tips Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. ‘Dressed with a hell of a lot of garlic and chilli’ … khai pu dong yam, or pickled crab, in Thailand. Photograph: Palisa Anderson They freeze it whole, then they defrost it, and it’s chopped up with a very, very sharp knife. The most important thing is it has to have the roe attached. So it’s mostly female crabs – the good places will only have female crabs. And then it’s dressed with a hell of a lot of garlic and chilli. Each restaurant probably does a different version of their seafood sauce which is green chillies, lime juice, fish sauce and palm sugar, and then it’s hit with a lot of mint. It’s addictive, it’s crazy addictive. Marron with sweetcorn at Restaurant Botanic, Adelaide Chosen by Ben Devlin, co-owner and chef at Pipit in Pottsville, NSW [My] favourite dining experience of the year was at Restaurant Botanic in Adelaide, specifically their marron with sweet corn. It was memorable as it was tasty, fun and multi-sensory; it’s a hands-on dining experience showing great detail, care, and technique. Allow Instagram content? This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Allow and continue Buffalo labneh, beetroot molasses and sorrel at Aalia, Sydney Chosen by Lee Tran Lam, editor of the New Voices on Food books and host of podcasts Culinary Archive and Crunch Time Paul Farag’s ‘genius’ buffalo labneh, beetroot molasses and sorrel at Aalia. Photograph: Jiwon Kim When you swipe through the buffalo labneh at Aalia restaurant in Sydney, you’ll uncover a surprising trail of pink molasses underneath: it’s a candy-striped joy. That warm swirl of colour is the Pantone shade that emerges when beetroot juice is reduced for around six hours – until it achieves a beguiling sweetness that lights up all the pleasure circuits in your brain. The creamy labneh on top might seem uninteresting at first – just a bank of yoghurt that’s been hung for a day – until you dip into it and taste a scorched, smouldering complexity: a flavour built from time spent in Aalia’s wood smoker. The fact you eat this appetiser by swiping sorrel leaves through it is another genius element to executive chef Paul Farag’s dish. Anchovy and cultured butter on sourdough baguette (recipe) Chosen by Sharon Flynn, founder of The Fermentary and author of Ferment for Good, and Wild Drinks It’s usually the context, the people and the food that makes me remember and love a thing – but a very good salty anchovy atop kefir-cultured butter on a hand-ripped piece of sourdough baguette is the winner. I took a jar of cultured cream, baguette and tin of anchovies to the park for an exciting (nerve-filled) first date. We shook it into butter – slurped the buttermilk straight from the jar – delved into the jar to smear the butter onto our bread and placed anchovies right along the bread. Kefir-cultured butter Recipe by Sharon Flynn Prep 2 days for fermenting, plus 5 mins for shaking 200ml cream 50ml milk kefir, or milk kefir grains Salt, to finish (optional) Bread, to serve To make cultured butter, pour cream into a large jar (about 350ml), add a healthy dash of good quality milk kefir (or milk kefir grains), and let it sit at room temperature for one to two days. On day two, taste the cream – it should taste lively and slightly sour like creme fraiche. Make sure the lid is sealed tightly and start shaking it vigorously. It may take a few minutes but it will first start to thicken, and go almost into a solid blob. Keep shaking - it will push through this stage and start to turn yellow and separate. Open the lid every now and then to check on it and release some pressure that may be forming in the jar. Stop shaking when you are satisfied with the consistency of the cream. In the case of a picnic or camping, I drink the buttermilk from the jar and tip the butter onto a plate, simply letting it tumble out of the jar. Salt it if you like. We salted it with Ortiz anchovies and scooped the butter out of the jar directly with a local baguette. Keep any remaining butter covered and refrigerated. This butter is so good – enjoy generously sitting under jams, smothered on hot corn or crusty bread, or all melty on baked sweet potato slivers. You get the picture. Choko leaf stir-fry in Thailand Chosen by Thanh Truong, also known as Fruit Nerd I went to Thailand for a fruit conference, the Fruit Logistica, and when I landed, it was quite late at night. It was like 11pm, restaurants were still open. And I ordered choko leaf stir-fry, which is very seasonal. It’s only available in the summertime. It’s not only the leaves, but the shoots and new buds. I think for chokos, most people just eat the fruit and not many people think that the leaves are great. [But] just like snow peas, the leaves and tendrils are really delicious. It had garlic, chilli, and most likely fish sauce, soy sauce and oyster sauce. Aphrodite galotyri (available at some specialty grocers) Chosen by Will Studd, cheese expert, author and host of the documentary series Cheese Slices We filmed a story in Greece earlier in May about barrel-ripened feta. During the course of that filming, I came across a cheese called galotyri. It means milk cheese. It’s made as a byproduct of making feta, by shepherds up in the mountains. Basically, they kept filling this pot. It’s a lactic cheese, sort of like a yoghurt cheese, made of sheep and goat’s milk. They’d keep the pot cold in the mountain streams and just keep filling it up and taking from it. They were very, very passionate and emotional about it, they call it “shepherd’s gold”. Allow Instagram content? This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click 'Allow and continue'. Allow and continue Everything in the dairy was pretty modern, but the galotyri was clearly a labour of love – it was all handmade. I had some the other day, actually, with ripe tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and some Greek basil – and it’s like, wow. Bombe Alaska at The Point Revolving Restaurant, Tasmania Chosen by Rosa Cienfuegos founder and owner of Itacate Deli and La Tamaleria in Sydney I got invited to Fearless festival in Tasmania, as a chef to give cooking lessons for young girls. Then all the chefs, there were four of us, got invited to tThe Point Revolving Restaurant. I was sort of intimidated, because I was with a chef’s chef that had been cooking for 45 years. And I’m like, “Oh my God, What do I order?” I ordered the lamb rump, and it was really, really good. Everything we tried – and pretty much everybody got different dishes – was amazing. And then they served bombe Alaska for dessert. Oh my god! And I’m not into sweets, you know? I prefer chilli, salty, limey, tangy sort of flavours. But that was like – oh my God, just inject that into me. Delicious. If I ever go back to Tasmania, I would like to go there again.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/21/police-clear-extinction-rebellion-protesters-from-waterloo-bridge

Environment

2019-04-21T21:09:00.000Z

Mattha Busby

Police clear Extinction Rebellion protesters from Waterloo Bridge

Police have cleared the remaining Extinction Rebellion activists from Waterloo Bridge in London, despite earlier calls on social media for people that were willing to be arrested to “go there and save it”. The roads around Parliament Square were cleared of protesters earlier on Sunday, with the northbound carriageway of Waterloo Bridge reopened to traffic by the evening. On Sunday night, police continued their operations, moving to remove the last activists, who had glued themselves to the bridge and to each other. Humanity is at a crossroads, Greta Thunberg tells Extinction Rebellion Read more Officers had earlier warned people that remaining on the bridge was an “arrestable offence”, and requested that the activists move to Marble Arch, the designated protest area, where hundreds of activists remain. However, many demonstrators chose to stay at the Waterloo Bridge site, drumming, dancing and singing all along the bridge. At least six campaigners were chained to each other by their hands, with their arms covered with various substances to slow the process of removal by officers. Two men who had glued their hands to the lampposts on Waterloo Bridge were cut free by officers and arrested. The last protester on the bridge, a 70-year-old woman who did not wish to be named, told the Press Association that said she felt embarrassed to be the last one and was “trying to look dignified”. Having already been arrested at Oxford Circus “chasing after a pink yacht”, she said she would rather be arrested again than walk away, as per the requests of officers. Asked why it was important for her to join the movement, she said: “I have been a nurse and a childminder most of my life. The world we are leaving for the children and grandchildren is going to be horrendous and we let it happen. It happened on our watch. So we have to stand up and fight or lie down and fight.” Police remove a Extinction Rebellion protester from Waterloo Bridge on Sunday evening. Photograph: Penelope Barritt/REX/Shutterstock The Metropolitan police has requested about 200 extra officers to help deal with the protests, in which 963 people have been arrested and 42 people, aged from 19 to 77, charged. Extinction Rebellion have said there will be a “people’s assembly” at Marble Arch on Monday afternoon to decide what will happen in the coming week, with the movement appearing split on what next steps to take in their campaign of non-violent civil disobedience. Greta Thunberg, the teenage climate campaigner, made a speech in solidarity with the protesters in Marble Arch. The Swedish student took aim at the “politicians and people in power” who had long been able to satisfy demands for action with “beautiful words and promises”, and declared that governments would no longer be able ignore the impending climate and ecological crisis. “I come from Sweden and back there it’s almost the same problem as here, as everywhere, that nothing is being done to stop an ecological crisis despite all the beautiful words and promises,” she said, after being greeted with loud cheers. 1:59 ‘We will never stop fighting’: Greta Thunberg addresses London climate protests – video “We are now facing an existential crisis, the climate crisis and ecological crisis which have never been treated as crises before. They have been ignored for decades and for way too long the politicians and the people in power have gotten away with not doing anything. We will make sure that politicians will not get away with it for any longer.” Thunberg, who has been credited with inspiring a worldwide movement to reduce carbon emissions, said humanity was sitting at a crossroads. She told those gathered at Marble Arch that they had chosen which ecological path they wanted to take. She emphasised that they were now waiting for the rest of the world to follow their example. “We are the ones making a difference, we the people in this Extinction Rebellion and the children’s school strike for the climate,” she said. “It shouldn’t be like that, but since no one else is doing anything, we will have to do so. “We will never stop fighting for this planet, for ourselves, our futures and for the futures of our children and grandchildren.” Later, Massive Attack played a concert for the crowds. Extinction Rebellion is leading a new, youthful politics that will change Britain Matthew d’Ancona Read more Thunberg will meet MPs including the Green party MP Caroline Lucas, the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, and the environment secretary, Michael Gove, next week. She has been touring Europe throughout her Easter holidays, imploring leaders to take radical action before it is too late. Last week, she poured scorn on EU leaders for holding three emergency summits on Brexit and none on the threat posed by climate change, suggesting that it evidenced politicians’ disinterest in tackling climate change. Her speech was given a standing ovation. Thousands of Extinction Rebellion campaigners had blocked four areas in central London on Monday, but on Saturday police regained control of Oxford Circus.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/apr/02/letter-stephen-salter-obituary

Environment

2024-04-02T15:56:16.000Z

Jonathan Michie

Letter: Stephen Salter obituary

As the inventor Stephen Salter noted in a journal article in 2016, while the nuclear industry sabotaged his renewable energy research, it was Nigel Lawson, as energy secretary, who pulled the plug on it in 1982. One of those at the UK Atomic Energy Authority who had risked their jobs by sending documents said in a note: “Just because you aren’t paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.” I first met Stephen when I was a child, and he was building Freddy the Robot, pioneered by my father, Donald Michie. A couple of years ago, Stephen told me: “I remember ridicule in the 1960s when your father predicted that one day every child would have their own computer. Perhaps he should have said three.” After Idi Amin expelled the Ugandan Asians in 1972, Stephen hosted a family in his Edinburgh flat. He always championed migration, innovation and environmental sustainability.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/mar/31/penny-wong-blames-peter-dutton-adam-bandt-alliance-for-failure-to-pass-labors-deportation-laws

Australia news

2024-03-30T23:33:41.000Z

Amy Remeikis

Penny Wong blames ‘Peter Dutton-Adam Bandt alliance’ for failure to pass Labor’s deportation laws

Foreign affairs minister Penny Wong has blamed a “Peter Dutton-Adam Bandt alliance” for the government’s failure to rush through “draconian” deportation legislation in the parliament last week. But Greens senator David Shoebridge, who has described the laws as “draconian”, said the Labor government was alone in supporting the laws without scrutiny, arguing it was “everybody in the parliament except for Labor” who wanted further examination of legislation “that looked like it had been drawn in crayon without any rational basis behind it”. The Coalition supported a Greens motion in the Senate to send the deportation legislation to a Senate inquiry, despite having voted with the government to pass the legislation through the House of Representatives, after Labor failed to produce reasons for the bill’s urgency. The week in parliament: Albanese’s attempts to appease Dutton land Labor in a political quagmire of its own making Amy Remeikis Read more The inquiry will report back on the bill on 7 May, the first day parliament resumes following the autumn break, although there remains the possibility parliament could be recalled earlier to pass the bill if the government loses a coming high court challenge. The deportation bill gives the immigration minister the power to direct a non-citizen who is due to be deported “to do specified things necessary to facilitate their removal” or risk a mandatory minimum sentence of one year in prison or up to five years. It also creates a power to designate another country as a “removal concern country”, which will impose a bar on new visa applications from non-citizens outside Australia who are nationals of a country that does not accept removals from Australia. The legislation has alarmed human rights and refugee advocates who warn it could have far-reaching unintended consequences, including reversing protection findings of someone previously found to be a refugee. Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Speaking to Sky News on Sunday, Wong argued the bill was a “tool” to make the immigration system “stronger” and its powers would have to be exercised in consultation with the foreign affairs minister. “There might be other diplomatic avenues you would try and go through before you get to that point,” she said. “But obviously, there’s an issue that we are seeking to address and we’ve worked through that carefully within government about how we might address it, and this is what the legislation is seeking to do.” Wong said the legislation was aimed at people who had been found not to be refugees, but argued it would not be applied by the Albanese government as a one-size-fits-all. “It’s not a it’s not something that would be used in a in a blanket way and it’s something that will be used as and when necessary,” she said. “It’s an important part of our toolkit, in terms of managing migration.” Wong blamed “politics” for the legislation’s hold-up. Sign up to Morning Mail Free daily newsletter Our Australian morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “It’s regrettable that there we’ve got the Peter Dutton, Adam Bandt’s alliance preventing action on this but so be it, but I just say it says something about the political opportunities,” she said. Shoebridge, the Greens new home affairs spokesperson, said Labor had “jumped the shark” with the laws, which he said went further than anything an Australian government had previously put forward. “We have a very unfair asylum system, you know, arbitrary time limits, negative inferences, it’s a very unfair process,” he said. “We’ve never yet said, ‘Well, if you continue to fear persecution, even though the government doesn’t believe you, we’re going to whack you on a plane and return you against your will to potential jail and persecution in Iran and if you don’t do it, we’re going to put you in jail for a mandatory minimum of one year.’ David Shoebridge on Labor’s ‘Trump-like’ immigration proposals – Australian politics podcast Read more “And we’ve never yet said, ‘If you don’t sign a passport application for your kids, and take them back as well, we’re going to put you in jail.’ Even under the Coalition we never got there.” Shoebridge said the inquiry into the legislation would examine the “god-like” powers the bill gave the minister to send people to jail if they did not comply with an order and the “blacklisting” of countries as designated nations. “They [the government] still might get there [with the Coalition] but even the opposition I think, will be deeply troubled by legislation that is saying to diaspora communities across the country, ‘You may never see your family again.’”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/apr/20/israel-destroyed-embryos-bombing-ivf-center-gaza

Opinion

2024-04-20T13:00:28.000Z

Arwa Mahdawi

Israel destroyed 4,000 embryos by bombing an IVF centre in Gaza | Arwa Mahdawi

The majority of Gaza’s frozen embryos have been destroyed If you, or someone you love, has ever had fertility issues, you will know just how heavy an emotional toll they can take. IVF, in particular, is not easy. You have to inject yourself with hormones. Then you undergo anaesthesia and have an operation to retrieve the eggs. Then the embryos are made. Finally, you implant the embryos. It’s a long, expensive and involved process that can take a physical and emotional toll. At the end, you hope it’ll all be worth it. At the end, you hope there will be a baby. For many families in Gaza, those hopes were permanently wiped out by one Israeli missile strike. In December, an Israeli shell, possibly provided by the US, hit Gaza City’s largest fertility clinic, the Al Basma IVF centre. The explosion, according to a Reuters piece that came out this week, “blasted the lids off five liquid nitrogen tanks stored in a corner of the embryology unit”. More than 4,000 embryos were destroyed, along with 1,000 more specimens of sperm and unfertilized eggs. What I would have told Congress if I were in Columbia president Shafik’s shoes Francine Prose Read more One single strike. That’s all it took. One single strike and thousands of potential lives were wiped out. For at least half of the couples who were patients at the clinic, many of whom had saved up for years to afford treatments, those embryos were their last chance to get pregnant, Bahaeldeen Ghalayini, the obstetrician who established the clinic, told Reuters. Why would Israel bomb a fertility center? The Israeli military’s press desk told Reuters that it would look into it. Judging by Israel’s record of looking into its own actions, you shouldn’t hold your breath waiting for answers. No doubt Israel will just say it received special intelligence that at least 25% of those embryos were going to grow up to be terrorists. Whatever the press desk says, if it bothers saying anything, it won’t make a difference to the Biden administration. Israeli leaders have made a litany of genocidal statements and the US government is still sending a never-ending supply of unconditional aid. Just stop for a moment and imagine if this had happened in Israel or in any other country considered a western ally. Imagine if 4,000 Israeli embryos had been destroyed. Imagine the justifiable outrage, the immense sadness, it would have caused. This story, however, which has taken months to come out, has barely seemed to register. And why would it? As many western leaders have made clear, they simply do not think of Palestinians as human. Unless I’ve missed it, the anti-abortion crowd has also been weirdly silent about this story. You’d think the people who have said they believe embryos are “extrauterine children” might muster a little outrage at this mass murder. But no, evangelical Christians are too busy cheering on Israel in the hope that all the bloodshed will bring about the rapture and the second coming of Jesus Christ. More than half of US evangelicals have said they support Israel’s existence because it is important for fulfilling the end times prophecy. I don’t know if the end times are coming, but Gaza certainly looks apocalyptical. Every day, the news seems to get more harrowing. More than 32,000 Palestinians are dead, including an estimated 6,000 mothers; UN Women reports that 19,000 children have been orphaned. Unicef estimates that a thousand children in Gaza have become amputees since October. “This is the biggest cohort of pediatric amputees in history,” a London-based surgeon told the New Yorker. Not a single university is still standing and the vast majority of schools have been destroyed. More than 10,000 children are dead. Malnutrition will rob an entire generation of its future. “This is not a normal war,” one physician said. “The war in Ukraine has killed 500 kids in two years and the war in Gaza has killed over 10,000 in less than five months. We have seen wars before but this is something that is a dark stain on our shared humanity.” This point can’t be stressed enough. What is happening is not normal. Bombing fertility clinics is not normal. Don’t let any of this become normalized. A year of suffering in Sudan The year-long war in Sudan has become one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world and created the world’s worst displacement crisis. “It’s not so much a civil war as it is a war against civilians, whose homes, livelihoods and very lives have been the collateral damage so far,” Nesrine Malik wrote in a must-read column in the Guardian. As with all crises, the most vulnerable pay the highest price: “More than 7,000 new mothers could die in the coming months if their nutritional and health needs remain unmet,” UN Women has warned. “More than 6.7 million people are at risk of gender-based violence, and reports of intimate partner violence, sexual exploitation and abuse, and trafficking in persons are widespread and increasing.” Nestlé adds sugar to infant milk in poorer countries, report finds In Nestlé’s main European markets, meanwhile, there is no sugar in products targeted at babies between six months and one year. Nigel Rollins, a medical officer at the World Health Organization, said the findings represented “a double standard … that can’t be justified”. While shocking, this report is not much of a surprise; Nestlé has been accused of dubious business practices for decades. In 1977, campaigners started boycotting the company because of its aggressive marketing of formula milk over breastfeeding in developing countries. Since then, the Swiss multinational has been dogged by accusations of unethical advertising. Sextortion scams are driving some teen boys to suicide Scammers pretending to be teenage girls are tricking teenage boys into sending them nudes, and then blackmailing them. “The scam, which the FBI calls sextortion, has become one of the fastest-growing crimes targeting children in the US,” Bloomberg reports. “In an 18-month period ending in March 2023, the FBI says, at least 20 minors, primarily boys, killed themselves after falling victim to the scam.” Smoking among middle-class English women up 25% in 10 years “In contrast, there was a drop in the proportion of less advantaged women of the same age who smoked, from 29% to 22%, while smoking rates among men of all backgrounds remained stable,” the Guardian reports. It’s not clear why younger, affluent women are smoking more but social media is a possible culprit. (Isn’t it always?) US Olympians slam Nike for skimpy women’s track kit Long-jumper Tara Davis-Woodhall summed up the general vibe when she exclaimed: “My hoo haa is gonna be out!” The week in pawtriarchy Did you know that hedgehogs can suffer from balloon syndrome? You do now. Air can get into a gap under their skin, causing them to inflate to the size of a football. One afflicted hedgehog (now named Bounce) was so large, a bus passenger in Gloucestershire, England, spotted her and took her to a rescue charity. They managed to treat Bounce successfully. They also ascertained that Bounce was, in fact, a real live animal and not, as was recently the case in another hedgehog rescue story, a hat bobble. In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 988lifeline.org, or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In the UK, the youth suicide charity Papyrus can be contacted on 0800 068 4141 or email [email protected], and in the UK and Ireland Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/17/observer-view-coaltion-airstrikes-isis-civilian-casualties-syria-iraq-donald-trump

Opinion

2017-06-17T23:05:51.000Z

Observer editorial

The Observer view on the civilian casualties in the fight against Isis | Observer editorial

The arduous battle to defeat Islamic State (Isis) appears to be entering its final stages in the group’s two main strongholds, Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq. Notwithstanding a chronic lack of co-operation between myriad anti-Isis forces, the caliphate promulgated by the Isis leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from a mosque in Mosul in 2014, is close to collapse. Many Isis senior commanders have been killed. Jihadis are reportedly fleeing the combat zone (and heading for Europe). Now, Russia claims Baghdadi, too, may have died in an airstrike last month, although this is unconfirmed. The long-sought victory over Isis, while evidently welcome, is coming at a terrible cost. Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, chief war crimes investigator on the UN’s independent international commission of inquiry on Syria, said last week that US-led coalition airstrikes were devastating Raqqa’s civilian population. “We note in particular that the intensification of airstrikes... has resulted not only in staggering loss of civilian life, but has also led to 160,000 civilians fleeing their homes and becoming internally displaced,” Pinheiro told the UN human rights council in Geneva. The commission says 300 civilians died in Raqqa province in the three months to 31 May. About 200 of these deaths reportedly occurred in an airstrike in March on the village of Mansoura, to which many displaced families had fled. The Observer The Observer is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, founded in 1791. It is published by Guardian News & Media and is editorially independent. The US-led coalition, which includes Britain and France, says that Operation Inherent Resolve, the Pentagon’s name for the campaign against Isis in Syria and Iraq, has caused 484 civilians deaths in both countries since the beginning of February, up 60% on the preceding period. But even this figure looks conservative. Latest estimates by Airwars, a UK-based independent watchdog, put the civilian death toll at 3,962 in both countries since the campaign began in 2014. The tempo of attacks around Raqqa also seems to be quickening, with about 35 coalition airstrikes launched on 15-16 June. A concomitant, sharp rise in civilian casualties is reported by Airwars, the UN and aid agencies, which complain of severe difficulties in reaching affected areas. US Central Command says the higher three-month total is largely due to a now notorious, single airstrike on an apartment building in western Mosul on 17 March. Its objective was to kill two Isis snipers. To do so, a 500lb bomb was directed at the building. Unsurprisingly, it collapsed, killing more than 100 civilians. The Guardian’s Martin Chulov described the scene five days later. “Witnesses said close to 150 people had been in the home when it was bombed. Most locals interviewed said that people had willingly taken shelter. However, several also claimed that Isis had urged fighters to use the home as a refuge,” he reported. Troublingly, the US military at first declined to acknowledge responsibility for the 17 March tragedy. That has now changed, while alarm about the incident and rising civilian casualties in general is driving a more transparent, accountable approach. The US has announced a doubling of the size of the team investigating reports of unintended casualties. This sounds reassuring, until it is realised that, until now, the team comprised only two full-time and two part-time personnel covering the entire Syria-Iraq theatre, where hundreds of airstrikes are mounted each month. It is plain US and British forces, and their allies, face challenging conditions in Syria and Iraq, operating in combat zones where margins of error are extremely thin. They are certainly performing a service to the world in extirpating the Isis menace, even though their intervention remains controversial in other respects. And there is little reason to doubt reports that Isis fighters have repeatedly used civilians as human shields, part of their vicious brutalisation of local populations. But it is problematic when the western powers criticise the wanton killing, human rights abuses and possible war crimes attributed to Russia and the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad while failing to hold themselves to a rigorously higher standard. It is worrying, too, that this sudden spike in civilian deaths coincides with the arrival in office of Donald Trump and his laissez-faire attitude to the US military. There is no equivalence between what is happening now in Raqqa and Mosul and what Vladimir Putin’s air force and Assad’s bombers did, for example, during the siege of Aleppo last autumn. But the dreadful results on the ground, for civilians with the misfortune to be trapped under Isis rule, look very similar. Put simply, they are dying to be liberated.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/18/philip-hammond-considered-quitting-over-theresa-may-spending-plans

