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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/09/i-was-freaking-out-about-our-babys-arrival-when-my-friend-reminded-me-youre-still-you-but-with-kids | Life and style | 2024-01-08T14:00:43.000Z | Jasper Peach | I was freaking out about our baby’s arrival when my friend reminded me, ‘You’re still you – but with kids’ | Advice can be a funny thing. It can slide off like Teflon or land right where, and when, you need it. Back in 2017 my mate Kearnsie had popped round for a cuppa and a chat. As we sat in the sunny kitchen with tea and bickies, I looked through the goodies she’d brought along for my wife and I’s pending arrival. After four years of trying, our first kid was on the way. Blooming beautifully in my wife’s belly. We knew everything would change, and to be frank, we were freaking out.
Kearnsie had brought some special bits and bobs she’d saved from when her kids were little: gorgeous vintage overalls and tiny terry-towelling T-shirts. It wasn’t all she gave us that day. As we leaned in to absorb the answers to questions we fired off about every potential need this baby would have, we hungrily took mental notes. Thankfully someone around here knew what they were doing.
The chat changed direction and we started musing about our identities as fully formed adults with our own needs and wants. When would we be able to be us again, as a couple and as individuals? Was that time over?
It was a simple phrase but one that hit like a lightning bolt. She said it like it was no big deal. “You’re still you, but with kids.”
I was five years old when the teacher yelled at me: ‘Get your head in the water … NOW!’
Denise Cullen
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Oh! It hadn’t occurred to either of us, really. I had grappled with this idea that I would have to disappear, to be a carbon copy of my mother (lovely as she is), to sacrifice everything I need to feel alive and safe. But Kearnsie had given me this epic yet simple reassurance – I’m still me … with kids.
That baby has just wrapped up their first year at school. It’s been a huge success with lots of friends and a new reading habit. Just like they’ve found their own groove outside our home and away from us, when the time was right my partner and I did the same. We’ve both had career changes that followed our interests, and faced the requisite existential crises and rapid life changes people tend to at this stage of the game.
When we’d approach one another with a fanciful idea and felt a bit shy about making these leaps, the other would gently offer a reminder. “Remember Kearnsie? You’re you, with kids.” Inhabiting who we are has helped us thrive.
It wasn’t just the big moments either. When a baby-shaped sleepy potato pudding joins your family, the first stretch is spent in protection mode. How do we best keep this person alive and flourishing? It’s easy to forget that you have a spine that needs to be held at a certain angle to prevent ongoing crushing agony. Many a midnight I whispered to myself “I’m me, with a baby” as I strapped my fussy babe into the gentle automated rocker we found on marketplace. I was present and protecting both of us, seeing the way we both had needs. As we got to know each other, I learned my baby’s rhythms and knew when the rocker could stand in and when I could gather them up in my arms to deposit safely in their cot. We’d both get a better night’s sleep and be ready to roll as the sun came up.
Needs will never be in short supply in any household. Rapid change and endless days and nights are all part and parcel of parenting, and if you don’t check in with yourself it’s easy for your awareness of your own needs to disappear. I hold on to the idea that I matter, even though my children also matter. There’s ample room for all of us. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/aug/04/labour-would-extend-right-to-wild-camp-to-all-english-national-parks | Environment | 2023-08-04T10:07:31.000Z | Helena Horton | Labour would extend right to wild camp to all English national parks | Labour would extend the right to wild camp to all national parks if elected, the party has said following the restoration of the right on Dartmoor by the high court.
On Monday, the court of appeal ruled that wild camping on Dartmoor was lawful without landowner permission, overturning a high court ruling in favour of a landowner who wanted to ban the practice. Ruling on the appeal, Sir Geoffrey Vos, the master of the rolls, said wild camping counted as “open-air recreation” as allowed in the 1985 Dartmoor Commons Act.
The high-profile case brought to light a love for wild camping across all sections of British society and campaigners are hatching plans for legislation to widen the legal right to wild camp without landowner permission.
The shadow environment minister, Alex Sobel, said: “Labour would legislate so that people visiting national parks have the right to wild camp, as well as expanding public access to woodlands and waterways.”
The Guardian view on wild camping at Dartmoor: immersion in beauty is legal after all
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Some point to Scotland’s successful legislation around wild camping, where the Land Reform (Scotland) Acts 2003 and 2016 enshrine the right to responsibly access land and inland water for recreation purposes. An accompanying Scottish Outdoor Access Code defines responsible access, explicitly including the right to wild camp.
Similar models that enshrine the right to wild camp as part of a broader freedom to roam exist in Europe. For example, Sweden’s Allemansrätten creates an important basis for outdoor recreation across Scandinavia and promotes the right of everyone to enjoy nature.
Kate Ashbrook is the general secretary of the Open Spaces Society, which provided legal help to the Dartmoor case. Founded in 1865, it is Britain’s oldest national conservation body.
She hopes the response to the Dartmoor case could lead to the right to wild camp being extended across England in areas where ramblers have access under the Countryside and Rights of Way Act.
“The Dartmoor case has shown how much people want and need to be able to enjoy backpack camping, but there are very few places where they have that right,” Ashbrook said.
“The easiest way to extend wild camping is to remove the restriction in the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (Crow) so that all the access land mapped under Crow (mountain, moor, heath, down, and registered common land) would be available for backpack camping. Where appropriate this could then be restricted on an individual basis. That could be achieved through secondary legislation, regulations, and would open up thousands of hectares to wild camping by right. It would be a great start.”
Nick Hall, from the Campaign for National Parks, supports wild camping being allowed in all national parks – as long as people act responsibly and leave no trace.
“Recognising the long tradition of this low-impact way of accessing and enjoying our protected landscapes, Campaign for National Parks believes there is a case for the creation of a rights-based approach to leave-no-trace wild camping on open access land in National p arks (England and Wales),” he said, “This would be contingent on the successful completion of trials to assess the impact of wild camping on communities and the local environment.
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“As a minimum, this can be achieved through amending Crow to include wild camping as permissible outdoor recreation, with an accompanying responsible access code of conduct.”
There is legislation going through parliament calling for this. The Green MP Caroline Lucas has put forward the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (amendment) bill that seeks the “right to camp on access land”, and the Liberal Democrats have tabled an early day motion that “calls on the government to bring forward new legislation to safeguard the rights of individuals to continue using national park land for camping without hindrance”.
However, both of these are unlikely to pass and do not have government support. Those who want wild camping rights to become more widespread may need to hope next year’s general election elects a greater number of MPs who believe in extending land rights.
Kevin Bishop, the chief executive of the Dartmoor National Park Authority, said he had been consulting with other national park CEOs on a policy to allow all children to spend a night under the stars as part of the curriculum.
He said: “Any move to extend the right to roam needs to be accompanied with a programme that connects people, at an early age, with the countryside. English national parks have an ambition that every young person will have an opportunity to visit a national park as part of their formal education.”
David Butterworth, the CEO of the Yorkshire Dales national park, agreed. He said: “I am personally supportive of the Scottish model in relation to access. The principle is a fine one but England is a different country, we need to look at practical implementation. There really has to be a better link between education and the use of the countryside. We have an aim we would like to see in manifestos that every school child should have a right to have a night under the stars in a national park near to them, so they would realise from a young age why these landscapes are precious. They are to be loved, not to be abused.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/oct/29/im-a-bloated-overpraised-hollywood-guy-the-white-lotus-creator-mike-white-on-sex-god-and-disliking-success | Television & radio | 2022-10-29T06:00:52.000Z | Xan Brooks | ‘I’m a bloated, overpraised Hollywood guy’: The White Lotus creator Mike White on sex, God and disliking success | “L
uxury problems,” says writer-director Mike White, appearing via Zoom from his house in Hawaii. He’s 10 minutes late because he totally forgot we were meeting. He’s hunting for his glasses which turn out to be on his head. This past week has been manic, what with the edit of season two of his HBO comedy The White Lotus, the premiere, the press calls and round tables. “I feel pulverised,” he declares and then promptly laughs at himself. Luxury problems, he knows, aren’t really problems at all. “Also, you don’t want to be the guy who complains because he has a hit show.”
Season one of The White Lotus made White an overnight star at the age of 52. His class-war satire scooped 10 awards at the Emmys last month. It’s his biggest (some say only) mainstream success since he wrote 2003’s School of Rock. White can’t explain it. He suspects it must be a blip. “I’ve done so much weird-ass stuff,” he says, shrugging. “This is only a little frozen moment in time.”
The White Lotus season two review – this immaculate show’s writing is utterly unrivalled
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On-screen, White has an occasional sideline playing grinning, guileless man-boys (notably as School of Rock’s Ned Schneebly). As a writer, though, he’s pitiless, unsparing, a beady-eyed chronicler of so much human frailty. Shot during lockdown, the first season of The White Lotus lifted the lid on a five-star Hawaiian resort, cutting between the pampered guests and the harried staff. It told us that every millionaire’s vacation is built on the back of someone else’s misery. It showed us that every self-styled escape is a prison in disguise. The exotic setting, White jokes, helped sugar-coat the bleak message. It made viewers think they were getting Fantasy Island instead.
It’s not just the backdrop. Maybe the people help, too. The way White sees it, he typically writes scripts which focus on one central character: Laura Dern’s crusading former executive in the Golden Globe-winning TV series Enlightened; Jennifer Aniston’s wayward cashier in 2003 movie The Good Girl. More often than not, these protagonists are polarising figures. Some viewers like them; many others do not. Whereas on The White Lotus he simply doubled down, spread his net. “So there are more entry points because I’ve hedged my bets. I thought that instead of one difficult character, I’ll write 10, I’ll write 12. Audiences seem to respond to that more.”
He conceived The White Lotus as a standalone story. It’s now its own boutique franchise, with the second season set in a sister resort in Sicily and a fresh cast that includes Aubrey Plaza, Michael Imperioli and F. Murray Abraham. The one hangover from the last vacation is Jennifer Coolidge, reprising her Emmy-winning turn as the tragic, needy Tanya. In one episode she comes tottering through the hotel lobby to demand that the manager find her a psychic right away. “I want a real, authentic old-world gypsy,” she says, as though ordering a drink from a cocktail menu.
‘We’re booked until April 2023’: The White Lotus effect on Sicily’s glitziest town
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White, for his part, has no need of a psychic. He accepts that he’s probably got another hit on his hand. The prospect, however, appears to make him uncomfortable. He’s grown used to his role as a cherished underdog, a creator of cult favourites (like Salma Hayek-starring movie Beatriz at Dinner) and TV pilots that never quite left the runway (Mamma Dallas). He always saw himself as part of Hollywood’s service industry. How unnerving to realise that he’s joined the elite.
Back in 2018, in a break from the day job, he appeared on the US reality show Survivor’s biblical themed spin-off Survivor: David vs. Goliath and clawed his way to the final. The experience was terrific; it taught him the best way to compete. On reality TV, he explains, you’ve got to keep your threat level low. That way people like you and root for you. But if you stick your head up, then well, you’re only asking for trouble.
“Like, I’ve just been reading some reviews of this new season [of The White Lotus]. And they’re very positive. I’m very happy. But they’re all like, ‘OK, great show’, as if this was expected.” He gropes for his glasses. “I guess I liked being the underrated, under-the-radar guy. Now I’m the bloated, overpraised old Hollywood whatever.”
The White Lotus scooped 10 Emmy awards last month, including for outstanding writing and directing. Photograph: Frederic J Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Reality TV, he says, remains a key creative touchstone, because it provides a live drama most screenwriters can’t match. But his upbringing in a conservative Christian community is the real wellspring for his writing. “I was a minister’s kid,” he explains, having been raised by the Reverend Dr Mel White. “The minister wheels his family out and says: ‘Look at us, we’re a good example of a God-fearing family.’ And as a kid, I was like: ‘Well this just isn’t how it is.’”
While he tried to be devout, he felt that something was missing; the teachings never sat right. “I remember going to religious summer camp and people would go out into the night and accept Jesus into their hearts. But I never bought in; I was kind of sceptical. It made me very alienated.”
At the age of 11, he discovered that his father was gay. Mel later reinvented himself as a gay rights activist. He wrote a memoir (Stranger at the Gate), co-founded a Christian LGBT group (Soulforce) and toured the country to explain that “being gay is a gift from God”. But it was that early schism – that rupture between our public and private selves – which has fascinated his son ever since.
“I grew up in this religion where nobody was honest about who they were and what was really going on,” he says. “And part of my impulse to write has always been about wanting to poke fun at that gap and to show people as they really are – complex, base and flawed. That’s why I’m always resistant about creating characters who are likable, who people can rally around, because that feels too easy. Because we’re basically animals, we’re essentially monkeys. In a religious community people like to claim a connection to a higher spiritual dimension. That’s how they want to be perceived. But there’s always this human, animal undertow that’s pulling us away from all that.”
The White Lotus review – 2021’s best, and most uncomfortable, TV show
Read more
On arriving in Hollywood, White worked as a writer on Dawson’s Creek and the much-missed Paul Feig-created high-school series Freaks and Geeks. But one of his first forays into the limelight was as the creator and co-star of the 2000 film Chuck and Buck. He played Buck, the creepy Peter Pan who stalks his former best friend around town, desperate to rekindle their pre-pubescent romance. Chuck and Buck was a delirious one-off, a wanton affront to good taste. If nothing else, it seemed to establish White as a rogue agent, an id: hiding out in the shadows, throwing grenades from the wings.
With hindsight, he says, he’s glad that mainstream success didn’t arrive any sooner. It would have screwed him up, turned his head. He recalls meeting prominent screenwriters back when he was first starting out and mainly being struck by how unhappy they were. “It was like they’d won in Vegas – pulled the lever, hit the jackpot – and now wanted to be chasing that high every time. They expected unconditional love, or a perfect understanding from the world.” He blinks in dismay. “And that level of success makes you self-conscious. You start adjusting who you are in order to win the game. That’s a recipe for producing lesser work. But it’s also a recipe for disappointment in life.”
In the meantime, here he is. Top of the world, king of the hill, with a shelf full of Emmys and his bank balance bulging. The second season of The White Lotus is done and is almost as good as the first, although it feels somehow sadder, more sombre, haunted by the ghosts of old Europe as the guests drift from the palazzo to the ruin to the flyblown locations from The Godfather Part 2. “I wanted to do a kind of operatic roundelay,” White says. “Mismatched lovers. People sneaking into hotel rooms. More of a sexual revolving door. I think that keeps it interesting, the idea that the content is shape-shifting. So when people come back to the show it’s not the same as it was before.”
In The White Lotus’s first, Hawaii-based season, he says, he most identified with the character of Armond, the doomed resort manager, superbly embodied by Australian actor Murray Bartlett. In Sicily, though, he found himself gravitating towards Tom Hollander’s Quentin, a waspish, old-money gadfly who owns an opulent villa in the hills. “I’m not as sophisticated as him, but I aspire to be. He’s like this Gore Vidal figure. I guess I’d like to be Gore Vidal.”
All being well, he might make a third season, possibly set in Asia next time, assuming HBO gives the green light. But inevitably he’s conflicted. Having finally landed in paradise, he’s already circling back towards the departure lounge.
“Even articulating this, I sound like an idiot,” he says. “But I’m not a keep-the-franchise-alive kind of guy. I’m not a big-tent entertainment person. I don’t want to always be writing about rich people in front of infinity pools.” Success is a trap. Too much comfort spells death. In White’s words, if his show tells us anything, it’s that: “At some point you have to burn the whole house to the ground.”
The White Lotus is available from 31 October on Sky Atlantic and the streaming service NOW. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/aug/14/music-hallogallo-new-flying-lotus | Music | 2010-08-13T23:06:39.000Z | John Robinson | This week's new live music | Hallogallo Neu! 2010, Edinburgh
Beneath the serene pulses of their motorik beats and the glacial reverb of their guitar, the relationship between Neu! founder members Klaus Dinger and Michael Rother was not always placid. Together for three essential albums, the pair's relationship foundered over the creation of their fourth, Neu! 86, and had not entirely recovered at the time of Dinger's death in 2008. This probably won't surprise you if you've heard their later work, which sounds like Hawkwind produced by Stock, Aitken & Waterman, but indirectly it's this which has led to Hallogallo 2010. A Neu! box set from earlier this year included a finished version of '86, and testified to their mounting influence. Now, Rother feels the time is right to honour the music (and his former comrade) live.
HMV Picture House, Tue
John Robinson
Flying Lotus, London
There's a strong tradition of the cosmic around Flying Lotus. His great aunt, Alice Coltrane, made music that essayed the spiritual and celestial. Now LA resident Stephen Ellison, assisted by nothing but Thom Yorke, medical marijuana and his own strong vision, is doing his own bit for musical space exploration. If you've been wandering the galaxies looking for the next DJ Shadow, then FlyLo's second album, the heavy psychedelic hip-hop of Cosmogramma, may mark the end of your voyage. For his next trick, Ellison will be going to several places where no man has gone before. At least, not in such quick succession. First up, he'll head to a car park to play live, supported by, among others, Kode 9. Then it's to the Tate Modern to play his live soundtrack to Harry Smith's Heaven & Earth Magic. He comes back down to earth with a live set at the ICA. Hearn Street Car Park, EC2, Sat; Tate Modern Starr Auditorium, SE1; ICA, SW1, Wed
John Robinson
Green Man Festival, Brecon
Green pastures. Encroaching mists. Dramatic hills. The raw ingredients of the Green Man Festival don't only sound like the setting for a folk-based festival, they sound themselves like the setting for a folk song. A meeting of both traditional folk and the more modern groups loosely interpreting the music, Green Man is not at all a dogmatic place, its mellow setting of a piece with the activities within. That's not to say, however, that the event's headliners are not heavyweights: this year the event plays host to the baroque tales of Joanna Newsom and the increasingly rowdy and freeform Flaming Lips, while indie stalwarts Doves headline on Friday. Further down the bill, the notional folkiness is preserved with the likes of the impressive Unthanks, the excellent Alasdair Roberts, and the rather more commercially successful proponents of acoustic music: Laura Marling, and the ebullient Mumford & Sons.
Glanusk Park, Usk, Fri to 22 Aug
John Robinson
Barbara Morrison, Edinburgh
Barbara Morrison, at Edinburgh's Outhouse, to 29 Aug.
Barbara Morrison, the irrepressibly entertaining Michigan-born jazz, blues and gospel singer, is a big favourite at Edinburgh, and this three-week run confirms the festival's faith in her pulling power. Introduced to Scotland by local pianist Tom Finlay, Morrison is steeped in the traditions established by Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Carmen McRae, but she learned a vaudevillian playfulness as a child, and has never lost the sense that the audience is as important to the show as anything onstage. Her musical partners have included Ray Charles, Dizzy Gillespie, Dr John, Nancy Wilson and Mel Torme, but Morrison can make even smoochmeister Liberace's songs sound hip.
Outhouse, to 29 Aug
John Fordham
Les Enfants Terribles, London
The Grimeborn Opera festival's jokey name may signal its healthy disregard for anything associated with the operatic establishment, but it also belies the seriousness of what its programme contains. Like Tête à Tête's festival taking place concurrently on the other side of London, Grimeborn acts as a host for small-scale music-theatre companies with productions that have already been elsewhere. Some shows, though, are brand new, and the final one this year is the Volta Theatre Company's staging of Philip Glass's Les Enfants Terribles, a UK premiere. In the 1990s Glass completed a trilogy of stage works based upon films by Jean Cocteau, and his 1996 version of Les Enfants Terribles – labelled a dance opera by Glass – was scored for three singers and a troupe of dancers who portray the action between them, accompanied by three keyboards.
Arcola Theatre, E8, Fri
Andrew Clements
BBC Symphony Orchestra, London
Ten o'clock on a Friday evening isn't exactly one of the prime slots in the Proms schedule. But some of the most intriguing programmes are often found tucked away in that late-night ghetto where they won't upset the mainstream audience, and music from the postwar English and American experimental traditions certainly falls into that category. The conductor of this sequence of John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, Howard Skempton and Morton Feldman, is the BBC Scottish Symphony's former chief Ilan Volkov, whose programming was such a breath of fresh air when he was in charge of the orchestra. Two of the works, Cage's clangorous First Construction in Metal and Skempton's hypnotic Lento, are relatively well known, but both Cardew's Bun No 1 and Feldman's Piano and Orchestra will be receiving their London premieres. It's a wonderfully bold and challenging programme, and a real treat for anyone interested in the music of the second half of the 20th century.
Royal Albert Hall, SW7, Fri
Andrew Clements | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/mar/08/guardianobituaries1 | News | 1999-03-08T02:16:13.000Z | Ronald Bergan | Stanley Kubrick obituary | Over 40 years the enigmatic and reclusive director Stanley Kubrick, who has died suddenly aged 70, made only 13 feature films, yet the scrupulous care with which he chose his subjects, his extremely slow method of working, the years of planning, the secrecy involved, the attendant speculation and publicity, his obsessive personality and the nature of his films built up an aura around every new work which ensured serious critical attention, as well as interest from the general public. In each of his deeply pessimistic movies about the past, present and future, Kubrick strove to overcome technical and textual difficulties and was always prepared to venture into new territory.
For Kubrick’s 1962 Lolita, the age of Nabokov’s nymphette was raised into her teens to make it more acceptable to cinema audiences, thereby changing Humbert Humbert’s ‘perverse passion’ into an acceptable one. This, and the reduction of the importance of the American landscape in the novel - it was shot in England - still did not detract from the acerbic comedy, played to perfection by James Mason and Peter Sellers. While his unflinching 1987 Vietnam war film Full Metal Jacket suffered similarly from being shot in England because of the director’s refusal to fly, it was permeated with the deepest cynicism, at its best in the brutal documentary-like boot camp sequences.
If Lolita approached a 20th century masterpiece, Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb, in 1964, got as close as possible to a 20th century nightmare. Far more effective than more sombre efforts, it elected to view the end of the world as the ultimate absurdity, and frighteningly embodies Kubrick’s 1957 anti-militarism, first revealed in the bitterly ironic and moving First World War drama Paths Of Glory, which starred Kirk Douglas. The film, which also featured Kubrick’s third wife, now widow, the German actress and painter Christiane Susanne Harlan, as a cafe singer entertaining French troops, was banned in France until relatively recently because of its unflattering depiction of the French army. Doctor Strangelove’s message that there is no future was contradicted by Kubrick’s next two movies, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) and A Clockwork Orange (1971). It was these two films that turned Kubrick into a cult director.
For a film that wryly condemned a hyper-technical future, 2001 was a high-tech product in itself, not far behind the futuristic world it depicted. Although technically light years ahead of many previous space odysseys, it lagged behind intellectually. The simple message that man will merely become a machine of a machine (in this case the robot Hal) was decked out with man’s relationship with his primitive beginnings, and finally man regressing psychologically through time.