Politics

2019-06-18T06:54:39.000Z

Rowena Mason

Philip Hammond 'considered quitting over Theresa May spending plans'

Philip Hammond is so frustrated by Theresa May’s plans to spend billions of pounds on projects to shore up her legacy that he considered resigning, according to government sources. The chancellor is unhappy with the prime minister’s decision to set out plans to spend up to £27bn on education over three years, including building new schools and paying teachers higher wages. He is understood to believe May should not be binding the hands of her successor with big spending commitments. The Press Association initially reported Hammond was on the brink of quitting over the row between No 10 and No 11 in what would be an extraordinary move just weeks before the prime minister leaves office. A senior government source told the Guardian Hammond was “frustrated” and may have threatened to resign but he was unlikely to do so. “It’s not that he doesn’t recognise there are pressures,” the source said. “He believes strongly that decisions on long-term spending should be made by the next person. They will have pressures relating to their Brexit proposal and need to be able to consider bids in the round.” No 10 is asking Hammond to free up money from the £27bn “war chest” he set aside in case of a no-deal Brexit to fund the plans. A Downing Street source told PA: “It is a fact though that school funding in England is at its highest ever level – rising from almost £41bn in 2017-18 to £43.5bn by 2019-20. “But while there’s more money going into our schools than ever before, we know they face budgeting challenges. “The education secretary has been clear he will back headteachers to have the resources they need to deliver a world-class education.” May’s tenure in No 10 will end next month, and she has already sought to define her legacy with pledges to tackle climate change, mental health and modern slavery. On Monday, she set out plans for new teachers to receive training on how to spot the signs of mental health problems in youngsters, under a plan to overhaul society’s approach to the issue.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jan/07/best-pop-rock-2017-black-sabbath-drake-craig-david-xx

Music

2017-01-07T10:00:16.000Z

Michael Hann

Future sounds: the best pop and rock of 2017

The xx – I See You Perhaps it’s their very lack of demonstrativeness that has made the xx so popular – they are a backdrop on to which listeners can project whatever they want. A gap of more than five years since their last record has done little to blunt their appeal, and their third album finds them foregrounding Jamie xx’s status as one of dance music’s more unusual sonic architects and backgrounding the spectral, downbeat elements of their first two. 13 January, Young Turks. Flo Morrissey and Matthew E White – Gentlewoman, Ruby Man Covers albums are 10 a penny. Covers albums with track listings this eccentric are not. Here, the linchpin of Virginia’s Spacebomb collective teams up with the British singer-songwriter to cover songs as seemingly ill-suited to sit alongside each other as the theme from Grease, Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne, Frank Ocean’s Thinking ’Bout You and the Velvet Underground’s Sunday Morning. Incredibly, it works. 13 January, Glassnote. Beyond boundaries … Katie Stelmanis of Austra. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian Austra – Future Politics Obviously, you wouldn’t expect anything described as a “recording project” rather than a “pop group” to release anything so mundane as a collection of songs. And so the third release from Katie Stelmanis and co turns out to be “a commitment to replace the approaching dystopia … It’s about reaching beyond boundaries, in every single field.” Stelmanis might have intended to reconfigure political thought, but she managed to write some memorable and magical songs along the way. 20 January, Domino. Ty Segall - Ty Segall Trying to make sense of the San Franscisco garage punk hero’s discography is like trying to count the spots on a cheetah. While it sprints. No matter how prolific he is – as well as his solo career, he’s made records with nine other outfits – he keeps the quality control high. His self-titled ninth album is as fuzzy, gnarly, ugly – and tuneful – as the rest of his catalogue. One to treasure. 27 January, Drag City. Splash … Iggy Azalea. Photograph: Neil Lupin/Redferns via Getty Images Iggy Azalea – Digital Distortion When the Australian rapper released her first album in 2014, she seemed like another aspiring star whose moment had passed before it had arrived. How wrong that assessment was. The single Fancy gave her a worldwide smash, and she became the centre of a row over cultural appropriation: could a white Australian be justified in taking the music of black America? Expect her second album to make a huge and immediate splash. January, Island. Wiley – Godfather Skepta’s had the headlines for the last year or so, but Wiley is the MC the grime stars pay homage to. This album was meant to be released last October, and though it’s officially due this month, those of a betting nature might want to slip a fiver on it coming out later in the year. It would be a shame if they collected on their bets though, because Wiley deserves to be in a position to capitalise on grime’s resurgence. 13 January, Chasing the Art. The grime star’s grime star … Wiley. Photograph: Joseph Okpako/WireImage Celtic Connections Over 2,000 artists feature in 300 events, filling Glasgow with music and dancing in the dark days of late January and early February. A hugely varied programme features folk, world, roots, blues and all the stuff in between, with Americana strongly represented this year, including Mary Chapin Carpenter and JohnnySwim (Donna Summer’s daughter Amanda Sudano’s band). Laura Marling opens the festival with the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra to perform new orchestral arrangements of her music. Other highlights include the 81-year-old folk legend Shirley Collins performing from Lodestar, her first album in 30 years, and Scotland’s own Evelyn Glennie, who joins with fellow virtuosic percussionist Trilok Gurtu to celebrate the 70th anniversary of India’s independence and perform the specially commissioned The Rhythm in Me. Various venues, Glasgow, 19 January–5 February. Black Sabbath The godfathers of metal are, they say, taking the doom out on the road for the last time. In truth, it’s not before time – Ozzy Osbourne is no longer the showman he once was – but the band’s downtuned riffs never sound less than thrilling live. The End tour stops off in the UK for nine arena shows, culminating, fittingly, in their hometown of Birmingham. Invert crosses … now! Manchester Arena, 22 January. Then touring until 4 February. Taking his time … Drake heads to the UK for a month. Photograph: Arthur Mola/AP Drake An international superstar’s visit to the UK will often be as brief as possible – a couple of London arena shows, one in the north, then back to Heathrow to turn left at the entrance to the jet. Drake, however, is over for a whole month, with shows in Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield and Birmingham as well as eight at the O2 arena in London. Chuck in stops at Dudley JBs and Northampton Roadmenders and it would be like an old-fashioned tour. Glasgow SSE Hydro, 25 January. Then touring until 23 February. Aurelio Aurelio Martinez is the finest living exponent of the lilting, soulful music of the Garifuna people, with its unique blend of African, Latin and Caribbean influences, and his new album Darandi (released on Real World on 20 January) is a studio set that captures the energy and emotion of his live shows. Warwick Arts Centre, 31 January (024-7652 4524). Then touring until 3 February. Major Lazer – Music Is the Weapon Like Iggy Azalea, dance stars Major Lazer (makers of Spotify’s most streamed track ever, fact fans) have been trailing their fourth album, Music Is the Weapon, for a couple of years. The notion that it might emerge this new year comes from production mastermind Diplo, who tweeted in October that “new Major Lazer comes out in January”. Expect the dance styles du jour, in a manner that will have those over 30 with their teeth on edge. January, Mad Decent. Sampha – Process Sampha Sisay has been a familiar figure in R&B and hip-hop for several years, as one of those people whose names pop up with the word “featuring” before it (he’s worked with Kanye West, Drake, Solange, SBTRKT and Jessie Ware, among many others). His solo debut, in which the death of his mother is a recurrent theme, is a vulnerable record, not just emotionally but musically. Its sound is intimate, despite the power of his voice, which sits front and centre on what looks set to be one of the year’s most striking debuts. 3 February, Young Turks. Green Day The California pop punks will be sneered at by purists as long as there are purists to sneer, but they’ve done more to smuggle punk politics into the ears of the kids than any number of more earnest and less popular acts. More to the point, their live show – as much Crackerjack as the Clash – is twice as much fun as you’ll have watching the kind of bands who talk in interviews about not selling out. Leeds First Direct Arena, 5 February; Manchester Arena, 6 February; O2 Arena, London, 8 February. Priority act … Dua Lipa. Photograph: Nicole Nodland Dua Lipa – Dua Lipa A former model with a colourful backstory – her father was a Kosovar Albanian rock singer – Dua Lipa is viewed as a certainty for success in the industry: the dread words “priority act” are attached to her. She describes her sound as “dark pop”, though the gloom might lift if her album strikes gold. 10 February, Warner Bros. The Magnetic Fields – 50 Song Memoir It’s 18 years since Stephin Merritt issued 69 Love Songs, one of pop’s most audacious conceptual conceits. To mark him turning 50, he has revisited the multi-album idea, with a five-disc set containing a song for each of the years of his life. Could How I Failed Ethics (for 1986) really be about a university exam? Never mind that: in the track for 1990, he may have created the most universal memory prompt for anyone in their early 20s at that time – Dreaming in Tetris. 3 March, Nonesuch. Read our interview with Stephin Merritt Debut album … Rag’n’Bone Man in concert in Brixton. Photograph: PJP photos/Rex/Shutterstock Rag’n’Bone Man – Human Rory Graham, AKA Rag’n’Bone Man, first gained a reputation singing the blues over hip-hop beats, and became a slow-burning overnight sensation last year, when his single Human became a massive hit across Europe, and then when he picked up the Brits critics’ choice award in December. Some of the rough edges appear to have been sanded off in the process – these days he’s writing with seasoned hitmakers, rather than revamping House of the Rising Sun – but his debut album, also called Human, should make it clear whether he’s going to be living with one foot in the door and the other in the gutter, or whether he’s heading full pelt for the mainstream. 10 February, Sony. Journey to the Unknown: Hidden Orchestra/Evan Parker and Spring Heel Jack The 2017 UK City of Culture, Hull, celebrates the unique work of its visionary late resident Basil Kirchin – the teenage swing-drummer who became a pop songwriter, then ambient pioneer and sound-experimenting inspiration to Brian Eno and others. This show features electronics-and-samples group Hidden Orchestra and an eclectic ensemble led by Kirchin-collaborating jazz-sax supremo Evan Parker and including former DJs, improvisers and electronicists Spring Heel Jack. Hull City Hall, Queen Victoria Square, Hull 18 February (01482 300300). Nelly Furtado – The Ride If you’ve forgotten what made Nelly Furtado such a charming proposition when she emerged in 2000 then you can refresh your memory in March, when she releases her sixth album, which she says is a return to the styles of her debut, Whoa, Nelly. At this stage, she says, “you can lay back, look at the whole picture and figure out what brings you the most joy”. 3 March, Nelstar. Abel Tesfaye, AKA the Weeknd. Photograph: Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images The Weeknd No one has ever made unlimited sex, unlimited drugs and having your every whim catered to sound less fun than Abel Tesfaye. Rather than making the world tell him to sod off and give everyone a go, though, it has made him one of the world’s biggest pop stars. (Perhaps there is a larger than suspected audience of people bored by too much sex and too many drugs.) Still, the main intoxicant available at his UK shows will be overpriced lager, so there’ll be nothing for him to moan about there. Manchester Arena, 5 March. Then touring until 14 March. Mokoomba The welcome return of one of the finest young bands in Africa. Mokoomba are from Victoria Falls in the north of Zimbabwe, and mix local Tonga styles with global influences including funk and rap, with powerful, soulful vocals from Mathias Muzaza matched by the guitar work of Trustworth Samende. Their new album, Luyando, will be followed by live dates that are still being finalised. 10 March, Outhere Records Long weekend … Reba McEntire heads for C2C. Photograph: Erika Goldring/FilmMagic C2C festival Each year the Country to Country festival seems to get a little bigger, and this year its three days see it operating in a Reading/Leeds festival fashion, with the acts spending the weekend shuttling between London, Glasgow and Dublin to appear across a long weekend in all three cities. This year’s headliners – Brad Paisley, Reba McEntire and the Zac Brown Band – are maybe not the very strongest, but it’s still the UK’s leading celebration of country. O2 Arena, London, Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, and 3Arena, Dublin, 10-12 March. John McLaughlin/Soweto Kinch/Julian Siegel Guitar legend John McLaughlin’s powers seem undimmed in his 70s – the same raw blues sound, fuzz-toned avant-rock and violin-like lyrical playing still work their forceful magic. McLaughlin headlines a birthday celebration of British jazz mag Jazzwise on 13 and 14 March. The jazz/rap saxist Soweto Kinch’s Nonagram, reeds-player Julian Siegel’s big band, and trumpeter Nick Smart’s tribute to the singer-songwriter Nick Drake follow later in the week. Ronnie Scott’s, London, 13-16 March (020-7439 0747). The comeback kid … Craig David. Photograph: Rio Romaine Craig David The almost universal goodwill he seems to engender has seen Craig David’s comeback make him bigger than ever, with Mobo award wins followed by an arena tour that sees him booking two nights at the O2. That’s 40,000 tickets, and if you had told us two years ago he’d be playing to that many people we’d have laughed in your face. What goes around has come around for a man who simply seems uncomplicatedly nice. At Motorpoint Arena, Cardiff, 16 March. Then touring until 17 April. Take That Now down to a threesome – the two who weren’t avoiding taxes are no longer with them – the That set about earning back the £20m they had to pay to HMRC last summer with a new album, Wonderland, followed by a sold-out early summer arena tour that’s going to have them rolling in banknotes in time for their holidays. Expect slick, sleek grown-up pop from album and tour alike. Wonderland is released on 17 March (Polydor). Tour begins at Birmingham Genting Arena on 5 May. Ghost How anyone could dislike a band whose members all claim to be called Nameless Ghoul is beyond us. These Swedes might sport corpse paint and celebrate the occult, but they are far from the Scandinavian black metal stereotype, coming closer to a kind of swirling, metallic psychedelia. Think of them as halfway between Goat and Darkthrone. UEA, Norwich, 24 March. Then touring until 2 April. The Jesus and Mary Chain It’s almost two decades since the Jesus and Mary Chain released an album, but don’t expect the Reid brothers to be out of practice. Since 2007 they’ve been playing blistering live shows, including recent outings in honour of their classic debut, Psychocandy. Hopefully, they’ll conjure that record’s scuzzy intensity, while producer Youth should bring a modern sheen to proceedings. March, Warner Bros

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/sep/10/the-simpsons-most-underrated-musical-numbers

Television & radio

2014-09-10T12:50:33.000Z

Priya Elan

The Simpsons' most underrated musical numbers

US cable network FXX loves The Simpsons so much that it ran every single one of its 552 episodes in order recently. And now they’re planning to celebrate its upcoming special event in Hollywood, The Simpsons Take the Bowl, with a definitive run of its music-themed episodes. Among others, the event will feature the following songs: Monorail Song (Marge vs the Monorail, season four) Baby on Board (Homer’s Barbershop Quartest, season five) We Do – the Stonecutters’ Song (Homer the Great, season six) See My Vest (Two Dozen and One Greyhounds, season six) Señor Burns (Who Shot Mr Burns Part 2, season seven) Dr Zaius and Chimpan A to Chimpan Z (A Fish Called Selma, season seven) We Put the Spring in Springfield (Bart After Dark, season eight) Minimum Wage Nanny (Simpsoncalifragilisticexpiala(Annoyed Grunt)cious, season eight) Naturally, they’re all weighted towards earlier seasons, but here are a few later season delights they’ve missed. Sadgasm (That 90s Show, season 19) Homer’s 90s grunge band – whose best songs include Margerine, Politically Incorrect and Shave Me (sample lyric: “Razorblade of apathy/Shave me with your irony”) – reform briefly to get Marge’s attention. According to MTV VJ Kurt Loder, they originally broke up due to Homer’s drug addiction. In fact, it was just injectable insulin after Homer became diabetic from slurping one too many Frappuccinos. Lurleen Lumpkin Returns (Papa Don’t Leech, season 19) The now-destitute and on-the-run country singer Lurleen Lumpkin (voiced by Beverly D’Angelo) returns to Springfield after 16 years to find her ex-manager Homer. When she attempts to relaunch her career with a new song – Daddy’s Back – the Dixie Chicks steal it and change the words to America’s Back. Timely, considering The Chicks were facing their own country backlash at this point. The American Idol Parody (A Star is Torn, season 16) Lisa enters Krusty’s TV talent show Li’l Starmaker (where “all ballots were lost and vote totals made up”) with a version of Hush, Little Baby. But after she is upstaged, Homer steps in and writes a Springfield-baiting track that gets her through to the next round. Homer becomes Lisa’s manager, but things go awry, as he gets to Joe Jackson levels of power-hungry and corrupt. Lisa Goes Glee (Elementary School Musical, season 22) Lisa goes to art camp where she is tutored by some very familiar-sounding counsellors (Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine and Bret) and meets some very familiar-sounding campers (Amber Riley, Lea Michele and Cory Monteith from Glee). Things go very ‘jazz hands’ and later, Lisa experiences a serious case of post-holiday blues. Heading to the hilariously titled Sprooklyn to find her counsellors, she discovers these self-professed “sandwich artists” are working in a Subway-like eatery. It’s at this point she realises that she doesn’t like hipsters. The Sweeney Todd spoof (Treehouse of Horror XX, season 21) The traditional Halloween episode contains an entirely musical final segment, There’s No Business like Moe Business. Based on Sweeney Todd, it sees Moe using Homer’s blood to create an amazing microbrewed beer. Also notable for aliens Kang and Kodos appearing at the end of the episode to sing a gruesome version of The Simpsons’ theme song. What musical highlights would you include in the Hollywood Bowl show? Let us know below

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/law/2018/sep/11/icc-will-continue-undeterred-after-us-threats-john-bolton

Law

2018-09-11T10:52:49.000Z

Owen Bowcott

ICC will continue 'undeterred' after US threats

The international criminal court (ICC) will continue to investigate war crimes “undeterred” by the Trump administration’s threat of sanctions against its judges, the Hague-based organisation has declared. Responding to a firebrand speech by the US national security adviser, John Bolton, the United Nations-backed court said it would not be intimidated or dissuaded from its global mission. Trump attack on ICC is the unacceptable face of US exceptionalism Read more Bolton’s attack, delivered in Washington on Monday, opens a fresh front in the war between the doctrine of American exceptionalism and the UN-supported, international legal order. If the ICC proceeds with launching an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by US military and intelligence staff during the war in Afghanistan or pursues any investigation into Israel or other US allies, Bolton warned, the US would impose sanctions against the court and, where possible, prosecute its officials. In a short statement, the ICC said: “The court was established and constituted under the Rome statute, the court’s founding treaty – to which 123 countries from all regions of the world are party and have pledged their support through ratification – as an instrument to ensure accountability for crimes that shock the conscience of humanity. The court is an independent and impartial judicial institution. “The court’s jurisdiction is subject to the primary jurisdiction of states themselves to investigate and prosecute allegations of those crimes and bring justice to the affected communities. It is only when the states concerned fail to do so at all or genuinely that the ICC will exercise jurisdiction. “The ICC, as a court of law, will continue to do its work undeterred, in accordance with those principles and the overarching idea of the rule of law.” Bolton’s address alarmed many legal experts. Mark Ellis, the executive director of the London-based International Bar Association, said: “The extraordinary attack launched by … Bolton against the ICC is not only in direct contradiction to the principle of accountability for war crimes, but reinforces the Trump administration’s repugnant policy of exceptionalism, where it demands adherence to international law by all countries, except itself. “Bolton’s added bellicose language that ICC judges and prosecutors face possible prosecution in the US is a distressing extension of the Trump administration’s attack on the judiciary – both domestic and now international. “The ICC was created for the noble purpose of ending impunity for perpetrators of the most heinous crimes, including genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, when nations are unwilling or unable to prosecute.” Jamil Dakwar, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s human rights programme, said: “The Trump administration’s threat to criminally prosecute and sanction international criminal court judges and prosecutors is straight out of an authoritarian playbook. “The unprecedented threat comes as US officials face, for the first time, the spectre of full criminal investigation by the court for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Afghanistan, which is an ICC member. This misguided and harmful policy will only further isolate the United States from its closest allies and give solace to war criminals and authoritarian regimes seeking to evade international accountability.” The head of Afghanistan’s human right’s commission, Sima Samar, said that establishing the truth about war crimes allegations in her country was important. “It’s very unfortunate because delivering justice to victims will help to facilitate the peace process in Afghanistan,” she said. “Justice is not a luxury. It is a basic human right.” The Palestinian Authority said it would not abandon its principles after the US decision to close the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s (PLO) office in Washington in retaliation for it calling for an ICC investigation into Israel’s alleged war crimes. Nabil Abu Rudeina, the spokesman for the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, said the authority would maintain its commitment to the resolutions of international legitimacy.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/11/rishi-sunak-rejects-remove-whip-tory-nick-fletcher-lee-anderson