The use of The Blue Danube acted as an ironic counterpoint to the futuristic images just as Singin’ In The Rain and Beethoven’s Ninth were used as a background to violence in A Clockwork Orange. However, it merely pinpointed the self-conscious and over-emphatic view of the Britain of the future, and now looks dated. The film’s reputation grew because of Kubrick’s paranoid ban on its showing in Great Britain, because he felt it would encourage the violence he feared behind the walls of his Hertfordshire mansion. For many cinema-goers, the long, lavish and loving recreation of 18th sensibility in Barry Lyndon (1975), based on Thackeray’s novel, which recreated the colours and lighting of the great English landscape painters, seemed far superior. Designer Ken Adam, cameraman John Alcott and art director Roy Walker all won Oscars for their work. Kubrick started each sequence with a long shot, as if looking at a painting, and then gradually moved in to depict the harsh life within the frame. From this elegant evocation of the Age of Reason, seen from a 20th-century perspective, he moved to the late 20th century madness of The Shining (1980) adapted from the Stephen King novel. Here again he resorted to unsubtle shock treatment.
Stanley Kubrick was born in the Bronx, the son of American Jews of Central European origin. His father, a well-known doctor, introduced him to chess at the age of 12 and to photography the following year, when he gave him his first camera for his birthday. The gift took the young Stanley’s mind off his other passions jazz, and his dream of becoming a professional drummer. He left school at 17 with poor grades, but later became an omnivorous reader and autodidact. He was one of Look magazine’s best photographers and the subject of his first documentary in 1950, Day Of The Fight, was the middleweight boxer Walter Cartier, on whom he had done a photo feature. Four years later he shot the noirish mini-feature Killer’s Kiss in the streets of New York for $40,000 given to him by a Bronx chemist. It featured his second wife, Ruth Sobotka, who played the role of a dancer.
Because of the promise of Killer’s Kiss, United Artists decided to gamble on the 26-year-old Kubrick and invest $200,000 in The Killing in 1956. A first-class heist movie emerged and earned more than its money back. In 1960, Kirk Douglas asked Kubrick to replace Anthony Mann, with whom he had had serious disagreements, on Spartacus. This epic is an exception in Kubrick’s oeuvre in that he had no control of the casting, nor did he contribute to the screenplay. All the rest of his films bore his unique mark, as will presumably the most eagerly-awaited movie of the last decade, Eyes Wide Shut, based on Artur Schnitzler’s short novel about sexual jealousy with Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise. Dictatorial, Kubrick jealously guarded his autonomy and never really became absorbed into the system on which he was financially dependent. For years he had tried to make a film about Napoleon, with whom he seemed to identify. He once made an an analogy between Napoleon’s meticulous military campaigns and his own method of filming.
Peter Lennon writes:
In the spring of 1996, I was asked to get the facts about a rumour that Stanley Kubrick was about to break a nine-year silence and start shooting a new film. Normally a film company is only too happy to help with advance publicity title, story, stars but it was no use asking Warner Bros. Not that they wouldn’t tell, but they were just as much in the dark. ‘We are emotionally and financially committed to Mr Kubrick since 1970,’ was all they would say. All his cast and technicians were sworn to secrecy too.
Kubrick had long given up Hollywood and created his own private barred-and-gated-by-fence-and-trespass-law film world. The Kubrick Rumour page on the Internet was bubbling with outlandish guesses: It was the one he had planned on artificial intelligence? It wasn’t. Must be the Eastern Europe project? Wrong again.
The only way to find out about that normally-most-public of events - a film shoot - was to find some ex-retainer who was still in touch with Kubrick’s core production team. His neighbour in Childwickbury, St Albans, said she knew nothing about Mr Kubrick or his film-making; she could not even see his house because of the thick wood between them. Trawling the world for technicians who had worked with him, I touched gold: a top lighting cameraman who knew his ways was crucial to his work.
I tracked down Douglas Milsome, who had worked with Kubrick since A Space Odyssey, and was by then shooting a film with Kurt Russell. In the nine years that had passed, and in a distant environment but delighted to be working with Kubrick again Milsome was off guard. He actually admitted that he had been signed on to start work with Kubrick in June, but then became alarmed. ‘I don’t like to say more,’ he said. ‘In fact, I don’t know that much more.’
From that certainty I learned who the scriptwriter was: Frederick Raphael, who, wrestling with internal demons of detestation (I had given him some bad reviews in the past) and old-fashioned courtesy, actually admitted he was doing the job, and I got the title: Eyes Wide Shut. About jealousy. The names of the stars were no trouble to find: Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman. But they were mute as turtles.
One afternoon I drove to the gate of Kubrick’s estate and gazed longingly over the five-barred gate with warnings about trespassing at the distant house, which was also his studio. I went no further.
We published the piece in May. Two days later, we got a letter from Kubrick’s lawyer threatening to sue for invasion of privacy. Garbo was an amateur when it came to wanting to be alone.
Stanley Kubrick, film director, born July 26, 1928; died March 7, 1999. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/07/tribalism-and-hypocrisy-dog-claudine-gay-furore-neither-tackle-issues-it-raises | Opinion | 2024-01-07T09:30:17.000Z | Kenan Malik | Claudine Gay’s ousting reveals that the messenger is still an easier target than the message | Kenan Malik | For some, she is the wretched epitome of the liberal elite; for others, the victim of a “racist mob”. She herself condemns her critics for having “recycled tired racial stereotypes”. As an illustration of the way that culture wars warp political judgment and push people into tribal corners, the case of Claudine Gay may be Exhibit 1.
Gay, who became Harvard University’s first black president in July, was forced last week to resign, the culmination of a bitter controversy at the heart of which are tussles over some of the most polarising issues of the day: racism, antisemitism, plagiarism, free speech and diversity.
The controversy began after the Hamas attack of 7 October. Harvard student groups, led by the university’s Palestine Solidarity Committee, published a statement holding Israel “entirely responsible for all unfolding violence”, provoking outrage and criticism of university authorities for not responding.
Gay, and presidents of two other colleges, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of Pennsylvania, were summoned to Washington to face a Congressional interrogation led by rightwing Republican Elise Stefanik. It turned into a disaster show. “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment? Stefanik asked. “It can be,” Gay responded, “depending on the context.”
The failure to grasp the moral core of the question, and sticking instead to carefully crafted, lawyerly responses, seemed to highlight the crisis of leadership in America’s elite universities. And yet, Gay and her colleagues had also been drawn into a trap, Stefanik having defined “genocide” as resistance to Israeli occupation. The “call for intifada”, she told Gay, was a call “to commit genocide against the Jewish people”.
The two intifadas in Palestine (from 1987-1993 and 2000-2005) were largely spontaneous uprisings, the product of collective rage against Israeli occupation. The second was far more violent than the first, with 138 suicide bombings, organised primarily by Hamas. However degenerate the Hamas tactics, neither intifada was an attempt at genocide.
Stefanik’s elision of “intifada” and “genocide” reveals the way that the boundaries of acceptable beliefs have become restricted in recent weeks. For some, even calling for a ceasefire in Gaza is “antisemitic”. It takes some chutzpah for those willing on Israel’s devastation of Gaza in the name of “self-defence” to deem Palestinian resistance illegitimate.
Gay could have responded that “all calls for genocide are morally abhorrent, even if some may be protected under the first amendment. But calling for an intifada is not the same as calling for genocide.” Instead, she stumbled through the session with vapid evasion.
Gay seemed to suggest she was constrained by the need to defend free speech. The trouble is, colleges have been atrocious defenders of free expression, none more so than Harvard, which, according to free speech group the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire), is the most censorious of US universities.
Gay’s opponents have made little effort to hide they are less interested in plagiarism than in wielding it as a weapon
The hypocrisy in Gay’s free speech defence was manna for her critics. “Universities that for years have been notably censorious,” New York Times columnist Bret Stephens wrote, had discovered free speech “only now, when the speech in question tends to be especially hurtful to Jews”. The hypocrisy, though, cuts both ways. Many on the right who have prided themselves as free speech champions have been actively trying to curtail pro-Palestinian speech, and often succeeding, in American universities and beyond.
Conservatives, smelling an opportunity to strike at the “liberal elite”, pushed to depose the college presidents. Their first scalp was easy, Pennsylvania’s Elizabeth Magill resigning within the week. Gay was more obdurate. So, critics went looking for past misdemeanours with which to pressure her. They found it in Gay’s alleged plagiarism. In her PhD dissertation, and in around half of her journal articles she is alleged to have taken almost verbatim paragraphs from academic papers without acknowledging them as quotes or with proper attribution.
Gay’s opponents have made little effort to hide that they are less interested in plagiarism than in wielding it as a weapon. This, in turn, has led many on the left to deny that Gay did much wrong.
The fact that Gay’s plagiarism is being exploited by the right does not make it any more acceptable. Nor does the fact that, as with free speech, there is considerable rightwing hypocrisy, many of those denouncing Gay having previously defended conservatives, such as supreme court judge Neil Gorsuch, facing the same charge.
It is possible, and necessary, to push back against conservative bad faith actors without brushing aside the misdeeds of their targets. To do otherwise is to yield more weapons to the right.
For many conservatives, taking down Gay is also to undermine diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, which have become central to the operation of universities. Gay’s Harvard presidency has been marked by her promotion of DEI policies.
Conservative hostility to DEI has, again, led many on the left to defend it. Yet, there are good arguments for the left to be sceptical of the diversity approach.
The moral force of the demand for diversity comes from the fact that many groups – racial minorities, women, gay people and others – have historically been excluded from positions of power. DEI programmes are seen as a push for a more equal society.
Equality and diversity are not, however, synonymous. The greatest lack of diversity in America’s elite universities is not racial but class-based. There are almost as many students in Harvard from the highest earning 1% of society as from the poorest 60%. Studies suggest that diversity policies have improved prospects for middle-class African Americans but not for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.
Gay herself is emblematic of what diversity has come to mean. Her father, Sony Gay, is vice-president of Haiti’s major construction company. She attended Phillips Exeter Academy, the most elite of America’s elite boarding schools, and a feeder for Harvard. “Gay may have changed the color of the mold,” academic Tyler Austin Harper wrote, “but she sure didn’t break it.”
Conservatives pushing against diversity policies care little about economic equality and many are animated by racist concerns. That does not mean those on the left for whom inequality does matter should, in response, circle the wagons in defence of DEI policies that entrench class privilege.
What the Gay controversy shows is how political judgment today is too often based on the identity of the messenger rather than the message itself. This inevitably warps the values and policies radicals pursue. Our politics should not be defined simply by the desire to show hostility to the right but by the strategies and norms necessary to build a more progressive, equal and hopeful world.
Kenan Malik is an Observer columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a letter of up to 250 words to be considered for publication, email it to us at [email protected]
This article was amended on 13 January 2024. An earlier version quoted Elise Stefanik asking Claudine Gay, “Calling for the genocide of Jews – does that constitute bullying or harassment?” To clarify: this was how Stefanik put the question to Liz Magill during her interrogation of the university presidents, but when she then turned to Gay, her exact words were: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard’s rules of bullying and harassment?” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/08/it-is-not-in-the-public-interest-to-jail-people-for-telling-the-truth-labor-must-end-these-whistleblower-cases | Opinion | 2023-02-07T14:00:48.000Z | Kieran Pender | It is not in the public interest to jail people for telling the truth. Labor must end these whistleblower cases | Kieran Pender | Two Australian whistleblowers are expected to face trial later this year for speaking up about government wrongdoing. Both cases are an injustice of the highest order. If either or both of these brave men go to jail for doing the right thing, for telling the truth, it will permanently cloud the Albanese government’s legacy.
These cases commenced under the Coalition government – the same government that oversaw raids on journalists (the ABC raid was linked to one of the whistleblowers), enacted draconian secrecy laws and failed to act on recommended reform to whistleblowing laws. But the prosecutions continue under the new Labor government.
Exposing unethical debt recovery
While working at the tax office, public servant Richard Boyle grew concerned about unethical debt recovery practices targeting small business owners. He spoke up internally and to the tax ombudsman, but his concerns went unheeded. As a last resort, Boyle went to the media.
His whistleblowing has since been vindicated by three separate independent inquiries, resulting in changes to the Australian Taxation Office’s debt recovery practices.
Alleged war crimes in Afghanistan
David McBride, a defence lawyer who served in Afghanistan, followed a similar path.
Concerned about serious misconduct by Australian forces, McBride blew the whistle internally, then to police, and eventually to the ABC. Subsequently, the Brereton report found credible evidence of Australian forces unlawfully killing 39 Afghan non-combatants, including innocent civilians; investigations continue into possible criminal prosecutions.
David McBride will face prosecution after blowing whistle on alleged war crimes in Afghanistan
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The federal public sector whistleblowing law, the Public Interest Disclosure Act, permits whistleblowing to the media in certain circumstances – both Boyle and McBride thought they were doing the right thing. But the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions is pursuing them anyway and, because of the complexity of the law, both face the very real prospect of going to jail.
McBride is so far the only Australian charged in relation to Australia’s alleged war crimes in Afghanistan – not the perpetrators, but the whistleblower.
The new Labor government began on the right note by dropping the prosecution of Bernard Collaery, the lawyer who together with his client, Witness K, was alleged to have blown the whistle on Australian espionage against Timor-Leste. But the government must go further.
As parliament returns, a dark cloud hangs over the office of the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus.
He has had a strong start to the year when it comes to integrity and democratic accountability. He has convened a roundtable on press freedom for later this month, agreed to recommendations sparked by the Witness J saga that will ensure secret trials can never happen again, and started work on long-overdue whistleblower protection reforms.
All this against the backdrop of the new national anti-corruption commission, which will become operational by mid-year.
But Dreyfus has consistently refused to intervene in the cases of Boyle and McBride. He has refused calls to drop the cases – to exercise the same legal power he used to end Collaery’s trial. He has also refused calls by others to take lesser steps, such as those proposed by a coalition of international whistleblowing organisations, including to pay the whistleblowers’ legal fees, fix relevant parts of the law and ask prosecutors to publicly outline the public interest in pursuing these cases.
Without a change of heart by the attorney general, these injustices will continue.
McBride was charged in September 2018; Boyle a few months later. In the subsequent years, both men have been through hell – each has spoken of the financial and personal impact of the prosecutions, including the damage it has done to their mental health.
Boyle is currently awaiting a court decision on whether he is protected by federal whistleblowing law. If he succeeds, the case will end, unless prosecutors appeal. If Boyle loses, he will go on trial in October. McBride’s whistleblowing defence was withdrawn last year after an astonishing last-minute intervention by the government saw key evidence blocked on national security grounds. He will face trial later this year.
Albanese needs to be more persuasive on the voice – or Dutton’s wrecking ball could break it
Paul Karp
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It is deeply frustrating that, even after he has acknowledged our whistleblower laws are flawed and difficult to navigate, Dreyfus is allowing these prosecutions to proceed.
Boyle will soon know if his Public Interest Disclosure Act shield is enough. But, because of actions taken by the government, McBride was not even permitted to rely upon his whistleblowing defence – however frail.
These prosecutions are not in the public interest, and they are undermining the otherwise positive work done by the new government, including to strengthen whistleblower protections.
The Albanese government may have inherited these injustices, but the attorney general’s inaction is perpetuating them. These cases should be dropped, immediately.
Kieran Pender is a senior lawyer at the Human Rights Law Centre | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/apr/15/choose-or-die-review-gory-netflix-video-game-horror | Film | 2022-04-15T16:26:15.000Z | Benjamin Lee | Choose or Die review – gory Netflix video game horror | It’s strange that the silly but mostly tolerable horror Choose or Die was an acquisition rather than a homegrown Netflix original given how much it seems algorithmically modeled for the notoriously formula-obsessed platform. It stars Asa Butterfield, an in-house star thanks to the success of Sex Education. It’s contemporary-set but baked in 80s nostalgia, something that also inspires the aesthetic of the aforementioned comedy series as well as the entirety of long-running hit Stranger Things. It also focuses on a cursed video game, making it a close cousin to the streamer’s interactive Black Mirror hit Bandersnatch. It’s a film destined to live its days in the “if you like” container.
The Cellar review – property nightmare as social media mavens suffer
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It’ll probably fare well there as fans of the above might find just about enough here to play with although they might, like me, be a little surprised at just how nasty this quickie horror is, made with closer attention to the gore quotient than any level of creativity. It’s part of the cursed tech subgenre that expanded after the success of Gore Verbinski’s surprisingly effective remake of Ringu, later retitled The Ring. It led to more similarly plotted Asian horror remakes, such as One Missed Call, Pulse and Shutter, and then also a string of US copycats, like Feardotcom, Unfriended and Stay Alive, a 2006 flop that saw a group of teens playing a deadly video game. We’re in similar, yet mildly more proficient, territory here with the discovery of a dusty 80s game called CURS>R (the film’s original title), that coerces players into making genuine life-or-death decisions.
It’s found by 80s-obsessive Isaac (Butterfield), compelled by the idea that the $125,000 prize money might still lay unclaimed and further seduced by the recorded voice of Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund, at the end of the hotline. His friend, and object of affection, Kayla (relative newcomer Iola Evans) is less convinced but living on the breadline has her willing to take a chance, struggling to get by on a measly cleaner’s wage. And so it begins.
What’s vaguely refreshing about this admittedly rather ho-hum set-up is that Kayla isn’t the hands-on-hips scold she might have been in another more cliche version of this story but the one who boots up the game herself to play. She’s as tech-savvy as Isaac and the film’s main, plot-propelling protagonist. The first encounter with the game sees Kayla playing in an empty diner, forced to watch a flirty waitress eat glass in front of her. It’s a bracingly nasty scene, automatically cluing us into the torture porn-adjacent territory we’re in, far from what we might have expected (there’s a whiff of the far superior Escape Room films here which exist firmly in the world of PG-13).
But while the gore is impressively visceral and well-realised, the rest of it is a few steps behind. It’s an overwhelmingly British film, shot in London with local actors (there’s a bookending appearance from Eddie Marsan while soap stalwart Angela Griffin also pops up), that’s bizarrely set in an unnamed US city, forcing everyone into at times laughably shoddy Ay-meh-reek-uhn accents. It’s a baffling misstep, clearly made for commercial reasons, that adds a layer of amateurishness to what’s otherwise a solidly directed first feature for Brit Toby Meakins. He doesn’t quite take enough advantage of his reality-shifting game sequences (the Englund voice cameo serves to remind us just how wild Wes Craven made those nightmares way back when) but it’s a cut above the average Netflix genre guff.
The script, from TV writer Simon Allen, acts as mostly just pedestrian framework for the game scenes, which thankfully do arrive quite often. The specifics of the plot make little to no real sense, even in the moment, but that won’t much matter to the sleepover crowd, who’ll be too distracted by the nasty noise of it all. Don’t understand how a malevolent curse ties to game code? Who cares, here’s a teenager eating his arm! In a choice between coherence and cruelty, it’s an easy win.
Choose or Die is available on Netflix now | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/science/punctuated-equilibrium/2010/nov/24/2 | Science | 2010-11-24T08:15:28.000Z | GrrlScientist | The Bechdel Test | Tomorrow is Thanksgiving in the United States. Tomorrow is also one of the biggest film-going days of the year in the US, since many families have traveled to be with their loved ones and need to get out of the house for a few hours. What better place to go than a movie theatre?
Further, this coming weekend is the beginning of what is the biggest money-making five-week period throughout the world at the cinemas. With that in mind, I am sharing this video that describes the Bechdel test.
The Bechdel Test is a simple way to gauge the active presence of female characters in Hollywood films and to judge just how well-rounded and complete those roles are. It was created by Allison Bechdel in her comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For in 1985. It is astonishing the number of popular movies that can't pass this simple test. It demonstrates how little women's complex and interesting lives are underrepresented or non existent in the film industry. We have jobs, creative projects, friendships and struggles among many other things that are actually interesting in our lives... so Hollywood, start writing about it!
What movies have you seen recently? Did they pass the Bechdel test? Share your thoughts here in the comments thread. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/katine/2009/jul/14/connecting-classrooms-festival | Katine | 2009-07-14T11:07:30.000Z | Richard M Kavuma | Katine festival seals school partnership programme | Stephen Ochola, the Soroti district chairman, watched with amusement as a boy from Ochuloi primary school, in Katine, wobbled with an inflated balloon between his two knees to a basin 10 metres away. He drew water into a plastic bottle and filled another one, before trying to walk back to pass the balloon to his team-mate. (Bottle-filling, explained Tausi Kamanyire, a year 2 student at Soroti secondary school, is meant to inculcate a spirit of fair play in pupils). The balloon fell midway, but amused students and teachers gathered at the Katine primary school football ground applauded the effort.
The activity was part of a sports festival held in the sub-county last week, organised by students from Soroti secondary, three other secondary schools in the district and All Saints high school in Sheffield, England to celebrate the launch of the British Council's Connecting Classrooms school partnership programme in the region.
Soroti secondary and All Saints have previously worked together on the council's Dreams and Teams partnership programme, which sought to train young leaders through sport.
Dreams and Teams has now ended, but the relationship between the schools is set to continue under the Connecting Classrooms, which will also involve Katine primary school and another local school, St Francis school for the blind.
Forging relationships
Earlier this month, Katine primary school teacher Simon Emou travelled to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia with his Soroti district education officer, Michael Etoyu-Oumo, a teacher from Soroti secondary school, Stephen Omoko, and the headteacher at All Saints, Bob Sawyer, for a contact seminar to discuss what would be involved in the partnership. The event was attended by participants from across Africa and the UK.
During the seminar, British Council speakers engaged participants in brain-storming sessions focusing on how to create good partnerships. The seminar also gave some schools the chance to forge new relationships. Some attendees had arrived in Addis looking for schools to partner. Ghanian teacher Abdul-Wahab Kassim, for example, arrived in Addis not knowing who he would be working with under the programme. By the end of day three he had teamed up with a school in Lewisham, London.
The aim of Connecting Classrooms is to address negative stereotypes both in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK and picks up where Dreams and Teams left off.
The programme is also eager to avoid having donor-recipient partnerships. Given how materially wanting many schools in Africa are, schools in the UK may be tempted to do more to help their African partners. Jane Henry, the British Council programme manager for Sub-Saharan Africa, says this should be avoided. Each school, whether in Katine, Tamale or London, will have something of equal value to bring to the partnership – it might be just how African schools manage with so little. Still, towards the end of the seminar a teacher whose school in Harare had a computer block was thinking of proposing a fundraising drive to support poorer schools within the partnership.
Soroti and Sheffield's priorities for the three year-relationship will centre on sharing teaching methodologies, environmental promotion and developing leadership skills among learners.
Sawyer and Oumo steered the partnership discussions. "My role, really, will be to provide support for the partnership to thrive," Oumo said.
Sawyer explained that students and teachers at All Saints and Soroti secondary will be able to watch a class being conducted at the other school via a video link up, which will allow them to reflect on the methodologies used and any lessons that can be learned. This will be dependent on Soroti getting a broadband connection, but Sawyer said if the connection is not installed in time, the schools can at least exchange recordings of the lessons.