Politics

2024-04-11T15:50:07.000Z

Aletha Adu

Sunak rejects calls to remove whip from Tory MP over Lee Anderson support

Rishi Sunak has rejected calls to remove the whip from a backbench Conservative MP who praised the Reform party’s only MP, Lee Anderson, as “Ashfield’s greatest champion”. Anderson said he would not be campaigning in certain Conservative constituencies because of his friendships with some MPs, including Nick Fletcher. The MP for Ashfield said “friendship means more” to him, as he outlined that Ben Bradley, the MP for Mansfield, Brendan Clarke-Smith, the MP for Bassetlaw, Marco Longhi, the MP for Dudley North, and Fletcher had reached out to him after he defected. It prompted Fletcher to endorse Anderson as Ashfield’s “greatest champion”, saying he needed to be back in Westminster after the election. But the Tory backbencher has been swiftly criticised by the Liberal Democrats who have said the comments show that even Conservative MPs do not want the party to succeed at the general election. Fletcher said on X: “I so wish @LeeAndersonMP_ had remained with the Conservatives. However, having lost the whip it would mean the Conservative Party would choose someone other than Lee to fight the election in Ashfield. “I can understand in those circumstances why he joined Reform. Ashfield has its greatest champion and I hope they appreciate what he has done for his home town and his country at the next election. I hope my constituents see that a vote for me in Doncaster is also the right thing to do. I am a lone voice in parliament shouting up for Doncaster.” Conservative party rules state members are required to “sustain and promote the objects and values of the Conservative party” and endorsing rival candidates could be grounds for a disciplinary investigation and potential expulsion. But a spokesperson for the party said: “Nick has made clear he wants to see as many Conservatives as possible elected. A vote for Reform is a vote to let Keir Starmer into No 10.” Reform UK has said it respects Anderson’s personal decision but the party will continue with its election campaigns in these seats. Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. The deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, Daisy Cooper, said: “It seems even Conservative MPs don’t want the Conservatives to win. Voters are sick to the back teeth of this never-ending circus of infighting. Rishi Sunak needs to find his backbone and kick Nick Fletcher out of the Conservative party. Failure to do so would show yet again that he’s too weak to control his party, let alone govern the country.” A Reform UK spokesperson said: “Lee Anderson made it clear from the day he joined Reform UK that he would not personally campaign against a handful of his close friends. The party respect this decision and it shows Lee’s loyalty to his friends, which goes beyond politics. “Reform will be standing in these constituencies and will be fighting the Conservatives across the board in England, Wales and Scotland. The Tories have betrayed the country by failing to control our borders and allowing our public services to crumble. We will punish them at the general election.” The former Tory deputy chair defected to Reform last month after he had the Tory whip removed for saying the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, was being controlled by Islamist extremists.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/04/john-mcdonnell-i-will-not-replace-corbyn-as-labour-leader

Politics

2016-07-04T07:30:50.000Z

Jessica Elgot

Angela Eagle threatens to break Labour impasse with leadership bid

Angela Eagle has delivered a stark warning to Jeremy Corbyn, saying she is prepared to break the impasse at the top of Labour by directly challenging him for the party leadership. The party has been divided over how and when to tackle Corbyn’s insistence he would not resign following the vote of no confidence, and his resolve to stand against any challenger in a leadership contest. Allies of the deputy leader, Tom Watson, say he still hopes to persuade Corbyn to stand down voluntarily under a compromise agreement, but Eagle gave the clearest signal on Monday that many others are losing patience. The former shadow business secretary told Sky News as she left her home that she had enough support to challenge Corbyn directly. “There are many people, MPs, party members up and down the country, asking me to resolve the impasse and I will if something isn’t done soon,” she said. “I have the support to run and resolve this impasse and I will do so if Jeremy doesn’t take action soon.” Earlier, John McDonnell said he had no intention of replacing Corbyn and called for talks with those Labour MPs hoping to topple his ally. The shadow chancellor appealed for calm, saying there had been “mass hysteria” since Britain voted to leave the EU. McDonnell told ITV’s Good Morning Britain: “Now is the time to sort of calm down, everyone calm down. Since the referendum there’s been mass hysteria in virtually all our political parties and I can’t completely understand it. I’ve never seen anything like it, allegations being made, claims being made. Untruths being said.” McDonnell denied claims made in a tweet by a Labour MP on Sunday night that a deal was being struck for Corbyn to stand down in return for the shadow chancellor being put on the ballot paper in the subsequent leadership contest. He said: “That has never been discussed. Last week I was accused of a coup against Jeremy myself. This week I was accused of forcing him to stay in. It gets ridiculous.” Corbyn remains as party leader despite opposition from the vast majority of his MPs following last month’s referendum vote. As well as Eagle, another former shadow cabinet minister, Owen Smith, is believed to be considering staging a leadership challenge but union leaders have insisted they can broker a peace deal between the warring sides. Boris Johnson backs Andrea Leadsom for Tory leadership - as it happened Read more Len McCluskey, boss of Unite, said on Sunday Corbyn was the victim of a “political lynching” but insisted the Labour leader would not quit. “The coup has failed,” he told the BBC. “Jeremy Corbyn is made of stronger stuff. He is a man of steel and he has made it clear that he will not stand down.” Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, McDonnell backed the “McCluskey initiative”, saying: “We are asking people to stand back, let’s have a proper rational conversation about a way forward. Compromises need to be found.” One compromise not on the table was Corbyn’s leadership itself, with McDonnell saying that claims that the Labour leader was “unelectable” were simply wrong. “Objectively, looking at his electoral record, they are wrong so let’s overcome that,” he said. McDonnell also denied reports that Labour rebels were being kept away from their leader, and rubbished claims that the Labour rebellion was wearing Corbyn down. He said: “Jeremy’s had an open-door policy for the last nine months, and that continues.” On Monday afternoon, a committee of MPs will question Corbyn over antisemitism in the Labour party after there was controversy at the launch of a report into the issue last week. Corbyn was forced to deny drawing a parallel between Israel and Isis after saying at the launch that Jews were “no more responsible for the actions of Israel” than Muslims were for the “various self-styled Islamic states or organisations”. The Labour leader’s comment was branded “offensive” by Britain’s most prominent Jewish leader, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. Shami Chakrabarti, who led the antisemitism inquiry, said in the report that the party was “not overrun by antisemitism, Islamophobia or other forms of racism”. Corbyn will appear before the House of Commons’ home affairs committee to discuss the findings of the review. The committee’s chairman, Keith Vaz, said: “We have seen a deeply troubling upsurge in antisemitic incidents and speech across Britain and Europe in recent times, including within our political discourse. It is one of our fundamental British values to stand together and speak out against intolerance and extremism in any and every form, and we particularly expect this from our political parties. “We are grateful to Jeremy Corbyn for coming to give evidence on his and the Labour party’s position following the publication of the independent report on antisemitism in the party.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/aug/03/why-dance-music-is-out-of-step-with-female-and-non-binary-djs

Music

2022-08-03T09:55:56.000Z

Jaguar

Why dance music is out of step with female and non-binary DJs

In the 1970s and 80s, dance music was born from minorities – the LGBTQ+ communities and Black and Brown people in Chicago, New York and Detroit – as a means of escapism and freedom from a world that was not built for them. The disfranchised created a microcosm to express themselves and feel safe. If you look at top-tier DJs and festival lineups in the UK in 2022, however, this doesn’t add up. Calvin Harris, Fatboy Slim, David Guetta – white men dominate the modern electronic scene, mirroring the world we live in, and those not part of the canon face many challenges. My report, Progressing Gender Representation in UK Dance Music, is a deep dive into the gender disparity among artists within the UK electronic music scene. The seeds of the report were sown during the pandemic, when I became a DJ with no gigs. In a period of reflection, inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests, I questioned what I really wanted from my career. I found my purpose. On my BBC Radio 1 shows, championing minorities was already a priority, but I wanted to do more to make UK dance music a more equal place for the next generation. In 2020, I launched Future1000 with Virtuoso, a free, online initiative where women, trans and non-binary people aged 12 to 18 can learn to DJ, in an accessible way. While researching the report I couldn’t find many official resources with data about gender in dance music, so the Jaguar Foundation was born and we decided to create our own research and provide solutions to gender inequality. Through interviews with UK dance music artists, industry heavyweights, and those already lobbying for change in this area, we put together a strong narrative around what the challenges are, and what we can do to accelerate existing progress. This was backed up by plenty of data analysis, looking at festival lineups, radio airplay and the gender of ticket buyers at club nights. Just 5% of dance songs in the charts were made exclusively by women and non-binary artists. On radio it was 1% The findings show a lack of diversity in dance music’s live ecosystem, both on lineups and behind the scenes, and how women and – even more so – trans and non-binary people fall victim to not fitting into the “boys’ club”. For me, the most shocking results were linked to more mainstream representation. When we analysed data from the Official Charts Company, just 5% of dance songs were made exclusively by women and non-binary artists. On radio – and this breaks my heart – it was 1%. And regarding electronic festival lineups in 2022, we found that only 28% of the artists are female or non-binary; at larger festivals that shrinks to 15%. How many of those women or non-binary people are the headliners? Hardly any – just look at major festival lineups this summer, where big male headliners still dominate. One solution we provide in the report is that of the inclusivity rider: a booking contract clause stating that the artist will only play on a lineup if there is least one other woman, trans or non-binary person, or a person of colour, playing alongside them. If everyone had one, especially dominant male DJs, we would see accelerated change. The big male DJs would still get booked, but the lineup becomes more diverse. Diverse lineups lead to diverse audiences; stats show that ticket buyers reflect who’s on the bill. DJ Ifeoluwa. Photograph: NTS An inclusivity rider is also important when it comes to safety for women and non-binary people. As a DJ, you’re travelling around at unsociable hours, often alone. Not everyone has a tour manager, booking agent or someone to accompany them. I’ve been in situations where I’ve felt uncomfortable when travelling. I know a DJ whose drink was spiked in the green room at their own show. In the report, DJ Ifeoluwa talks about being punched in a club. They reported it to the bouncer who did nothing. Many of the women and non-binary DJs we spoke to experienced having men jump into the booth and start playing with their mixers. Now some of these artists have a safety clause in their contract stating that no one can be behind the decks during their set. There are other challenges for women and non-binary people too, such as the added pressure of how they look. Too often I’ve read comments referring to the success of some women DJs being down to their attractiveness. I have friends who dress androgynously when they DJ – or do anything front-facing – because they’re afraid to oversexualise themselves and be judged. During a DJ live stream my friend didn’t wear a bra and all the comments were about her nipples, rather than her performance. It negatively affected her mental health and confidence. It’s exhausting to have to battle through all this every day. When I did my first Boiler Room session this year, I was so nervous – not about the gig, but about what trolls were going to say in the comments. I hope that Progressing Gender Representation in UK Dance Music becomes a launch pad to make positive change. I would love for CEOs of record labels, venues, or booking agencies to read it and start to question everything, especially the male gatekeepers in our industry. Ask yourself: are the acts on my roster diverse? Am I doing enough to welcome minorities? Are the women and non-binary colleagues being treated with respect? I need you to really look inside, acknowledge the findings, start again if you have to, and do the work. So let’s keep talking, and keep progressing. Let’s open minds, and let’s open doors to those who have previously felt isolated. I hope that women, trans and non-binary people feel empowered by this report, but know that this is just the beginning. I will keep building the data, keep reviewing and keep pushing for what everyone deserves: equality. By the end of my career, in years to come, I’d like for this report not to be needed any more. Read the full Progressing Gender Representation in UK Dance Music report here. More information on the Future1000 initiative can be found here.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/apr/02/india-world-cup-cricket-victory

Sport

2011-04-02T21:05:00.000Z

Gethin Chamberlain

India's World Cup cricket victory: the measure of a nation

It is 3pm in a small British bar in the tourist state of Goa about 550km south of Bombay – where the country's cricketers are harrying Sri Lanka's batsmen in the early overs of the World Cup final. It is 28 years since India last won this most cherished of titles in a nation so crazy about the game. There are fewer than nine hours to go until it does so again. But we don't know that yet. Mohinder Amarnath, the man of the match in the 1983 World Cup, is certain, however, that the moment has arrived to repeat his team's success. Every Indian can realise their dreams through the 11 men on the field today, he says. He need not have worried. Corrin, the eponymous owner of the Goan bar, is reaching for a brush, and dipping it into the pot of orange acrylic paint on the table in front of her. She holds the arm of the little Indian girl in front of her, draws the first rectangle of the national flag, hands the brush to Sonny, the barman, and watches him draw the white and green stripes. The girl, the daughter of the beautician who runs the shop upstairs, beams, delighted, and skips away to show off her affirmation of support for the home team. In the street outside, a truck thunders by, horn blaring, Indian flags fluttering in from the cab. The picture is repeated across the country; millions are glued to their televisions or radios, donning their replica shirts, daubing themselves in the national colours. India is partying; each successful delivery from its bowlers greeted by a round of beating drums. The country that has made cricket its national game is certain that this year, finally, it will capture the ultimate prize, the World Cup. India is certain that this is no more than it is due. It has already celebrated what many in the country regard as the real final, victory over its most reviled opponent, the notoriously unpredictable – unless you happen to be a friendly bookmaker – Pakistan team, which on Wednesday managed to throw away a magnificent bowling performance to lose ignominiously. And India was desperate for this victory; the humiliation of the Commonwealth Games corruption scandal was still fresh; the country's recent diplomatic successes – not least towards a permanent seat on the UN Security Council – has been overshadowed by fresh concerns about its aspiration to be regarded as a first world nation. This is a nation demanding international approval: buoyed by the news that projections now show it will overtake China as the world's most populous nation by 2030, there is a sense that its time has come. As Saturday dawned, prayers were said, puja [offerings to the gods] were made, anything to give the Indian team an edge. Across the country, people painted themselves in the blue of the national team strip or in the orange, white and green of the flag, and prepared to party. Bars and hotels hiked prices and charged admission to the more rarefied environments. In many places, TV screens were set up and even when the big screen was not an option, the nation gathered anywhere that a television was on, peering over each other's shoulders to catch a glimpse of the match. In Corrins', even Sonny was applauding as Sri Lanka upped the ante in their final overs, smashing the ball hither and thither. Then a nation of – according to the new census figures – 1.2 billion fell silent as top batsman Sehwag fell to the second ball of the Indian innings. Yet important as the game was, some felt that there was a sense of anticlimax after the Pakistan game. "The excitement among people is lacking," Manoj Kumar, a hotel manager, told the Times of India. Not so among the Sri Lankans, who had sidled into the final without the fireworks of the Indian progress. Captain Kumar Sangakkara pulled no punches when he explained what it meant to a country even more desperate for international approval after the end of three decades of bloody civil war: "It means everything. We have come through a very tough period. A lot of people have laid down lives for our country. In this new future, hopefully we can take home the World Cup, and that will be even more occasion for celebration." Gautam Gambhir, the Indian batsman who stabilised the nation's innings after the loss of influential opener Sehwag, was no less compelling when he told a news channel that India had to win to honour the dead of the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai: "For me it will be dedicated to the people who lost their lives in the 26/11 massacre." For India, the desire to be taken seriously by other nations in sport is perhaps more important than diplomatic point-scoring. Like its neighbour China, it has been unable to translate a mass of bodies into international sporting success. In terms of international trade, it has come on in leaps and bounds, yet still it is unable to project that power into other fields. Such desperation for success was reflected in the way many in the country fell back on superstition in their desire to ensure success. One fan, Ritangshu Bhattacharya, from Delhi, assured journalists that he would be attempting to tip the odds in India's favour by defying nature: "I won't pee in the entire match… I feel whenever I go to the loo, a wicket falls or India drops a catch." Even his stoicism was outdone by one politician from the state of Madhya Pradesh, who stood from 10am to 10pm during the India-Pakistan match. In Corrins', there is no doubt about who should have won: "You have to support the team, don't you?," she said. "We live here, we have to support the local team, however it goes." It is 10.45pm, and MS Dhoni, the Indian captain, is hammering the ball to the boundary again. Six to win, two overs. There are fireworks going off everywhere, drowning out the commentary. India knows it has won. It is the Pakistan game all over again: victory from defeat, India defiant. Six runs, and he smacks it over the boundary. The fireworks explode. In the cities, there is madness; in the villages, too, people are hugging and screaming. The firecrackers are exploding, the night a blur of colour. India wins.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/mar/05/barry-flanagan-review-waddington-custot-london

Art and design

2020-03-05T11:58:57.000Z

Jonathan Jones

Barry Flanagan review – a hare-brained scheme that wasted three decades

Barry Flanagan, the bronze hare guy, has enjoyed a revival since his death in 2009. His hares have even materialised at Frieze art fair in London, dancing among the trees in Regent’s Park. These rustic images of beastly freedom suit our mood of ecological guilt. Or so I thought, until I decided to take a closer look at them – only to discover what a bizarre, obsessive and private artist Flanagan was. One of his hare sculptures can be funny and memorable. A gallery full of them is quite alarming. His greatest strength as an animal artist is that he doesn’t anthropomorphise. There’s nothing human about his agile creatures, even when they tower on hind legs. The longer you look into their bulging blobs of eyes – or sometimes a hole where one should be – the less you discern a recognisable mind. They’re comic yet sinister, animated by a force that may be malign. The colossal sculpture at the start of the show depicts one melancholy hare sitting pensively in a garden grotto while three more of the varmints cavort in a crazy jig above it. If the sad thinker is an image of sensitivity, it is mocked by the braying dancers. Thatcherite animals ... sculptures at Barry Flanagan: Alchemy of the Theatre. Photograph: Stephen White & Co Other hares gather in enigmatic conversation, like devil-worshipping villagers. There’s a whiff of The Wicker Man here. In this classic British film, policeman Edward Woodward has a missing girl’s coffin opened up, only to find the body of a hare. The pagan inhabitants of Summerisle say it’s “a beautiful transformation”. Flanagan’s hares too are idolatrous and bewitched. But not, unfortunately, all that bewitching. The folk-rock fun wears thin – more Lindisfarne than the Incredible String Band. I would like to see a Flanagan in a pub garden on a summer’s day in Somerset. Just one. Instead, this show offers a showroom crowded with hares doing unlikely stuff. One struts atop a broken computer, another balances on cricket wickets, while others spring from anvils that symbolise how Flanagan made them at London’s AB Fine Art Foundry. Beastly freedom ... Barry Flanagan’s Hare and Bell. Photograph: courtesy of the Estate of Barry Flanagan This show wants to turn our attention to Flanagan’s fascination with the process of casting, but anyone can enjoy the process of making art and still produce rubbish. It’s the results that determine how interested we are in the making. And as much as I want to be charmed by Flanagan’s results, they curdle. The repetition becomes ... repetitive. Why on earth did this artist dedicate himself to hares for three decades – from 1979 until his death? Before that, as an exhibition at Tate Britain revealed a few years ago, Flanagan was a daring conceptual artist. His 1969 work A Hole in the Sea remains a haunting masterpiece of ocean art – a mind-boggling idea that stretches belief. From making a hole in the sea, he seems to have ended up staring into a creative abyss. To produce conceptual art was to believe art has a radical purpose. His hares are utter cynics by comparison. They’re Thatcherite animals that leapt into prominence in the 1980s and Flanagan retreated into his forge to produce variations on the cold, even evil cartoon character he’d come up with. Art does not have to be well made. It does not have to be the product of some wondrous process. It just needs to feel like it matters. Flanagan’s hares don’t matter at all and we should let them skip off into the sunset. Barry Flanagan: Alchemy of the Theatre is at Waddington Custot, London, until 18 April.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/apr/23/eu.politics

World news

2004-04-23T09:42:27.000Z

Simon Jeffery

Cross purposes

Malta is small and it knows it. Put a population the size of Bristol into an area slightly smaller than the Isle of Wight and you are about there. It is the kind of country you can see most of from an aeroplane window as you go in to land. From the Maltese point of view, the European Union is enormous. Nations such as Germany, Spain or Poland dwarf the Mediterranean island chain: Valletta, the capital, is home to 10,000 people, while the island of Comino counts around seven as its permanent residents, mostly shepherds. There is no Berlin here, or even Prague. Its Europe debate has hinged on two size-related questions. The first asks if Malta is so small it will get eaten up by the EU. The second asks if Malta, being so small, has no choice but to think big. In the end the pro-Europeans won out. But it was not an easy ride. Malta was the first of accession countries to hold a membership referendum, and the European Commission fretted right up to the wire about the impact a no vote would have on enlargement elsewhere. When the result came through - 53% in favour - it breathed a sigh of relief. Malta's was the narrowest yes in any country. You would not guess that now. Malta looks like it could already be a part of the EU, albeit a remote, slightly sleepy part. Cars, mostly French and Italian, bear the EU flag on their number plates and, while GDP per person is a third below the European average, infrastructure and public services are relatively good and the standard of living higher than nearby Sicily. Malta grappled with the pros and cons of membership longer than any entrant country. Battles between its two main parties - Labour and the Nationalists - gave it seesawing positions on the EU through the 1990s as Malta first withdrew then reactivated its application. There is still a degree of uncertainty about membership. Christopher Spiteri, a museum attendant taking a mid-morning break on Valletta's Republic Street, summed it up in eleven words: "There will be things that go well and things that don't," he said. You will hear concerns about inflation from the euro, risks to military neutrality and the fate of Maltese companies, overwhelmingly small businesses, in the free market. Nowhere are the tensions over Europe felt more keenly than in the opposition Labour party. It campaigned for a no in the referendum, lost it, and, undeterred, fought the general election a month later promising a second opportunity to vote no. It lost that too. It now offers a platform of wary support to EU membership, guarding against ill-effects. But the change is not universal. A high-profile faction led by former prime ministers Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici and Dom Mintoff opposes it outright, some advocating a boycott of European elections. In the Valletta Labour club, essentially a social club with an office attached, Mr Mintoff's portrait hangs high on the wall but his standing is somewhat lower. He was the man who made Malta a republic and upped the rent the British paid for their naval base but, in 1998, he brought down the Labour government in one of more unlikely episodes in recent European politics. Prime Minister Alfred Sant, then 22 months in, was facing what had become a confidence vote over a marina development. Mr Mintoff crossed the floor to vote with the Nationalists and Labour lost power. The irony is that he set the events in motion that reactivated Malta's EU application. At one of the tables by the bar, Paul Fenech, a lifelong party member, sips a coffee: "It was a crazy thing. Mr Mintoff was a great man and we will never have another like him but he broke everything." In the club there is a familiar caution on European matters. Mr Fenech says he admires the EU for its social policies but worries Malta has not joined on good enough terms. Joe Micallef, assistant secretary, says the country will fight hard to break free of its seclusion, that EU solutions will not suit the islands - in essence that it is too small. He talks the talk of the anti-EU campaign, saying that Malta will become a "colony" of the "Brussels empire". Such words are more emotive here than elsewhere: it was only in 1964 that Malta won the right to administer its own affairs after centuries of British, French, Spanish and Arab rule. Malta's two votes - the referendum and election - showed those like him were in a sizeable minority but the government is working hard to ease some of their doubts. A Malta-EU steering group shadowing the portfolios of the Council of Ministers invites unions, businesses, farmers, hunters and others to tell the government what line it should take in negotiations. Pro-Europeans claim to have won special rights to compensate for Malta's size. It will be harder for non-Maltese to buy cheap homes here than elsewhere and work permits can be limited if the country, which will be the EU's most densely populated, appears to be becoming overcrowded. Non-Maltese will also be barred from fishing within 25 miles of the islands. The fishing ban is designed to protect breeding grounds, though it will also protect fishermen, now something of a unique species themselves in economic terms. Once, the inward-looking Maltese economy was buoyed up by protective tariffs but they have now practically all gone. While EU membership opens up Europe to Malta, it also opens Malta to Europe, meaning an outside company could legitimately move in and put some of the local firms out of business. An Italian supermarket chain, Sisa, plans to do just that, and is aiming to open seven stores by December in a market dominated by family-run grocers. Elsewhere, sectors such as the once mighty textile industry are being hit by cheap labour in Africa and Asia. Just over 8,000 people, or 5.5% of the workforce, are unemployed. Added to this it has a budget deficit of 9% (three times the limit for joining the euro) and a growing pensions crisis as the population ages. At the Chamber of Commerce, an elegant and airy building from the British colonial period, there is optimism that Malta can benefit from EU membership: from development programmes; from stimulating small businesses to merge and become more competitive; and from working new niches. Louis Apap-Bologna, the chamber's president, foresees the growth of financial services, a switch from sun-and-sea tourism to a more cultural (ie higher spending) model and manufacturers employing skilled labour. None of this is too far fetched. Malta has a strong banking tradition, with HSBC well established on the island, and the prospect of trilingual staff (English, Italian and Maltese - similar to the Arabic spoken in north Africa) is a strong incentive for employers. For the tourists, Valletta is architecturally magnificent (Unesco list it as a world heritage site) and there is plenty of good diving. Manufacturers from the electronic or pharmaceutical sectors can follow the lead of ST Microelectronics, a chip manufacturer responsible for 45% of all export earnings. Even Malta's strategic position in the Mediterranean, the factor that caused empires to fight over it, is finding new expression as it develops a container port across the water from the postcard-pretty fishing village of Marsaxlokk into a regional hub for shipping. It also hopes to aid the EU drive to create a free trade zone around the whole Mediterranean by building on its good relations with north Africa. Malta had bilateral ties with Libya - not Mr Mintoff's most popular policy with western Europe or the US - long before it was fashionable to do so. So, despite the scepticism and divisions, there are high expectations. Carmel Attard, an officer at a government-funded EU information centre, says inquiries are now approaching the same level as they were before the referendum, as people ask how EU laws will affect health, consumer issues and employment. He says people are expecting better roads and better environmental protection and that their delivery is likely to be the key issue the pro-EU Nationalist government fights the next general election on. Richard Garcia, a sales rep, expressed a rather musical note of optimism as he stood in a Valletta tobacco shop, where the intense sunlight outside reminded you how far south you really were. "It's all down to globalisation," he said. "You can't be by yourself these days, you need to be in a club. But even in a hundred-man band you can still hear every musician. It is like the triangle, it needs to be heard."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/may/17/tracey-emin-tube-map-drawing