Katine primary is being directly paired with St John Fisher school, a representative of which was not able to make it to Addis. The two schools are due to begin discussions about working together shortly.
A partnership agreement between all the schools is expected to be signed by the end of September. A district board will be established in Soroti to steer the partnership. Emou will sit on the board to ensure he is party to any decision making.
Festival fun
All Saints' James Dunning prepares a Katine pupil for a game. Photograph: Richard M Kavuma
While the teachers and officials were drawing up partnership plans in Ethiopia last week, young people were preparing to mark the event with a celebratory festival in Katine.
The unique thing about the festival, explained All Saints teacher David Faulkner, is that it had been organised entirely by the students and with barely four hours to do so.
In 2006, Faulkner travelled to Uganda as part of the Dreams and Teams programme to team up with local teachers to train Soroti secondary's young leaders. Over the years, these students have trained other youngsters in neighbouring schools, and festivals like this one are an opportunity for the young people to try out their skills.
"For these festivals, we teachers have to stand aside and allow the young leaders to exercise their leadership and organisational skills," said Stephen Omoko.
Festival organisers, Derrick Opio, a pupil from Soroti secondary, and James Dunning, from All Saints, who were both involved in the Dreams and Teams programme, invited about 100 pupils from primary schools in Katine to take part in at least 10 activities. The young leaders had barely an hour to set the stage and teach the pupils how to play the various games.
"One of the aspects of young leaders' training is time management, so all the pupils must participate in all the activities in three hours," said Omoko.
The festival included a welcome song performed by students from both Soroti and Sheffield. The entertainers included 20-year-old Soroti students Julius Odongo and Samuel Odowa; despite having physical disabilities, they danced and sang, attracting applause – and money – from the audience. Later the two students mimed to the song Disability is not inability, a popular hit by a local musician.
In closing remarks, the district chairman promised his "total political support" for the Connecting Classrooms programme. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jun/21/secret-invasion-recap-episode-one-its-true-the-world-has-been-invaded-by-reptilians-disguised-as-humans | Television & radio | 2023-06-21T20:00:49.000Z | Andy Welch | Secret Invasion recap episode one – it’s true, the world has been invaded by reptilians disguised as humans! | This recap contains spoilers for episode one of Secret Invasion. Do not read on unless you have seen it
Sometimes conspiracy theorists are right …
We opened with Everett Ross (Martin Freeman) skulking around present-day Moscow and arriving in the office of Agent Prescod (Richard Dormer). Prescod was on to something – the wave of terror attacks around the world was not being carried out by individual groups, but by the same band of Skrulls, merely disguising themselves as different groups in order to sow the maximum amount of chaos.
Ross, however, didn’t believe him. “That’s precisely what they want you to think,” Prescod told Ross, sounding like a pub conspiracy theorist at last orders. Only he was correct, and got a bullet for piecing together the truth. After a frantic foot chase, we realised that Ross was not Ross at all, but a Skrull.
(If you’re not sure what a Skrull is, they are a race of technologically advanced reptilian humanoids, who used to live on the planet Skrullos until it was destroyed by a militaristic alien race, the Kree, during an invasion. Skrulls are strong, age slowly and, crucially, can shapeshift, which allows them to look like any other life form. Watch Captain Marvel if you want more background.)
Skrull Ross called Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) for a lift, but was chased through the streets of Moscow. He eventually fell from a roof where it became clear he was the bad kind of Skrull and his pursuer was, in fact, Talos (Ben Mendelsohn), leader of the Skrull refugees and a good sort. Roll credits.
Cobie Smulders as Maria Hill and Samuel L Jakcson as Nick Fury in Secret Invasion. Photograph: Disney+
The Return of Fury
Having not been seen on Earth for some time, Nick Fury had some catching up to do. The exact amount of time he’d spent on the Saber space station is not clear – “a few years” was the closest we got from Hill. (Samuel L Jackson, meanwhile, hasn’t made more than a fleeting appearance in the MCU since 2019’s Spider-Man: Far From Home. That film was set in 2024 and the She-Hulk series ended in 2025, so Secret Invasion’s “present day” is mid-2025, suggesting Fury has been off-planet for a year. Something doesn’t quite add up.)
More significant still is the feeling among certain Skrulls that Nick Fury has reneged on the promise he made in 1995 during the events of Captain Marvel to find the refugee Skrulls a permanent home. This feeling is what has been driving Gravik and his rebel Skrulls – they haven’t been given a safe haven, so they will just take Earth, instead.
Troubled by what he heard, Fury went for a walk. A bad idea late at night in Moscow …
Nice intro, Olivia Colman …
Welcome Olivia Colman to the MCU. She is playing Sonya Falsworth, an MI6 agent and old friend of Fury’s with a good line in intros. “This is so exciting: a large Black man in Moscow – well, it could either be Nick Fury or the ghost of Paul Robeson,” she said, before telling one of her thugs to take off Fury’s hood. “Oh damn … and I was hoping for a command performance of Ol’ Man River.”
Colman looked as if she’s having a blast in this scene, and her and Jackson’s quality really shined through – it was thoroughly entertaining.
Right now, it’s unclear if Falsworth can be trusted – Fury was on the fence, too, bugging her office to keep tabs on her.
Double-agent Khaleesi?
Then we met Emilia Clarke’s G’iah for the first time, welcoming Beto (Samuel Adewunmi) to New Skrullos, the rebels’ temporary home in an abandoned nuclear facility (Skrulls are immune to radiation).
She pointed out that there are 500 Skrulls in the resistance, and while it’s not mandatory to become a warrior, those who choose to fight are rewarded with the chance to leave the compound. Crucially – I think this will be a big plot point in future episodes – Skrulls whose missions involve taking on human form stay that way, even in the compound, as the longer they are in disguise, the better they become at maintaining it. Convenient, perhaps, for any human that wants to infiltrate the resistance base? We shall see.
G’iah was then sent on a mission to retrieve two bags from an art dealer in the city, but was intercepted on her way back to base by Hill and Talos. G’iah, it turns out, is Talos’s missing daughter, and was unaware that her mum had died. G’iah wasn’t the most convincing of rebels before finding this out – Pagon (Killian Scott) and Gravik (Kingsley Ben-Adir) looked as if they had their suspicions about her – but that kind of news will have her questioning the cause even more. (She told her dad about the attack later in the episode, but I predict a more permanent double agent has been born.)
Fury and Hill talked about his crisis of faith, the reason he was hiding in space. His crisis followed him up there, he said. The reality is that he hasn’t been the same since the Blip – I’m sure turning to ash would leave you with some sort of PTSD – and probably still hasn’t come to terms with the deaths of Iron Man and Black Widow.
Attack, attack, attack
G’iah disguised herself to meet Talos and tell him about the attacks Gravik has planned. Three bombs in rucksacks, to be detonated in the square. Only Fury, Hill and Talos couldn’t stop the bombs going off – the rucksacks were decoys anyway.
Despite the square being devastated and ice-cold Gravik completing his mission, there was worse to come for Fury. Maria Hill was shot and killed. And by a Skrull posing as Fury, no less. Following Fury into his spy capers was always going to be dangerous and likely to lead to her death – but I bet she never thought it would be him actually pulling the trigger. How’s that crisis of faith coming along now, Nick?
Notes and observations
Farewell Cobie Smulders. The Canadian actor had played Maria Hill since 2012, appearing in all four Avengers films, as well as Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Spider-Man: Far From Home and in the TV series Agents of SHIELD Despite Hill never being given a storyline worthy of Smulders’ talents, I wasn’t expecting her to bow out like this.
Who was Sonya Falsworth talking to in that intercepted meeting? Surely not … Agent Prescod? That would mean Falsworth was talking to a Skrull impostor.
At least three sugars in that tiny cup of tea, Gravik? What are you, a lazy caricature of a builder?
I always enjoy hearing non-standard accents in the MCU, following on from Erin Kellyman’s Nottingham twang in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Gravik sounds to my ear like a man from Pontypridd, while Killian Scott as Pagon appears to be talking in his native Limerick brogue. It’s about time we got away from generics.
Getting the Avengers on a midlife crisis shopping spree certainly beats a sports car, hair implants or a fancy watch.
A shame Richard Dormer won’t be sticking around as Agent Prescod. I would watch him in anything – that voice! Those wild eyes! He was terrific in Blue Lights, wonderful as Game of Thrones’s Ser Beric Dondarrion and, best of all, as Terri Hooley, the owner of a Belfast record shop during the Troubles in the shamefully underrated Good Vibrations. (You may have seen Hooley as a talking head in the brilliant BBC documentary series Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland.)
You may also recognise Kingsley Ben-Adir from his time in ITV’s Vera, as a private eye in the second season of The OA or as the doomed Col Ben Younger in Peaky Blinders’ fourth and fifth seasons. He’s been busy – playing a version of Ken in the forthcoming Barbie film and starring in a Bob Marley biopic due for release next year.
What’s the little girl with the brightly coloured ball got to do with it?
Secret Invasion is on Disney+.
What did you think? Did you like the darker, gritty tone? Good to see Samuel L Jackson back on Earth? Have your say below … | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/feb/16/burn-fire-no-witness-angel-olsen-review | Music | 2014-02-16T11:05:00.000Z | Kitty Empire | Angel Olsen: Burn Your Fire For No Witness – review | Last December, Angel Olsen opened for Neko Case at the Forum, one of London's draughtier old theatres. For half an hour, it was Olsen, her stark electric guitar and her basilisk stare versus a demi-interested crowd, still trickling in from work. Some there might have heard of Olsen's first album, 2012's Half Way Home, a collection of acoustic songs that veered more towards the 1940s than they did the wispiness of folk.
First spotted doing backing vocals for Bonnie "Prince" Billy four years ago, this obscure Chicago bit player has now gone almost fully electric. Leaping a few tiers in status, Olsen has ended up somewhere west of Sharon Van Etten or north of Cat Power, in the neighbourhood of the Breeders by way of Leonard Cohen. Her second album is one of those records that hypnotises as it unfurls.
That night, she sang with controlled intensity, coaxing echoey prangs out of her instrument. Olsen didn't actually bring the activity at the bar to a halt, as she did at one gig in New York. But those increasingly caught up in her spell latched intently on to the frequencies in Olsen's guitar and voice – not the silkiest instrument, not the most athletic voice, but a pairing that reverberated with a kind of otherworldly intensity, like on an old 78rpm. Olsen now walks a tightrope between pressed flowers and sepia tints and taut, city swagger. On her album, Enemy is one of those songs whose word choice is resolutely contemporary, but whose warble-and-strum sound like something your grandmother might have recognised. "I need advice it's true," Olsen coos, "but I won't hear it from you."
Leonard Cohen is always a big name to drop and too often it's bathos that he invokes, rather than a lofty level of craft. You suspect that Olsen might have written one song, White Fire, with her tongue drilling a hole in her cheek, so closely does it track the 60s Cohen. "Everything is tragic/It all just falls apart," it begins, in funereal minor key. But the more Olsen goes on, the less it sounds like copycat lugubriousness and the more it sounds like romantic heartbreak, piled on to what you might crassly call abandonment issues. "I heard my mother thinking me right back into my birth/ I laughed so loud inside myself it all began to hurt." It's worth knowing that Olsen was adopted at the age of three.
Step outside the coffee house and the single, Forgiven/Forgotten is a grunge-pop party tune conducted in an entirely different timbre and an entirely different tempo: textbook, toothsome indie rock. Its nearest relative is probably something such as Van Etten's Serpents, another song in which guitars seethe and rub against an unorthodox vocal melody and a relationship explodes in the background. Iota, by contrast, is a stark, but gently strummed Hawaiian/bossa nova hybrid that rails, quite sweetly, against change.
There is a lot of heartbreak on Burn Your Fire For No Witness, as well as a lot of pleasing anachronism; a lot of hard-won resignation and what you might call stern vulnerability, a quality that Olsen shares with Joni Mitchell without sounding at all like Mitchell. Her soprano can be a delicate and ghostly thing on the final track, Windows, allowing in those Cat Power comparisons. But Olsen's quaver holds your gaze, using her vibrato for effect, not whining or crumbling. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/may/27/in-video-game-stories-its-often-side-quests-that-are-most-meaningful | Games | 2020-05-27T07:00:24.000Z | Sarah Maria Griffin | In video game stories, it's often side quests that are most meaningful | It is a narrative standard in role-playing adventure games: the hero is pitted against a Big Evil, who has a strategic or chaotic hunger to destroy the world we know. From Shinra’s greedy harvesting of the planet’s resources in Final Fantasy VII Remake to Ganondorf’s quest for power and destruction across more than 30 years of Legend of Zelda games, the stakes are always astronomically high.
But what really makes these fictional realms worth saving? Role-playing games need to offer more than a sequence of linked events toward a monumental finale. A world is made of people, not just objectives.
This is where side quests come in: the tiny stories that make the emotional texture of a journey richer and fuller. Whether we’re talking role-playing epics such as Final Fantasy and The Witcher, or indie adventures such as Night in the Woods and Iconoclasts, it is off the beaten path that the stories gain their power.
Side quests are not just portals to smaller adventures, they are demonstrations of kindness
Across a lifetime of playing video games, I think most often of these side quests: lost animals, medicine in need of delivering before the ingredients expire, underwear retrieved from a bedroom where it shouldn’t be, baby rats that must be fed every day, hiding a cursed fiance and his panicked bride in the nights before their wedding. All of these tiny stories are alleyways off the main drag of the quest, but ones I happily get lost down. I prefer a Cloud Strife who will stop to help a child in a slum find her lost cats to the one who would power through undeterred to his climactic battle. I prefer a Geralt who will gamely search for an old woman’s favourite frying pan or a Fallout 4 Sole Survivor who’ll assist a bunch of sailor robots as they launch their rusty ship for one last voyage.
Small fry ... this humble pan forms the basis of a whole side mission in The Witcher 3. Photograph: Witcher 3
This is the kind of hero I would be, I think. I hope. I am interested in ways that we can play games and save worlds without violence, ways in which gameplay utilises curiosity, helpfulness and generosity as power in the place of a gun or a sword. Side quests are not just portals to smaller adventures, they are demonstrations of kindness.
In Paper Mario: the Thousand-Year Door, a starkly underrated RPG, we are invited to spend time keeping the ageing mayor of a village of Koopas company, or assembling a cake for a psychic who lives beneath the central town of Rogueport. These simple, transactional quests elevate the adventure, giving the world and its oddball creatures an independent life. And there is no rush: the princess will still be waiting in another castle when we are done.
The transgressive indie adventure Undertale turns the stuff of side quests into the main thrust of the game: talking to the monsters lets you pass them by safely. Rather than electing the simple input of violence, the game asks you to consider conversation and engagement instead, mercy as the ultimate display of heroism. In this way, every encounter becomes a tiny story of its own: a healing operation, a brief journey taken.
The first real side quest that impacted me profoundly when I was growing up was a classic within a classic. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, on the Nintendo 64, Kakariko Village. Upon arriving at the game’s first town, we are asked in simple terms by a stressed-out girl called Anju to help her find her chickens. She can’t go and get them herself because she can’t touch them - they’ll make her sick. So off you go. Though we have the burden of an entire kingdom on our young shoulders, a heavy sword, and an even heavier quest, we help her. We trek up behind the windmill, clamber over fences, thrash open boxes, and for a few minutes, we are just a child, running after chickens. In return, she gives us an empty glass bottle and sends us on our way.
Simple pleasures ... there is more to life in Legend of Zelda than saving the world from Ganondorf. Photograph: Nintendo
The bottle, though not a weapon, becomes one of the most useful items in the entire game. Later, we use it to hold ingredients for medicine to help another citizen of Hyrule. It can hold potions, and milk, to heal us, too. The chickens weren’t even that hard to find.
In the shadow of huge plot devices like destiny and impending doom, it is important that adventure games give us the chance to yield to tiny, human interactions. We must be given space to heal the citizens of the world, as well as the world itself – to find beloved pets, gather ingredients, solve disputes. To put down your sword, and offer your hand instead.
Sarah Maria Griffin is an author from Dublin, Ireland. Her most recent novel is Other Words for Smoke. She tweets @griffski. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jun/29/government-aims-to-boost-nhs-with-thousands-more-doctors-and-nurses | Society | 2023-06-29T21:30:25.000Z | Denis Campbell | Government aims to boost NHS with thousands more doctors and nurses | Thousands more doctors and nurses will be trained in England every year as part of a government push to plug the huge workforce gaps that plague almost all NHS services.
The number of places in medical schools will rise from 7,500 to 10,000 by 2028 and could reach 15,000 by 2031 as a result of the NHS’s first long-term workforce plan.
There will also be a big expansion in training places for those who want to become nurses, with the number rising by a third to 40,000 by 2028 – matching the number of nurses the health service currently lacks.
Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, hailed the long-awaited plan as “a once in a generation opportunity to put staffing on a sustainable footing for years to come”.
She and Rishi Sunak will launch the plan on Friday at a joint press conference in Downing Street. They will give more details about the increase in NHS staffing intended to banish the service’s chronic lack of frontline personnel, its heavy use of agency staff and the increasing reliance on foreign workers.
NHS chiefs blame staff shortages for record 7.4m people on waiting lists in England
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Ministers first pledged in 2017 to publish a long-term strategy to tackle understaffing. It will finally reach the public domain five days before the NHS celebrates its 75th birthday on Wednesday.
It shows that “this government is making the largest single expansion in NHS eduction and training in its history”, the prime minister said. The NHS will receive £2.4bn in extra funding over the next five years to pay for the planned increase in health professionals, which will also include the training of many more dentists, midwives and physiotherapists.
Medical groups, health experts and organisations representing NHS staff welcomed the plan as ambitious but overdue. Richard Murray, chief executive of the King’s Fund thinktank, said it could be a “landmark moment” for the health service by providing it with the staff it needs to provide proper care.
However, doubts about how soon the expansion will kick in arose when it emerged that medical schools will not start admitting the extra students until September 2025. The Department of Health and Social Care did not respond to a request to clarify when universities would begin educating the promised 10,000 extra would-be nurses a year.
Spiralling staff shortages have put the NHS in the last-chance saloon | Letters
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Dr Jennifer Dixon, the chief executive of the Health Foundation, welcomed the NHS’s commitment to updating every two years its assessment of how many staff it needs, and of what type, to meet future care needs. But she urged ministers to legislate to ensure that that pledge is fulfilled.
Labour accused the government of stealing its longstanding policy to ramp up NHS staffing, published last year.
“The Conservatives have finally admitted they have no ideas of their own, so are adopting Labour’s plan to train the doctors and nurses the NHS needs”, said Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary.
“They should have done this a decade ago. Then the NHS would have enough staff today.” The government’s strategy “will take years to have an impact”, he added.
Official NHS figures show that the number of vacancies in the service in England have almost quadrupled from the 21,351 seen in March 2010 to the 112,498 recorded at the last count. That included 8,549 doctors and 40,096 nurses.
NHS bosses have in recent years described how a lack of staff has overtaken financial problems as their greatest worry as and the greatest threat to quality of patient care and the NHS’s future. Below-inflation pay increases and the pressures of working in an overstretched health service have prompted growing numbers of health professionals to quit soon after embarking on their careers or retire early as a result of becoming burnt out.
Experts also questioned when the promised £2.4bn would become available and if future governments would continue to provide it after 2028.
“We haven’t yet seen the detail of how this funding will be phased, and whether it will be sustained over many years,” said Murray. One senior NHS figure said: “This money is vital to the plan delivering. But there are still so many unanswered questions about it.”
The more ambitious targets – increasing the number of doctors and nurses to 15,000 a year and 54,000 a year respectively – are not due to be met until 2031.
Dr Billy Palmer, a workforce expert at the Nuffield Trust thinktank, said that although “the huge increase in trainees will mean less risk of shortages in the long term”, it could prove to be “a costly gamble” unless working conditions in the NHS were improved to stem the loss of staff.
The plan is also expected to set out measures that will help the NHS retain 130,000 staff members who would otherwise leave. But NHS England gave few details of what that would involve when trailing the plan ahead of its unveiling on Friday. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/18/cannes-2014-beautiful-youth-film-review | Film | 2014-05-18T15:11:51.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Cannes 2014: Beautiful Youth review – pain for Spain's lost generation | Jaime Rosales has long been one of Europe's most serious, valuable and innovative film-makers. Now he returns to Cannes with another deeply felt and deeply considered drama in a compassionate, realist style.
It is a film about the silent anguish of Spain's young people, a generation junked by the economic slump. Rosales traces the tragedy and the scandal of their energy and idealism going to waste. He also boldly mixes conventional film with footage caught on smartphones and gaming consoles to show how lives are being lived on social media – and to show twentysomethings' digital existence. These are brilliant, challenging sequences and in fact his whole film is an audacious leap into real lives and real experiences: it is a seizing of normality. Beautiful Youth isn't perfect, and I'm not sure about its final moments – but Rosales's sheer intelligence is bracing.
At the film's centre is the relationship of Natalia (Ingrid García Johnson) and Carlos (Carlos Rodriguez). Both live with their respective mothers – the fathers being no longer on the scene. There is no work for them, no matter how many CVs they send out – and they are depressed and infuriated by low-paying casual work. This good-looking couple even do a porn film, which pays well but not enough to solve their problems – unless they want to make a career of it.
When Natalia becomes pregnant, their problems escalate to a crisis level. Carlos gambles on a hoped-for compensation payout after he gets mugged; Natalia struggles with the beginnings of depression dealing with a baby that cries all night. There is something very moving in her confession to her mother Dolores (Inma Nieto) that she loves her baby daughter more than anything and also "hates her with all her heart". Meanwhile, Natalia's stroppy, unhappy younger brother Pedro (Juanma Calderón) isn't doing his chores or his homework and both Natalia and Dolores find they don't have the arguments to persuade him to knuckle down. Work hard, or slack off – who cares when unemployment is the only thing waiting for you?
And all the time, there is suppressed panic. What if things never get better? Or get better too late, when it is too late for them to enjoy their young lives? Many have parents who are unemployed too, fiftysomethings who might under other circumstances look forward to years of rewarding work.
Eventually, Natalia considers leaving to find work in Germany - a plan which brings new heartache. Will Spain's young people be Generation Skype - reduced to talking to their parents and children on their laptops? Beautiful Youth is a powerful and heartfelt film. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/27/eel-smuggling-arrests-rise-50-europe-wide-crackdown | Environment | 2019-06-27T16:48:35.000Z | Fiona Harvey | Eel smuggling arrests rise 50% in Europe-wide crackdown | The number of arrests for the smuggling of eels in Europe has increased by 50% after a concerted effort by enforcement agencies to tackle the problem.
Eels are in demand in China and other east Asian countries and about 350m are trafficked out of the European Union each year, in a trade worth about €3bn (£2.7bn) annually. It is the world’s biggest wildlife crime in terms of the number of creatures trafficked. About 15m eels were seized last year and 153 arrests were made, compared with 98 arrests the year before.
Eels are increasingly threatened by overfishing and illegal fishing, as well as from pollution and other water contaminants, including illegal drugs.