Art and design

2012-05-17T13:35:12.000Z

Jonathan Jones

Tracey Emin's tube map draws a natural connection

Tracey Emin has done a sweet design for this summer's edition of the pocket London tube map. The central line and a fragment of the northern line have metamorphosed into branches of a tree, with a bird perched among the leaves. Meanwhile, the entire network is reduced solely to Emin's personal use of it, so only five stations are marked – Shoreditch High Street, her local station, as well as Liverpool Street, Oxford Circus in the West End, Victoria and London Bridge (handy for Tate Modern). It's a cheerily subjective version of the tube map, from which you instantly form a picture of Emin's personal London, which apparently is all art and shops. The map will be available from June, in an edition of 18 million, aimed at visitors to the capital through the Olympic summer. It shows why Emin is such a straightforwardly good artist, when it comes down to it. Her subjective map of the underground is funny, nicely drawn, touching and yet lightly expresses a sophisticated understanding of maps as fictional visions of place. Jasper Johns, the most cerebral of great American artists, made much the same point in his richly expressive paintings of a map of the United States. In Johns's map paintings, the outline of America is accurately painted and so are the states within it, identified with impersonal stenographic lettering. But his lushly layered, matted brushstrokes give an enigmatic, profound individuality to his picturing of the country. Long before that, Jacopo de' Barbari's early 16th-century view of Venice, with its gods and sea monsters protecting an accurately mapped island republic, sees the fantastic in the real. Maps are not simple charts to get people from A to B; they are visions of the world. The London tube map is a great example. Open Emin's map and you find that traditional network of coloured lines that has guided commuters and tourists beneath the metropolis for decades. It is purportedly the most practical of maps but it has a poetry that everyone recognises, an uncanny power to evoke the city through stations famous and obscure, central and remote, busy and barely used. In fact, Emin's map cover is to be unveiled in Mind the Map (ace title guys!), an exhibition open from Friday 18 May at the London Transport Museum which explores the artistic dimensions of London transport cartography. Along with Emin it includes Simon Patterson's famous work The Great Bear, which says it all about personal maps of the big city. London looks good through Emin's eyes. It even has nature in it. It's a nice summer map to make you head for the park.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/17/hot-chip-why-make-sense-review-hip-hop-funk-beauty

Music

2015-05-17T07:30:18.000Z

Kitty Empire

Hot Chip: Why Make Sense review – a hip-hop and funk-infused beauty

Why make sense, indeed? Commercial logic would dictate that the sixth album by a 15-year-old band might supply some unique or novel twist to Hot Chip’s tale – a startling musical development, perhaps, or some unexpected, bankable guest spot to reconfirm the quintet’s place in the pop firmament. But at a time when their life choices are perhaps becoming more National Trust v English Heritage annual membership rather than MDMA v ketamine, Hot Chip have not strapped on acoustic guitars. Adele does not feature as the soul belter on a deep house-indebted track. No one has left, citing rehab or musical differences. The album’s title can’t help but reference Talking Heads’ 1984 film and live album, Stop Making Sense, but this is not a nervy, yelping record, straining against conformity. Why Make Sense? finds the London indie house outfit more or less as they always have been, with only minor aesthetic variations disrupting the dulcet flow of their electronic pop. Those variations, though, are beguiling. The album’s most potent stealth weapon here is a track called Easy to Get, in which Hot Chip’s recessive slinky funk surges to the fore. The production is almost stark: an array of elements (Fingersnaps! Guitar! Frisky acrylic keyboard! Fat bass!) with an uncommon amount of tonal space between them; quite unlike Hot Chip, who normally like their tracks dense. The phrasing of Alexis Taylor’s lyrics on the verses slides around deliciously, where he normally hugs a sweet vocal melody tight. Towards the end, there is a big, joyous, house-y payoff: “Fear doesn’t live here any more!” Hot Chip’s Huarache Lights: ‘wrigglier than a bagful of eels’. Taylor has talked about how this album pilfers more from American R&B and hip-hop than it does the band’s usual house-music sweetshop. The opening gambit of the near-skeletal R&B of Love Is the Future very faintly recalls Snoop Dogg and Pharrell’s 2003 hit Beautiful, and includes an old, old-school rap by Posdnuos of De La Soul. Started Right – a barely-there array of bass, vocals, backing vocals and scything strings – provides yet more minimal funk. “You make my heart feel like it’s my brain,” sings Taylor, as lovey-dovey as ever. By the time these 10 tracks – still housey, but with greater variation – wind their way to a conclusion, we’ve had a bit of filler, a waltz that pairs fried chicken with white wine, and both great superficiality and great depth. With a keyboard solo that’s wrigglier than a bagful of eels, album opener Huarache Lights gets all fan-boy about a pair of limited edition Nike trainers, and the joy of going out. At the other end of the emotive spectrum are songs like Need You Now, which shudders in horror at the world we live in. The hook – “I need you now!”, sampled from Sinnamon’s 1983 hit I Need You Now – is less the sexual or romantic plea of most dance music than the cry of someone who needs more existential succour. (“Never dreamed I could belong to a state that don’t see right from wrong,” sings Taylor.) Why Make Sense? comes to a towering climax with the title track – a full-on wig-out with live drums and a pile of beebling keyboards that ponders, among other things, happiness, strength, losers, decline and fall. Hot Chip conclude, with troubled loveliness, that you should “be what you are”; that it is “the morning of our lives”, making perfect sense.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/18/benjamin-clementine-i-sang-on-the-paris-metro-like-i-was-playing-in-a-stadium

Music

2015-11-18T19:02:21.000Z

Tshepo Mokoena

Benjamin Clementine: 'I sang on the Paris metro like I was playing in a stadium'

People can’t take their eyes off Benjamin Clementine. On stage it’s because he’s thundering out melodies on a piano, singing intensely with his eyes closed. Offstage it’s because he’s strikingly tall, with a shock of hair combed skywards and cheekbones that have been described as “planar”, “chiselled” and simply “impossible”. Today, the looks silently cast his way may have more to do with the fact that we’re huddled around the corner of a table in Edmonton Green library, and in conversation at a borderline unacceptable volume. “You see that man?” he asks, gesturing towards an elderly man wearing a flat cap and shuffling towards one of the fiction bookshelves across the room. “I’ve known him since I was very little. He used to come every day. He doesn’t really talk to anyone, but I remember him very well.” We’re in north London, where his oft-retold, slightly mythologised story begins. On paper, it reads like a novel: a young man leaves home, deserting a strained relationship with his parents. He stops off at a friend’s flat and decides to drop everything, catching the next flight to Paris. There he sleeps rough and in hostels for a couple of years, earning money busking on underground trains and at parties. Suddenly, he appears – barefoot and unknown, singing breathlessly about loneliness – on Jools Holland in October 2013, and is signed to Virgin/EMI. I only had enough for the ticket to Paris, not the bus to Gatwick airport. I had to beg the driver to let me on It wasn’t quite as filmic as that. Aged 19, Clementine says he left London with £60 to his name, “and that was only enough for the ticket to Paris. Not the bus to Gatwick airport. I had to beg the bus driver to let me on, by telling him that my parents lived in France and that they were ill.” His parents, in fact, have stayed in London but Clementine grows quiet when I ask about them and simply says that he keeps in touch with his eldest brother. Of his first night in Paris, he only remembers lights – “a lot of lights. I felt like I’d taken acid or something” – as he wandered the city on his own. It took about three years for him to progress from busking to playing bars and parties, then releasing EPs on a Parisian indie label. In 2014 Clementine joined EMI. What does he make of constantly retelling a story that’s turned into autobiographical Chinese whispers? “It is boring and frustrating because I want to talk about my songs.” His voice drops slightly: “Sometimes it feels like my story overshadows my music.” Benjamin Clementine: At Least for Now review – fascinating but flawed debut Read more We’ve been talking for the better part of an hour, and for the first time Clementine sounds despondent. He says he’s extremely grateful for the media attention he’s picked up over the past two years, but finds the obsession with his background mystifying. Luckily, as shown on his Mercury prize-nominated debut album At Least for Now, he has the musical chops to support the weight of his life story. “With this sort of career, you need determination. You’ve got to sacrifice a lot of things: family, friends – not that I had any” – and he now he chuckles – “but you sacrifice everything. I dedicate all my time to music. And I’m glad that it’s paying off in some ways.” It’s not the easiest journey to make, from self-taught musician and self-described loner to a critical darling selling out gigs across Europe and the UK. Clementine, who’s 26, doesn’t make music that fits the twentysomething trends of the year. There aren’t signs of hook-laden trap, 90s-inspired indie or synth-led and multi-genre pop aimed at the charts. Rather, his emotive piano lines overlaid with tremulous strings and pitter-pattering drums sound resolutely vintage. His lyrics are the focus. You can hear him cram every last word into songs Quiver a Little and Nemesis (sample lyric: “if chewing was to show you how much I cared / I’d probably be wearing dentures by now”), scurrying over their verses while the instrumentation almost plays catchup. There are echoes of French-language chansons – Eric Satie, Léo Ferré, recent collaborator Charles Aznavour – as well as nods to “my heroes: Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Nina Simone.” His music, he says, “is me, speaking directly to you. I’ve learned in the little bit of my life so far that you can’t fool people. And so I only tell people what I think about: my ambitions, my dreams, what inspires me.” Though soft-spoken, he’s playful and self-aware, observing that how he’s often found “wailing about my loneliness” in song. For all the brooding photoshoots and music videos, you can see the charisma and guts that would have made Clementine risk humiliation every day and busk for the money to buy dinner. He doesn’t view his professional performances now as any different from the Bob Marley covers he belted out on the Paris metro, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar. “I went round that train playing as if I was playing in a stadium. I’ve always performed this way. I went on the streets and played, and I could still go and play on the streets today if I felt like it.” Vulnerability underpins it all, and his openness draws listeners into his stories. He insists that he’s “not a good pianist and not a good singer” but a storyteller – the latter I see firsthand when he whispers through a cryptic tale about why he can’t bear to watch Nina Simone documentary What Happened, Miss Simone? because something about its intimacy “scared me too much”. He can tell the stories of others, too, variously quoting (and sometimes misquoting) Benjamin Franklin, Georges Brassens, Jimi Hendrix and Abraham Lincoln in order to make a point. “I know, deep down, that what makes my music what it is are my words,” he says. “It always starts from me wanting to say something. Once I’ve run out of things to say, I’ll be done.” The Mercury Music prize is announced on Friday 20 November. Benjamin Clementine plays the Quays theatre, Salford, on 1 December.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/dec/11/guardian-writers-win-education-journalism-awards

Education

2014-12-11T11:58:34.000Z

Judy Friedberg

Guardian writers win education journalism awards

Campaigning journalism on the culture of silence surrounding mental health in universities has won recognition at a prestigious journalism awards event in London. Claire Shaw, who edits the Guardian’s higher education network, received a runner-up award for outstanding higher-education journalism for her coverage around mental health in universities, that revealed staff are experiencing anxiety, isolation and lack of support. The Guardian was also recognised for its coverage of sexual violence issues among students, at the CIPR education journalism awards on Wednesday 10 May. Abby Young-Powell received the most promising newcomer to education journalism award for her work exposing the extent of sexual violence in clubs, and on the campaign for sexual consent classes at universities. Several Guardian contributors netted awards for their education journalism: Louise Tickle (winner of outstanding national education journalism), Janet Murray (runner-up for outstanding national education journalism) and Dorothy Lepkowska (runner-up for outstanding schools journalism).

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/apr/14/pwc-report-sales-annuities-collapse-75-insurers

Money

2014-04-13T23:01:10.000Z

Patrick Collinson

PwC predicts sales of annuities will collapse by 75%

PwC has confirmed the worst fears of insurers in a report that predicts that sales of annuities will collapse by 75%, from about £12bn to £3bn, after detailed research by the consultancy among consumers. It also found that the new freedom for retiring workers to spend their pension savings how they wish will open up an "advice black hole", with most individuals unable to afford an independent adviser who could charge as much as £100 an hour. PwC surveyed consumers aged between 50 and 75 and found that three-quarters will choose not to buy an annuity following chancellor George Osborne's move to scrap the rule that effectively forced people to do so by age 75. Nearly 400,000 pension savers reach retirement every year. But PwC warned that while most people (63% in the survey) wanted and expected to obtain independent advice, few will be able to afford the fees charged by independent financial advisers following regulatory reforms to fees and charges. It found that half of respondents in the survey had pension pots of less than £40,000 "and IFAs may not be able to provide value for money for small pension pots." In the budget, the chancellor guaranteed that people approaching retirement will receive "free, impartial, face-to-face advice on how to get the most from the choices they will now have" although in later documents the wording was clarified as 'guidance' rather than 'advice'. The government will also provide £20m to "get the initiative up and running". But PwC estimates that the cost of delivering the service could be as high as £120m a year, with other estimates rising as high as £340m. PwC director Philip Smith estimates that if each retiring person obtains an hour of advice, it will require 500 suitably qualified people. Trade newspaper Money Marketing reported that the Treasury is working on the basis that guidance will cost between £70 and £100 per person, potentially costing pension firms up to £50m a year. PwC UK insurance leader, Jonathan Howe, said: "It was clear that life insurers were in for a shakeup following the recent annuity announcements, but our survey quantifies the scale of the effect on the life industry. People still want to invest a small part of their pension pot in an annuity, but it's crucial that insurers offer innovative new products to satisfy their customer demands and to fill the hole left by up to a 75% fall in annuity sales. "63% of consumers have or intend to ask for financial advice from an IFA. However, the key point here is that many consumers may not have a big enough pension pot to justify significant advice fees, particularly since the Retail Distribution Review last year IFAs now have to charge fixed service fees to customers. What we will see is an advice 'black hole' – a supply gap between what consumers want and what they get."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jul/08/russia-world-cup-exit-proud-croatia-penalties

Football

2018-07-08T09:27:18.000Z

Andrew Roth

Blood, sweat and beers: Russia down but proud after World Cup exit

Before football comes home, it had to stop by the beach. Russia fans had one last chance on Sunday night to savour a squad that had already shattered all their expectations for this tournament. And they did it again in a bittersweet valedictory in Vladimir Putin’s dream city by the sea. All the best stories are comings-of-age, and Russia seemed to grow with each match, teaching a sceptical public that it was OK to believe again, that they wouldn’t suddenly embarrass them, that this time things would be different. Russia ‘demobilised’ early from World Cup but with nation won over Stuart James Read more It left pretty much everyone here asking the same question: where on earth did this side come from? Pressing a more gifted Croatia squad, belting in sublime curlers from 25 yards, nodding in equalisers in the 115th minute? “Guys! I am proud of you! I love you! Savour this moment!” yelled striker Artem Dzyuba in a fiery speech that mirrored a nation’s emotions just before Russia went out on penalty kicks. Long before that moment, high up in the stands, fans were starting to believe too. “Cheryshev hit that one like Ronaldo!” said Semyon, 23, who was still marvelling over the left winger’s wonder-strike as he grabbed snacks at half-time. “Oh my God, could you imagine he could do that?” “I think England must be worried about facing us,” said Anton Sashnikov, planning for the semi-final clash that ultimately wasn’t to be. “Our guys are playing with intensity, they really want to win. I don’t think that England will be able to keep up.” There is more in common between the England and Russia fan than either would like to admit, a complex that comes down to the simple belief that someone at some moment is going to lose his man or shank a penalty. Both have found redemption in this year’s World Cup. “And from there it’s just one more match and we are the champions,” Sashnikov said and he smiled, as though daring a reporter to tell him that wasn’t likely. Saturday’s match was the reason many people bother going to see football. If you looked up the Fifa rankings, there was no question who should have won. But ultimately it came down to a question of slight angles and dashes of momentum, and the tears that came after Russia’s heartbreaking loss were more about frustration than condemnation. Russia’s Mário Fernandes heads back towards his teammates after missing in the shootout. Photograph: Michael Regan/Fifa via Getty Images “If Modric’s penalty had just gone a few centimetres further out,” one fan groaned as he went down the steps, listing off a series of other counterfactuals that could have given Russia the win. Not all fairytales have happy endings. Across Russia, fans packed bars, pubs and the World Cup fan zones to watch the team’s unlikely push to make the semi-final. In Samara, where earlier England had beaten Sweden to provide the opposition for the winners of Russia v Croatia, the vast fanzone was closed as it was full to capacity, and crowds spilled out of restaurants and bars with screens, desperate to catch a glimpse of the action. At Na Dne, a beer hall near the banks of the Volga, the inside was packed and sweaty, and a hundred-strong crowd jostled for position outside to see through the grimy windows, cheering on their team. After Cheryshev’s early goal, one man fell to the ground and screamed, “Stanislav, I’m sorry I doubted you,” referring to the widespread pre-tournament disdain for coach Stanislav Cherchesov. There were scenes of joy as the unexpected extra-time equaliser was scored, and groups of men tossed their beers in the air and screamed with excitement. World Cup 2018: news and reaction as England set up Croatia semi-final – as it happened Read more But after Croatia prevailed on penalties, there was a shocked silence, and people began to file home, quietened and depressed. Outside the stadium in Sochi, there was something like a dialogue. “Smolov is a jackass!” yelled one teenager. “Hey, don’t curse our guys, they gave it their all tonight,” a middle-aged man with a ponytail said and continues on his way. “Igor Igor Akinfeev! Oh!” another man yells. “Igor, come here I’d like to have a word with you,” howled a woman, playing the disappointed wife, tottering down the street in heels. Her friends laughed tipsily. People have different ways of dealing with grief. For some, that involved a long walk along Sochi’s rocky shoreline, maybe with a bar of plombir ice cream or a midnight swim in the Black Sea. And for some, it involves sending your wife and two girls home to the hotel, and knocking back a few at a summertime cafe that sells grilled meats and the local unfiltered ale. Aleksandr, who declined to give a last name, had driven three days to Sochi in his Toyota Highlander from Khanty-Mansiysk, where he owns a security company, for a beach vacation with his family. He’d neglected until the last minute to tell his wife that he had also bought a ticket to Saturday’s match. “She wasn’t happy about that,” he admitted. But the match was worth it, he said, despite the cost of the ticket, the days spent behind the wheel and the marital strife it occurred. “I think this is as far as we were allowed to go,” he said, suggesting that all this is decided from above. “What would Russia be doing in a semi-finals at a World Cup? So I can understand why we lost. But you know I was just hoping that this time, maybe we’d slip through.” Additional reporting by Shaun Walker in Samara

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jul/27/ed-miliband-pm-sunak-holes-windfall-tax-energy-firms-shell-british-gas-profits

Politics

2023-07-27T08:44:03.000Z

Aubrey Allegretti

Ed Miliband urges PM to close ‘Swiss cheese’ holes in windfall tax on energy firms

Rishi Sunak has been urged to close the holes in his “Swiss cheese” of a windfall tax on energy companies after Shell and British Gas reported significant profits, with Labour calling the government’s stance “perverse”. Billions of pounds will go to shareholders instead of being recouped in tax and put towards more help for those struggling to pay their bills, according to Ed Miliband, the shadow net zero secretary. He accused ministers of not being committed to the “green sprint” and said Labour would tackle the cost of living and climate crises simultaneously. The attack on Sunak’s windfall tax came as Miliband acknowledged that the expansion of the clean air zone across London in part cost Labour the chance of winning the Uxbridge and South Ruislip byelection last week. The move was a concern of voters, he admitted, adding there should be “more help” for those who would be affected across Greater London. Labour and the Conservatives’ commitment to net zero has come under scrutiny in recent weeks. Reports of Shell and British Gas’s profits in the first six months of 2023 has reignited the debate over how politicians balance the cost of pursuing the target with keeping voters onside. British Gas reported its highest-ever first-half profits, of almost £1bn, while Shell has reported profits of just over $5bn (£3.9bn) for the second quarter of the year. Miliband said Sunak had been “dragged kicking and screaming” to implement a windfall tax on oil and gas firms. The existing policy was like a “Swiss cheese” and “full of holes”, the Labour frontbencher claimed. He called for the current rate, 75% of profits, to be upped to 78%, and criticised the so-called super-deduction that allows companies to reduce their payment if they invest in British energy projects, saying Labour would close the “loophole”. “These are unearned, unexpected profits,” Miliband told BBC Breakfast “This is because Russia launched an appalling invasion of Ukraine and drove gas prices up. “The only long-term answer is to move off fossil fuels as quickly as we can because even though we imported very small amounts from Russia before the war, we’ve been so badly affected as a country. “That’s why the drive to increase onshore wind, solar energy, offshore wind – cheaper than fossil fuels – is the right answer for the country. And my regret is not just that we don’t have a proper windfall tax, it’s that we don’t have a government committed to that green sprint either.” Under a Labour government, Miliband said the “north star” of its energy plans would be a drive to ensure all electricity comes from zero-carbon sources by 2030, which he added would cut bills across the economy by £93bn. Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. After last week’s loss to the Tories by 495 votes in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Miliband conceded the extension of the ultra-low emissions zone (Ulez) was “definitely a concern of voters”. “We’ve got to tackle the cost of living crisis and the climate crisis together,” he said. “You can have both.” Miliband said the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, had been urged to offer “more help” to those affected and was “reflecting on those deep concerns” raised by voters last Thursday. He added: “There is an answer for our society, which is green energy is often cheaper. Where there are costs, we don’t leave people to shoulder them alone.” When Miliband was challenged over Labour having delayed its plans for £28bn a year of spending on green jobs and industry, he stressed it was important for the party to “meet our fiscal rules”. Dismissing any suggestion he was at loggerheads with the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, or the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, Miliband praised them both and said: “We are absolutely united on this.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/26/ocado-develops-robots-to-enable-faster-cheaper-deliveries