The pan-European police agency, Europol, said it was unable to provide further details such as how many arrests resulted in convictions. The majority of arrests were in Spain, France and Portugal.
Eels, once so common they were a staple food for poor people, have declined by about 95% to 99% in recent decades and are classed as endangered. The fish has an unusual lifecycle, needing to travel from rivers in Europe to the Sargasso Sea in the Gulf of Mexico to spawn, and taking as long as two decades to reach sexual maturity.
In the intermediate stages it becomes a “glass eel”. These are often smuggled across borders, finding markets in China in particular, where they are put in farms and then sent to other countries.
Europol has developed technology to identify and track the DNA of such trafficked eels. In Europe, the export and import of European eels has been suspended. However, Europol believes about 350m eels are illegally trafficked each year from the continent, which is about a quarter of the total of juvenile eels calculated to enter European waters each year. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/aug/30/best-theatre-of-autumn-2016-arts-preview-lazarus-roald-dahl-city-unexpected-red-barn | Stage | 2016-08-30T16:15:04.000Z | Michael Billington | Encore!: the best theatre of autumn 2016 | UnlimitedThis brilliant festival of high-quality work made by disabled artists returns. Look out for Liz Carr’s Assisted Suicide: the Musical, which considers the legalisation of suicide as a humane choice, and Cherophobia, in which Noemi Lakmaier will spend 48 hours attempting to lift her immobilised body off the ground using 20,000 helium balloons. There is plenty more, including a solo show from Backstage in Biscuit Land’s Jess Thom.
6 to 11 September, Southbank Centre, London. Box office: 020-7960 4200.
Maxine Peake in A Streetcar Named Desire. Photograph: Jonathan Oakes
A Streetcar Named Desire
Maxine Peake, following striking performances in Hamlet and The Skriker, now plays Blanche DuBois in the Tennessee Williams classic. It will be fascinating to see whether Peake plays Blanche as an embodiment of the poetic spirit rather than a cracked southern belle. With Sarah Frankcom directing and Ben Batt as Stanley Kowalski, the omens look good.
8 September to 15 October, Royal Exchange, Manchester. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
No Man’s Land
Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, having bonded in a revival of Waiting for Godot, star in Sean Mathias’s production of Harold Pinter’s austere masterpiece about the meeting of an aged literary lion and a pushy minor poet. Owen Teale and Damien Molony play the manservants in a work that, with its echoes of Eliot and Beckett, ushers one into an unforgettable twilight zone.
From 8 September, Wyndham’s, London. Box office: 0844-482 5120.
Dedication
Nick Dear’s new play explores the relationship between Shakespeare and the third Earl of Southampton, who was his cross-dressing patron and to whom The Rape of Lucrece is dedicated. He might also have been the playwright’s lover. Set against a background of an Elizabethan England full of suspicion and plots, this speculative romantic drama puts Shakespeare in the dock to try to uncover the truth of the relationship, and uses poetry as evidence.
9 September to 8 October, Nuffield, Southampton. Box office: 023-8067 1771.
What lies beneath … Things I Know to Be True. Photograph: Helen Maybanks
Things I Know to Be True
An international collaboration between Frantic Assembly and the State Theatre Company of South Australia, this show looks at the secrets hidden beneath the apparently calm and loving surface of family life. It mixes Frantic’s trademark movement with Andrew Bovell’s text. The show had great reviews when it premiered in Adelaide, praised for its frankness about the pleasures and resentments of being part of a family.
10 September to 1 October, Lyric Hammersmith, London. Box office: 020-8741 6850. Then touring.
The Cheviot, the Stag and the Black Black Oil
John McGrath’s play about the exploitation of the Scottish Highlands has been described as “the single most important show in the history of Scottish theatre”. First seen over 40 years ago, the show is now revived by Joe Douglas and the Dundee Rep Ensemble in a production that earned universal five-star reviews on its first outing.
14-24 September, Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh. Box office: 0131-248 4848.
Father Comes Home from the Wars (Parts 1, 2 & 3)
These three short plays by Suzan Lori-Parks are the start of an ambitious attempt to retell the story of the American civil war. The focus is on a slave promised his freedom by his master if he joins the Confederacy in its fight against the Union. Steve Toussaint and Jimmy Akingbola head the cast, and Jo Bonney, who directed the hugely acclaimed 2014 American production, is in charge.
15 September to 22 October, Royal Court, London. Box office: 020-7565 5000.
Scrumdiddlyumptious fun … a poster image for Roald Dahl’s City of the Unexpected
Roald Dahl’s City of the Unexpected
There will be pandemonium across Cardiff on 17 September as the city centre is transformed into a surreal world in celebration of the work of Roald Dahl. More than 6,000 people will be creating pop-up performances and unexpected spectacles, culminating in a top-secret finale, details of which will be revealed only on the day. Sunday sees a ticketed storytelling event and a mass pyjama picnic in Bute Park. All scrumdiddlyumptious fun from Wales Millennium Centre and the National Theatre Wales.
17-18 September, various locations in Cardiff.
Realities of diagnosis … A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer
A Pacifist’s Guide to the War on Cancer
Bryony Kimmings and Brian Lobel consider our attitudes to cancer and the language and metaphors we employ to deal with it through the stories of five people. This is an all-singing, all-dancing affair with music by Tom Parkinson, stripping away the pink charity ribbons to look at the realities of diagnosis and what it means for the wider family.
20-24 September, Home, Manchester. Box office: 0161-200 1500. Then touring.
The Nest
Every parent wants the best for their baby. Kurt and Martha are prepared to work hard to ensure theirs has everything he needs, even if that means Kurt taking on extra work. Franz Xaver Kroetz’s extraordinary play about the damage that profit wreaks on individuals and the environment gets a new translation from Conor McPherson. PJ Harvey provides the music for Ian Rickson’s revival.
1-22 October, Lyric, Belfast. Box office: 028-9038 1081; 28 October to 26 November, Young Vic, London. Box office: 020-7922 2922.
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The Suppliant Women
A new version of Aeschylus’s 2,500-year-old play about a group of women seeking asylum who make the treacherous journey across the Mediterranean from North Africa to escape forced marriage. Written by David Greig and directed by Ramin Gray, it reunites the team behind The Events and will include a huge community chorus at each venue. An ancient piece that asks a contemporary question: when we are in trouble, who will open their doors and give us haven?
1 to 15 October, Lyceum, Edinburgh. Box office: 0131-248 4848. Then touring.
Travesties
Patrick Marber directs the first London revival in over 20 years of Tom Stoppard’s exuberant 1974 comedy. Tom Hollander plays Henry Carr, a minor consular official who, in first world war Zurich, encounters James Joyce, Lenin and the dadaist Tristan Tzara. Freddie Fox and Amy Morgan play supporting roles, and the play offers a wild, and even Wildean, excursion into art, politics and the strange coincidences of history.
22 September-19 November, Menier Chocolate Factory, London. Box office: 020–7378 1713.
The Red Barn
David Hare’s new play is, rather unexpectedly, based on La Main, a psychological thriller by the great Georges Simenon. The setting is Connecticut 1969, and the story concerns two couples who, on their way back from a party, struggle through the snow. The play is directed by the Almeida’s current golden boy, Robert Icke (1984, Oresteia), and the cast is headed by Mark Strong and Hope Davis. Bunny Christie designs.
From 6 October, Lyttelton, London. Box office: 020-7452 3000.
Unanswered questions … The Gaul.
The Gaul
Some time on the night of 8 February 1974, fishing trawler FV Gaul disappeared without trace off the coast of Norway. For the families of the 36 men on board, waiting for news back in Hull was a time of great distress. Theories began to abound, including the possibility that the boat had fallen victim to cold war hostilities. Even when the trawler was discovered on the seabed, and despite a subsequent inquiry, many still feel there arequestions that remain unanswered. As Hull hurtles towards the 2017 Year of Culture, Mark Babych directs Janet Plater’s play.
6-29 October, Hull Truck. Box office: 01482 323638.
The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures
The title is a bit of a mouthful but anything from the pen of Tony Kushner, who wrote Angels in America (soon to be revived by the National), is to be savoured. This play takes the form of a family reunion in which everyone struggles to find meaning in a landscape they no longer recognise. Michael Boyd directs the British premiere of a piece of theatre that, on its US debut, was said to fizz with ideas.
15 October to 26 November, Hampstead theatre, London. Box office: 020-7722 9301.
Inevitable pathos … Lazarus.
Lazarus
There is an inevitable pathos about seeing this musical by David Bowie and Enda Walsh so soon after Bowie’s death. Inspired by the sci-fi novel and movie, The Man Who Fell to Earth, it deals with a hero, Thomas Newton, unable to die and haunted by a past love. Likely to be the autumn’s hottest ticket, the score includes new songs specially composed by Bowie and Ivo van Hove’s production features the stars of the original New York cast, Michael C Hall, Michael Esper and Sophia Anne Caruso.
From 25 October, King’s Cross theatre, London. Box office: 0844 871 7604.
Eyes on the prize: the must-see art and design of autumn 2016
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King Lear
In a year filled with Lears, including Antony Sher and Timothy West, no one should be surprised to see Glenda Jackson having a crack at the title. She not only has impeccable Shakespearean credentials, but also direct experience of the madness of politics. Deborah Warner’s production includes a strong supporting cast, including Celia Imrie and Jane Horrocks as Goneril and Regan, Rhys Ifans as the Fool and Harry Melling as Edgar.
25 October to 2 December, Old Vic, London. Box office: 0844-871 7628.
The Royale
A welcome return of the knock-out play about Jack Johnson, the first African-American world heavyweight boxing champion, which received sizzling reviews on its 2015 debut at the Bush. It should deliver an even greater punch as Madani Younis moves his production to the Tabernacle in Notting Hill, which has often been a venue for amateur boxing bouts. Expect the atmosphere to be electric.
3-26 November, The Tabernacle, London. Box office: 020-8743 5050.
Groundbreaking tech … The Tempest.
The Tempest
Simon Russell Beale returns to the Stratford stage for the first time in 20 years to play Prospero in Shakespeare’s magical fable about the supremacy of forgiveness over vengeance. Mark Quartley is Ariel, once played by Russell Beale, in a production by Gregory Doran that promises a groundbreaking link between the RSC and Intel in its use of advanced technology. Could that mean a digitised TV Ariel?
8 November-21 January, Royal Shakespeare theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon. Box office: 01789 403493.
Trouble in Mind
Alice Childress won an Obie (Off-Broadway award) in 1956 for this story of a black actress rehearsing a play with a white director who increasingly finds it impossible for the show to go on. The wonderful Tanya Moodie and Joseph Marcell star in a scathing satire directed by Laurence Boswell, who has turned the tiny Ustinov Studio into a powerhouse.
10 November to 17 December, Ustinov, Theatre Royal, Bath. Box office: 01225 448844.
This article was amended on 31 August 2016. Cherophobia will use 20,000 helium balloons, not 33,000 as an earlier version said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/feb/24/streaming-the-best-films-about-teachers-the-holdovers | Film | 2024-02-24T08:00:23.000Z | Guy Lodge | Streaming: The Holdovers and the best films about teachers | Ihad a few teachers I adored in my years at school – and one or two, perhaps, who even inspired me in some capacity – but I can’t say a film about my relationship with them would make for particularly thrilling viewing. Teaching is hard graft, and often thankless; even the best in the profession are rarely rewarded with the kind of dewy, triumphant tributes that cap off many a Hollywood classroom drama. Yet the inspirational teacher film remains a mainstay: film-makers never tire of imagining the schooldays they’d like to have had.
Paul Giamatti offers a variation on the type in The Holdovers, out on VOD last week: the curmudgeonly, academically oriented teacher with (surprise!) a heart of gold beneath it all. Alexander Payne’s misfit comedy counts for its emotional effect on the familiarity of its characters and settings. Giamatti’s crusty classics professor, outmoded but still with something to give, is essentially an American rewrite of the antiquated public schoolmaster at the centre of Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version, so beautifully played by Michael Redgrave in 1951 (Internet Archive), and again by Albert Finney in a 1994 remake that’s more readily streamable.
The 1970s New England boys’ prep school that houses The Holdovers, meanwhile, feels only a stone’s throw from the similarly stiff establishment that was shaken up by Robin Williams’s unorthodox English teaching in Peter Weir’s Dead Poets Society (1989). Payne’s film, like Weir’s, is much loved for the open sentimentality of its cross-generational male bonding; both, I confess, leave me slightly cold. Even I’m not hardened, though, to the weepy charms of their genre grandaddy, Goodbye, Mr Chips, an unabashedly heart-crushing reflection on a devoted Latin teacher’s almost six decades in the classroom, sublimating his dreams of parenthood into educational mentorship. It’s better in its 1939 version, with a pitch-perfect Robert Donat, than in Peter O’Toole’s wobbly 1969 musical vehicle, but take your pick.
As I wrote 18 months ago on Sidney Poitier’s passing, the actor aced both sides of the classroom drama: as the rebellious student to Glenn Ford’s intrepid ex-navy teacher in the excellent Blackboard Jungle (1955), and, more than a decade later, as the compassionate immigrant teacher winning over a surly gaggle of East End pupils in the more soft-centred To Sir, With Love.
‘Fully deserving his Oscar nomination’: Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson (2006). Allstar
The story of the humble educator reaching through to disadvantaged inner-city teens is a familiar one, repeated in such corny Hollywood efforts as Dangerous Minds and Freedom Writers, but it can be made more interesting. 2006’s superb Half Nelson blurred the moral lines, with Ryan Gosling fully earning his Oscar nomination as a caring and innovative Brooklyn history teacher managing a debilitating drug habit. In French director Laurent Cantet’s marvellous 2008 Palme d’Or winner The Class, the heated social debates between a secondary school teacher in the Paris banlieues and his restless, deprived students are rivetingly even-handed.
Teacher Georges Lopez with young Letitia in Être et Avoir. Allstar
Cantet’s film plays with documentary technique in its realism, though the classroom can be a rich setting for outright nonfiction: see Nicolas Philibert’s wonderful Être et Avoir (2002), following a year in the life of a teacher single-handedly nurturing children aged four to 12 in a small rural schoolhouse; or, more recently, the three-and-a-half-hour German gem Mr Bachmann and His Class (2021), in which mixed cultural backgrounds fuel the classroom dialogue. Another German film, Frank Ripploh’s 1981 Taxi zum Klo (Peccadillo Pictures) – a brilliantly candid, ribald portrait of a gay primary school teacher balancing his personal and professional lives – was years ahead of its time in its examination of LGBTQ politics in the education system. Likewise, the vital 1978 British indie Nighthawks also sees a gay teacher confronting his own students’ prejudices, to gripping effect.
Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett in the ‘deliciously lurid’ Notes on a Scandal (2007). Allstar
And what of the bad teachers? Payne gave us a far less noble portrayal of the profession in his best film, Election (1999), a riotous war of wills between Matthew Broderick’s petty suburban civics teacher and Reese Witherspoon’s dauntless teen overachiever – though Broderick’s character would win teacher of the year in comparison with Cate Blanchett’s classroom groomer and Judi Dench’s venomous senior schoolmarm in 2007’s deliciously lurid melodrama Notes on a Scandal. Meanwhile, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s remarkable performance in the underseen The Kindergarten Teacher (2018) occupies a greyer area: she’s a dedicated and conscientious educator, but is she pushing the apparent poetry prodigy in her preschool class for his benefit or hers?
All titles available to rent on multiple platforms unless specified.
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Kelly Reichardt’s delightful, light-touch comedy of frustrated creative energy premiered in competition at Cannes way back in 2022 – and then bypassed cinemas in the UK. That’s odd, because it’s as airy and accessible a film as any the director has made, carried by Michelle Williams’s wry, sly performance as an unravelling sculptor, and a wickedly funny Hong Chau as her landlord and artistic rival.
‘Wry, sly’ Michelle Williams in Showing Up. A24
Femme
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Strange that Bafta couldn’t even rustle up a best British debut nomination for this sharp, statement-making queer revenge thriller from newcomers Sam H Freeman and Ng Choon Ping, given a shot of electricity by superb performances from Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as a drag queen nursing trauma from a homophobic attack and George MacKay as his tormentor turned inadvertent lover.
The Royal Hotel
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Kitty Green’s taut, incrementally terrifying thriller finds inspired tension in an everyday premise, as two young, female Canadian backpackers take a bartending job in a remote Australian mining town, and soon find the sweaty patriarchy closing in on them.
Tótem
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Mexican director Lila Avilés improves on her already impressive The Chambermaid with this bustlingly inhabited, emotionally febrile family tragedy, steering a young girl through a day’s party preparations for her terminally ill father. The payoff cuts your heart in two. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/19/egypt-russia-fitness-mo-salah-hector-cuper-world-cup | Football | 2018-06-19T08:00:06.000Z | Amy Lawrence | Egypt ready to take a risk on fitness of talisman Mo Salah | For the Egypt fans taking in the sights of St Petersburg there was no mistaking the focus for their adoration. The words “Mo Salah” became a kind of greeting, as people embraced, stopped for photographs in front of the ornate Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, hoisted their flags.
It has always been about Salah. Even long before his shoulder was wrenched by Sergio Ramos, it was about Salah. Their symbol was the man who had propelled them here in the first place, a World Cup 28 years in the waiting.
How Mohamed Salah managed the impossible: to unite Egypt
Read more
There is an extraordinary pressure riding on whether or not he is in the best physical shape to run at the Russia defence as the second round of Group A matches gets under way.
The Egypt manager, Héctor Cúper, had a stab at spreading the message that the entire squad are working collectively but there was not much point in pretending Salah’s influence was not the key to everything. “When we don’t have him we feel his absence,” Cúper said.
“Nobody can deny how important he is and I say that with all due respect to the rest of the players in the squad. We have to try to find alternatives but I am optimistic he will be able to play. Salah is fit and an essential part of our team.”
That declaration, a little over 24 hours before the kick-off against Russia, felt like a boost but Egypt had heard a similar message before the opening game against Uruguay. Salah had been close to playing only for a late fitness test to complicate matters. Salah will repeat the physical examination on Tuesday with Egypt desperate for a more positive outcome. Out on the pitch on the eve of the game the fitness coach made a point of bumping him with physical contact, challenging the arm, seeing how well it could withstand a body check.
As if there was not enough being loaded on that recovering shoulder anyway, the way Group A has shaped up suggests Egypt desperately need a result against the host nation. Working on the assumption that Saudi Arabia look set for the wooden spoon, Egypt are aiming for a win to be the springboard to propel them into the knockout stage. Anything less is ominous for a team who do not score a lot of goals.
Egypt’s reliance on Salah as a source of providing and finishing is emphasised by the fact they do not have many choices. Cúper faced a question about whether he was minded to give up the team’s cautious style given how much is at stake against Russia. Cúper sighed. “It’s a tough question to answer. The more you increase the level of competition, the higher you set the bar, the more demanding the game becomes. We have an identity, we have a personality. It may not please everyone but we have our style. Maybe we lack that last touch, that last accuracy, that last good fortune that allows a moment to become a goal.”
Does he regret not calling up another forward? “Regret serves no purpose,” he replied. “It is like after a match you think if only I had done this or that. I can make a mistake but I leave no room for regret. What’s the point? We are all geniuses at hindsight aren’t we.”
Cúper enthused about the impact he hopes Salah will have. “Salah is one of the best in the world, in the top 10 today no shadow of doubt. It is an honour to be able to coach him and work with him. On top of being talented he is humble, a team player, which is extremely important now.”
The Russia manager, Stanislav Cherchesov, sounded confident his team had a plan to halt Salah and Cúper responded drily. “There is not only one player on the pitch. It is great if they are just focusing on Salah.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/31/abortion-ireland-northern-ireland-women-travel-england-amelia-gentleman | World news | 2015-10-31T10:00:01.000Z | Amelia Gentleman | ‘It was the scariest thing I've ever done’: the Irish women forced to travel for abortions | By 10.30am, 10 minutes before her first appointment, Catriona is already grey-faced with exhaustion and so tired that talking is a struggle; her words fall out on top of each other. She is six weeks pregnant and has travelled overnight by boat from a small town an hour outside Belfast to Liverpool for an abortion. She took the boat because it was cheaper than flying and because she had no passport, and didn’t have the money or the time to get one; but it has been a difficult journey and she hasn’t slept. Tonight, after the procedure, she will go back by boat, a second night sitting bolt upright, trying to sleep. This is her first trip to England.
“A lot of bad things have happened to me in my life, but this has been the worst,” says the 28-year-old single mother who, like all the women I spoke to for this article, did not want to use her real name. It’s not the abortion itself that is troubling her; she has two sons already, and no desire to expand her family. It’s the difficulties involved in getting herself, at short notice, to England for a medical procedure considered a criminal offence punishable by life imprisonment in Northern Ireland. In total, the cost of the round trip and the abortion will come to about £570. Over the past three weeks, while saving for the journey, she has cut down on the food for the family and hasn’t bought oil to heat the house. “We’ve been going to my mum’s house, where there’s a fire; she’s been giving food to the boys.”
Catriona hadn’t realised abortion law in Northern Ireland was so restrictive. When she told her GP she didn’t want to keep the baby, the doctor said she couldn’t help her and that travelling to England was the only option; she gave her a piece of paper with a telephone number for the British Pregnancy Advisory Service, who booked her into the Liverpool clinic.
'I didn't tell the children, or my friends – I think they'd be sympathetic, but most are Catholic and think it's a sin'
Northern Ireland’s abortion laws have added multiple layers of stress to an already difficult situation for Catriona – expense, secrecy, stigma and logistical difficulties. “I’m not feeling too well,” she says. “I don’t know if it’s tiredness or the travelling, the thinking what is going to happen, the wondering if it’s a good thing or a bad thing.” Her mother’s boyfriend has made the journey with her, to give her support, but no one else apart from her mother knows she is away. “You feel like it has to be a big secret. I didn’t tell the children. I haven’t told my friends… I think they would be sympathetic, but most of them are Catholic and think it’s a sin, so I never mentioned it. There’s so much negativity about it. They make it out to be so bad. You still know it is right for you, but in your head you are thinking, maybe it is bad.”
In the BPAS clinic waiting room on a Saturday morning in October, there are six women from Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland waiting for terminations. The clinic, inside a converted, red-brick, double-fronted Victorian family home in Merseyside, sees about 30 people every week who have travelled from there for abortions. At least 4,500 come each year to England to terminate pregnancies, according to Department of Health statistics (although this is only the number of women who give their home addresses in Ireland, which some women don’t want to do; the true figure is higher).
Three of the women here today are in their late teens or early 20s, travelling alone. One of them “has got herself into a bit of a state”, the clinic’s manager says, and is quietly crying, observed in silence by the 20 or so other people in the pre-consultation waiting room. Some of the people who have accompanied women to Liverpool are sleeping, after the early start.
Helen, lead nurse at the British Pregnancy Advisory Service clinic in Liverpool, which treats around 30 women a week. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
For women, such as Sophie, 29, working in the Republic of Ireland but originally from France, the experience is a logistical headache which makes her incredulous about Ireland’s attitude towards women’s rights. “From my French point of view, it seems crazy,” she says. Because she has a good job and a supportive boyfriend, the trip has not caused a major upheaval, and she is composed and philosophical about this unexpected weekend stay in Liverpool. One of her Irish flatmates had made the same journey and gave her advice. For others, such as Anna, 23, a student from Dublin who already has a young child, the financial fallout from this trip will be with her for months. The cost of the flights, two nights in a bed and breakfast, and bringing a friend with her for moral support has come to about ¤1,000, of which €800 is money lent to her by friends.
“Not everyone can get the money and, if they can’t, they have to have the baby,” Anna says. “It was very stressful. It’s not nice asking people for money.” She thinks it will take at least six months to pay back the loans, and she worries that the extra financial pressure may make it harder to complete her degree. However, she’s reassured to know that there are other women here who have made similar journeys. “It’s comforting to know that you are not the only one.”
Abortion is legal in Ireland only if the woman's life is at risk, but there is no clear guidance on how to define that
Kally, the clinic manager, feels worried for the women who travel from Ireland. She works with the clinical lead nurse, Helen, to make sure they smooth over the extra problems these women face. They help to book them in on a Saturday, so they don’t need to miss work, and (if necessary) they can tell friends they are popping over to England for shopping, or accompanying a partner to the football. They let them stay later at the clinic, if they have a late-night flight. They advise any woman who is having a medical abortion (one that induces miscarriage) not to travel back by boat or plane that night because of the unpredictability of the bleeding; but often women can’t afford the extra cost of a night in a hotel.
“If they’ve had to book a really late flight, we advise them to go to the cinema, so they can sit down and relax. It is not ideal but it is better than lying down on the airport floor,” Helen says. “If you start getting a bit faint in the middle of the airport, they are going to refuse to let you on the flight; you have to be ready to travel.”
They are furious at the misinformation given by some pregnancy counsellors in Ireland. Kally pulls a stapled-together booklet from her in-tray, left by a woman from Northern Ireland earlier in the week. The sheets, which appear to be a simple consent form, go on to warn of a 72% higher risk of rectal and colon cancer among women who have had abortions and a 50% greater risk of breast cancer; they suggest that a woman who has had one may be more prone to seizures, tremors, comas, frigidity and committing child abuse. “This kind of thing sinks in,” Kally says, jabbing at the text with a pen.
‘The system is inhumane’: Kally, manager of the Liverpool clinic. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
She describes the system as “inhumane”. “It is very difficult for women from Ireland to come here. Lots of things contribute to the stress: they don’t want people to know; there is the extra cost, and they have to travel; there is still a stigma attached to abortion; they are afraid they may meet someone here who knows them. It has happened. I’m not saying that women from England aren’t anxious and worried, but they don’t have the added stress that the women from Ireland have.”
A
bortion in Northern Ireland is lawful only in extremely restricted circumstances, where there is a risk to a pregnant woman’s life or a real and serious risk of long-term damage to her physical or mental health; just 23 legal abortions were carried out on the NHS in 2013-14. Under any other circumstances, a penalty of life imprisonment could be imposed on both the woman undergoing the abortion and anyone assisting her – even if the abortion is sought because of a fatal foetal impairment, for example, or because the pregnancy is the result of rape. This is the harshest criminal penalty for abortion anywhere in Europe.
In the Republic of Ireland, abortion is legal only if the woman’s life is deemed to be at risk, but there is no clear guidance on how to define that. Women and anyone who assists them face up to 14 years in prison for breaking this law. The eighth amendment to the Irish Constitution puts the foetus’s right to life on an equal footing with the woman’s, and the provision of information about abortion services is also restricted, under legislation that criminalises any information by healthcare providers that “advocates or promotes” abortion.
In practice, women who want to end a pregnancy in Northern Ireland or the Republic are faced with two options: travel abroad for a termination, or receive abortion pills by post. Mifepristone and Misoprostol can be taken in combination to trigger a miscarriage, up to the ninth week of pregnancy. These are widely available from online pharmacists, but they are expensive, and it is hard to know whether the online provider is genuine.
As the pills are illegal in Northern Ireland and the Republic, suspicious-looking parcels are routinely checked; about 1,200 packages containing the pills were seized by customs in Ireland last year. In Northern Ireland, a mother is being prosecuted for obtaining abortion pills for her pregnant underage daughter; she was charged with procuring “poison or other noxious substance” in the knowledge that they were to be used to cause a miscarriage. A trial is expected later this year; if found guilty, she faces a five-year sentence.
Northern Ireland imposes the most severe penalty in Europe for abortion. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
In both the Republic and Northern Ireland, however, women cannot be prevented from seeking safe and legal abortion abroad; in the past 30 years, more than 160,000 women have travelled from Northern Ireland and the Republic for a termination. The phenomenon rarely attracts much attention: two-thirds of British people are unaware that the laws on abortion in Northern Ireland are different from those in the rest of the UK. After the success of the equal marriage referendum in Ireland earlier this year, campaigners are calling for a referendum on repealing the eighth amendment. Last month, thousands marched through Dublin in support of decriminalisation. But while popular support is growing across the UK for reform in Northern Ireland, there is little political will among politicians across the spectrum, Catholic and Protestant.
L
ila, 25, a student who has two children, one of whom has special needs, found out she was pregnant late last November. She immediately knew she couldn’t manage another child. She was brought up in England, and although she has lived in Northern Ireland for the past five years, she didn’t realise the law would apply to her.
“I stupidly thought that I might be able to get around it because I was English,” she says. She decided the cheapest option was to fly to the BPAS’s Liverpool clinic; still, she needed to find £400 for the flights and the procedure. Women from Northern Ireland are not eligible for NHS abortions, even if they travel to England. “It was a shocking amount of money. I cut all my direct debits for that month – the phone bill, electricity, TV licence. I had to pull my eldest son out of pre-school. I felt terrible about that.”
'I felt wrecked… I thought, maybe if I fell down the stairs the right way I could end the pregnancy but not kill myself'
She didn’t feel able to discuss the issue with anyone, which made borrowing money impossible. Concerned that she wasn’t going to be able to save the money quickly enough, she pushed the date of the procedure back. This was the most difficult time – forced to continue with a pregnancy she didn’t want so she could save money for the abortion. “The worst was the waiting, and having to save up, and pretending everything was fine. It was just an awful experience. I didn’t want to be pregnant at all. I felt like a zombie; I could barely get out of bed; I didn’t want to eat. I had to put on a happy face because it was Christmas, but I felt wrecked. I remember thinking maybe if I fell down the stairs the right way I could hurt myself enough to end the pregnancy but not kill myself. It was just awful.”
She was able to afford the procedure only with the help of an English-based organisation called the Abortion Support Network, which offers grants to Irish women struggling with the costs of abortion. Recalling that month makes her cry but, most of all, the memory enrages her.
“Once the being upset wore off, I was very angry. It felt so demeaning – the sneaking out before dawn, feeling I couldn’t tell anyone. I had to lie to the taxi driver, who was really nice, and was asking me what I was doing.”
Waiting at Liverpool airport for the last flight back to Belfast, she noticed three or four women whom she had seen at the clinic earlier in the day. “One was very young, in her late teens. It hurt that she was on her own. One of them looked as if she was in a lot pain, so I bought some Paracetamol and gave some to her. I said, ‘I saw you before, earlier today, and you look like you could do with some.’ She just thanked me.”
The experience has made her feel very hostile to the country she calls home. “I like to think I am fairly intelligent and in a stable relationship. But I wonder about women who aren’t as well supported or educated – how do they cope? I worry about other women who are alone, who are in abusive relationships, or who don’t have that support. It’s just wrong. If I had daughters, I would be making plans to move. I would not be staying in this part of the world.”
Sara, 20, a student at Dublin University, originally from England, also found herself grappling with the cost of travelling to England for an abortion when she found out she was pregnant earlier this year. The doctor she consulted was sympathetic, but made it clear that there was nothing he could do to help.
She chose to go to a clinic in Manchester because that’s where the flights were cheapest; she and her boyfriend decided not to stay overnight because they didn’t have the money for a hotel. “It was the scariest thing that I have ever done – going into a place you don’t know anything about, the whole travelling aspect of it. I was a nervous wreck.”
The clinic told her to wait at a designated spot in Manchester airport, where she would find a taxi driver holding a board with her name on it. “There must have been 10 or 12 girls in exactly the same place, being taken away by taxi drivers. They were there at the clinic. Most of them in their 20s.”
'They're at their wits end – it's nothing to do with the decision to have an abortion, but the fact they can't get one'
Delays at the clinic meant Sara was still waiting at 4pm. “I hadn’t got to the theatre yet and I was thinking to myself, I have to be at the airport in a couple of hours. It was an absolute nightmare.” They made the flight with very little time to spare. “It was the worst thing, to have to get on a flight afterwards. I wanted to get into a clean bed and go to sleep. I didn’t want to be worrying about getting bags on and off a plane, and organising a taxi to get home. I was worried about what would happen if I got on to the flight and started bleeding uncontrollably. I didn’t know what was going to happen.”
In retrospect, she is angry that the enduring stigma associated with abortion in Northern Ireland meant she was unable to talk about what she was doing. “It is your right as a woman to decide what you want to do with your body, and the fact that they do their best to stop that is a disgrace.”
M
ara Clarke, an energetic New Yorker who lives in London, set up the Abortion Support Network in 2009, startled to learn that thousands of women were coming from Ireland to seek help in England. “I knew if that many are coming over, then there’s 500 or 50 or five who aren’t coming over because they don’t have the money,” she says. “That’s always the cost of restricting abortions – women who have money have abortions, women without money have babies, or they do really, really desperate things to not be pregnant. When we started, we wondered if the phone would ring; the phone hasn’t stopped ringing.”
Mara Clarke, who set up the Abortion Support Network, which offers women grants to travel and negotiates lower fees for their terminations. Photograph: Karen Robinson/The Guardian
Not only does her organisation offer grants to help women to travel, it also advises on flights and the best clinics to travel to, and helps negotiate fees down if women are struggling with the cost of the procedure.
In 2009 the clinic helped four women; in 2014 it helped 552. “We’ve had teenagers, we’ve had women who have attempted suicide, refugees pregnant as a result of rape. Because they don’t happen to have £400 to £2,000 [depending on how many weeks pregnant they are], they are put into this spiral of despair in terms of how to come up with the money. As you are trying to find the money, you get further into the pregnancy; at 14 weeks the price doubles and at 19 weeks the price trebles.”
Clarke views her job with bleak humour, explaining how she has tried without success to get Ryanair and Virgin to offer these women free flights. “If only women could plan their unplanned pregnancies better, so they could take advantage of the reduced advance booking fares on Ryanair,” she says. But she finds the details of the situation depressing. “Fewer than 1.4% of the abortions in England, Scotland and Wales happen at over 20 weeks. With our clients, it’s 8%, because they spend so long trying to raise the money.”
The organisation has 60 volunteers, who take turns to look after the mobile phone and reply to emails from women asking for help. It can be a difficult job. “They are at their wits’ end; you can hear it in their voices. All this turmoil has got nothing to do with the decision to have an abortion: it’s to do with the fact that they live in a country where they can’t get one. Sometimes people will give us all the justifications for why they want to have an abortion, and we say, ‘You’re welcome to tell me this, but it’s not my business.’ The women with money don’t have to throw reasons in front of a panel for judgment. We don’t judge; we’re the money people.”
As you're trying to find the money, you get further into pregnancy. At 14 weeks the price doubles, and at 19 it trebles
Then there are the desperate stories they hear. “I drank floor cleaner. I drank bleach. I took all the pills in the medicine cabinet. I have been trying to think how to crash the car to injure myself permanently but not die – a mother of four. I found poison bottles under my daughter’s bed, that’s how I found out she was pregnant. I’ve taken scalding hot baths, I’ve asked my boyfriend to punch me in the stomach. People say, oh, you’re just making stuff up. No, I wish I was.”
As well as offering money, the organisation has an address book of carefully vetted host families, who live close to the most popular clinics and can offer a bed to women so that they don’t have to fly back home immediately after the abortion.
Sally and Fred have had about 15 women to stay in their home in Manchester over the past two years. “They usually feel very relieved,” Sally says. “We bring them home, they have a cup of tea and something very simple to eat, and then have a lie down.” They warn women in advance that they are vegan, and that they don’t have a television, but they keep milk and snacks for their visitors. They also keep spare toothbrushes, because sometimes women are scared to pack their overnight bags.
“They daren’t bring their own with them because they’re frightened that someone might ask where they are going. Some women come with euros, because they’re frightened to be seen with sterling. One came with her son’s school bag, rather than an overnight bag, in case someone questioned what she was doing.” Some want to be left alone in the spare room; others enjoy the couple’s company.
Sally and Fred, part of a network of volunteers who offer the women an overnight stay after their abortion – many dread travelling immediately after the procedure. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
“We are both from Belfast; we chat. We talk about family. We have two dogs and a cat, and that helps break the ice. Some people use this period as an opportunity to take stock of their lives. You might be a sounding board – it’s like talking to strangers on a train, it is a safe thing, because you are never going to see them again,” Sally says. “When they leave I feel happy that they have got their lives back. I am delighted to be able to contribute to that in a small way.”
T
he fact that the numbers of women coming to England for terminations have declined in recent years (from a high of about 9,000 in 2003) reflects the growing use of medical abortion tablets that can be taken at home. The difficulty is in getting hold of them, but here, too, organisations have sprung up to help Irish women. In the Netherlands, Women on Web and Women Help Women send tablets to women in Northern Ireland in exchange for a donation, and offer online support for the usually straightforward process. They no longer send tablets to the Republic of Ireland, however, as the postal services routinely seize the packets.
“When you cannot guarantee that it is going to arrive, then it is bad help,” says Rebecca Gomperts, founder of Women on Web, “because one of the harmful things is when somebody waits for weeks, the pregnancy advances and it never comes. It’s harmful because people are not taking the proper decisions to get care; the longer women wait, the riskier an abortion becomes and the more expensive it becomes.”
The organisation advises about 200 women from Ireland every month; pills are sent to Northern Ireland by a partner organisation in India. “Medical abortion is so easily available now. You can get it over the counter in Nepal, Cambodia and India. In Vietnam it is really widely available; in China it is very easy to get. These are good medicines. Sometimes the government tries to scare people by saying they are bad quality – but these are medicines normally available on the open market.”
Kinga Jelinska of Women Help Women, which assists about 200 women a month in Ireland, says getting pills posted is the easier option for those women who have no time or money to contemplate travelling to England. “The bottom line is that access to abortion is a matter of social justice. The ones who have the money will always find a way, no matter what the legal situation is. The women with the least resources and the least skills to navigate this difficult situation are the ones who suffer the most.”
Anna, 20, a student from Dublin, took abortion pills late last year, when she found out she was three weeks pregnant. She had them sent by Women on Web to an address in Northern Ireland, then had them couriered to Dublin (at a cost of €90). She resented the secrecy that had to accompany what was otherwise a straightforward procedure, and she hated having to do something illegal.
“I was very worried that it would be intercepted and I would have the guards knocking on the door,” she says. “Or, when I went to the depot, that I’d turn around and there would be a squad car behind me. It is so uncertain what the law actually is and what they might do. The fear was all-pervading. For weeks after, I was still thinking, oh God, will they come knocking?”
'My mum, her cousin, my granny… they've gone 30, 40 years and never told anyone. None of us feels able to talk about it'
Online advisers from Women on Web are there to answer questions during the procedure, and the website explains what the experience should feel like. “They advise you, if you feel something is not right, to go to the hospital and say you think you might be having a miscarriage, but don’t tell them about the pills, because then you could be prosecuted. It’s hard to know what it is meant to feel like, to know what normal is, as opposed to abnormal. You do worry.”
How heartbreak led Helen and Graham Linehan to campaign for abortion in Ireland
Read more
She has told a few friends, but she hasn’t enjoyed having to reassure them when they express shock at what she did. “I felt like I had to comfort them, tell them it’s not that awful. I made my decision.”
Some weeks later, Anna’s mother found out what she had done, after spotting and questioning the PayPal transfer on her daughter’s bank statement. Unexpectedly, she was understanding, revealing that she had travelled to England for an abortion herself in the 1980s, when she was 21 and not ready to look after a child. In the days following, it emerged that her mother’s cousin had made the same journey, as had her own mother, Anna’s grandmother. None of them had spoken about it.
“My mum, her cousin, my granny – they’ve gone for 30 or 40 years and never told anyone,” Anna says. “If I’d known about my mum’s experience, maybe I could have told her, and maybe it wouldn’t have been such an ordeal. To have the moral support would have been great. But none of us feels able to talk about it.”
Some names have been changed. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/periscope-twitter-live-streaming-app-how-it-could-be-better | Technology | 2015-04-03T12:53:21.000Z | Jemima Kiss | Up Periscope! Twitter's live-streaming app is exciting us, but here's how it could be better | Periscope is so hot right now. The Twitter-owned live video streaming app that lets viewers comment on what they’re seeing and the Scopers (is that a word yet?) respond in real time may only be 10 days old but it’s already causing ripples as it rises above the competition. And that’s despite it still lacking some basic functionality that would make it much better - presumably due to it being pushed out early to block the growth of rival Meerkat, which it has very succesfully.
Currently a sea of: a) people looking a bit confused as they test it for the first time; b) people filming out of car windows as they drive around; c) people walking around cities; d) people doing “ask me any thing”s, and; e) people showing the contents of their fridge (yes, this is already a meme), it’s not yet clear what the USP of Periscope will be.
It may be tempting to think it will only be useful for big events – whatever each of us consider ‘newsworthy’, or will only appeal to people narcissistic enough that they feel they are worthy to broadcast to an audience. That may partially be true, but it is such early days for Periscope that the most significant uses haven’t been invented yet. There will be events that come to define it, events that might end it, careers born of it – it has only just begun.
And just as celebrities think they have the demands of selfies nailed, they will have to start planning their red carpet Periscope strategy too. Poor, poor celebrities.
But for now … we think there are some very basic improvements that would make Periscope much better for users. Dear Twitter – here’s our features wishlist:
Discovery is too hard
Browsing is very hard, as at the moment there is only a reverse chronological feed. There needs to be filters for language – a live stream of someone speaking in a language you don’t understand turns out only to be interesting for so long – and for location. It would be nice to know what’s happening nearby right now, and perhaps clusters organised by interest too – so users can browse by sport, music or personalities, for example.
So is finding something you are looking for
There’s also no search function, so you’re limited to stumbling across an interesting sounding feed, rather than being able to search for “Apple Watch unboxing” or whatever. Maybe hashtags could help with organisation here too.
Notifications need some work
Death by #Periscope notifications
— Amy Worley (@worleygirl) April 2, 2015
Right now, notifications seem to be for anyone who’s broadcasting (or maybe we just imported too many Twitter followers?), but we probably don’t really need to know that Oguzhan or whoever is broadcasting about a shopping mall at 3am. We could turn notifications off, but there’s no other way to find out if genuine contacts or colleagues of interest are broadcasting. As it’s much more about here and now, rather than the it-doesn’t-matter-what-you’ve-missed ambient flow of Twitter, that is quite pertinent.
As does how to manage who you interact with
A swipe right on each broadcaster in the “Watch” feed, to block, follow, add to a list or favourite individually, could be a good mechanism. Verified ticks would also help identify higher profile broadcasters. And fast switching between accounts would help, especially if Twitter wants to encourage news organisations to get involved.
Typing comments on a mobile is too slow
There’s dissonance between what’s happening or being said, and the time it takes for responsive comments to appear, so it can end up with comments being out of sync. Free text commenting needs to stay, obviously, but pre-written comments of approval or disagreement would help too. Switch them off if you don’t want to use them. Or maybe a wider range of one-touch emoticons would help; love hearts only go so far …
And it’d be great to be able to interact outside the app
Obviously being restricted to iOS so far is not great, so we hope the Android app is imminent. But a desktop app would also help – perhaps one limited to commenting rather than broadcasting so that things don’t get a bit too Chatroulette-y, God forbid. It’s hard to type fast on mobile, so that would help bridge that problem.
Comments covering the screen can be tricky ... but they kind of work
The overlay of comments and the love heart feed on the broadcast image mean the space given to the face of the broadcaster (or whatever else you’re watching) is maximised, and that’s good. Boxing them off would have lost that, and it’s the softness of the design here that is particularly good. The fading comments and hearts somehow emphasise the real time, the ephemerality of the feed, and it’s rather captivating.
Not using both cameras is missing a trick
Periscope should take a leaf out of Facetime’s book and include a thumbnail view of what viewers are actually seeing. We found during a test that we had to use another phone to see what the output actually looked like, but that won’t be possible for most people. It’d also be cool to see both the Periscoping and the Periscoper at the same time.
And finally, TTC?
It’s only a very short matter of time before some prankster tries to broadcast some intimate part of their anatomy. Perhaps it’s because login is verified through Twitter, which has become increasingly strict about adult content (although arguably not strict enough) but it’s surprising there isn’t very obvious live streaming of, well, periscopes being Periscoped. Maybe they have an ultra-vigilance content policing policy. At the moment it seems to be working, let’s hope it stays that way. What happens with graphic and disturbing images will need close attention too. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2001/jun/24/life1.lifemagazine7 | From the Observer | 2001-06-24T00:51:43.000Z | Sybil Kapoor | Sybil Kapoor: Yorkshire puddings | It's all very well trying to metamorphose into a kitchen goddess whenever you feel like eating a little cake, but there are times - most weekends, in fact - when I for one, would rather skip the making and concentrate on the munching. However, finding a good, homemade-tasting cake is not always easy - unless you happen to live in Whitby in Yorkshire. Here, you can buy scrumptious ginger brack, lemon buns and Lincolnshire plum bread from the family-run bakery of Elizabeth Botham & Sons. Fortunately, they also have an excellent mail-order system for non-local cake-lovers.
One slice of their sticky ginger brack, speckled with plump golden sultanas and succulent nuggets of Australian stem ginger, will convince any self-respecting lotus-eater of their worth. According to Mike Jarman, managing director of E Botham's and husband to a Botham, their cakes are so loved that orders pour in from as far as Japan and Peru.
Time, I felt, for a little research. The bakery was founded in 1865 by Elizabeth Botham, who, aside from being a farmer's wife and mother of 13, was also an adept baker. She and her heirs carefully recorded their recipes.
Jo Botham, Elizabeth B's great grandson, is responsible for much of the baking and product development. 'We always start by looking at the old recipes before creating anything new,' he explains. 'We introduced the Yorkshire brack about eight years ago. We got the name from the Yorkshire WI, who use the word "brack" to refer to any cake, usually fruited, that is made without fat - apart from what occurs naturally in the eggs.' Chock-a-block with tea-soaked sultanas and currants, it looks and tastes like something Bertie Worcester might have enjoyed. 'I developed the ginger brack,' he says, 'because I'm not very fond of tea brack and we had a sample of Australian Buderim ginger.' He soaked some sultanas with the ginger and some orange zest in hot water, before mixing the sticky mixture into the cake batter. He had created a new classic tea bread.