Business

2022-01-26T18:14:28.000Z

Sarah Butler

Ocado develops robots to enable faster, cheaper deliveries

Online grocery specialist Ocado has developed robots which it says will enable cheaper, faster deliveries and help with labour shortages by requiring fewer staff in its warehouses. Tim Steiner, the chief executive of Ocado, said the new technology was a “game changer” that would enable the group’s retail partners to automate picking in smaller local warehouses and provide a “compelling immediacy proposition” that could take on the likes of Getir, Deliveroo and GoPuff, the fast-track food couriers which have grown rapidly during the pandemic. A robotic picking arm, expected to be introduced in new and some existing warehouses from the end of this year, could reduce the need for workers to pick and pack groceries into shoppers’ bags by up to half initially, and 80% longer term. Another new system, which will automatically pack totes of groceries destined for shoppers’ homes into crates ready to be loaded on to vans, will reduce labour costs by 30% and could replace manual labour entirely in this role. Steiner said the new technologies were “transformational in the market and really drive our innovation forward” in a way that would “shatter the existing rules of the industry”. He said: “All companies we are working with are having challenges employing enough people to work.” He said most warehouses were still not at full capacity, and so new technology would mean that workers could be redeployed from certain jobs to others and he did not expect waves of redundancies. Ocado has also designed a new lighter and cheaper version of its grocery picking robots, which buzz about on top of a cubic grid known as “the hive” – which stores products ready for distribution. The 600 series robots will be five times lighter than their predecessors so that they can work on more lightweight grid systems in smaller warehouses around the world. Steiner said the systems would not require specially built warehouses, unlike its current grid system, so Ocado’s technology could be set up more quickly for its clients, which include Marks & Spencer in the UK and Kroger in the US. With more than half of their parts 3D-printed, the robots can also be more easily made around the world. These robots are intended to be combined with new software systems that will enable local delivery vans to be loaded more quickly, mixing orders made less than an hour before they set off with those made the night before. That will enable quick deliveries to be made much more efficiently. Software will also link up smaller warehouses to create a system where products delivered to one can be shared between several locations to help improve efficiency.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/29/us-government-shutdown-house-delay-obamacare

US news

2013-09-29T16:30:37.000Z

Paul Lewis

US government shutdown: House votes to delay Obamacare law

The US government is on the precipice of a historic shutdown that would result in hundreds of thousands of federal workers being placed on unpaid leave, after House Republicans refused to pass a budget unless it involved a delay to Barack Obama's signature healthcare reforms. Democratic leaders declined to convene the Senate on Sunday, standing firm against what they described as the extortion tactics of their Republican opponents who they accused of holding the government to ransom for ideological reasons. The resolution passed by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives in the early hours of Sunday morning makes funding the government until the middle of December contingent upon a one-year delay of the Affordable Care Act. It also strips the new healthcare law, which is due to come into force on Tuesday, of a key tax on medical devices. Senate Democrats and the White House have said they will block any budget resolution that is tied to the healthcare law – known as Obamacare – which was passed three years ago and upheld by the US supreme court last year. Undermining the healthcare reforms – the flagship legislative achievement of Obama's presidency – has been a priority for the conservative wing of the Republican party for years and the spectre of government shutdowns has been used in the past. However there was a growing sense on Capitol Hill on Sunday that House Republicans were prepared to see through their threat of a shutdown, which would begin at 12.01am ET on Tuesday, even though polls show they would be blamed for a maneuver that could damage the party during next year's midterm elections. "Republicans in Congress had the opportunity to pass a routine, simple continuing resolution that keeps the government running for a few more weeks," said White House spokesman Jay Carney. "But instead, Republicans decided they would rather make an ideological point by demanding the sabotage of the healthcare law." Harry Reid, the Senate leader who on Saturday said he would refuse to bow to "Tea Party anarchists", showed no interest in negotiating with Republicans over the stalemate. He was criticised by leading Republicans for failing to invite the Senate to debate the House resolution, less than 36 hours from the budget deadline. Instead, the Senate was expected to wait until Monday before stripping the Republican motion of its references to Obamacare and, for the second time in a week, returning a "clean" bill to the House that would fund federal departments, without also impeding the introduction of mandatory healthcare for Americans who are uninsured. If there is time, the House would then have just a few hours to either vote to fund the government, free of any measures that would impede the introduction Obamacare, or trigger the first American government shutdown in 17 years. Asked if he thought a shutdown was now inevitable, Richard Durbin, the second most senior Democrat in the Senate, replied: "I'm afraid I do." Durbin told CBS's Face the Nation that he was open to negotiating over the tax on medical devices, "but not with a gun to my head, not with the prospect of shutting down the government". Senior Republicans took to the Sunday morning talk shows to defend their stance, claiming that it was Democrats who were forcing a shutdown by refusing to compromise over the controversial healthcare reforms. Congresswoman Cathy McManus Rogers, chair of the House Republican conference, said Reid was acting irresponsibly by refusing to hold a session of the Senate. "They're the ones threatening a government shutdown by not being here," she said. Ted Cruz, the Republican senator spearheading the congressional campaign to undo Obama's healthcare reforms, turned the debate on its head by accusing Democrats of holding "political brute force" for refusing to delay or unravel the healthcare law. "If we have a shutdown, it will be because Harry Reid holds that absolutist position and essentially holds the American people hostage," Cruz, who this week gave a 21-hour speech to draw attention to his campaign, said on NBC's Meet the Press. "So far, majority leader Harry Reid has essentially told the House of Representatives and the American people, 'go jump in a lake'," Cruz added. "He says: 'I'm not willing to compromise, I'm not willing to even talk.' His position is, 100% of Obamacare must be funded in all instances. Other than that, he's going to shut the government down." The impact of any federal shutdown would depend upon how long it lasts. Under contingency arrangements, essential services such as law enforcement, will be kept alive, although hundreds of thousands of federal workers would be placed on unpaid leave. Social security and Medicare benefits would continue, and air traffic controllers would remain in place to ensure airports function. However museums, national parks and landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty and Washington Monument, would be closed. The military's 1.4 million personnel active duty would remain in post, but their paychecks would be delayed. About half of the Defense Department's civilian employees – about 800,000 people – would be furloughed, meaning they would be suspended from work without pay. Federal courts would continue to function as usual for around a fortnight, after which the judiciary would have to start shelving work that is not considered essential. The gridlock over the government budget could be just the prelude to an even more serious showdown expected in mid-October over the government debt ceiling. Republicans are threatening to refuse to lift the ceiling unless Obamacare is reined back, which could mean the US Treasury would be forced to default on its debt payments.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/oct/20/oxford-university-online-admissions-tests-plagued-by-erratic-crashes

Education

2023-10-20T15:49:57.000Z

Richard Adams

Oxford University says it will not base admissions on botched online tests

Oxford University says it will not use results from its botched online admissions tests to award places on next year’s English courses, after students and schools across the UK described multiple crashes, freezes and other frustrations using the new system. Sixth formers applying to Oxford said the online tests being used for the first time were plagued with difficulties, displaying incorrect questions and repeatedly crashing or failing to record answers, raising concerns it would damage their chances of admission as undergraduates. School leaders said the university had offered inadequate training on the new system, while a telephone helpline for exam centres was overwhelmed with calls, with schools reporting waiting times of an hour or more. Students taking the English literature admissions test (Elat) appear to have been particularly hard hit. Schools that contacted the Guardian said they were forced to give up and use printed test papers instead. One parent said: “The exam officer at my daughter’s school was in disbelief yesterday at how bad it was. He said he had never seen anything like it.” After the scale of the problems became clear, Oxford said: “This year, Elat scores will not be used in any formal shortlisting calculation. No candidate will be deselected [that is, not shortlisted] on the basis of their Elat score.” Bill Watkin, the chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges’ Association, said: “The Oxford University admissions tests were beset by technical problems, largely a malfunctioning platform and inadequate support communications, and too many students were unable to take the test in a calm, orderly environment. “The big concern is that the technology meltdown will have affected the performance of some candidates and not others, and that the unlucky ones will miss out on their university dream.” A spokesperson for Oxford said: “We understand the difficulty and disappointment some UK students have experienced because of technical problems with online admissions tests run by a new provider, and we are very grateful to the students and their teachers for their patience and feedback. “Tests are only one part of the admissions process and we will use a range of information, including candidates’ individual circumstances, to help us assess their potential and ensure no one is disadvantaged by these events. “We will be having further talks with the provider to understand better why these problems occurred with their systems and obtain assurances that there will be no repeat.” One school in the south of England, which did not want to be identified, said the problems affected its students taking English, maths and geography admissions tests. “The difficulties that students faced included problems with the initial logon, being locked out midway through, errors in questions and extra time not being correctly added,” the school told parents, adding that “the difficulties are entirely the fault and responsibility of Oxford”. This year Oxford opted to use an online platform for most of its admissions tests for propective undergraduates, developed by Tata Consulting Services (TCS). TCS has been contacted for a response. The examination officer for one school said: “From the outset, the entire organisation of the Oxford online admissions tests was a disaster. Communication was poor, with email the only form of contact and taking over a week, as standard, to receive a reply. There was no test system put in place for a trial run.” Severe problems were also reported with the mathematical admissions test, which was supposed to be a hybrid of online and written answers. “My son took the test today and he said the online system crashed about 10 times. As a result some students completed the test on paper. It sounded like a complete mess,” said one parent. “My worry is that some schools may have been badly affected, while others might have avoided the problems. But Oxford will treat all the tests the same.” Oxford’s mathematics department said it was “disappointed” to hear of the disruption, and that it “does not want candidates’ applications to be disadvantaged by adverse circumstances during the test.” This week the AQA exam board announced that it planned to use online assessments for a number of GCSE subjects from 2026 onwards. Watkin said: “At a time when the possibility of increasing the use of online testing is being explored and promoted, this week’s experience has been a salutary reminder that we are not nearly there yet.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/28/a-pivotal-moment-pacific-faces-a-choice-over-china-that-will-shape-it-for-decades

World news

2022-05-27T19:00:10.000Z

Kate Lyons

A pivotal moment: Pacific faces a choice over China that will shape it for decades

It was the week that everything changed. For years, security analysts and politicians have warned of the rise of China in the Pacific. Officials representing Beijing have been working slowly and, for the most part, quietly in the small island nations that dot the vast Pacific Ocean – cementing allies, funding infrastructure projects, conducting concerted person-to-person diplomacy. But this week Beijing upped the tempo. The leak of a sweeping economic and security pact revealed China is hoping to sign up 10 Pacific countries to a deal that could fundamentally alter the balance of power in a region that spans nearly one-third of the globe. Now Pacific nations are facing a choice that will shape the region for decades to come. Deal proposed by China would dramatically expand security influence in Pacific Read more ‘Unprecedented marathon’ It began with the announcement that the Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi would embark on an “extraordinary and unprecedented” trip around the Pacific from 26 May to 4 June, taking in eight countries in 10 days. Wang touched down in Solomon Islands on Thursday, before moving on to Kiribati and Samoa on Friday; Fiji, Vanuatu, Tonga, Papua New Guinea and Timor-Leste will follow next week. Some of the countries Wang is visiting – like Kiribati – have been among the most difficult to visit throughout the pandemic, as Pacific island countries, fearful of the ravages of Covid on fragile healthcare systems, have brought in some of the strictest border closures in the world and are still closed to visitors. “For them to be able to do this is quite a feat,” said Dr George Carter, a research fellow at the department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University, saying the visit “has surpassed any other diplomacy, in terms of optics, in the last two years”. “To have a foreign minister go into a country like Kiribati that’s still on international lockdown, to have a foreign minister meet Fiamē [Naomi Mataʻafa, the new prime minister of Samoa], who has not met the Australian or New Zealand ministers or leaders as a prime minister, sends big signals.” Jonathan Pryke, director of the Lowy Institute’s Pacific Islands program in Sydney, said the trip was an “extraordinary and unprecedented marathon that will leave a lot of people in the west nervous. It’s not just what the trip signals for China’s post-Covid re-engagement with the region, but what kind of deals he will be signing with counterparts along the way”. A ground breaking ceremony of the 2023 Pacific Games Stadium Project is held in Honiara. The athletic track and the football pitch were constructed with Chinese aid. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock Wang’s first stop was Solomon Islands, which signed a controversial security deal with China last month, stoking the worst fears of Canberra and Washington, which have long been on the lookout for signs that China might establish a military base in the Pacific islands. The China-Solomon Islands pact, which has not been made public, but a draft of which was leaked online, seems to allow for such a base, permitting China to “make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands”, though Solomon Islands prime minister Manasseh Sogavare has denied any such base is on the cards. “It’s the biggest concern of this deal for Australia,” James Batley, the former Australian high commissioner to Solomon Islands told the Guardian last month. “For Australia, it’s potentially a strategic nightmare, but it’s equally … of concern to other Pacific Islands as well for the same reason.” But the Solomons-China deal was just the beginning. Shortly after news of Wang’s grand Pacific tour was announced, came the news of the proposed region-wide security deal. The deal – proposed between China and 10 Pacific countries – covers everything from a free trade area with the region, to providing humanitarian and Covid relief, to sending art troupes to the islands. But most concerning, is the vision it sets out of a much closer relationship on security matters, with China proposing it would be involved in training police, cybersecurity, sensitive marine mapping and gaining greater access to natural resources. It would mean a significant shift in the regional security order, and places Pacific island countries firmly in the centre of the geopolitical tug-of-war between China and the US and its allies. “[China] has been slowly increasing its diplomatic, economic engagement in the Pacific,” said Carter. “But now with Solomon Islands, it opened a door to another possibility in terms of engagement with China.” Once the door was open, said Carter, the move for China from economic and development partner to security player in the region happened “in a very fast and rapid manner”. Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong exchange gifts with Henry Puna, the Secretary General of the Pacific Island Forum in Suva, Fiji. Photograph: Pita Simpson/Getty Images Traditional partners scrambling The proposed regional deal sent the west scrambling. Australia’s new foreign minister, less than a week into her job following the federal election last weekend, flew to Fiji to reaffirm Australia’s commitment to the Pacific. “What we would urge, as Australia, is consideration of where a nation might wish to be in three or five or 10 years,” said Penny Wong when asked about China’s proposed deal. New Zealand’s prime minister Jacinda Ardern, who is currently on a tour of the US, said: “we are very strongly of the view that we have within the Pacific the means and ability to respond to any security challenges that exist and New Zealand is willing to do that.” In a move that was touted as significant, it was announced on Friday that Fiji would be joining Joe Biden’s Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), the first Pacific island country to do so, as the US seeks to shore up alliances with Pacific nations. But the real question comes next week when Wang will host a meeting of his Pacific counterparts at a summit in Suva and urge them to sign the deal. Some Pacific leaders have signalled a willingness to consider Wang’s proposal, while one senior diplomat told the Guardian some leaders had “big concerns”. Despite that “there has been a vacuum left in this region from traditional partners – they have to work extra hard to win back the hearts of Pacific people,” they said. Experts believe some countries could certainly be swayed by the Chinese deal. Dr Anna Powles, a senior lecturer in security studies at Massey University in New Zealand, said the deal would mean “a significant loss of strategic autonomy for Pacific countries and for that reason it is unlikely Beijing will be successful”. “That does not, however, preclude some Pacific states from pursuing bilateral versions of the arrangement. We will soon learn how effective Beijing’s diplomacy in the Pacific is.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2012/oct/04/30-rock-tina-fey-final-season

Television & radio

2012-10-04T16:57:00.000Z

Amanda Holpuch

30 Rock enters sixth and final season: we don't want to go to there

Thursday night marks the beginning of the end for the widely heralded – but less frequently watched – 30 Rock. The show, which first aired in October 2006, failed to attract strong ratings in its six-year run. It was kept afloat by a loyal fan base and adoring critics, which have helped it earn a Peabody Award, multiple Emmys and Golden Globes. 30 Rock also helped cement Tina Fey as one of the reigning comedians of this generation as executive producer, head writer and the show's star. She also produced an autobiography, wrote a screenplay and made several television and film appearances during her time at 30 Rock. Fey has secured a four-year development deal with Universal Television, good news for the hoards of fans who will lose their weekly dose of Liz Lemon in 2013. The end of the show means the end of Dr Spaceman's questionable medical advice ("Sounds like you could use a little R&R. Rum and Ritalin"), Kenneth the Page's country wisdom ("Science was my most favorite subject, especially the Old Testament") and Tracy Jordan's insights ("There's no link between diabetes and diet. That's a white myth, Ken; like Larry Bird or Colorado"). Ahead of the Thursday night final season premiere, we present a collection of some of the best clips from the past six seasons. Liz Lemon's most prevalent characteristic is her love for food, as evidenced by this: Other key Lemon food moments include Season 2, Episode 14: Sandwich Day and Season 3, Episode 8: Flu Shot. Jack Donaghy (Alec Baldwin) and Avery Jessup (Elizabeth Banks) explain why their child can't be born in Canada: The show's ode to its New York City setting: Dr Spaceman –pronounced Doctor Spuh-cheh-men – is one of the most beloved minor characters, played by legendary Saturday Night Live alum Chris Parnell: A sentiment of love from Tracy Jordan (played by Tracy Morgan): Michael Sheen played one of Lemon's most entertaining love interests – Wesley Snipes. Here he explains why he doesn't want to go back to England: The series premiere of the final season of 30 Rock airs at 8pm ET Thursday on NBC.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/feb/26/call-my-agent-a-laugh-out-loud-tour-through-top-notch-french-cinema

Culture

2021-02-25T21:00:36.000Z

Natasha May

Call My Agent! – a laugh-out-loud tour through top-notch French cinema

It’s surprisingly easy to cycle through Netflix’s top 10 in Australia (and get sick of every second person asking if you’ve seen the latest trending show). But have you considered Netflix’s top-rating foreign-language TV shows? While our international borders might be closed, one of the great advantages of streaming platforms is the way in which they have cleaved wide open the language barriers of television and cinema. Netflix offers a rich array of international productions, but my personal favourite is the French hit comedy-drama Call My Agent!, the fourth and final season of which was just released in January. Love: offbeat romcom about addiction, dating and two basically terrible people Read more Although TV shows like Entourage and Extras have looked behind the scenes of show business, the way Call My Agent! flips the camera mirror is unique. The main characters play casting agents at a fictional Parisian film agency, while real A-list French movie stars play themselves as clients. The concept is meta, yet the effect isn’t navel-gazing but self-aware, as each household name sends up their public image. Isabelle Huppert satirises her workaholic habits as her agents ferry her between two film shoots in a single night, while in another episode, Monica Belluci, the actor frequently named among the world’s most beautiful women, renounces dating “egomaniac stars” and enlists her agent’s help in finding “a regular guy … a math teacher, a cabinetmaker”. In addition to cameos from stars, the show’s authenticity derives from the fact its co-creator, Dominique Besnehard, spent decades as agent to big names like Jacques Doillon and Sophie Marceau. In fact, the latter’s inflammatory Palme d’Or presentation speech at the 1999 Cannes film festival bears a lot of similarity to what goes down in the season 2 finale of Call My Agent! (guest-starring Juliette Binoche). Isabelle Adjani shopping for picture frames with her agent, Mathias. Photograph: Netflix/France 2/Netflix The show’s main characters – the agents and employees of the talent agency who act as the confidantes, drivers and all-round life coaches to the stars – are such strong creations in their own right, they have no trouble remaining the focal point of the show, able to hold their own alongside the household names. After the death of its founder at the start of the series, four eclectic and idiosyncratic agents – the formidably elegant tuxedo-wearing Andréa (Camille Cottin), bumbling Gabriel (Grégory Montel), gruff Mathias (Thibault de Montalembert) and veteran impresario Arlette (Liliane Rovère), always accompanied by her lapdog Jean Gabin, named after legendary star of golden age cinema – get under your skin as they struggle to keep the company afloat. While they often compete against each other, the friendship and banter of their assistants, like the minor characters in a Shakespeare play, provide lighter comic relief. Across the show’s four seasons, the strength of its characters drive the overarching plot centred around their intertwined personal and professional challenges. Detectorists: a sitcom about amateur archaeologists that's a bonafide heartwarming joy Read more Camille Cottin, playing Andréa, is the breakout star of the series. Cottin’s commanding screen presence represents the best of French culture: effortlessly cool with style that’s the epitome of simple chic. But in case you were thinking the Parisian glamour presents a glitzy but cold surface, the show retains a warmth from the laugh-out-loud comedy that always overrides any dramatic tension. Of particular note is the character comedy of Laure Calamy, playing Mathias’ I Ching-obsessed assistant, Noémie, who holds a candle for her boss. Call My Agent! is also a great window into French cinema, which can be appreciated by those who haven’t seen a single French flick as well as the most ardent New Wave buff. While the much-maligned Emily in Paris offered a kind of escapism for those hankering but unable to go to the city of lights and love, Call My Agent! gives you a far more authentic immersion into French culture through the lens of its cinema, rather than a view through tourists’ spectacles. Call My Agent! is available to stream in Australia on Netflix. For more recommendations of what to stream in Australia, click here

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jun/25/hell-on-earth-how-a-place-of-torture-has-haunted-us-culturally-over-time