I have not, as yet, worked my through Botham's mail-order list. There is still gingerbread, plain and iced fruit cakes, and buttery rice cake to try. After all, who needs to bake when they can laze about and eat cake instead?
Elizabeth Botham & Sons, 35-39 Skinner Street, Whitby, North Yorkshire YO21 3AH (01947 602 823). | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/may/19/oumou-sangare-mogoya-review-tony-allen-mali | Music | 2017-05-19T14:00:09.000Z | Robin Denselow | Oumou Sangaré: Mogoya review – change of direction but still true to her roots | Oumou Sangaré review – Malian songbird's musical star soars
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The first new album in eight years by the great Malian diva shows a dramatic change of direction. She has a new French record label and French production team, A.l.b.e.r.t, who have worked with Franz Ferdinand. She is clearly aiming for a younger audience, and does so by using tight bass riffs, keyboards and sudden bursts of rock guitar, with the great Tony Allen driving on two of the songs with his distinctive percussion work. The result is an impressive, attacking set, but then Sangaré has always been adventurous. Her previous album, Seya, also included Allen, and she succeeds here because she remains true to her roots. The kamele ngoni is still much in evidence, and she is in distinctive, powerful voice on songs that – as ever – offer advice to her female followers. The title track is the most experimental, with backing provided by keyboards and cello. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/aug/02/luisa-miller-review-verdi-glyndebourne | Music | 2021-08-02T10:04:24.000Z | Flora Willson | Luisa Miller review – Verdi’s dark tragedy gains focus and ferocity in stark staging | It took nearly a decade for Verdi’s Luisa Miller to be staged in the UK. At its 1858 London premiere, reigning critic Henry Chorley slammed the romantic tragedy as “the weakest of the weak”, predicting that it wouldn’t be seen again. More than 150 years later, as Luisa Miller enjoys yet another main stage outing, Chorley’s tirade looks ever more like a warning to critics (beware soothsaying) and ever wider of the mark. But we shouldn’t get too smug: Luisa Miller remains in the shadow of Verdi’s most popular works and Christof Loy’s new production – remarkably – marks the first time the work has been staged at Glyndebourne.
It was worth the wait. Loy’s staging looks unmistakably post-pandemic: cavernous spaces, minimal props, stark-starker-starkest lighting by Olaf Winter (think 50 shades of white) and monochrome suiting – subtly demarcating peasants v aristos – for almost all. Performed in Tony Burke’s reduction by a slimmed down London Philharmonic Orchestra under Enrique Mazzola, the opera sounds different, too – but what’s been lost in symphonic weight is repaid in clarity that sharpens the sinuous lines of Verdi’s score and makes its sombre textures all the more striking. Mazzola maintained absolute, incisive control from the ferocity of the overture to multiple hold-your-breath pianissimos. Woodwind solos emerged razor-edged and beguiling; string pizzicatos sounded like dampened thuds, heavy with foreboding.
And there’s plenty of foreboding to go round, as we hurtle towards the final scene’s double fatality. The excellent Glyndebourne chorus was off stage throughout, beautifully blended and offering a periodic injection of a more cheerful musical mode. On stage, however, the darkness of male voices dominates: Vladislav Sulimsky was a rich, warm Miller, the Good Dad to Evgeny Stavinsky’s stentorian Bad Dad (AKA Count Walter, one of the plot’s multiple villains). Krzysztof Bączyk’s Wurm was an almost cartoonish baddie – eyes wide open, absurdly long strides around the empty stage – but Charles Castronovo’s romantically doomed Rodolfo was a more convincing dramatic presence and had gleaming tenorial heroism to burn. As his similarly doomed beloved Luisa, Mané Galoyan was a revelation, her daring in the quietest passages breathtaking, her easy coloratura providing exquisite illumination in the opera’s gloom.
Luisa Miller is at Glyndebourne opera house, Lewes, until 29 August. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/nov/16/radical-year-gangnam-kapoor-art-weekly | Art and design | 2012-11-16T10:33:46.000Z | Jonathan Jones | The most radical year in art history, and a new Gangnam Style – the week in art | Exhibition of the week: 1913 – The Shape of Time
Heroes of modernism from Guillaume Apollinaire to Umberto Boccioni to Giorgio de Chirico appear in this highly interesting exhibition. It is called The Shape of Time because the curators argue that in 1913 radical ideas about time found expression in sculpture. Artists attempted to show not only different viewpoints but different moments in simultaneous images. This was a moment in art that cherished complexity and sought difficulty: the epoch of the high modernist avant garde at its brilliant and sometimes profound zenith.
Henry Moore Institute, Leeds LS1, 22 November to 17 February 2013
Other exhibitions this week
Now I Gotta Reason
After countrifying Frieze Art Fair, Marcus Coates and the Grizedale rural art rebels bring some rusticity to south London.
Jerwood Space, London SE1, until 9 December
Ansel Adams
Here is landscape photography of deep romantic beauty.
National Maritime Museum, Greenwich SE10, until 28 April 2013
SJ Peploe
Latest in a series of exhibitions celebrating the Scottish Colourists.
Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh EH4, until 23 June 2013
Bronze
Do not miss the last chance to see this astoundingly rich show of great bronze sculpture from ancient Greece to Jasper Johns.
Royal Academy, London W1J, until 9 December
Masterpiece of the week
A dream guardian … Hypnos (1st-2nd century). Photograph: British Museum, London
Hypnos
Possibly Roman copy of Greek original, 1st-2nd century AD
A masterpiece of poetic art. Hypnos is the god of sleep and somehow when you look at this dreamy, winged face you feel soothed, calm, ready to close your eyes and slumber happily. It is a dream guardian. Like many ancient works of art that survive, it is a Roman copy of a lost Greek sculpture. The original was made in the Hellenistic era, the later age of Greek civilisation when art became subjective and personal. The earlier "classical" Greek style is concerned with perfection. Hellenistic artists are more interested in expression. Hypnos is a Hellenistic delve into the mysteries of the unconscious.
British Museum, London WC1
Image of the week
Anish Kapoor makes a Gangnam Style video in his studio in south London. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
What we learned this week
Anish Kapoor has brought the art world together to recreate Gangnam Style in support of Ai Weiwei
That there's a plan to redevelop garages into pop-up housing for homeless people
That the National Portrait Gallery has acquired a work of Gerry Adams
What state the Royal College of Art is in as it hits the grand old age of 175
And how all of their most famous students have come together to celebrate
Who the stars of Middle Eastern art are
And finally ...
Would you like to work for Julian Opie?
You can Share your art on the theme of government now
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And check out our Tumblr | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2013/mar/27/little-bulb-natural-born-lyres | Stage | 2013-03-27T08:00:06.000Z | Lyn Gardner | Little Bulb: natural born lyres | Dominic Conway can play a guitar behind his head and he's even had a go at getting a tune out of it with his teeth. But next month Conway, one of the founding members of the Little Bulb theatre company, faces a much bigger challenge: persuading audiences he can play a guitar like Django Reinhardt, the gypsy jazz genius who kept playing even after losing the use of two fingers in his left hand, following a fire in a caravan.
"We'd been joking for years about doing a Django biopic," says Conway, of the troupe's latest show, Orpheus. "Reinhardt is an orphic figure of mythical allure because of the incredible things he could do with a guitar." Fortunately, this young company – which found success at the 2008 Edinburgh fringe with Crocosmia, a heartbreaking show about orphaned siblings – enjoy a challenge.
Indeed, for each piece since Crocosmia, they have developed unlikely new skills. The Marvellous and Unlikely Fete of Little Upper Downing, their rural comi-tragedy based loosely on Romeo and Juliet, saw Clare Beresford learn the double bass from scratch. They immersed themselves in sea shanties for the mad folk opera Sporadical. And, though none of them are dancers, they will be plunging feet-first into its world for their next show, Squally Showers, which will premiere at the Edinburgh fringe this August. "It's always much more fun to have a go," says Alex Scott, the company's director. "Audiences respond to that, even if sometimes you're a bit shoddy. You can't fake authenticity. You have to put in the hours."
For Orpheus, Little Bulb have spent over a year gigging around the country in an effort to look and sound like a real jazz band. "We needed to learn discipline and community," says the troupe's Shamira Turner. "We had to be able to do it for real." Like an increasing number of young theatre companies, music has always been an integral part of Little Bulb shows. But in Orpheus, music lies at the play's heart – there are no spoken words.
"Reinhardt was always having big ideas," says Scott, "but they never came off because he wasn't organised. Orpheus is us imagining what might have happened if he'd been better at turning up." Reinhardt, cast as Orpheus in a play within a play, journeys into the underworld to reclaim his lost Eurydice, in the form of a fictional singer called Yvette Pepin – a failed Edith Piaf figure determined to seize the limelight.The show also features a trio of female singers – a French version of the Andrews Sisters – who act like a Greek chorus, melding snatches of Monteverdi's baroque opera L'Orfeo with the hot, sweaty sounds of gypsy swing.
It's a show with an epic sweep, and it marks a change of scale for a company that has previously concentrated on the minutest details of human interactions. Their last show, the wildly successful Operation Greenfield, about the growing pains of Christian teenagers intent on winning a village talent show, is typical of how the company has built its reputation: a small-scale work with a massive heart.
They could have continued to play it small – after being given the run of the building by BAC's artistic director, David Jubb. "He said that if we wanted to make a show in the disabled toilet, we could," says Turner. Instead, they opted for the magnificent Grand Hall, which comes complete with an organ. Although the instrument is currently being restored, it will be used in the show – even though (or perhaps because) it is still prone to making the odd unexpected farting noise. "It's an operatic space that needs an operatic response," says Turner.
But most of all, they've fixed their attention on this enduring myth, which was old even when Ovid decided to fashion a version of it. "Obviously it's about love," says Scott, "and about trying to put right something that has gone wrong. But it's also about how music can change things. This is a man who can make stones and trees weep, but he fails to get Eurydice back because he does the human thing and looks back." Scott wonders if Orpheus's mission really was such a failure. "He makes people remember all they've lost and forgotten. His presence and his music change the underworld. We're asking: why do people make music and what is its power?" | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/02/transcendence-trailer-johnny-depp-sci-fi | Film | 2014-01-02T17:42:00.000Z | Henry Barnes | Transcendence: watch the first trailer for sci-fi film starring Johnny Depp | Crack in the code ... Johnny Depp in a still from Transcendence. Photograph: Warner Brothers
What if you could escape your physical form? Rise above your corporeal existence and become one with an intelligence greater than the sum of all human thought? What would you look like? What would you sound like?
Here - right on time - comes director Wally Pfister with all the answers, via the trailer for his debut film Transcendence. When our bodies are useless and our minds are part of the supercomputer we will look like the bloke from Hellraiser and sound a lot like SIRI, voiced (this time) by Johnny Depp.
Reading this on mobile? Click here to watch the trailer
Pfister, a long-term collaborator of Christopher Nolan, looks to have implanted some of Nolan's ideas into Transcendence. There's the big-name ensemble cast (Morgan Freeman, Rebecca Hall, Cillian Murphy and Kate Mara are joining Depp). There's the grand-standing narrative (An artificial intelligence researcher is assassinated, but manages to upload his consciousness into a computer before he dies). And the pull of giant spectacle (take a look CG-powered whizz-bangery at the tail-end of the trailer).
Yet, to us, there's something in Transcendence that codes for something even darker than the software Nolan's used to running. The limitless potential power of AI, the terrorist group intent on violently preventing progress, the good scientist gone greedy. This is Transcendence, but it's eXistenZ too.
Transcendence is released in April in the US. In the meantime, what do you think of the trailer? Is Pfister helming a vision of reality you'd like to see? Or has the trailer failed to give you a lift? | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/29/whoever-leader-is-labour-may-never-recover-crisis | Opinion | 2016-06-29T17:03:07.000Z | John Harris | Whoever the leader is, Labour may never recover from this crisis | John Harris | The Labour party must currently be thinking collective thoughts akin to the old card player’s term: Who dealt this mess anyway? More than 80% of its MPs are now formally estranged from not just the leader, but from the 40 other MPs who support him. In a cruel twist of fate, the spectre of the sainted Tony Benn hangs over the whole grim drama: he was the guru of the leftwing anti-EU position we now call Lexit, but also the man who endlessly pushed the idea that activists should have the whip hand over parliamentarians.
For all his commendable policy positions Jeremy Corbyn has been a pretty awful leader. But in all its fundamentals, the state of his party is hardly his fault. To blame him is to fall for the same delusion whereby a supposed challenger – Angela Eagle, Tom Watson, Dan Jarvis – can put the party on the road to recovery. The truth, unpalatable to some but which is surely obvious, is that Labour is in the midst of a longstanding and possibly terminal malaise, and now finds itself facing two equally unviable options.
Labour must unite and face the country, or die
Lisa Nandy
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On one side is the current leader and a small band of leftist diehards, backed by an energetic, well-drilled movement but devoid of any coherent project and out of touch with the voters who have just defied the party in their droves. On the other is a counter-revolution led by MPs who mostly failed to see this crisis coming, have very few worthwhile ideas themselves, and are a big part of the reason the Brexit revolt happened in the first place. As the activist Neal Lawson says, the choice is essentially between different captains of the Titanic, and therefore is no choice at all.
As with the centre-left parties across Europe in the same predicament, Labour is a 20th-century party adrift in a new reality. Its social foundations – the unions, heavy industry, the nonconformist church, a deference to the big state that has long evaporated – are either in deep retreat or have vanished completely. Its name embodies an attachment to the supposed glories of work that no longer chimes with insecure employment and insurgent automation.
Its culture is still far too macho, and didactic; it has a lifelong aversion to analysis and ideas that has hobbled it throughout its existence, and now leaves it lacking any real sense of what is happening. I am a lifelong party member who was raised in a Labour family – my grandfather was a south Wales coal miner, my father a Labour activist – for whom the party was a kind of secular church. But if we do not confront the crisis now, then when? Look at any number of what we still laughably call “core” Labour areas, and you will find the same things: a vote share that has been steadily declining since 2001, an MP more often parachuted in from a different world, and voters who either vote for the party thanks to fading familial loyalties (“I vote Labour because my granddad did”) or have no idea what the party stands for.
In 2014, in the former pit village of Penygraig in the Rhondda valley, I met women who said they associated Labour with “older men”; middle-aged people who still supported the party but couldn’t explain why (“I just do, that’s all”), and young people who had never voted at all. In the middle of the village was a peeling Labour club that looked like the embodiment of the decline and defeat that had become manifest after the 1980s miners’ strike.
Two years on, 53% of people in the valleys local government area (Rhondda Cynon Taf) voted for Brexit. At the last Welsh assembly elections, the Labour incumbent lost the seat to Plaid Cymru leader Leanne Wood – born and raised in the area, which meant a lot – who won with a majority of 3,500 votes.
The toxic side of Labour’s decline, of course, is the rise of Ukip in once solid areas from the north-east to south Wales. And here, there is much to fear. A general election may be looming. Those people on the left currently agitating for parliament to somehow nullify the referendum result ought to bear one thing in mind: that if support for Brexit was based on mistrust and downright loathing of Westminster, anything that can be presented as a parliamentary stitch-up could hugely boost Ukip’s support.
So too might the only viable way of minimising Brexit’s economic damage: joining the European Economic Area and staying in the single market (complete with the free movement of people), which would presumably allow Ukip to enrage thousands of the potential Labour switchers who fixated on immigration. There is, then, no obvious way out of this conundrum, which throws up a chilling question: do we want droves of Ukip MPs, or even Nigel Farage and his ilk serving in a coalition?
We need a second referendum. The consequences of Brexit are too grave
David Lammy
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In that sense, Labour’s Westminster panic is understandable: the proximity of utter disaster and the fierce urgency of electoral politics might demand a new leader, even if that split the party. There again, with Corbynites organising a fight-back among members – and even threatening to bring more people into the party – and the prospect of big support for him from the unions, trying to topple him might also cause a fatal division. And even if the attempt to oust Corbyn succeeds, it might deliver a leader every bit as ineffective, only in a different way.
The key point is this: at the very least, the idea of Labour as a mighty, monopolistic political force is over. The party as we know it may be finished.
In either event, there are no quick answers. Any viable left politics is going to take 10 or 15 years to decisively materialise, and in the meantime the apparent atmosphere of disunity and ugliness in some places may well get worse. A new national economic crisis is surely on the way; having partly got us into this mess, George Osborne is already talking about fresh cuts.
A 21st-century progressivism will have to run deep and wide. For both the camps tearing Labour into pieces – one of whom effectively wishes it was 1945 while the other harks back to 1997 – it will require a huge shift of perspective. Otherwise they may well be left in the dust.
The left’s future will involve many Labour people, but also some in the Greens, Liberal Democrats – even one-nation Tories – and thousands of people with no affiliation at all. However it is organised, it will have to start with an understanding of the fact this is a crisis of democracy, and support a change to the electoral system and a move towards multi-party politics.
It will need to embrace the case for a federal UK (or, more realistically, a new partnership between England, Wales and Northern Ireland). Its biggest challenge will be once again uniting the people who value openness and the rich cultures of our cities, with those who now fear the same things – via, perhaps, some new deal on free movement, a programme of far-reaching economic intervention, a reinvention of our public services, and a programme of public housing to match anything accomplished in the 20th century.
God only knows what we will have to endure in the meantime. The task will be onerous, often grim, and frequently confounding. But which worthwhile endeavour was ever anything else? | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/sep/05/loch-ness-monster-could-be-a-giant-eel-say-scientists | Science | 2019-09-05T16:14:11.000Z | Matthew Weaver | Loch Ness monster could be a giant eel, say scientists | The Loch Ness monster could be a giant eel, according to a fishy new theory that will keep Highland tourists guessing.
In one of the biggest DNA studies of its kind, a team of scientists from New Zealand’s Otago University found the presence of about 3,000 species in the deep murky waters of the Scottish loch.
Most of the creatures were very small, and while they did detect DNA from pigs, deer, sticklebacks and humans, there were no monsters. But Prof Neil Gemmell, who led the study, said he couldn’t rule out a theory that eels in the loch have grown to an extreme size.
“It is possible there are very large eels,” Gemmell told a packed press conference at the Loch Ness Centre at Drumnadrochit, “but it depends how big you think ‘large’ is.”
The eel theory resurrects a possible explanation for “sightings” of the monster that date back to 1933, when the Inverness Courier first reported a “strange spectacle on Loch Ness”.
In the decades since, there have been dozens of high-profile attempts to prove the existence of the monster. In 2003, the BBC funded an extensive search using 600 sonar beams, which turned up nothing.
Gemmell said the sheer volume of eel DNA surprised him and his team. And, maintaining a straight face, he added: “We don’t know if the eel DNA we are detecting is from a gigantic eel or just many small eels.”
Looking more sceptical, he outlined the theory: “The notion is that these eels would normally migrate to reproduce, but they, for whatever reason, don’t. And they continue to grow to a very large size, forgoing reproduction for growth.”
He said, however, that no giant eels have ever been caught. And when it was pointed out that the record catch for a European eel is 5.38kg, Gemmell said: “It doesn’t sound like a monster, does it? But based on the evidence we’ve accumulated, we can’t exclude it as a possibility.”
One of the favourite Loch Ness monster theories is that it is an elasmosaurus or plesiosaur that somehow survived the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Gemmell was more certain about ruling this out. “Is there a plesiosaur in Loch Ness? No. There is absolutely no evidence of any reptilian sequences. So I think we can be fairly sure that there is probably not a giant scaly reptile swimming around in Loch Ness.”
His study sequenced DNA from 250 samples of Loch Ness water at a range of sites and depths. Reptilian DNA, he explained “should sit somewhere between crocodilians and birds. And there’s nothing remotely like that in our sequences. We found tonnes of birds. So yes, there are birds, we didn’t find crocodiles. We didn’t find lizards. We didn’t find adders. We didn’t find another relative, we did find toads, frogs and amphibians and they are obviously distantly related.”
Timeline
The hunt for the Loch Ness monster
Show
The press conference had been called under slightly false pretences, Gemmell admitted. He said: “If you like, this has been a great big science con. We’ve been talking about science the entire time and we’re using the monsters as bait.” He said he hoped interest in the Loch Ness legend would raise the profile of environmental DNA research.
“I came into this with a view that there probably wasn’t a monster,” he said. “I wanted to understand the biodiversity of Loch Ness and we’ve done that very well.”
Loch Ness monster picture is a fake, photographer admits
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Gemmell said the study would eventually provide a publicly available database of all the species in the loch, which could help gauge changes in biodiversity and the impact of invasive species such as pink salmon.
“We’ve communicated science in a way which has been more compelling than perhaps most of the science I’ve been involved in in my prior career,” Gemmell said. “More people now know about environmental DNA than ever before, I would imagine, and I think that’s a good thing. Because we need these tools to be able to document what is living in places as, slowly but surely, our world becomes less special.”
Gemmell was challenged about why the study had failed to detect the presence of otters or seals in Loch Ness. He said: “We may have missed things. But we found all the species we know are residents in Loch Ness in respect to fish.”
He added: “Like every other monster hunt there has been here at Loch Ness, we have found no definitive evidence of a monster. More and more studies providing more and more negative evidence cast more and more doubt on the possibility, but we can’t prove a negative.”
However, he denied that he had totally killed off the legend of the Loch Ness monster. “There’s still some level of uncertainty there, so there is still the opportunity for people to believe in monsters. Is it front page news? I don’t know. But we’ve captured some imaginations.”
That will come as a relief to the tourist industry that has thrived on the banks of the loch ever since the earliest sightings, to the extent that nearby Drumnadrochit can support two competing Loch Ness attractions, Nessieland and the Loch Ness Centre and Exhibition.
This article was amended on 9 September 2019 to more fully quote Gemmell on the study’s findings about DNA sequences. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/09/more-than-2m-adults-in-uk-cannot-afford-to-eat-every-day-survey-finds | Society | 2022-05-08T23:01:14.000Z | Patrick Butler | More than 2m adults in UK cannot afford to eat every day, survey finds | More than 2 million adults in the UK have gone without food for a whole day over the past month because they cannot afford to eat, according to a survey revealing the “catastrophic” impact of the cost of living crisis.
The latest survey of the nation’s food intake shows a 57% jump in the proportion of households cutting back on food or skipping meals over the first three months of this year, with one in seven adults (7.3 million) estimated to be food-insecure, up from 4.7 million in January.
The shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, described the findings as devastating, saying they exposed how families were being left in desperate hardship. “Boris Johnson is responsible for this crisis and has no solutions to fix it,” he said.
The survey came as one of Britain’s biggest energy suppliers called for urgent government action to help households cope with an anticipated £1,000 rise in bills this winter. The London fire brigade, meanwhile, was forced to issue an urgent safety warning against improvising fires at home, after a man set fire to his house by burning timber in his living room to keep warm.
The research by the Food Foundation thinktank found millions more people – including 2.6 million children – report they now have smaller meals than usual, regularly skip meals altogether or do not eat when they are hungry, as food insecurity returns to levels last seen at the start of the first national lockdown.
However, while many reported missing out on meals or eating irregularly during the first months of the pandemic because of food scarcity caused by panic buying and supply problems, the latest increase is put down to rising costs and poverty.
Food banks are reporting that energy costs are so prohibitive for some people they request that charity food parcels that contain no food that has to be cooked using a cooker or that needs to be stored in a fridge or freezer.
The rapid deterioration in food security reflects soaring energy, food and petrol prices coupled with below-inflation benefit rises. The Food Foundation said it was so shocked by its initial findings that it reran the survey on a wider basis, only to get the same results.
It predicted food insecurity figures were likely to get worse over the next few months as inflation continues to rise and the full impact of April’s national insurance rise hits family budgets along with the lifting of the energy price cap.
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Anna Taylor, the foundation’s executive director, said: “The extremely rapid rise in food insecurity since January points to a catastrophic situation for families. Food insecurity puts families under extreme mental stress and forces people to survive on the cheapest calories, which lead to health problems.”
Prof Sir Michael Marmot, a public health expert at University College London, said: “If one household in seven is food insecure, society is failing in a fundamental way. These figures on food insecurity are all the more chilling because the problem is soluble, but far from being solved it is getting worse.”
There is little expectation that ministers will raise benefits or expand free school meals anytime soon, despite rising public concern over the cost of living. Last week, George Eustice, the environment, food and rural affairs secretary, urged consumers to switch to value brands to save on grocery spending in response to rising food prices.
“Bless him [Eustice], he’s actually aware there are cheaper brand foods in the world. The poor man, who has lived such a sheltered life he thought 10p off a tin of beans would solve the problem,” said Kathleen Kerridge, an office manager and food activist from Portsmouth.
On the food poverty frontline, charities are warning that demand for food is rising as budgets get tighter. Ellen-Scarlett Ryan, of Bassetlaw food bank in Worksop, said it supplied 24 households with food parcels on the day after Easter last month, way ahead of its previous record of 16.
Many of these clients had never before used food banks and were struggling with their newfound reliance on charity to feed their families, Ryan said. “We are finding people in floods of tears. They are so scared, they are at their wits’ end. It is such a difficult and emotional time.”
Households were making the food go further, she said, putting smaller portions on the table and bulking out dishes with lentils and rice. A growing number were asking for food that did not require cooking with the gas on, as they could not afford to put cash in the meter.
20:54
Made in Liverpool: This land is our land – video
On Monday Keith Anderson, the chief executive of Scottish Power, said a fresh support package would be vital before a further dramatic increase in the cost of gas and electricity bills due in October.
A government spokesperson said: “We recognise the pressures on the cost of living and we are doing what we can to help, including spending £22bn across the next financial year to support people with energy bills and cut fuel duty.
“For the hardest hit, we’re putting an average of £1,000 more per year into the pockets of working families on universal credit, have also boosted the minimum wage by more than £1,000 a year for full-time workers and our household support fund is there to help with the cost of everyday essentials.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jan/17/relegation-fears-will-grow-for-everton-unless-moshiri-learns-from-mistakes | Football | 2022-01-17T20:50:29.000Z | Andy Hunter | Relegation fears will grow for Everton unless Moshiri learns from mistakes | Andy Hunter | When announcing the departure of Marcel Brands as director of football on 5 December Everton revealed that: “a strategic review of the football structure will now take place which will inform the best model for the club to proceed with in the long-term.” A clean slate to implement the findings has materialised at a most inopportune moment but Farhad Moshiri must capitalise all the same.
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As the threat of a relegation fight grows increasingly real at Goodison Park Everton find themselves lacking not only consensus among the hierarchy, a clear football plan and sufficient character within the dressing room. They also have no director of football following the exit of Brands, eight months after he signed a lucrative three-year contract, no head of recruitment and development nor a manager of scouting and operations after the previous incumbents, Gretar Steinsson and Dan Purdy respectively, decided to leave with the Dutchman.
There is no manager either now after results, more than any connection with Liverpool, did for Rafael Benítez. On Monday it was announced his assistant manager Francisco de Miguel Moreno, first team coach and senior analyst Antonio Gómez, head of sports science Jamie Harley and first team rehabilitation coach Cristian Fernández had also left the club with immediate effect. Fernández was hired in October after Benítez’s review into Everton’s medical department and concern over injuries led to Dan Donachie’s exit as director of medical services.
“How people treat you is their karma. How you react is yours,” was the Wayne Dyer quote that Donachie tweeted on Sunday, the day Benítez was sacked six months into a three-year contract. That’s another hefty compensation bill loaded on to a club that has been carefully navigating Premier League profit and sustainability rules since last summer. Benítez was never told how tight finances would be when he met Moshiri on board Alisher Usmanov’s yacht in Sardinia to finalise an appointment that had car crash written all over it from the start. Only two people, Benítez and Moshiri, appear to have been convinced otherwise.
It has always perplexed why Moshiri, Everton’s billionaire majority shareholder, did not install his own executive upon arriving at the club in 2016 and instead maintained an unsuccessful status quo. Many of Moshiri’s actions have bewildered, from clearly ill-suited managerial appointments to heeding the advice of a few influential agents that have cost him a fortune in bad signings.
Everton chairman Bill Kenwright (left) and owner Farhad Moshiri have been accused of pulling in different directions. Photograph: Jason Cairnduff/Action Images/Reuters
The recent mass exodus and on-going strategic review offers Moshiri opportunity to demonstrate he does have a plan for bringing to fruition his vision for the club, beyond that of the new stadium currently under construction at Bramley Moore Dock. Growing criticism of an owner upon whom the stadium depends, and at a time when Everton’s Premier League status is far from secure, leaves the club in a precarious position.
Everton must pray Moshiri has learned from his mistakes. The early signs are not encouraging. At his final pre-match press conference as Everton manager Benítez refused to comment on claims that the recent signing of Anwar El Ghazi had been imposed on him by the club’s owner. Benítez had wanted a central midfielder. He got a winger from Aston Villa out of the negotiations to sell Lucas Digne instead.
Removal of Benítez will not solve all of Everton’s deep-lying problems
Jonathan Wilson
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Then there is the early move to install Roberto Martínez as Benítez’s replacement. As with several former Everton managers, underwhelming at Goodison has not been an impediment to succeeding elsewhere for Martínez, who has remained close to chairman Bill Kenwright since being sacked by Moshiri in 2016. Everton fans staged sit-in protests calling for the removal of the likeable Belgium head coach, who received a pay-off in excess of £10m after a legal dispute with Moshiri. His would be another divisive appointment and, if led by Kenwright, further evidence of a hierarchy pulling in different directions. Moshiri overlooked Martínez’s claims last summer.
Everton’s strategic review should involve the club’s majority shareholder, chairman and fellow board members – excluding Graeme Sharp, who has only just been appointed – holding a mirror to their own performances. Under-achievement predates the arrival of Moshiri and his money. Whatever his failings at Everton, and there were many, Benítez’s insistence that improvement was needed in all departments at the club was not among them.
The path is clear for Moshiri to implement the sweeping changes Everton require but, with the team six points above the relegation zone, the priority is to stay afloat. Root-and-branch reviews may have to wait. Everton are seeking their sixth permanent manager in six years. They have to get one right before it’s too late. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/gamesblog/2012/jun/13/e3-2012-lego-lord-of-the-tings-preview | Games | 2012-06-13T15:21:00.000Z | Keith Stuart | E3 2012: Lego Lord of the Rings – preview | Somehow, Lord of the Rings is simultaneously the most surprising and most inevitable franchise for the Lego developers to explore. Surprising because of its darkness and epic scope; inevitable because it is so astronomically successful. Peter Jackson's movies, to which this game doffs its cap, are still among the highest grossing films of all time, and will no doubt be passed down through family DVD collections for years to come. And let's face it, this adventure is not short on exciting set-pieces, ripe for action adventure conversion.
From the very start of our E3 demo, this feels like a modest but significant evolution for the Lego series. Visually, it is much sharper and more mature; while the cute Lego characters are still oh-so cute (even Gandalf), the environments have a naturalism to them that contrasts with the cartoon look of the earlier Lego adventures. And with seven characters in your party, it's the largest selection of player figures in a Lego game so far.
It looks like the structure will differ from the Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman games, too. While those titles were built around central hub areas, Lego Lord of the Rings is a linear quest, following the plot and the geography of the books. Indeed, developer Traveller's Tales has taken Tolkien's original maps of Middle Earth and used these to build a reproduction of the entire kingdom, which they say will seamlessly stream in as the player explores. Everything is here from Hobbiton all the way over the Misty Mountains and beyond – and if you stand on Weathertop, you can see vast tracts of the landscape in every direction.
Each level in the game takes plays in a successive environment on the novel's route. On the way, however, the dev team is planning a number of side-quests as well as including hidden characters and items from the books that may not have made it into the movies.
In an effort to accentuate the adventure feel of the game, each character has a backpack, accessible on the Xbox 360 by holding the X button, which can hold up to eight quest and treasure items. Sam, for example, has a tin box in which he cooks food for the rest of the party (apparently there are mini-quests where he has to go off and find sausages and other food stuffs to keep the group happy), while Boromir has the slightly more imposing Horn of Gondor, which temporarily stuns enemies.
There is also a sense of progression for each warrior. Legolas the elf, for example, starts out with a standard bow, but during the game is given the more powerful bow of the Galadhrim, which shoots faster and does more damage. It's also possible to visit an elven blacksmith to forge custom magical items.
Lego Lord of the Rings
To add to the sense of authenticity, Traveller's Tales has cleverly added dialogue from the movies into the cinematic sequences, so these squat Lego characters speak with the voices of their filmic counterparts. It's quite something to hear Ian McKellen's booming "You shall not pass!" from a teeny plastic toy.
Indeed, the usual irreverent humour of the Lego series is retained here (apparently with the full blessing and understanding of the Lord of the Ring licensors, the Saul Zaentz Company), via clever parodies of Tolkien lore as well as plenty of knockabout slapstick. You can, for example, pick up dwarf Gimli and chuck him at things – often to solve environmental puzzles, or just because you're into politically incorrect physical comedy.
Naturally, the game contains many of the legendary battle scenes, with players having to defend the fortresses of Helm's Deep and Minas Tirith from the invading hordes, smashing down siege towers and ladders. Gigantic cave trolls and other beasties also crop up, some of them based on Lego's new range of LotR playlets and figures, and all scaled down in terms of physical horror.
Of course, the Balrogs crop up – but not before the Traveller's Tales artists actually built one out of Lego (a process they go through with all vehicles and monsters in the games); apparently it's now sitting on one of their desks.
Other recognisable elements of the Lego series are present, including the ability to buy and play as a huge range of characters (Nazgul, the orcs, and the witch-king can all be discovered). But, Lord of the Rings has its own spin on the familiar recipe: while Clone Wars dabbled with RTS elements, this latest adventure is infused with light RPG conventions, including inventories and customisable weapons to enhance the sense of an epic quest.
It makes sense, and in our demo hints at an entertaining romp through classic Middle Earth moments. Certainly, Traveller's Tales shows few signs of losing its passion for these little bricks and the adventures they promise. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/29/death-of-truth-michiko-kakutani-review-polemic-wont-burst-trumps-balloon | Books | 2018-07-29T07:00:54.000Z | Peter Conrad | The Death of Truth review – a polemic that won’t burst Trump’s balloon | The resistance to Trump is currently tripped up by a disagreement over rhetorical tactics. The question, to use Michelle Obama’s terms, is whether to go high or low – to invoke the lofty constitutional principles Trump violates or to stoop to his own mud-wrestling tactics and call him a liar and (who knows?) perhaps a criminal, as well as a fraud, an oaf, a sleazy groper and an egomaniac as absurdly puffed-up as the nappy-clad balloon that bobbed above Westminster during his visit earlier this month.
In this account of the mental malaise that made Trump possible, Michiko Kakutani chooses to go high, or highbrow. She explains him as a postmodern phenomenon, a product of the deconstructionist assault on absolutes that raged through American universities in the 1980s: Trump’s erstwhile tactician Steve Bannon, co-opting leftist jargon for the “alt-right”, describes his mission as “the deconstruction of the administrative state”, which means replacing governance with a paranoid reign of chaos.
Kakutani even relates Trump’s chronic mendacity to the slippery tricks of once-trendy literary critics who, beguiled by the theorist Jacques Derrida, argued that all statements are relative, or ironically reversible. This pedigree hardly befits a dimwit who boasts of never opening a book, didn’t write those published in his name and can’t stop watching television long enough to read the daily security briefings prepared by his advisers.
Trump, obsessed with visibility, prefers to dispense with bothersome words. After television interviews, he often asks for a playback with the sound turned off: his concern, according to the NBC journalist Chuck Todd, is “to see what it all looked like”, so he watches “on mute”. What he says doesn’t matter, so long as his teased and tinted quiff remains unruffled, his orange tan unblotched.
The literary life of Michiko Kakutani: the book critic's best feuds and reviews
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The outrage and contempt Kakutani feels are warranted, but her philosophical attitude to the Trump phenomenon leaves her wallowing out of her depth, despite the onerous booklist she attaches to her slim essay. The decades she spent as chief book reviewer for the New York Times have made her adept at slicing and dicing the ideas of others and every second paragraph here is a quotation from one of the authorities she consults. Because she relies on a liberal consensus, the same points are numbingly made over and over again. She bangs on about “filter bubbles” in social media and the “content silos” in which Twitter users immure themselves; she is equally relentless about the Russian “troll factories” and “bot armies” that disseminated lies during the 2016 election campaign. Buzzwords recur so often that I worried about suffering tinnitus while reading.
More than once, Kakutani claims that Brexit is Trumpism by other means, yet Trump’s racial and religious bigotry is surely uglier and crasser than any of the deluded falsehoods promulgated by the Leave campaign. Brexiters are nostalgic fantasists, in retreat from a larger world; Trumptards seek to uphold America’s swaggering dominance in that world, if necessary by destabilising sovereign nations and disrupting their alliances. Brexit is an isolated act of suicide, at worst pathetic and pitiable, whereas Trumpism fondly contemplates genocide. Members of Kakutani’s family, as she recalled in a recent article, were sent to internment camps for Japanese-Americans set up in California after Pearl Harbor, a prototype for the cages in which Trump’s enforcers have penned the children of illegal immigrants in Texas and Arizona.
The book’s best pages deal with Putin’s propagandist Vladislav Surkov, a former trainee theatre director and advertising executive who currently stage-manages the Kremlin’s black arts of make-believe and, as one of Kakutani’s sources puts it, keeps Russians “reeling with oohs and aahs about gays and God, Satan, fascists and the CIA”, just as Trump ignites his zealots by excoriating Mexican rapists, Muslim jihadists and European freeloaders who rob Uncle Sam’s piggybank. The ideological differences of the cold war have been erased; now the shared concern of the kleptocrats in Washington and Moscow is “power for power’s sake and the accumulation of vast wealth”.
Elsewhere, Kakutani’s sociological mantras and indignant anathemata are repeated helplessly or even desperately, in an unwitting case of the “confirmation bias” that she officially deplores. Liberal guerrillas will have to do better than this if they hope to salvage American democracy. Ridicule, employed so effectively by the carnivalesque demonstrators who dogged Trump during his trip to the UK, would be a more effective weapon: a man who lacks humour and the humanity it vouches for has a mortal terror of being laughed at. Mikhail Bakhtin, a literary theorist absent from Kakutani’s bibliography, thought that the festive mockery of a mob could bring about “the defeat of power, of all that oppresses and restricts”. Perhaps it will be the pin from the inflatable Trump baby’s diaper that punctures Potus, letting out the hot air that keeps him aloft.
The Death of Truth by Michiko Kakutani is published by Harper Collins (£10). To order a copy for £8.50 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/27/uk-food-price-inflation-energy-supermarket | Business | 2024-02-27T00:01:07.000Z | Alex Lawson | February dip sends UK food price inflation to nearly two-year low | Tumbling energy costs and a price war between Britain’s supermarkets have slowed food inflation to its lowest rate for nearly two years in a boost for households trying to cope on stretched budgets.
The cost of meat, fish and fruit dipped in February, meaning food prices rose 5% on last year, down from 6.1% in January and the lowest since May 2022, according to the British Retail Consortium (BRC) shop price index.
Although the figures show prices are still rising, the rate is far lower than the double-digit increases consumers have consistently faced since rising energy prices triggered rampant inflation over the past two years.
The index showed food prices fell 0.1% in February on the previous month, its first monthly fall since last September.
“This was driven by easing input costs for energy and fertiliser while retailers competed fiercely to keep prices down,” said Helen Dickinson, the chief executive of the BRC.
A sharp fall in the wholesale price of gas has fed through into household energy bills, with the industry regulator Ofgem announcing last week that its price cap will fall 12%, or £238 to £1,690, from April. Meanwhile, there are increasing signs the major supermarkets are ramping up efforts to compete on price.
The cost of living crisis has weighed on retailers’ attempts to maintain their profit margins while attracting customers tackling increases in household bills and shopping budgets.
Last week, Morrisons launched a campaign to tell customers it offers the same or cheaper prices than discounters Aldi and Lidl, echoing similar marketing drives by Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s.
Overall, shop price inflation eased to 2.5% in February, from 2.9% in January. Nonfood prices rose, up 1.3% on a year earlier and 0.7% on January.
Richard Walker, the executive chair of frozen food chain Iceland, said a cost squeeze in its supply chain had eased and it had seen “strong sales” after cutting prices, including on pizzas, beef burgers and ready meals.
“Cost pressures throughout manufacturing are coming down and this is starting to come through,” Walker said. “We are passing on the biggest falls faster than wholesale prices are coming down for us to get ahead of the game. For our customers, offering great value is more important than ever.”
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The BRC figures showed the price of furniture, electricals, and health and beauty products rose, but clothing fell as retailers attempted to lure shoppers with promotions.
Dickinson said that easing inflation was “good news” for shoppers, but warned that the increase in shipping costs due to disruption in the Red Sea could push up the cost of non-food items, and reiterated calls for government help on retailers’ business rates bills ahead of next month’s budget.
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Separate data from the CBI showed retail sales in the year to February fell at a modest pace after a sharp drop last month. Its quarterly survey predicted the rate at which sales would fall will accelerate next month. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/26/boris-johnson-rupert-murdoch-meeting | Politics | 2013-01-26T20:04:04.000Z | Lisa O'Carroll | Boris Johnson and Rupert Murdoch have another private meeting | Rupert Murdoch invited Boris Johnson to a private dinner at his Mayfair home on a recent visit by the tycoon to London, the latest sign of growing intimacy between the media mogul recovering from the phone-hacking storm and the mayor of London – seen as a long-term rival to David Cameron.
Damian Lewis, the star of Homeland made by Murdoch's fox21 production outfit, was also present on Tuesday night. An Old Etonian like Johnson, the actor, who plays a former soldier held captive by al-Qaida, added the allure of Hollywood to the proceedings, which were also attended by London-based Murdoch editors and executives.
It is at least the second time in six months that Murdoch has met the mayor and indicates that the mogul is as keen as ever on nurturing his political contacts in the UK, despite heavy criticism during the Leveson inquiry over his close relations with a succession of prime ministers and back-door visits to Downing Street.
News International said it would not comment on who Murdoch had or had not met, but informed sources confirmed that the dinner took place, and who was present. A spokesman for the mayor said he could not confirm the dinner meeting as it was not policy to comment on his "private arrangements".
Johnson also has ultimate, but not operational, responsibilty for the Metropolitan Police, the force investigating phone hacking by Murdoch's News of the World and alleged corrupt payments made by Sun journalists. Last week, the paper's defence editor, Virginia Wheeler, was charged with causing misconduct in public office, with prosecutors claiming she paid a Met police officer £6,450 for sensitive information.
The mayor's choice of supper partners was criticised by Labour. Len Duvall, leader of the Labour group at the London Assembly, said: "This isn't the first time Boris has met privately with Rupert Murdoch and tried to keep it secret. There are still unanswered questions over his meetings with Murdoch at the time of the police investigations around the phone-hacking scandal.
"It is ludicrous for him to say he was meeting him in a private capacity. He is the mayor of London and has a duty to uphold the highest standards. Does he really think meeting for a private dinner with Rupert Murdoch is a normal meeting? What planet does he live on?"
Last August, Johnson, a former journalist who still writes a column for the rival Daily Telegraph, invited Murdoch and his wife Wendi Deng as his personal guests to the Olympics to watch Rebecca Adlington defend her 800m swimming gold as part of his "schmoozathon" to promote London. Friends of Murdoch, who is said to have gone cold on Cameron, said he was impressed by Johnson's ability to put London on the map.
In the past year the Sun, which Murdoch told Leveson reflects his thinking on politics in Britain, had been giving Johnson enthusiastic backing, celebrating his maverick style and "game for a laugh" attitude. Johnson was also one of a number of politicians who wrote for the Sun following the Leveson report, to urge the government against any statutory control of the press, something Murdoch vehemently opposes.
Despite Cameron's attempts to rein in the maverick mayor, Johnson remains an ever-present threat. His popularity last year had increased to a point where Johnson was greeted with the kind of attention reserved for a Hollywood celebrity or rock star when he arrived at the Conservative party conference, with crowds chanting his name.
On Friday, the mayor strayed into government territory, calling on the chancellor George Osborne to drop his "hairshirt, Stafford Cripps" agenda as he outlined a seven-point growth plan for London involving thousands of new homes and investment in major infrastructure projects. Cripps, the chancellor between 1947 and 1950, used taxes and rationing to limit consumption as the UK tried to rebuild its postwar economy.
Duvall called for "full transparency" and said London deserved to know what newspaper proprietors he was meeting. "If there's nothing to hide why won't he tell us?" he said.
Chris Bryant, a Labour MP who has pursued News International in the Commons, said: "There is something decidedly unseemly about Boris Johnson's relationship with the Murdoch empire.
"He did their bidding by trying to have the new police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World suspended by calling it 'politically motivated codswallop'. Now he is attempting to win their support for when his leadership bid commences." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/24/learning-disabled-autistic-neglect-uk-institutional-abuse | Opinion | 2023-04-24T07:00:03.000Z | John Harris | Learning-disabled and autistic people are being neglected and tortured. How much longer? | John Harris | Imagine a chain of scandals focused on a huge number of very vulnerable and fragile people. Picture a horrific mixture of mistreatment and neglect that is institutional, subjecting hundreds of people to completely the wrong “care”, and ensuring that many of them are effectively locked up, often for years. Then add an element that is even more horrific: seemingly endless acts of violence and torture.