Culture

2023-06-25T10:00:33.000Z

Peter Conrad

Hell on earth – how a place of torture has haunted us culturally over time

Biomedical neuroengineers have recently noticed that when visitors to the Prado in Madrid pause in front of Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights they make short work of paradise and instead opt for perdition. The panel on the left depicts a blithe, bucolic Eden, where the average museum-goer spends only 16 seconds. The central section, which shows a polymorphous orgy that is about as shocking as a weekend of suburban wife-swapping in the 1960s, detains viewers for 26 seconds. But when reaching the far end, they spend 33 seconds exploring a perverse inferno in which people copulate with birds, a pig dons a nun’s wimple, and a set of bagpipes mimics a wilting penis and a bloated sac of testicles. Instinctively, almost automatically, the average pair of eyes swipes right. Hell is irresistible, despite Bosch’s man-eating rabbits and defecating demons; certainly it is too attractive a place to be the exclusive preserve of religious fanatics, who designed it as a pit into which they could fling all those of whom they disapproved. We grow up when we outgrow such notions – and when we stop believing in hell, we probably acknowledge that in our dreams and fantasies we spend many agreeable hours there, especially after dark. The first angel to fall into the flames was a liberator. Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost rejects the hereditary monarchy of heaven and convenes a parliament in hell, summoning his horned brethren to a custom-built debating chamber which he calls Pandemonium. The democratic experiment does not end well, but only because Christ, fighting to defend the principle of primogeniture that our creaking constitution still enshrines, prevails on the third day of the war by going nuclear: God’s heir menaces the devils with “ten thousand thunders” and sends them scurrying for cover. The setback was only temporary. Although heaven remains out of sight and hazily incredible, hell is all around us. In the rear of Bosch’s hellscape, explosions concuss the earth, furnaces seethe and entire cities blaze all night long. By the 19th century, this infernal vista could be seen anywhere in the English Midlands. William Blake called industrial mills satanic; in Dickens’s Hard Times a worker tumbles into a disused mine, gobbled up – although his only sin is to protest against conditions in Coketown – by an “Old Hell Shaft”. Evidence emerged of hells constructed for people whose crime was to be ‘other’ – religiously, racially or sexually alien Dickens railed against factories, but he was fascinated by nature’s homegrown versions of the abyss, and when visiting Naples he indulged in a spot of infernal tourism. After a perilous climb up the crater of Vesuvius at nightfall, he gloated as he looked into “the Hell of boiling fire below”. His clothes and those of his guide were scorched and singed by the volcanic flames: “you never saw such devils,” he chuckled to a friend. The hell so meticulously mapped by Dante in The Divine Comedy grades its victims and sends them to suffer in nine concentric subterranean circles, the most populous and popular of which is the one to which the lustful are dispatched. William Blake drew the entwined pairs of condemned lovers endlessly circulating through what looks like an intestinal tube. Among them are Francesca da Rimini and her brother-in-law Paolo, Dante’s most celebrated adulterers, who succumb to temptation and drop the book they are reading in countless 19th-century paintings and go on to be sublimely tossed about in an aerial bed by an orchestral storm in Tchaikovsky’s symphonic poem. Gordon Ramsay outside his Hell’s Kitchen restaurant in Las Vegas in 2017. Photograph: Mediapunch/Rex/Shutterstock For them and others, damnation is not without its hot delights. On his wedding night, Byron allegedly awoke, saw the fire in the hearth glowing through the bed curtains, and cried out: “Oh I am surely in hell!” Marital sex, however, was not quite as hellish as he wished: he soon deserted his wife, who according to rumour would not comply with demands that were quite literally – the etymology gives the game away – preposterous. Deadly sins like Byron’s had by then been redefined as expensive vices, available to those who could pay. Aristocratic rakes in the 18th century patronised Hellfire Clubs where the menus included dishes called breast of Venus or devil’s loin. Those establishments have a contemporary offspring: in his television series Hell’s Kitchen Gordon Ramsay – seen on the poster wearing diabolically leathery wings and brandishing a pitchfork – makes trainee chefs sweat over hot stoves into which he threatens to hurl them. Ramsay’s joking sadism is a reminder that hell was invented to make us mistrust and fear our own perfectly healthy appetites. Others gain access to an elective hell through the use of machinery, not by eating spiced-up meals. Squadrons of fighter pilots in both world wars called themselves Hell’s Angels, and the title was taken over by the outlaw riders of Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Clive Barker’s Hellraiser series imagines a new race of demons called Cenobites, who with the aid of “super-butchers” have re-engineered their bodies, stitching their eyelids, implanting jewels in their skulls and puncturing every inch of flesh with needles. These would once have been the kind of exquisitely evil torments meted out to sinners; they have become caste marks that bestow a new kind of glamour on those who scarify and mutilate themselves. Sign up to First Edition Free daily newsletter Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it matters Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Doug Bradley as the Cenobite Pinhead in Hellraiser (1987). Photograph: Cinemarque-Film Futures/Rex/Shutterstock Post-human monsters more grotesque than Barker’s worst imaginings now preen and pose on the red carpet every year at the Met Gala, with Anna Wintour as mistress of the infernal revels. Cher once went as a plucked chicken, and Katy Perry as a chandelier and later as a hamburger: both would have been instantly at home in Bosch’s madhouse. Not all hells are so optional and ostentatious. The three strangers locked together for eternity in a bare room in Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit expect to find instruments of torture among the furniture. Instead their punishment is simply having to coexist: yes, “hell is other people”, which means more than a complaint about noisy neighbours. Sartre’s play was written in 1944, and its sour existentialist aphorism was prophetic. Within a year, evidence emerged of hells that had been constructed for people whose crime or sin was to be “other” – religiously, racially or sexually alien. Concentration camps with their gas chambers and crematoria were cold infernos, exercises in gratuitous cruelty. In their epic installation Fucking Hell, Jake and Dinos Chapman survey this panorama of what they call “ultra violence”, with 30,000 charred skeletons in Nazi regalia doing their damndest to exterminate humanity in a rehearsal of the final battle to which Christian evangelists still look forward to with such vile zeal. Fucking Hell by Jake and Dinos Chapman was part of their 2008 London exhibition If Hitler Had Been a Hippy How Happy Would We Be. Photograph: Joel Ryan/PA Manmade hells continue to proliferate. Think of Russia’s penal colonies and the courts where prisoners are sealed – for their own safety of course – in glass boxes; last week Alexei Navalny’s parents were allowed to travel to the prison where he was put on trial, but were only permitted to see him on a videolink which the judge disconnected. Closer to home there are the barbed-wire cages on the Mexican border in which the children of refugees were penned during the Trump administration, or the unseaworthy vessels crammed like sardine cans with economic migrants, who pay smugglers a small fortune for the privilege of drowning. God died long ago, but the hell that his propagandists imagined has outlived him and is currently run as an official facility or a profitable private enterprise. Hell is not other people but what we do to them; it is the malevolent world in which we all live.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jan/08/guardian-observer-charity-appeal-charities-homeless-refugees

Society

2018-01-08T08:06:03.000Z

Patrick Butler

Guardian and Observer charity appeal raises more than £1.5m

Guardian and Observer readers have raised £1,531,000 for three UK charities tackling youth homelessness and refugee destitution. More than 15,000 readers donated to the papers’ 2017 charity appeal, the third year in succession that it has passed the £1.5m mark. The funds will be shared between Centrepoint, Depaul UK, and the No Accommodation Network (Naccom). Katharine Viner, the editor-in-chief of the Guardian and Observer, said: “We’d like to say a big thank you to the thousands of generous Guardian and Observer readers who donated to the 2017 charity appeal. As many readers have told us, homelessness and destitution are increasingly visible in our towns and cities, and we are proud to support the work our three appeal charities do to highlight the problems and help mitigate their terrible effects.” The appeal, which launched in early December and closed at midnight on Sunday night, coincided with a surge in public concern over rising levels of homelessness. A cross-party committee of MPs last month described homelessness as a national crisis. Seyi Obakin, chief executive of Centrepoint, thanked readers and said the donations would help the charity continue to provide vital support to homeless young people. “If further proof were needed, this fantastic response shows that there is a real desire in this country for the government to go further and end youth homelessness for good.” Hazel Williams, the national director of Naccom, praised readers’ generosity of spirit: “Working with destitute people it can often feel like the world is against them. Donating £1.5m to help them access shelter and support, and importantly treat them as fellow humans, restores our faith in humanity.” Depaul’s UK interim chief executive, Ian Brady, said: “This is an incredible sum to have raised. On behalf of all the young homeless we work with, I would like to thank everyone who has donated for their great kindness.” Centrepoint intends to invest its share of donations in developing its work providing shelter, support and advice on health, education and employment to more than 9,000 homeless 16- to 25-year-olds each year. Depaul UK oversees the Nightstop network, which organises more than 600 volunteer hosts across the UK who regularly open up their spare rooms to provide short stay emergency shelter for homeless young people. Depaul’s share of the money will be used primarily to promote and expand the Nightstop network, currently operating in 34 locations. Naccom provides support for more than 40 local charities that provide shelter for homeless refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants with no recourse to public funds. Its share of appeal donations will be used to build the network’s capacity and support frontline projects via a selective grants process open to its full members. The 2016 Guardian and Observer charity appeal raised £1.7m for three refugee charities. The previous year’s appeal raised £2.5m for six refugee charities.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/charlottehigginsblog/2013/may/31/venice-biennale-diary-charlotte-higgins-deller

Art and design

2013-05-31T14:10:31.000Z

Charlotte Higgins

Venice Biennale diary: dancing strippers and inflatable targets

The opening of Jeremy Deller's British pavilion for the Venice Biennale was celebrated with a big, raucous party on the Isola delle Vignole: lethal cocktails and dinner followed by dancing to the wonderful Melodians Steel Band, who also provide the soundtrack of Bowie, A Guy Called Gerald, and Vaughan Williams in the film in Deller's show. One young lad was having such a great time he stripped off his kit and danced on the tables naked. "Who is that?" people kept asking, in a state of mild shock. Two theories emerged: one that he was part of the Austrian Gelitin artists' collective; the other that he was part of the posse from Palazzo Peckham (a biennale project run by young artists from south-east London). Either way, everyone relaxed about the display of flesh and bits when it was revealed as possible Art with a capital A. There is good news, by the way, for those who are intrigued by Deller's pavilion but can't get to it before it closes on 24 November. The exhibition will – a first for UK presentations in Venice – be restaged in Britain, starting in January at the William Morris Gallery in London and then travelling to Bristol and Margate. Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant Photograph: David Levene Out on the island of San Giorgio Maggiore there's a vast sculpture: a version of Marc Quinn's Alison Lapper Pregnant, the sculpture that adorned the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square in 2005. Back then we loved it. Here? Not so much: it's a horrible shade of mauve, is ridiculously over-scale, and looks deeply jarring beside Palladio's great church. Since it's inflatable, various artworld wags have been plotting how to shoot a dart into its side and watch it flobber down like a great big burst balloon. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's work at the Pinchuk Foundation exhibition Photograph: David Levene The 35-year-old British painter Lynette Biadom-Boakye is having quite the year. She has been shortlisted for the Turner prize; she has a beautiful room of her paintings (all imaginary portraits of black subjects) included in the central Venice Biennale exhibition; and this week, also in Venice, she was awarded the Future Generation Art Prize, bankrolled by Ukrainian billionaire Victor Pinchuk. The cheque for will be a comfort if she misses out on the Turner this December – she gets $100,000 (£66,000), though $40,000 (£26,000) of it must be spent on art production costs (that's a heck of a lot of paint and canvas, by my reckoning). That compares with £25,000 prize money for the British award. Kosovo pavilion, Venice 2013 Photograph: David Levene There are lots of trees in the Biennale this year. The Belgian pavilion consists of a corporeal hulk of a felled elm by Berlinde de Bruyckere; in the Nordic pavilion the trees sing courtesy of Finnish artist Terike Haapoja; and in the Latvian pavilion a huge tree branch suspended from the roof swings like a giant twiggy pendulum. For its first ever Venice pavilion, Kosovo is showing a work by Petrit Halilaj that is not so much a tree as a giant, earth-perfumed root ball, or giant-sized bird's nest – put together painstakingly by the artist over a period of two months using soil, mud, branches and twigs brought from the young republic. The original Yugoslavia pavilion in Venice's Giardini – a place redolent of the geopolitics of a past age – is run by Serbia.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/26/david-cameron-would-be-in-favour-of-leaving-eu-if-he-werent-pm-says-steve-hilton

Politics

2016-05-25T23:17:18.000Z

Rowena Mason

David Cameron would be in favour of leaving EU if he weren't PM, says Steve Hilton

David Cameron’s former election adviser and trusted confidant has claimed the prime minister would advocate leaving the EU if he were not leading the country. Steve Hilton, who was Cameron’s most senior adviser in the 2010 election and his first few years in Downing Street, said the prime minister was a natural supporter of Brexit. Hilton, who left No 10 for the US and later wrote a book, this week came out as a supporter of Britain leaving the EU, saying he wanted to put a stop to the “arrogant, unaccountable, hubristic elites” running Europe. He told the Times he was sure that Cameron was instinctively on his side. “If he were a member of the public or a backbench MP, or a junior minister or even a cabinet minister, I’m certain he would be for leave,” Hilton said. He also claimed to remember a meeting in the early days on Cameron’s team in which it was agreed that they were in favour of leaving the EU in Britain’s best interests and that was the basis of the arguments they were making. The intervention is likely to annoy Downing Street as the prime minister intensifies his campaign to stay in the EU in the final few weeks before the 23 June referendum. Cameron has often said in stump speeches that he has become more in favour of staying in the EU compared with his position six years ago before he became prime minister as he has seen its importance for maintaining security. A Downing Street source said Hilton was “entitled to his own views” but insisted that David Cameron was not instinctively a Brexit supporter. “The prime minister has set out his views on Europe. This is about the national interest, and it is bigger than any one politician. The prime minister thinks this is the best of both worlds.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2017/may/26/petrofacs-latest-revelation-offers-fuel-for-thought

Business

2017-05-26T10:12:07.000Z

Nils Pratley

Petrofac's move to appease SFO offers fuel for thought | Nils Pratley

When the Serious Fraud Office announced two weeks ago it was investigating suspected bribery, corruption and money laundering at Petrofac, shares in the oil services firm fell 14%. It was a sharp reaction to serious news, but it didn’t suggest outright panic in the ranks of investors. One could understand why. Petrofac, a former member of the FTSE 100 index in the days of higher oil prices, is still a very big business. It has 13,500 employees, recorded revenues last year of $7.9bn (£6bn) and has an order-book of contracts worth $14.3bn. Shareholders will also have reflected that SFO investigations tend to take ages and, even when the company admits criminal activity (which Petrofac doesn’t), the process can conclude these days with a deferred prosecution agreement, or DPA, and the payment of a financial penalty that can be chunky but not life-threatening. That semi-reassuring view of potential risks has been undermined by Petrofac’s latest announcement. In its effort to display cooperation with the SFO, the board has suspended chief operating officer Marwan Chedid – but the prosecuting agency still seems unhappy. The SFO does not deem Petrofac to have cooperated with it “as that term is used in relevant SFO and sentencing guidelines”. The language is important: it could mean that the option of a DPA will not be offered; should events run that way. To complete investors’ misery, Petrofac reported that the findings of its internal investigation – which concluded there was no evidence of payment of bribes – had not been accepted by the SFO. Cue a further 30% plunge in the share price. It has now halved in a fortnight. Aside from the direct uncertainty around the SFO’s investigation, Petrofac’s day-to-day operations will be hampered by Chedid’s absence. He is righthand man to Ayman Asfari, Petrofac’s chief executive, 18% shareholder and driving force since the 1990s. And, to put it mildly, replenishing the order-book will not be made any easier by the shadow of the SFO inquiry. Could the board have handled the crisis differently? In theory, it could also have suspended Asfari, who, like Chedid, was arrested, questioned under caution by the SFO and released without charge a fortnight ago. Two senior suspensions might have satisfied the SFO’s definition of full cooperation during an investigation. But one can see why the board rejected that option. Asfari, with his network of contacts in the Middle East plus a role as a UK trade ambassador, is the public face of Petrofac and the man who makes the company tick. The danger of corporate meltdown would have felt real. Removing Asfari from all matters related to the SFO investigation was probably the best pragmatic fudge. Yet, if the length of SFO investigations initially sounded helpful for Petrofac’s ability to operate normally, the logic has been turned on its head. Chedid is suspended until further notice and Asfari must try to bring in more contracts in near-impossible circumstances. This is a deep crisis and the correct share price is anybody’s guess. Shale oil is here to stay “We will do whatever is necessary,” declared Saudi Arabia’s energy minister before Opec’s meeting in Vienna to consider production cuts to drive up the oil price. The cartel then proceeded to do the minimum. It merely agreed to extend existing curbs until next March alongside Russia. The oil price fell 4%. Give it time, seems to be the tune from Vienna, but it is sounding fainter. When Opec embarked on this strategy last November, it surely expected better results. The data shows there is still a glut of oil stocks in the world and a barrel of Brent now costs $52, a long way from the $60-plus that Opec would like to restore. The cartel can keep trying – but the only thing it has proved so far is the resilience of the US shale industry. Financial disservices City Week is “the premier gathering of the international financial services community”, or so the blurb says, and, no doubt, important people had vital things to say about Brexit, Trump and so on. Indeed, the organisers deemed it necessary to hold the minute’s silence for the victims of the Manchester bomb attack at 9am, and not at 11am with the rest of nation, to avoid interrupting the busy schedule. What was on the timetable at 11am? “Networking and morning coffee.” In the afternoon, delegates jaw-boned about why it’s terribly important for financial services firms to look outside their bubbles and consider “society at large”. Of course they did.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/16/scottish-independence-may-uk-sturgeon-referendum

Politics

2017-03-16T22:35:07.000Z

Severin Carrell

Scottish independence: May has sealed fate of UK, says Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon has accused Theresa May of sealing the fate of the United Kingdom after the prime minister rejected her demand for a second Scottish independence referendum before the Brexit talks conclude. The first minister said May’s stance was “completely outrageous and unacceptable”, hours after the prime minister had insisted that “now is not the time” for the referendum that the SNP had hoped to stage between autumn 2019 and spring 2019. Sturgeon said on Thursday: “It’s an argument for independence, really, in a nutshell, that Westminster thinks it has got the right to block the democratically elected mandate of the Scottish government and the majority in the Scottish parliament. History may look back on today and see it as the day the fate of the union was sealed.” She insisted she would press on with plans for a vote at the Scottish parliament next week seeking its approval to request the legal power from Westminster to stage the referendum on Holyrood’s terms – a vote she is expected to narrowly win with Scottish Green party support. But May said earlier that the Tories would not allow any discussion of the referendum until the UK’s Brexit deal had been signed and Scottish voters had time to weigh it up, implying any referendum may not happen until 2021 at the earliest. “To look at the issue at this time would be unfair, because people wouldn’t have the necessary information to make such a crucial decision,” May added. The Tory gamble is driven by a series of opinion polls showing that a large majority of Scottish voters do not want a referendum before Brexit, even though support for independence has jumped from about 45% to nearly 50% after May spelt out her plans in January for a hard Brexit. May’s blunt intervention is likely to goad SNP activists into an even more energetic independence campaign this summer as they seek to build support for a referendum, starting at the SNP’s spring conference this weekend. Sturgeon predicted that May’s position would soon prove to be politically unsustainable. “This is not the Iron Lady – this is someone whose government is in chaos, chopping and changing all of the time,” she told BBC Reporting Scotland. UK government sources indicated on Wednesday that May would not formally respond to Sturgeon’s timetable before the first minister had officially requested legal authority for a referendum, under section 30 of the Scotland Act 1998, after next week’s Holyrood vote on the proposal. But that changed unexpectedly on Thursday. Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Tory leader, and David Mundell, the UK government’s Scottish secretary, were forced to deny that May had been persuaded to make her statement on the eve of the SNP conference to provoke its activists into taking a far more partisan stance. Mundell argued it would be discourteous to Holyrood if the UK government failed to make clear before next week’s vote in the Scottish parliament that it had already decided to reject outright Sturgeon’s timetable. Davidson and Mundell said that lack of appetite for an early referendum and the fact that Holyrood’s five parties were split on the issue undermined Sturgeon’s claim of a mandate. The SNP is currently in a minority government at Holyrood but had a substantial majority in 2012, when all five parties agreed that staging the first referendum in 2014 was justified. That was “a fundamental reason why now is not the right time to take Scotland back to the precipice”, Davidson said. “And that is because there is no clear political or public consent for this to take place. The country – and our parliament – is divided not over just the question of independence, but over whether we should even hold a referendum or not.” Davidson’s spokesman confirmed the Tories could reverse their position if there was a substantial and sustained surge in support for independence and in demands for a referendum in the next two years. There were signs too of further movement on timing from Sturgeon’s government. Pressed after May’s statement about the first minister’s hint earlier this week she could agree to the referendum shortly after Brexit, her spokesman said Sturgeon believed she had the right to stage it until the next Scottish elections in May 2021. Will there be a second Scottish independence referendum? – video explainer Guardian He insisted Sturgeon would continue to fight for the vote to be held by spring 2019, but added that her mandate for a referendum, on the grounds that Scotland was being taken out of the EU against its will, lasted until those elections. “The first minister has made clear her preferred timescale and that is the timescale we’re working to,” he said. But asked if that meant a referendum could be held by 2021, he said yes, adding: “The mandate is clear – the mandate is for the parliamentary term.” May’s decision to resist agreeing a referendum until well after Brexit in 2019 implies it could not be held until 2021 at the earliest. It would take up to a year for both governments and both parliaments to agree and authorise a legally constituted referendum. The Electoral Commission would need up to six months to decide on a question, with another six months needed for the campaign. The prime minister is to reinforce her claims that the UK will prosper after Brexit on Friday in a speech to the Conservative Spring forum in Cardiff, emphasising her attachment to “our precious, precious union” as she launches what she calls her “Plan for Britain”. May will describe the relationship between Scotland and the rest of the UK as “more than just a constitutional artefact” by arguing “it is a union between all of our citizens, whoever we are and wherever we’re from”. As she prepares to invoke article 50, the formal process for leaving the EU, by the end of the month, May will insist it is essential the UK strikes the right deal. “We have pulled together as one and succeeded together. We are four nations, but at heart we are one people.”

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/07/bloc-party-review-st-john-at-hackney-london-kele-okereke

Music

2015-12-07T12:53:15.000Z

Mark Beaumont

Bloc Party review – euphoria greets an unlikely comeback

St John-at-Hackney, the patron saint of subdued art-rock, can rarely have seen such delirium. When Bloc Party unleash fidgety funk-punk favourites Hunting for Witches and Positive Tension there’s genuine pandemonium; at the segue from Bret Easton Ellis tribute Song for Clay (Disappear Here) into early hit Banquet the venue ignites like an Adele ticket hotline.. “I was having so much fun in the last song my belt got stolen,” singer Kele Okereke appears to say through a PA made of marshmallow; indeed, few among tonight’s distracted congregation would notice what Gwyneth Paltrow might call a conscious unbuckling. The euphoria greeting these urban noir rockers’ return, even in a venue that tends to act as a pillow to the face of sophisticated rock music such as this, is born of relief. As recently as March, Bloc Party looked a crumbling lost cause. Bassist Gordon Moakes tweeted his departure following drummer Matt Tong’s 2013 exit, while Kele appeared to have disowned rock altogether in favour of a solo career as the Ilford Weeknd. This comeback – with a new rhythm section and sensual, quasi-religious fifth record, Hymns – is as unexpected and exciting for the indie class of ’05 as a punctual Pete Doherty. As they weave their compulsive pop malevolence – Russell Lissack’s guitar sketches subterranean labyrinths; Okereke’s voice shrieks torture-dungeon confessions – the tide of alternative culture flows directly through Bloc Party tonight. Nodding to their forebears, Kele drops in snippets of Pixies’ I’ve Been Tired and Björk’s Big Time Sensuality and revels in the way new track Virtue resembles the Killers’ Mr Brightside in a cryogenic stasis. Meanwhile their own influence on Alt-J and Foals radiates, respectively, from Signs and Flux, the mathletic electropop hit that, somewhat ironically, sets off crowdsurfing chaos to Kele’s entreaty of “we need to talk”. As expected from a band who mutated from funk-punk indie rock to visceral death disco over their first three albums, the Hymns material is peppered with signs of creative engines still sparking: the goblin vocal effects on Different Drugs, or the dubstep warps on The Love Within, which resembles Flat Eric piloting a fighter jet. They exhibit their progressions boldly, indulging the layered gothic textures of Eden and daring to dampen the climax of the main set with the downbeat romantic paean Exes. But it’s the thrill of seeing these cult titans back from the brink that has them roared back for two wild, celebratory encores – Helicopter, This Modern Love, She’s Hearing Voices – despite the house lights rising and Okereke insisting his voice is shot. Their state of flux is over; St John wishes he’d installed a safe room.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/02/flying-lotus-youre-dead-review

Music

2014-10-02T20:30:09.000Z

Paul MacInnes

Flying Lotus: You’re Dead review – a brilliant, wide-eyed dream of an album

For an album with a threat for a title (or maybe it’s just a metaphysical observation), You’re Dead is surprisingly upbeat. Flying Lotus (real name Stephen Ellison), the musical polymath who flits so lightly between jazz, electronica, hip-hop and funk as to render the boundaries indeterminable, has cast his net even wider on his fifth album, taking in influences from eastern religions, too. On his last record, Until the Quiet Comes, a concentration on the low end turned a stew of styles into a murky slop. Here the g-funk bass still squelches, but it’s paired with bells, cymbals, birdsong and flighty guitar lines that keep spirits high and eyes wide. There are guest appearances by regular FlyLo collaborators including bassist Thundercat, but also A-list rappers in Snoop Dogg and Kendrick Lamar (whose tendency to flit from hardcore spitting to sing-song delivery makes for a suitable companion style). There’s always been a sense that Ellison was stretching for a new musical vernacular, one that would continue the lineage of free jazz (he is the great-nephew of Alice Coltrane). This album suggests he might have found it. As each song merges into the next, as one style succeeds another, the sensation is that of being in a dream. Which may well be what death is like – who knows?

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jan/20/bank-of-england-missing-financial-crisis-interest-rates

Opinion

2016-01-20T17:16:42.000Z

David Blanchflower

The Bank of England is at risk of sleepwalking into a financial crisis | David Blanchflower

The credibility of the monetary policy committee of the Bank of England in general, and that of its governor, Mark Carney, in particular, is now seriously in question. The concern is that they may have already missed a significant downturn. Brent crude has just fallen below $28 a barrel. Commodity prices are tumbling and global markets are approaching bear territory – and there is no sign of a floor. The US and the UK are both slowing fast. But the MPC has been asleep at the wheel. UK unemployment falls but wage growth weakens Read more First, there was Carney’s “forward guidance” in 2013 when he explained that the MPC intended to keep the Bank rate at 0.5%, at least until the unemployment rate fell to 7% or below. As the unemployment rate has continued to fall – to 5.1% as announced by the Office for National Statistics today – the Bank rate remains unchanged. But Carney, a former governor of the Bank of Canada who was hired by George Osborne on a vast salary, didn’t learn from his hopeless forward guidance missive. In August last year, at the annual shindig of central bankers organised by the Kansas City Fed at Jackson Hole in Wyoming, he said that “sustained momentum” in the UK economy and rising inflation would “likely put the decision as to when to start the process of gradual monetary policy normalisation into sharper relief around the turn of this year”. The US and the UK are both slowing fast. But the Monetary Policy Committee has been asleep at the wheel But the UK economy continues to slow – and inflation hasn’t picked up at all. So this week in a speech at London University’s Queen Mary college, the governor had to about-turn once again. “It is clear to me that since last summer,” Carney said, “progress has been insufficient along these dimensions to warrant a tightening of monetary policy.” Markets aren’t expecting a rate rise until at least 2017, and no longer seem to believe a word the governor says. The MPC also has a major problem with the credibility of its forecasts, which have been overly optimistic. It has shown no sign of learning from its past mistakes. For example, the committee has been forecasting increasing wage growth; in November 2014, they forecast wage growth of 3.25% for 2015 – and currently they are forecasting wage growth of 3.75% in both 2016 and 2017, rising to 4% in 2018. That isn’t going to happen. The latest data for December 2015 was 2%. Dow Jones suffers steep fall and FTSE 100 in bear market - as it happened Read more The concern is that the MPC may well be repeating its major macro error from 2008, when it missed the Great Recession. Mervyn King argued that the UK had decoupled from the US, so didn’t spot that the slowing there would have major implications for the UK and the global economy. Carney has suggested that a slowing China is likely to have little impact on the UK, which also looks wrong. Chinese growth rates this week were the lowest for 25 years and the IMF has lowered its forecast for growth in the Chinese economy for the next two years. Even that may well be too optimistic. It is hard to identify when a country is entering a downturn. The UK economy went into recession in the second quarter of 2008, but the first estimate in July 2008 was for quarterly growth of +0.2%. The true figure was -0.6%. The “cocktail of threats” identified by the chancellor already appears to be hitting the UK. The optimistic autumn statement is already toast. The slowing of the world’s biggest economy caused big problems in 2008 – and the concern is that the slowing of its second largest may cause a comparable downdraught in 2016. I suspect the next move of the MPC will be a cut rather than a rise. It may even have to go negative.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2021/oct/17/equity-release-is-on-the-rise-but-should-you-risk-it

Money

2021-10-17T08:00:23.000Z

Rupert Jones

Equity release is on the rise – but should you risk it?

Rising house prices are a double-edged sword for many families. Older generations have seen the value of their homes rise while their children and grandchildren struggle to get onto the property ladder. Now, in order to help their children buy a home of their own, many parents are dipping into the equity of their property. Equity release, a way for over-55s to get cash out of their property without the need to move home, is becoming more mainstream, with an increasing number of deals and lower rates available. There are twice as many products on the market as two years ago, and competition has pushed rates down: the very lowest interest rates are now around the 2.5% mark. But the costs can add up and critics warn that it is a high-risk move. Research from Key, an equity release advisory firm, found that between April 2020 and the end of June 2021, older homeowners withdrew £830m from their homes and gifted it to their offspring or others to use in a variety of ways. More than half – £425m – was handed to their children or other family members or friends to help them on to the property ladder. Key’s chief executive, Will Hale, says the money has effectively been “recycled” – and that one of the driving forces was the stamp duty holiday, which started to be phased out at the end of June. “In recent years, using equity release to facilitate intergenerational wealth transfer has become increasingly popular,” he says. Equity release: what are the options for older people? Read more How does it work? The most common equity release deals are mortgage-based products that are loans secured against your home. Typically there are no monthly repayments – the loan, including the interest that is accrued, is repaid from the sale of the property when you die or go into long-term care. These are known as “lifetime mortgages”. You can take the loan as a one-off lump sum or in smaller sums. Lenders will base how much you can borrow on your age, the value of the property and sometimes your health. Interest rates on lifetime mortgages are typically higher than on standard mortgages. Comparison site Equity Release Supermarket shows rates from a number of providers run from 2.86% to 6.9%. The minimum age at which you can sign up is usually 55, while the average age of a new customer currently stands between 68 and 70, according to trade body the Equity Release Council. Leading providers include Aviva, Legal & General, Just, more2life, LV= (Liverpool Victoria), Canada Life, Pure Retirement and OneFamily. Many of the firms have calculators on their websites that you can use to get an idea of how much you can borrow. With a lifetime mortgage, the interest owed on the loan is added to the sum borrowed. You are then charged interest on this larger amount the following year, meaning the amount you owe can mount quickly. The most flexible deals are those that include a feature called drawdown, where a pot of money is set aside for you to draw from as and when needed. Not everyone needs a big lump sum at the outset, and with a drawdown lifetime mortgage you only accrue interest on the money you have released. The average lump sum released is £113,000, while for a drawdown customer it is an initial £85,000 with a further £34,000 held in reserve, according to Equity Release Council data. The housing market’s turbo-charged performance during much of the pandemic has made the maths of equity release more favourable to some existing customers. According to government data, the annual rate of house price growth has been above 7% since January this year. Based on that figure, the industry claims that house price rises over the last year may have balanced out the impact of compound interest for some equity release customers. “For example, a customer paying 6% interest may have seen their property equity grow faster than their debt, while a customer paying 3% interest could have seen their equity grow more than twice as fast,” says the Equity Release Council. Just as with investments, though, past performance is no guarantee of future results – there is of course a risk that property prices will fall, and that would change the equity release maths completely. Members of the Equity Release Council have to have a “no negative equity guarantee” feature on their products. This means you or your estate will never owe more than the property is worth when the property is sold, even if property prices plunge. Property: Don't fall into equity release trap Read more The downsides While equity release has become much more common and mainstream, lifetime mortgages can be complex products with disadvantages. The former pensions minister and Conservative peer Ros Altmann says taking an equity release loan in your 50s or 60s is a high-risk proposition that should not be taken lightly. “The problem with taking out an equity release loan at such a relatively young age is that so much can change over the next 30 or 40 years, but once you have locked into an equity release loan, it can be difficult to get out of it,” she says. “I believe equity release mortgages are still expensive and they do still pay generous commissions to the advisers who sell them or the brokers who find the clients for the equity release company. This is good for the lender, but may not be so good for the borrower. It can seem attractive to extract many tens of thousands or more from your home, but beware the long-term risks that these products can land you with.” Borrowers who find that they can repay their loan early can face the prospect of “early repayment charges”. These may occur when either part or the entire amount is repaid before a date in the contract. While equity release can sometimes have an image of being a way that asset-rich older people can tap into their property wealth to finance luxuries such as a new conservatory or round-the-world cruise, it can also enable people to provide life-changing financial assistance to family and friends. But for most people, the most financially effective way of freeing up cash is to move to a smaller property or cheaper area. UK mortgage price war hots up with 0.94% fixed-rate deal Read more Two scenarios A 70-year-old with a £368,000 house is looking to release money from her property. Key looked at two scenarios for The Observer. In the first one, the woman wanted to take out £78,000 as a lump sum. Based on an interest rate of 2.73% from more2life, the amount owing – loan plus interest – would be £102,452 after 10 years. After 20 years it would be £134,570. Under the second scenario, with the same interest rates, she took out an initial £10,000 and then £5,000 a year. She would owe £71,403 after 10 years (£60,000 withdrawn in total), and £152,057 after 20 years (£110,000 withdrawn in total). Many equity release products offer borrowers the opportunity to make interest repayments if they wish. If the same 70-year-old opted for the lump sum and paid 50% of the interest each month – £85 per month – that would reduce the total to pay after 10 years to £90,298, and the total outstanding after 20 years to £106,452.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/mar/15/how-catastrophe-became-even-more-excruciating-tv

Television & radio

2017-03-15T10:57:09.000Z

Stuart Heritage

How Catastrophe became even more excruciating TV – using Brexit

When Catastrophe debuted back in 2015, I could barely stand it. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t enjoy it – I really did – but the first episode aired a week before my wife had our first child, and I found that the whole thing hit so excruciatingly close to home that I ducked out for a year, and only caught up once I’d managed to properly brace myself. Clearly, this is down to nothing but coincidence. If I hadn’t been going through a very particular set of life experiences at the exact time Catastrophe launched, it wouldn’t have struck such an uncomfortable nerve with me. I’ve tried to explain this sensation to people over the last couple of years, but never really managed it. And now I don’t have to, because this series of Catastrophe is shaping up to be its Brexit series, which means that everyone else can feel the close-to-home horror just as sharply as I did. Brexit is the monster that lurks around the corner of every scene of Catastrophe’s third series. In the opening episode, it was used as a flimsy excuse for a personal indiscretion. It crops up again in later episodes too, offhandedly lobbed into the mix to explain away one full-pelt disaster or another. Brexit is the monster that lurks around the corner of every scene in Catastrophe. Photograph: Mark Johnson/Channel 4 Used like this, Brexit is a dramatist’s dream come true. You have two characters. You need to hurl obstacles in front of them. Why not Brexit? It’s big and it’s stupid and it’s scary – plus, helpfully, nobody really knows what it actually is yet – so it’s the perfect catch-all baddie. Character loses a job? Brexit. Decreasing house prices? Brexit. Any form of foreign travel whatsoever? Chuck a bit of Brexit in and it automatically becomes a thousand times meatier. This works so well with Catastrophe – along with its ongoing subtle nods to Breaking Bad – that it can only be a matter of time before every other show on television drafts in a little bit of Brexit to up their game, too. Funny, messy and real: why Sharon Horgan is the most watchable woman on TV Read more We’ll be drowning in the stuff before long. Gritty BBC dramas where John Simm plays a put-upon immigration officer unspooling in the wake of Brexit. Episodes of Casualty about old ladies falling off wonky stepladders that no longer have to conform to EU safety standards. Channel 5 factual entertainment shows called things like All New Celebrity Can You Go Broke On Brexit? It’s inevitable. It’s too juicy not to be. If everyone starts mining Brexit for dramatic horror, the risk is that it’ll be declawed to the extent that it simply becomes another overused TV trope, like rape and dead people who are only visible to lead characters. But Catastrophe has got in ahead of the pack, so its horror is incredibly real. Every time it looms up out of nowhere to smack Sharon and Rob down a couple of pegs, it’s a nasty portent of things to come in real life for everyone else. It’s a brilliant move, both ripe and necessary, but it doesn’t half make Catastrophe difficult to watch. Again. Just when I thought it was safe to go back.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2012/sep/29/arsenal-chelsea-premier-league1

Football

2012-09-29T13:53:19.000Z

Amy Lawrence

Arsenal 1-2 Chelsea | Premier League match report

In the blue corner, Chelsea's band of supporters needed no invitation to offer a reminder of who is London's top dog in terms of the European Cup. On the pitch, their players made the point that they are serious about reasserting themselves in the Premier League. They are certainly well placed to make a big improvement on last season's sixth place. In inflicting Arsenal's first defeat of the season, Chelsea consolidated their position as Premier League pacesetters. They were helped along the way by some slack defending by the home team, for whom Laurent Koscielny started at the expense of the previously ever-present, and consistently calm, Per Mertesacker. Two set-pieces from the assured boot of Juan Mata did the damage. Fernando Torres dispatched the first with cunning. Koscielny helped the second on its way. It was enough. Chelsea looked like they had a gear in reserve. Arsenal did not pose enough threat to claw their way back from two crucially loose moments. Indeed, they were flat enough to ensure the home support did not even rouse much sustained hostility for John Terry, who had an untroubled 90 minutes. The pantomime booing petered out once Chelsea took the lead. Arsenal had been frustrated by their weakness at a set piece to give Manchester City the lead last Sunday. There was not much tangible improvement here. "We gave away two soft set pieces and we were punished," said Arsène Wenger, who was very agitated as his team were outmanoeuvred at both ends of the pitch. "The difference between us and Chelsea in the air was obvious." There may have been improvements this season, but a familiar problem came back to haunt them at an untimely moment. Chelsea's first decisive free-kick exposed how Arsenal still have issues to iron out concerning their organisation when facing dead balls. Mata's delivery arced towards the far post, over a leap from an unmarked David Luiz, and Torres got the better of Koscielny to supply a clever, instinctive finish. He wrapped his leg around the defender to clip a volley past Vito Mannone. Torres ought to have given Chelsea an even more emphatic advantage moments later when he ghosted behind the dawdling Koscielny and bore down on Mannone's goal. A 2-0 scoreline felt inevitable, only for the Spaniard to kick thin air instead of the ball. There were other scares before half-time as the inventive Oscar and Eden Hazard crafted chances, while Torres grazed the side-netting. Chelsea were relaxed, barely stretched as Arsenal strained to build momentum in their passing. They were not helped by an injury to Abou Diaby, who limped off in the 16th minute, which disrupted the pattern Arsenal have established in midfield this season. The Frenchman damaged a muscle in his thigh, which Wenger assessed will keep him out for three weeks. Home frustrations were evident when Thomas Vermaelen lumped in a hopeful shot from 40 yards out. Roberto Di Matteo noted how his newly styled midfield worked well to snuff Arsenal out. "We didn't allow Arsenal to get into any rhythm," he said. They did keep plugging away, though, and were rewarded when Gervinho – hitherto giving a fairly ineffective impression of a false nine – took a deft touch to swivel on to Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain's pass and drill the equaliser high into the net. Chelsea's determination was palpable. They emerged after half-time keen to make the most of the combination of their three tricksters – Mata, Oscar and Hazard – floating behind the runs of Torres. It was not so pleasing on the eye, though, to see David Luiz trying to win a penalty with an act of blatant simulation, for which he was booked. "He went down, but I don't think he appealed for anything," said Di Matteo. "I'm against diving. It's not something I encourage." Lukas Podolski needed to get more involved and his driving run opened up Chelsea, only for Santi Cazorla to slice his effort wide. Chelsea eased back in front with another set piece that left Arsenal cursing. Mata's delivery was again excellent, but Koscielny's miserable afternoon worsened when the ball skimmed his shin and past Mannone at the far post. Di Matteo was enthused to see Mata back at his influential best. "The break we gave him did him good," he explained. "He played at the Euros and went straight to the Olympic Games. If we didn't give him a break, it could have had an effect." Wenger sent on Olivier Giroud and Theo Walcott, and although Giroud had three moments to seize the day, his Premier League pressures persisted. The Frenchman tested Cech with his first attempt, struck the crossbar (although the linesman had raised a flag) and, in stoppage time, he dinked past Cech only to angle his shot against the side-netting. "It was a top chance," said Wenger. Chelsea may be changing, but Cech again proved his worth. "We have had a great start to the Premier League," Di Matteo said. "Hopefully we can be there at the end."

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2023/oct/30/jude-bellingham-clasico-real-madrid-barcelona-la-liga

Football

2023-10-30T15:40:11.000Z

Sid Lowe

Real Love for Bellingham as magical history tour hits top notes in clásico | Sid Lowe

It was like Jude Bellingham knew. He had just scored his first clásico goal, a cartoon kick ripped from Roy of the Rovers, Hot-Shot Hamish battering the ball through the net from 28 yards, but he didn’t do his thing, not this time. There was a tug at the Real Madrid badge on his shirt, a hint of frustration let loose, but no smile and no celebration, arms open wide. Instantly iconic, a ritual performed at the Cathedral, the church of Maradona and everywhere else, given 11 outings already, this time it was absent. There was no greater stage than the one he trod, no moment like this, absurd enough as it was, but his work here was not done. Not yet, but it would be. There is always time for more even when it is slipping away, especially when it is slipping away. If Madrid’s fans had missed the celebration then, Bellingham doing That Bellingham Thing, there would be another chance, an opportunity to do it better, and he would do all he could to make it so. So too would Antonio Rüdiger. When Bellingham scored the goal that equalised in his debut against Barcelona, making it 1-1 68 minutes into Saturday afternoon’s clásico, down on the Madrid bench Nacho Fernández wore a face that said: “Bloody hell, did you see that?!” When he scored the goal that won it in the 92nd minute and this time did do his celebration, Nacho leapt right out of there while the rest of his teammates ran after the Englishman. Arms wide, Bellingham nodded. Yes, this really had happened. Behind him Rüdiger was shouting: “Again, again, again. Do it again for them.” So when they had finished embracing him, the victory that took them top virtually secure, he did. Bellingham hits last-gasp winner as Real Madrid fight back to beat Barcelona Read more Standing in front of the Montjuïc stand, there he was once more: part Gladiator, part Christ the Redeemer. And if that sounds ridiculous, it is because it is. All of it is. “I’ve just phoned home,” Bellingham said afterwards. “It was hard to hear them with all the noise, but there was a bit of emotion thinking about all the times I watched this game on the sofa with my brother, my parents. I said it was my turn to experience it, to make an impression.” Some impression. Montjuïc hadn’t seen an English performance like this since Sally Gunnell was going for gold. This fixture may never have done. Gary Lineker scored a hat-trick against Real Madrid. David Beckham’s first clásico made a hero of him. Steve McManaman scored at the Camp Nou, and in a European Cup semi-final. Laurie Cunningham was handed a standing ovation, by Barcelona’s fans. Michael Owen too scored in a clasico, Barcelona beaten at the Bernabéu. But this? This was something else, is something else. The greatest rivalry there is, the clásico has been many things over the years, but never the Beatles versus the Stones. This time, Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood were in the directors’ box and Barcelona wore the Stones’ tongue logo on their shirts – a limited edition release that’s yours for just €399 (£348), or €2,999 (£2,620) if you want the version signed by the men’s and women’s teams – while facing them was the man who has the Bernabéu singing Hey Jude. It was, they said, the rock’n’roll clasico, the battle of the bands; it was also a gift, asking for it, all this column could do to not join in, ignoring that long list of song titles it had prepared specially and finally giving up on getting off of my cloud. “Stones 1, Beatles 2” said the headline in AS. “Jude sticks out his tongue,” said the front of Marca. Barcelona can’t get no satisfaction, said just about everyone else. Singing puns were everywhere; he had provided the “music and the lyrics” and won the game “a cappella,” whatever that’s supposed to mean; they had “danced to Bellingham’s beat”. “The Beatles have always been our favourite group,” declared Real Madrid’s X account. The player posted a cartoon of him, Federico Valverde, Eduardo Camavinga and Aurélien Tchouaméni crossing Abbey Road. Jude Bellingham nudges the ball through Marc-André ter Stegen’s legs for Real Madrid’s 92nd-minute winning goal. Photograph: Albert Gea/Reuters “Lord Bellingham,” declared the front page of AS. Elsewhere, “Sir Bellingham” was “the entire British Empire”, which seemed a bit harsh, and “a dictator” imposing his will, which was even worse. He was Madrid’s satanic majesty, of course. He was also their Mr Wolf, rescuing them again, which was better and which was the point. Because this is not just one game – even if it is the game, even if no Madrid player had scored two in his first visit to Barcelona since 1947 – it is all of them. He is, almost everyone agrees, in the best form of any footballer in the world; there are even those that think so at Barcelona, even if they can’t say it. “Everything’s going right,” Bellingham said. Even when it didn’t seem to be. Engaged in a hugely enjoyable battle with Gavi, the kind that has mutual admiration written all over it, this hadn’t been the easiest game. “I don’t think I or my teammates were at our best,” Bellingham admitted, but he had smashed in an astonishing equaliser to give Madrid hope – “I had spent the last few weeks saying I need to try from outside the area” – and then gone and scored the late winner. “It plays with your heart but I love the comebacks,” he said, and it shows: the clock showed 91min 11sec when he nudged the winner through Marc-André ter Stegen’s legs. Cameras caught the injured Pedri muttering what a big bum Bellingham has – how lucky he had been, in other words – but if that ball had indeed fallen at his feet, it’s happened so often it no longer looks like fortune. He got the winner against Union Berlin in the 94th minute and Getafe in the 95th. Bellingham has studied those movements. The kid who wore 22 at Birmingham because he was a No 4, 8 and a 10 wrapped in one, wears No 5 and, in the absence of Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappé, has become a false 9. Ancelotti showed him videos of those moments at Dortmund when he got closest to the area yet even he admits he is “surprised” at how well it has gone. On Saturday he declared that Bellingham can reach 20 or 25 goals “easily” this season and that looks conservative now. He has scored 10 in 10 league games and one in each of his three Champions League games, already a single goal off his entire total from last year. “Even he didn’t expect so many,” Luka Modric beamed. They depend on him. Bellingham has 13 of Madrid’s 29 goals; seven of their 12 wins have come directly from him. There’s no stat padding here, no wild shooting. Scored from just 19 shots, only one of his 10 league goals – the third in a 3-0 win at Girona – could be considered unimportant, and only because he had provided a brilliant assist with the outside of his boot for the opener. On his debut, he scored the second to make victory safe at San Mames. One down at Almería, he made it 1-1 and 2-1. He scored the only goal at Celta in the 81st minute, the first and second against Osasuna, and now the equaliser and winner against Barcelona. As for Europe, against Braga he made it 2-0 in a 2-1 win, scored the winner against Berlin and in Napoli his goal put them 2-1 up in a 3-2 win. That night, they compared him to Diego Maradona. Sign up to Football Daily Free daily newsletter Kick off your evenings with the Guardian's take on the world of football Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “That’s a bit much,” Bellingham said. But with a goal that good in that place, it was inevitable. After all, that was yet another flattering comparison among many. He had been likened to Raúl, Zidane and Ronaldo. And Jermaine Defoe, although that’s him and Joselu (or Peter Crouch, as Bellingham calls him) messing about together. He has even been likened to Alfredo Di Stéfano, the player that changed Madrid’s history for ever, who did it all. He is, wrote Ramon Besa in El País, “a soloist capable of being the whole orchestra”. Jude Bellingham has become a false 9 at Real Madrid in the absence of Karim Benzema and Kylian Mbappé. Photograph: Gerard Franco/Dax/Zuma Press Wire/Shutterstock Top scorer in La Liga coming into the clásico, he had three assists, had won more duels than anyone else – Gavi is top now – and there is a reason he is the most fouled player in Spain. On Saturday his was the last touch of the game: a defensive header. It is not just the goals; it is the whole thing, the personality above all, the assuredness: “the leadership at 20” as Ancelotti keeps saying. The way that others embrace him, deferring to him. Raúl said he had never seen anything like it and that was before he had even played. It was there already in his presentation; it is there in that celebration, symbolic somehow: master of all he surveys. It’s there in the matches. No nerves, it’s just a game. One he is very, very good at. Quick Guide La Liga results Show Bellingham, bloody hell. It has been barely believable and it’s not the usual suspects saying these things, blown away by the silliness of it all; it is footballers. At Real Madrid, for goodness sake. This is them looking at him, making comparisons with the best, shocked at what they’re seeing daily. “Our fans got used to Cristiano Ronaldo, now they have Jude,” Vinícius Júnior said. “He’s only just arrived and it is like he’s been here ages. It’s not coincidence: he’s a top lad, an extraordinary talent,” Modric said. Take a look at their tweets: “Just different” – David Alaba. “HIM” – Thibaut Courtois. “The boy” – Brahim. The exploding head emojis from Rodrygo. And if that feels a little public to be proof, as Bellingham led his teammates to the 150 or so fans high in the stand at the end of his first clásico, Modric approached him, a huge grin on his face shouting: “What a sign[ing]! What a sign[ing]!” Ancelotti called him “a star who has fallen here”. As for Rüdiger, he called on him to do it again. Pos Team P GD Pts 1 Real Madrid 11 15 28 2 Girona 11 12 28 3 Atletico Madrid 10 16 25 4 Barcelona 11 11 24 5 Real Sociedad 11 6 19 6 Athletic Bilbao 11 6 18 7 Rayo Vallecano 11 -1 17 8 Real Betis 11 -1 17 9 Valencia 11 1 15 10 Las Palmas 11 -2 14 11 Osasuna 11 -4 13 12 Getafe 11 -3 12 13 Sevilla 10 1 10 14 Cadiz 11 -6 10 15 Mallorca 11 -4 9 16 Villarreal 10 -4 9 17 Alaves 11 -7 9 18 Celta Vigo 11 -9 6 19 Granada 10 -10 6 20 Almeria 11 -17 3

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/wellness/2024/apr/09/uncertainty-mental-health

Wellness

2024-04-09T16:00:22.000Z

Shayla Love

Fear of the unknown: are you more sensitive to uncertainty than others?

Much of the anxiety in my life has emerged from the question what if. What if my headache has a more sinister origin? What if I go to a holiday party, and don’t know anyone? What if I publish an article, and everyone hates it? I want to be certain of what’s going to happen, and any uncertainty makes me squirm. In other words, I have an intolerance for uncertainty. ‘We are all unwell’: a scholar’s radical approach to health Read more Each day, we face uncertainty around our health, what others think of us, our career, or what soup will be served at lunch. Yet some people recoil at these unknowns more than others. Since the early 1990s, psychologists have isolated intolerance for uncertainty, or IU, as a trait associated with different forms of anxiety, depression and substance use disorder. IU doesn’t directly cause all of those conditions, but having a higher intolerance for uncertainty is a common experience that cuts across them. IU works in a similar way to, say, a food intolerance. When some people eat a small amount of dairy, their stomach is upset. Others can finish a bowl of mac and cheese and feel fine. With uncertainty it’s the same: some people are just more sensitive to it. Here’s how to tell if your intolerance for uncertainty is high, and what you can do about it. How the intolerance of uncertainty scale works IU exists on a spectrum; it’s not that everyone is either totally intolerant of uncertainty or completely OK with it. Some may be mildly put out by uncertainty, while others have an average intolerance, said Naomi Koerner, an associate professor of psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University. “And some other people are highly bothered by the uncertainties of life.” IU was defined as a specific trait in the 1990s by the researchers Mark Freeston, Michel Dugas and others at Laval University in Quebec. They were trying to understand the underpinnings of generalized anxiety disorder and excessive worry. Freeston said they developed the Intolerance for Uncertainty Scale on a hunch that there was a cognitive signature of those experiences. The scale asked people how much they agreed with phrases such as: “I should be able to organize everything in advance,” “I always want to know what the future has in store for me,” and “Uncertainty makes life intolerable.” How intolerance of uncertainty affects our mental health Too much unknown leads to some stress for nearly everyone. “Most people score in the middle for IU based on self report,” said Jayne Morriss, a lecturer in the School of Psychology at University of Southampton. Being intolerant of uncertainty can be helpful for survival, said Brady Nelson, an associate professor of clinical psychology at Stony Brook University. “It keeps us attentive and alert in uncertain and unfamiliar environments that could be associated with danger or threat,” he said. But when intolerance becomes very frequent, and a dominant part of how you interact with the world, it can lead to anxiety, worry and avoidance. People who score highly on the scale are bothered by even minor cases of uncertainty. It makes them stressed, irritable or anxious, and they are motivated to avoid it at all costs, or control their environments to reduce uncertainty as much as possible. According to Koerner, this can manifest in overplanning, not allowing spontaneity, repeated reassurance or information-seeking, and avoiding anything new or unfamiliar. Someone with high IU might make lists repeatedly, plan out conversations in their head, look at food menus before going to a restaurant or triple-check their driving routes. People with a higher intolerance can also react to events more impulsively, in order to resolve uncertainty as quickly as possible. For people with high levels of the trait, uncertainty is not just unpleasant, Koerner said: “It is more like, ‘I cannot stand it, I cannot cope with it.’” There are many kinds of uncertainty Uncertainty is not just one thing. Sometimes you don’t know what’s going to happen, but you are aware you’re going to encounter uncertainty. In other situations, you might not expect the unknown at all. Uncertainty can take place in the external world, like an uncertain outcome, or inside of us, like feeling uncertain. Researchers are teasing apart these differences now. Some people are more upset by prospective IU, or the anticipation of uncertainty. Others have higher inhibitory IU, meaning they freeze or can’t act when experiencing uncertainty. Sign up to Well Actually Free weekly newsletter Practical advice, expert insights and answers to your questions about how to live a good life Enter your email address Sign up Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. “Both types of individuals will tell you they dislike uncertainty, but the way they process and react to the uncertainty might differ a lot,” Nelson said. So far, research has mostly focused on how IU manifests in an individual, but there are probably systemic factors that make people more sensitive to uncertainty, like money scarcity, exposure to conflict or discrimination. This intolerance might apply to positive outcomes too. For instance, a person with higher IU would rather have a planned birthday party than a surprise birthday party, even if the surprise party could be more fun. People with higher IU and generalized anxiety disorder symptoms have been shown to dampen their positive emotions and savor their experiences less, and to think that situations with potentially positive outcomes have more threats attached to them. How to make peace with uncertainty People with mental health conditions who are interested in building their tolerance of uncertainty can work with a therapist to directly strengthen that, rather than examining or analyzing the content of their worries, Nelson said. In 2016, I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, a condition that is often paired with a high intolerance for uncertainty. In OCD treatment, which involved exposure therapy, I confronted my anxieties and learned how to better handle not knowing exactly what would happen. Instead of homing in on any one specific health anxiety, for example, I could instead confront my uncertainty of whether I’ll become ill one day. Because IU is associated with many mental health conditions, treating it could help with any or all of them, Nelson hopes. “Rather than attempting to treat multiple distinct mental health conditions, it might be more effective to focus treatment on increasing tolerance of uncertainty, which might alleviate multiple co-occurring problems,” he said. For milder discomfort with uncertainty that doesn’t cause significant distress or disruption to your life, you can build your own tolerance to uncertainty a little bit each day. Seek out opportunities to safely play around the edges of your routines. “For example, if you always do things in the same order, do the same familiar things, but in a different order,” Freeston said. If you go on the same walk each morning, flip the route and do it in the reverse direction. After experimenting with small exposures to uncertainty, challenge yourself to do other new things – nothing “big or scary, just things that are different and will initially feel uncomfortable”, Freeston said. “Over time, people can learn to tolerate uncertainty, and even accept and perhaps embrace the uncertainties in day-to-day life.” Life will always be full of unknowns. When facing the uncertain, you might feel discomfort, but there’s also a chance to try to feel curious and open. “Ask yourself, ‘What can I learn here?’” Koerner said. When we can find a way to be excited or intrigued by the unknown, rather than afraid, uncertainty becomes much more palatable. This article was amended on 10 April 2024 to clarify that Naomi Koerner is an associate professor of psychology at Toronto Metropolitan University. An earlier version incorrectly stated Koerner is a professor at Ryerson University.

Full

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/02/exit-west-mohsin-hamid-review-andrew-motion-migrants

Books

2017-03-02T07:30:11.000Z

Andrew Motion

Exit West by Mohsin Hamid review – magic and violence in migrants’ tale

Saeed and Nadia meet at an evening class in an unnamed, presumably Middle Eastern city “swollen by refugees” but not yet “openly at war”. Saeed is “an independent-minded, grown man, unmarried, with a decent post and a good education”. Nadia is less straightforward-seeming: she doesn’t pray but wears a “conservative and virtually all‑concealing black robe”, works in an insurance company but rides a “scuffed-up hundred-ish cc trail bike”, has veered off from her parents and lives alone. Saeed quickly falls in love with her. Nadia, to begin with at least, is “not certain exactly what she was feeling, but was certain it had force”. In previous novels, Hamid has used a heavily inflected narrative voice to filter everything through a personality that is not his own, but which he nevertheless owns as the author. In The Reluctant Fundamentalist we eavesdrop on a marvellously well-sustained dramatic monologue that reveals a great deal about its speaker, while also concealing precisely what he intends to do to his listener. In How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia, Hamid ingeniously adapts the form of a self-help book to create a tale-telling “you” who becomes intimately realised while remaining a nameless everyman. Exit West confidently adopts yet another kind of voice – a tone of radical simplicity that in the opening 50-odd pages borders on brutality, and makes every conversation, every detail, every scene feel at once vital and under threat. Predictably enough, this is most obvious in scenes of outright violence as militants close in on their city prey. Nadia’s doctor cousin is “blown to bits, literally to bits, the largest of which … were a head and two-thirds of an arm”. The man who sells Nadia and Saeed magic mushrooms is beheaded, then “strung up by one ankle from an electricity pylon where [his body] swayed legs akimbo until the shoelaces his executioners used instead of rope rotted and gave way”. Saeed’s own mother dies while looking in her car for a lost earring, “a stray heavy-calibre round passing through the windscreen … and taking with it a quarter of her head”. A major part of Hamid's achievement is to show how profoundly social damage injures private lives The mixture of clarity and restraint in such passages is very impressive, and confirms Hamid’s reputation as a brilliant ventriloquist who is deeply engaged with the most pressing issues of our time. It is also interestingly at odds with the device he then uses to connect his story with its remaining sections. Faced with imminent catastrophe, Saeed and Nadia escape from their city through a “black door” – one of several that briefly opens among the accumulating ruins. Although we have already been alerted to the existence of these doors – by rumours that our hero and heroine overhear, and also by passages that Hamid interpolates into his text, in which figures suddenly emerge from nowhere in places ranging from Australia to Marrakesh – they still seem remarkable. They maintain an element of magical strangeness opposed to the plainness of the prose in which they are presented, and lead us to think of the novel as a form of parable. And so it is – a parable of hideous contemporary familiarity and strangeness. Once Saeed and Nadia have passed through their door, they find themselves in a refugee camp on the Greek island of Mykonos, where in the process of feeling variously relieved, frightened, outraged and threatened, they plunge more and more deeply into the questions of identity and nationhood that dominate the remainder of the book. “In this group [on the island],” Hamid says, “everyone was foreign, and so, in a sense, no one was” – preparing us for an ideal of integration that his characters find variously attractive and difficult to achieve. When they leave the island by passing through another door to Germany, and then another that leads them to London, they enter a city that is rapidly “filling up with [the] tents and rough shelters” of other refugees, where every form of homogeneity is perceived to be under threat. Hamid describes these threats in terms that deliberately echo some of the intolerant voices raised by Brexiters: there is a “reclaim Britain for Britain” movement of “nativists”, for instance, which soon forces a political crisis. And not only political. A major part of Hamid’s achievement in Exit West is to show how profoundly social damage will injure private lives – not only in obvious ways (physical injury, homelessness), but by hampering the ability to construct any sort of life outside their sphere of influence. As Saeed and Nadia try to develop their own true selves, external pressures accentuate their different attitudes to sex, to worship, to how they view their homeland. At the same time, rootlessness causes the most widespread possible lack of integration, by provoking refugees from similar backgrounds to identify and shelter with others like themselves, rather than continue to live in a melting pot. Radically simplified style … Mohsin Hamid. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Guardian Saeed and Nadia fear that they are about to be engulfed in a second wave of carnage, and the ferocity of the opening scenes in Exit West will make every reader share their anxiety. But by this stage in the novel Hamid has in fact changed tack somewhat. He is now less interested in showing violence than in describing a solution to the problems it embodies. The military backs down. “Decency on this occasion [wins] out,” he tells us, “and bravery, for courage is demanded not to attack when afraid.” As Saeed and Nadia develop their own selves, external pressures accentuate their different attitudes to sex, to worship While this saves Saeed and Nadia from battle harm, it cannot undo the hurt already inflicted. As they begin working with other displaced people in a vast series of camps on the outskirts of London known as the “London Halo”, the distance that has opened between them only increases. In the process, Hamid’s simple style acquires an almost fairytale quality, as he continues to explore the extent to which personal lives are subordinate to political circumstances: “Every time a couple moves,” he says, “they begin … to see each other differently, for personalities are not a single immutable colour … So it was with Saeed and Nadia, who found themselves changed in each other’s eyes in this new place.” The narrative depends on clear storytelling so much for its effect, and Hamid makes this clarity a means of generating suspense. So suffice it to say that while Saeed and Nadia continue to try to prove their individuality in ways that are not entirely dictated by war and its consequences, they also continue to function as a means for Hamid to think about questions of national identity and social cohesion. This makes for a comparatively quiet conclusion to a book that began with fire and blood. When he approaches his conclusion by asserting that “We are all migrants through time”, and when he shows Saeed feeling that “it might be possible, in the face of death, to believe in humanity’s potential for building a better world”, his bare-statement style works against him. Initially it compelled us to sup full of horrors. Now it seems a little thin, and therefore conveys a sense of wishful thinking. Perhaps this is always a risk when writers use the same style to dream of utopia after toiling through a dystopia. But it nevertheless means that we exit Exit West admiring its depiction of nightmare more deeply than we feel persuaded by its description of a bright future – no matter how much we might sympathise with the principles defining that future. Andrew Motion’s latest collection is Peace Talks (Faber). Exit West is published by Hamish Hamilton. To order a copy for £9.99 (RRP £14.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99.

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https://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/apr/21/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries

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2004-04-21T01:21:48.000Z

Nicholas Serota

Obituary: Nigel Greenwood

In the early 1970s the number of galleries in London committed to showing international developments in contemporary art, and especially European art, could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Nigel Greenwood Inc Ltd was one of the four. Alongside the Lisson, Situation and Jack Wendler, the gallery of Nigel Greenwood, who has died aged 62, played a crucial part in introducing the work of emerging artists to the then small audience for contemporary art in London. He achieved this with verve, without significant financial backing and in a way that confounded the conventions of his own upbringing. Greenwood was born in Devon into a naval family and, after schooling in Elstree and at Sherborne, won an exhibition to read history at Christ Church, Oxford University. Once there, he found that Oxford offered no opportunity to study the art history that had become a passion. Sent down at the end of his first year, not least because of his inability to master Latin, he took himself to Italy as a prelude to studying art history at London's Courtauld Institute. He spent a year in Rome improving his Italian, while teaching geography and, ironically, Latin at the English school and by playing the romantic lead in photo-romance magazines. At the Courtauld he studied under Anthony Blunt and the abstract painter and historian of cubism John Golding, who became a lifelong friend. Greenwood graduated in 1965, but was determined that his practice should be "to make history, rather than to record it", observing in a characteristic aside that the choice was made, "rather than dig around in dusty old archives looking for yet more laundry bills of Michelangelo". Golding introduced Greenwood to his own gallery, Axiom, where he served an apprenticeship as the gallery manager, promoting the work of progressive British abstract painters and artists working in the traditions of constructivism. By 1969, Greenwood was working independently, seeking less conventional spaces in which to show artists whose work was not being taken up by West End galleries. Among his activities he assisted the Stockwell group of sculptors, including Roland Brener, Roelof Louw and Peter Hide, in realising a series of annual exhibitions in a former industrial building in south London. These established the tradition of independent exhibitions mounted by artists. Greenwood also took over a studio space in Glebe Place where he operated as Nigel Greenwood Inc Ltd, a name deliberately chosen for its transatlantic resonance and because he could not bear the idea of being simply "limited". At Glebe Place he showed in quick succession the paintings of John Golding, works in mixed media by Keith Milow, the now legendary first presentation in England of Gilbert & George's Underneath The Arches and an exhibition devoted to the books of Ed Ruscha. The range - abstract painting, a first one-man show, performance and printed books - is indicative of the programme that was to follow during the next 20 years. At the Courtauld, Greenwood had developed a sympathy for art history based on observation rather than documents. This led to a special affection for drawing and for gestural abstract painting. Greenwood was an enthusiastic admirer of the work of John Walker, and later promoted the emerging work of Christopher Le Brun, Ian McEever and Terry Setch. He particularly enjoyed the business of visiting the studios of younger artists, engaging in conversation, discovering talent and then presenting a first solo show followed by a regular succession of exhibitions which nurtured and promoted knowledge of the work in Britain and abroad. Keith Milow, Gilbert & George, John Stezaker, David Tremlett, Rita Donagh, Alan Johnston and later McKeever, Le Brun, Stephen Cox and Dhruva Mistry all showed first and often frequently with Greenwood early in their careers. Greenwood was committed to what he called "introducing" the work to an audience, and his idealism encouraged him to follow the example of Ed Ruscha in publishing artists' books in editions of 500 or 1000, rather than catalogues. He saw this as a way of placing an "original" in the hands of an audience that could not afford to purchase a unique work of art. The gallery mounted the seminal exhibition Book As Artwork in 1972 and several of his "exhibitions" were essentially the launch of an important publication, as with Gilbert & George's books Side By Side (1972), and Dark Shadow (1976). In 1971 Greenwood had established his gallery in the two lofty ground floor rooms of an apartment in Sloane Gardens, off Sloane Square, obliging him to live in the twilight of the basement zone. Living "below the shop" suited a character who thrived on the cut and thrust of sharp, witty debate and a regular stream of visitors. Set up in the back room, he would allow you to look first at the exhibition, then at the international collection of artists' books which lined the entrance hall before engaging you in conversation or enthusiastically asking an assistant to show you further material. And what a talent he had for choosing and then inspiring his assistants. Lynda Morris, now director of the Norwich Gallery, Mark Francis, later at the Whitechapel, now at Gagosian via Pittsburgh, Ann Gallagher, now at the British Council, Anna Moszynska, now teaching at Sotheby's Institute of Art, and Anthony Wilkinson, now with his own gallery, all found in Greenwood early employment, introductions and wisdom. Given his discerning eye and commitment, the gallery rapidly gained respect, and sales to museums followed. However, selling contemporary art in London has never been easy. With very few British collectors, Greenwood found himself in competition with his German and Belgian peers in selling the work of British artists like Gilbert & George and David Tremlett to foreign collectors. The family atmosphere at Sloane Gardens always made a visit a memorable experience, the more so after his marriage to Hester van Roijen in 1977 and the birth of his daughter Phoebe the following year, when the cries of a small baby and later the laughter of a small child would fill the gallery from one of the basement rooms. The marriage ended in 1980, but the way in which Greenwood continued to share in the upbringing of his daughter was a delight. From 1981 Greenwood's partner was François Gilles, and together they formed a circle of close and intensely loyal friends. In the early 1980s the nature of the art market changed. Greenwood had never had much capital, being supported by professionals, such as Brian Boylan, a director of the design consultants Wolff Olins, rather than by bankers or family money. He found himself under some pressure to relocate to a more central and grander space in which larger and more varied exhibitions could be presented to an audience which was now more interested in the experience of painting and sculpture than in conceptual art. The shows at New Burlington Street, presented in a sequence of beautiful top-lit spaces, were more conventional than those at Sloane Gardens, but were displayed to great effect by Greenwood, whose eye for hanging paintings was always sharp. By now Greenwood was recognised as a major player in the British art world and in 1985 he was invited to select the Hayward Annual exhibition, the only dealer ever to be asked to do so. He made a personal selection of artists across several generations, and in a coup de theatre reinstalled in the tall entrance gallery the huge drawings made by Gilbert & George for the exhibition The New Art, which in 1972 had announced the arrival of a new generation, including Richard Long, Barry Flanagan, Art & Language and David Tremlett. In 1992, following the downturn in the art market in the late 1980s, Greenwood closed his gallery, having lost the appetite for making an exhibition every month. Thereafter, he continued as a private dealer and adviser, displaying his flair in bringing together fine objects and a willingness to recognise qualities inherent in many different kinds of art across generations and periods. He also had an ability, rare in someone of such achievement and experience, to recognise the transience and capriciousness of success. He would enjoy gently mocking the pomposity of an artist, critic or curator who was taking himself too seriously, but was no less tough on himself, deflecting recognition of his own achievements. Throughout his life, Greenwood showed how to dispense with convention by doing things in his own way and with an inimitable fresh style. He is survived by his daughter, Phoebe, and his partner François Gilles. Adrian Searle writes: Nigel Greenwood gave me my first solo show, in 1988, I think to our mutual surprise. Getting him to come to my studio was a frustrating business of cancelled appointments. When he finally made it, he accidentally broke my coffee pot, got paint on his trousers and found he had locked himself out of his car. He gave me the show anyway. This was typical. He was a man in slight disarray, but forever enthusiastic, generous and thoughtful. His tastes were broad, and he showed a bewildering, even erratic, range of artists, all of whom, like himself, were marked by their independent-mindedness. He was one of the few British gallerists to look as much to Europe as to America in the 1970s, as enthusiastic for unknown artists as for those with international reputations. It is difficult for those not around in the London art world of the 1970s and 80s to realise how difficult a world it was for a young artist - yet Nigel's door was always open, and he followed his enthusiasms with scant regard to financial risk, even less care for fashion. He went his own way. He may have been better at discovering artists than keeping them, but if not for him several major careers would not have been launched, others would not have been sustained through lean years, and for two decades his gallery made the British art world a better place. His greatest pride, however, was in his daughter, Phoebe, now a journalist. · Nigel Palin Greenwood, gallery owner, born May 28 1941; died April 14 2004

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