Now think about the prospect of such stories piling up: by rights, you would expect some kind of tipping point. But in this case, the sheer number of scandals seems to somehow normalise them, so that even some of the most awful remain overlooked, even among people who think of themselves as progressive and socially concerned. We think we care, but our concern and empathy fall woefully short.
This is the very real story of over a decade of horror inflicted on learning-disabled and autistic people. Self-evidently, it is part of a much longer saga of cruelty, neglect and bigoted attitudes that goes back centuries. But this latest phase has a clear recent timeline, starting with the BBC’s exposure of hideous abuse at the privately run Winterbourne View hospital near Bristol in 2011 and the great outpouring of anger and official remorse that followed it, largely to no avail. Even more scandals have been revealed since then, traceable to a glaring lack of accountability, let alone any meaningful action.
The places where they have happened are scattered across the UK: Devon, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Essex, County Antrim, Cardiff, Greater Manchester and more. Last week, the story reached another awful milestone, with the publication of a second official report triggered by what happened between 2018 and 2021 at three residential schools in and around Doncaster. They were run by the Hesley Group, which is owned by Antin Infrastructure, a multinational private equity group chiefly known for investing in gas pipelines. About 82% of the children concerned were autistic; 76% had a learning disability. Two-thirds of them were more than 50 miles away from their family home. Their families had presumably been lulled into agreeing to their placements with promises of nuanced and sensitive care; for each child, the local councils in charge of the relevant budgets had paid the Hesley Group about £250,000 a year.
The three homes had been closed by government inspectors in 2021, but it took longer for details of what had happened in them – which is now the subject of a criminal investigation by police – to be made public. In October 2022, an official review found that children had suffered “direct physical abuse” and “various forms of neglect”, and that staff “had seriously breached sexual boundaries”. Then, in January this year, documents leaked to the BBC shone more light on the horrors that lay behind such words. Vinegar had been poured into children’s open cuts. One child had been locked outside in freezing temperatures, while they were naked. Others were punched and kicked in the stomach, made to sit in cold baths and force-fed chilli flakes.
More recently, there have been further details of the abuse of adults and children at Hesley Group facilities, spanning 10 years. By way of a response, last week’s forensic and exhaustive report by the government’s child safeguarding practice review panel cited more of the Doncaster homes’ failings (staff, for example, shaved black girls’ heads, seemingly to avoid having to comb their hair), and laid bare a broken national system of care and education. It set out proposals for change including radically reformed inspections and oversight, and changes to the way staff are recruited and trained. One cold fact, however, shows how dysfunctional everything is: the Hesley Group – which insists that it has undergone a major restructuring and made senior management changes – still runs educational and supported living services for people with autism and learning disabilities.
The Doncaster story sits alongside the continuing scandal centred on children and adults trapped and mistreated in facilities classified as hospitals. Winterbourne View was a case in point; so was the story of Whorlton Hall in County Durham, which was broken by a BBC Panorama documentary in 2019, and is now the subject of an ongoing criminal trial. Only a month ago, Channel 4 aired a Dispatches programme that exposed the appalling treatment of young people with autism in hospitals and treatment centres across England – which included a hospital in Kent where 18 reports of sexual assault and 24 of rape were made to the police between 2020 and 2023, but no charges have yet been brought. We should never forget Connor Sparrowhawk, the autistic and learning-disabled young man who was the victim of failings relating to vital risk assessments and who drowned in a bath at an NHS care unit in 2013; it was subsequently discovered that the NHS trust concerned had failed to properly investigate the deaths of more than 1,000 patients with learning disabilities or mental health problems over a period of four years.
Every story is horrifically vivid: I have a 16-year-old son who has autism and learning disabilities, and when each new one emerges, it heightens a sharp and nagging anxiety about what might lie ahead. The failures behind the scandals, by contrast, are rooted in systems that are massively opaque. In the case of children’s homes and residential schools, the bodies responsible include Ofsted (which failed to intervene in the Doncaster case for three years, despite hundreds of complaints), local councils and a tangle of profit-making companies. When it comes to hospitals and mental health facilities, notwithstanding improved regulatory work by the Care Quality Commission, huge questions need to be asked about the NHS, more private providers and the commissioners who staff England’s new system of integrated care boards. In both sectors, neglect and abuse often highlights what people who work in this field call “closed cultures”: secretive, shut-off ways of working that sometimes attract people with the most twisted intentions.
Late last week I spoke to Pam Bebbington, one of the key people in an inspirational organisation called My Life My Choice. She is involved in “quality checks” of supported living facilities in Oxfordshire, “making sure people are safe and happy, and not overmedicated” – and such campaigns as Don’t Lock Us Away!, founded on the straightforward insistence that “we want to get people out of the hospitals, so they can live in their own places and have support there”.
She has a learning disability, and direct experience of being incarcerated in institutions where she was terrorised. In one facility dedicated to people with learning disabilities, she told me, she was “beaten up, kept in locked rooms and restrained: when they bend your arms behind your back, they sit on you, they stand on you – no one should have that done to them”.
These things happened to her about 30 years ago – which only makes those more recent scandals seem all the more abhorrent. “It’s getting worse and worse,” she said, “and nothing’s getting done.”
How, I wondered, would she sum up what needs to change? “Respect,” she said. “That’s a word we use all the time.” We chatted on, but those seven letters had done their work, crystallising what has been denied to so many people, opening the way to all those outrages and human catastrophes. As you read this, more will be happening, in darkened rooms and locked-up wards. Here, clearly, is hideous proof of enduring prejudices and blind spots, and the fact that all our modern talk about diversity, inclusion and human rights regularly collapses into nothing. How much longer?
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jun/18/extreme-dieters-eating-gluten-free-food-alongside-smoking-and-vomiting | Life and style | 2018-06-18T15:06:12.000Z | Sarah Boseley | Extreme dieters eating gluten-free food alongside smoking and vomiting | Young adults are choosing “gluten-free” products because they think they are healthy, but new research shows some of those who buy them also have unhealthy behaviours, such as smoking or vomiting to try to lose weight.
Gluten-free products are soaring in popularity around the world. Global sales rose by 12.6% to hit $3.5bn, between 2016 and 2017 compared with 4% for packaged foods generally, according to Euromonitor.
Gluten-free diets are medically advised for people suffering from the digestive condition coeliac disease, but most of the growth in sales is among people who do not need to eat gluten-free foods.
According to the study, a Gallup poll in 2015 in the US reported that one in five consumers said they actively try to include gluten-free foods in their diet. Some celebrities have endorsed them for weight-loss.
The new research in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics among young adults aged 25 to 36 in Minnesota in the US found that many choose gluten-free because of its “health halo” – the perception that it is better for you. Other labels that have a similar health halo include “low sodium”, “natural” or “free from” artificial additives.
Of 1,819 of these young adults who are enrolled in a long-term study called Project Eat, 13% said they valued gluten-free foods. They tended to be people who also valued organic, locally-grown, non-GMO, and not processed foods, the survey found, and had a weight goal – usually to lose weight although a few (usually young men) hoped to gain weight.
But while many ate in a very healthy way, having breakfast and eating lots of fruit and vegetables, others were potentially doing themselves harm by smoking, taking diet pills and making themselves vomit. Those who engaged in such unhealthy behaviours were three times more likely to value gluten-free foods than those who ate well, the survey found.
“I have concerns about the increasing number of people who perceive that eating a gluten-free diet is a healthier way to eat. Of particular concern is the higher risk for those engaging in unhealthy weight control practices for perceiving a gluten-free diet as important, given that eating gluten-free may be viewed as a ‘socially acceptable way’ to restrict intake that may not be beneficial for overall health,” said lead investigator Prof Dianne Neumark-Sztainer, head of the division of epidemiology and community health at the University of Minnesota.
“If there is a need for eating gluten-free, then it is important to avoid foods with gluten. Otherwise, a dietary pattern that includes a variety of foods, with a large emphasis on fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, is recommended for optimal health.”
The researchers also worry that people who go for gluten-free and other so-called healthier foods may over-eat, assuming that you can’t have too much of a good thing. “Products labeled as ‘low sodium,’ ‘natural,’ and ‘free from’ certain food components or characteristics may be interpreted by consumers as being healthier overall,” said lead author Mary J. Christoph of the university’s department of paediatrics.
“The health halo effect can have unintended consequences on eating habits, such as people over-consuming because they believe they have chosen a healthier product.”
The paper points out that gluten-free foods are also expensive and says there is no reason to recommend them. “Young adults should be advised that eating gluten-free products may not improve weight or health,” it says.
Gluten is a protein found in grains such as wheat, barley and rye. Plenty of healthy foods, such as fruit and vegetables, contain no gluten. The concern is over gluten-free substitute packaged foods, which can be high in calories, saturated fats and salt.
A big US study published last year found that avoiding whole grains in order not to eat gluten could lead to an increased risk of heart disease. “The promotion of gluten-free diets among people without coeliac disease should not be encouraged,” concluded the study in the British Medical Journal. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/12/conservatives.northernrock | Opinion | 2008-08-12T08:00:00.000Z | John Redwood | John Redwood: Let's show we mean business | We Conservatives need to show that we are up to the task of rescuing this country's economy from the damage being done by current policies. The popular mood has shifted decisively against this government as a result of the revelation that far from offering economic success based on prudence, this government has been offering an economic mess based on too much borrowing. All this government wants to do now is to spend money it does not have – £3bn last week on new equity for Northern Rock, a business which should be returned promptly to the private sector while there is still something left.
The Conservatives are in a good position to do just this. The central economic tenet of the leadership has been to say they will share the proceeds of economic growth between tax reductions and better public services. They have said, as Mr Blair said but did not do, that extra public money alone is not sufficient to give us the hospitals and schools we need. Reform is also needed, a system which allows more choice and local initiative and spends less on top down requirements, audit, surveillance and instruction. They have said welfare needs reform to place the accent on finding more jobs for more people to get them off benefit.
These three central tenets of modern Conservatism are central to bringing about economic recovery after the damaging credit crunch. We need to seek more value for every public pound spent. We need to concentrate the extra public money on schools and hospitals, not on broken banks, ID cards and hand outs. We need to relieve the burden of taxation when we can where it does most damage. High taxes are fuelling price rises, and cutting new investment and the creation of new jobs.
Judging by current opinion polls the present leadership has persuaded many voters of the need for change. To persuade them to vote this way in a general election, and to show them we mean business, the leadership can and will flesh out more of the detail of how these three main propositions will be applied to a broken society and a broken economy. We will have to explain how we cannot allow government to carry on living on tick on the huge scale of this current regime. We can show how if you avoided nationalising Northern Rock, avoided excess enthusiasm for wildly expensive centralised computerisation schemes, and keep better control over the numbers of quangos and administrative staff you could start to right the listing UK government ship now in such heavy waters. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/jul/16/tech-firms-like-facebook-must-restrict-data-sent-from-eu-to-us-court-rules | Technology | 2020-07-16T11:30:41.000Z | Alex Hern | Tech firms like Facebook must restrict data sent from EU to US, court rules | Tech companies like Facebook could be prevented from sending data back to the US, after the latest ruling in a long-running European legal saga found that there are not enough protections against snooping by US intelligence agencies.
The ruling of the court of justice of the European Union (CJEU) does not immediately end such transfers, but requires data protection authorities (DPAs) in individual member states to vet the sending of any new data to make sure people’s personal information remains protected according to the EU’s data protection laws (GDPR).
The complaint, which goes back to October 2014, was lodged by Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems. He argued, following the Snowden revelations, that the privacy of European citizens could not be guaranteed if their data was sent to the US, given the evidence of widespread eavesdropping by the country’s National Security Agency (NSA), and the fact that the US legal system only protected the rights of US citizens.
Schrems’ initial complaint led to the overturning of the EU/US “safe harbour”, which had governed data transfer between the two regions, and the creation of a new treaty, the EU/US “privacy shield”. This latest ruling has overturned that policy too.
“At first sight it seems the court has followed us in all aspects,” Schrems said in a statement. “This is a total blow to the Irish DPC [data protection commission] and Facebook. It is clear that the US will have to seriously change their surveillance laws if US companies want to continue to play a role on the EU market.”
“The court is not only telling the Irish DPC to do its job after seven years of inaction, but also that DPAs have a duty to take action and cannot just look the other way,” he added. “This is a fundamental shift going far beyond EU-US data transfers. Authorities like the Irish DPC have so far undermined the success of the GDPR. The court has clearly told the DPAs to get going and enforce the law.”
The ruling is not a total halt on data transfers between the EU and US, said Lisa Peets, a partner at Covington, which represented the UK’s software industry in the case. The court upheld the use of “standard contractual clauses” (SCCs) to transfer personal data between Europe and US, allowing companies to seek specific consent from users for data to be exported.
“Data flows between Europe and the United States are an integral part of the European economy and of the day-to-day lives of millions of European consumers, and the SCCs are the backbone for many of those data transfers,” Peets said. “As for the privacy shield, the European commission will be highly focused on finding a resolution and will be actively working work with the US government to identify a path forward.”
With the end of the Brexit withdrawal agreement on the horizon, the ruling also poses new problems for the UK in defining its future relationship with the EU. Without a new replacement for the privacy shield, the UK could be forced to pick between frictionless data transfers with the US or EU on 31 December, warned Toni Vitale, partner and head of data protection at JMW Solicitors.
“Post Brexit, the UK could be deemed to have inadequate protection given the lack of judicial oversight over the security forces,” Vitale added, “and this could this lead to a ban on exports of data from the EU to the UK in the future.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/15/mental-illness-wristbands-stigma-tory | Opinion | 2015-04-15T13:33:46.000Z | Marc Burrows | Wristbands for mentally ill people is a silly, but sadly revealing, idea | Marc Burrows | If you’re wondering how much work is still left to do in dissipating stigma around mental illness, look no further than recent comments made by Chamali Fernando, the Tory parliamentary candidate for Cambridge.
When asked at hustings how authorities, such as the police, could better help those with mental health requirements, Fernando apparently suggested that vulnerable people could wear colour-coded wristbands denoting their condition, immediately alerting public figures to any special needs they might have.
When this statement hit Twitter, it was immediately seized upon and ridiculed by opponents, and with good reason: the last thing sufferers of any form of ill-health want is to make everyone they meet aware of their condition. It’s hard enough when Katie Hopkins is calling your debilitating mental illness “a passport to self obsession” without hanging a sign around your neck declaring: “I AM MEDICALLY SAD, PLEASE BEAR THIS IN MIND WHEN DEALING WITH ME.” Fernando’s main competition for the seat, incumbent Lib Dem MP Julian Huppert, wasted no time in making political capital from the comments, pointing out – correctly – that singling mentally ill people out with wristbands would only exacerbate the continual stigma that surrounds mental health issues.
As naive and misguided as Fernando’s suggestion is, you can understand where it came from. In many ways she is a victim of the stigma too. As a barrister, she will have seen many examples of a person’s mental health compromising the way they are treated by the system, and those in the legal profession may often feel unprepared to deal with such cases. Her reaction was kneejerk and poorly thought through, but the fact behind it is a valid one. We are failing mentally ill people in this country because we are not educated enough about their conditions
Were Fernando running for parliament in a utopia of universal understanding, her suggestion would arguably have some merit: thanks to their helpful taste in accessories we would know if someone was ill, and adjust our behaviour to help them, taking their problem into account but not judging them for it. Sadly we do not yet live in such a society. The stigma behind mental health problems may be a trope of its coverage in the media, yet despite some claims to the contrary that stigma has gone nowhere. A study done earlier this year by the Equality Challenge Unit, which promotes diversity in higher education, found that 38% of university staff interviewed were afraid to disclose a mental health problem, fearing they would be treated differently as a result. In October 2014 a separate study found that 40% of people from a cross-section of industries had experienced mental health problems, more than half of those surveyed said they thought that if they were open about their issues it would damage their career prospects. While such attitudes are still predominant, no one wants their condition broadcast for all to see.
In an era when instant Twitter storms are formed off the back of a single headline, and putting the boot in to inept would-be politicians is something of a national pastime, it’s easy to be scornful about Fernando’s idea. It is, after all, a rather silly plan, completely unthought out and containing holes large enough to drive a truck through. There’s more going on here than an over-keen candidate spit-balling unhelpful ideas though. That Fernando feels such measures are required at all shows us just how far we have to go. Her solution is intended as a quick-fix, and that is why it would never work: The stigma of mental illness is never going to be broken by bracelets, but by a long road of education, understanding and changing ideals. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/22/north-korea-cancels-world-cup-qualifier-against-japan | World news | 2024-03-22T11:44:12.000Z | Justin McCurry | North Korea cancels World Cup qualifier against Japan | North Korea has abruptly cancelled its 2026 World Cup qualifying match with Japan next week, leaving organisers frantically searching for an alternative venue.
North Korea reportedly decided it would no longer host the match, which had been scheduled for next Tuesday at the Kim Il-sung Stadium in Pyongyang, a day before the teams met in Tokyo on Thursday in the first of their two Asian qualifying Group B qualifiers.
Minutes after that game, which Japan won 1-0, Kozo Tashima, the president of the Japan Football Association, told reporters that the return match in the North Korean capital would not go ahead.
The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) said the match had been called off due to “unforeseen circumstances”.
“The decision, taken in consultation with Fifa and relevant stakeholders, comes after the AFC was informed on 20 March by the [Democratic People’s Republic of Korea] Football Association of the need to move the match to a neutral venue due to unavoidable circumstances,” it said in a statement on Friday.
The AFC did not give a reason for the cancellation and said it would be left to the relevant Fifa committees to decide on the fixture’s future.
The Nikkei Asia website said the match had been moved to a yet unannounced neutral venue, while no date has been given for the fixture.
The Kyodo news agency cited unspecified North Korean media reports about a “malignant infectious disease” in Japan, thought to be a reference to a potentially deadly form of group A streptococcal disease, streptococcal toxic shock syndrome (STSS).
Experts in Japan have said cases of STSS will continue to spread, while officials are struggling to identify the cause. The number of cases in 2024 is expected to exceed last year’s record number after the presence of highly virulent and infectious strains were confirmed in Japan.
Japan’s players and staff had planned to arrive in Pyongyang on Monday after training in Beijing, media reports said.
Last month, a qualifying match for the Paris Olympics between the Japanese and North Korean women’s teams was moved from Pyongyang to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the last minute after Japanese football authorities cited difficulties in travelling to North Korea, which has no formal diplomatic relations with Japan.
The return leg of the men’s World Cup qualifier would have been the first international sports event to be held in North Korea since before the coronavirus pandemic. The regime responded to the outbreak by sealing its borders and banning foreign tourists.
North Korea last hosted a men’s soccer international in Pyongyang in 2019 during the qualifying competition for the 2022 World Cup. The country later pulled out of that competition, citing health concerns related to the pandemic.
North Korea is also scheduled to host World Cup qualifiers against Group B’s other two teams, Syria and Myanmar, in June. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/may/21/transparents-jill-soloway-the-words-male-and-female-describe-who-we-used-to-be | Life and style | 2017-05-21T14:00:07.000Z | Hadley Freeman | Transparent’s Jill Soloway: ‘The words male and female describe who we used to be’ | The last time I saw Jill Soloway, it was the autumn of 2014. The writer and director of Transparent had flown over from the US ahead of the show’s launch, and we met in a central London hotel room. Soloway had more than an hour’s hair and makeup beforehand, and was visibly nervous, uncertain what the reception would be for a show with a trans character at its centre; Soloway, I wrote in my notes, “fiddled a little girlishly with her long hair”. Bruce Gilbert, Soloway’s husband, was working as music supervisor on Transparent, and we discussed how nice it was to have the support of your spouse in the workplace. One thing Soloway did not especially want to discuss were the personal experiences that influenced the show, and I had to ask about them several times before it finally emerged that Soloway’s own parent was transgender.
Well, two and a half years can be a long time. Transparent, of course, has been a huge international success, a major force in bringing discussions of trans rights to the mainstream. Soloway is now rightfully celebrated as one of the most original voices working in this golden age of TV and has been duly garlanded with awards. On a personal level there have been changes, too. Soloway and Gilbert have separated and the director now identifies as a gender non-conforming queer person, who prefers to be referenced with gender-neutral pronouns (they/them/their), and if reading an interview in that style takes some getting used to, I can assure you that writing it up did, too. Soloway has also become much more comfortable talking in interviews about how their shifting gender and sexual politics inform their work, of which there now seems to be a never-ending stream.
I Love Dick review – Jill Soloway pushes boundaries even further than Transparent
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On top of currently finishing up the fourth series of Transparent, writing a memoir and making a movie, Soloway has made another series for Amazon, I Love Dick, based on Chris Kraus’s cult 1997 novel, starring Kathryn Hahn, Kevin Bacon and Griffin Dunne. The most reductive description of the book is that it’s about a married woman, Chris Kraus, and her obsession with an academic called Dick. But what it’s really about is chaotic female sexuality and the ethics of using your life in your work – in other words, ideal grist for Soloway’s mill – and they have done a clever job in adapting a seemingly unadaptable novel. However, where Transparent is underpinned by familial love and Jewish comedy, making it accessible to the masses, I Love Dick is soaked in feminist rage, so I suspect its appeal will be a tad niche.
The cast of Transparent, season two. Photograph: Amazon Video
This time we meet at Soloway’s house, up in the hills of Silverlake, Los Angeles. It’s one of the most desirable areas of the city, although its bohemian reputation is now somewhat undermined by the expensive cars parked in front of the rambling bungalows – Porsches, 4x4s and, of course, Priuses. Soloway still shares the bright and rambling house with Gilbert and their eight-year-old son (Soloway also has an older son from a previous relationship), and glimpses of their now wildly successful life are scattered around, like Through the Keyhole clues: a script for Transparent is on the table, a clutch of Emmys are shoved in the drinks cabinet and an assistant is in the kitchen making guacamole. Soloway, who looks like Lena Dunham’s older sibling and is as warm and engaging as I remember, is in a checked shirt and Gucci pyjama trousers. The long hair is gone, replaced by cool little quiff, and unlike last time, Soloway is bare-faced: “I think I’d had two hours of makeup before last time we met, didn’t I? Wow,” Soloway says, marvelling at their past self. “Anyway, have you seen the show? Tell me what you think.”
What I think is this: no one creates female characters as original as Soloway does, in all their angry, damaged and highly sexed glory. There’s Rachel in the 2013 film Afternoon Delight (played by Soloway’s neighbour and regular collaborator, Kathryn Hahn), who hires a stripper as a nanny and throws her family into chaos; or Sarah (Amy Landecker) in Transparent, who trashes two marriages and begs dominatrixes to spank her; and now there’s Chris (also Hahn), gloriously unhinged in her fury at a world so freaked out by female art and desire. And seeing women like this on screen, I say to Soloway, feels almost as revolutionary as putting a trans character at the centre of a show.
“I totally agree,” Soloway says, drinking an iced tea on the sofa. “And in many ways I Love Dick’s the perfect show for now, because so many women are so filled with rage. If we were in Hillary’s America, I think people would have been like: ‘What’s she so mad about?’ But now it’s like: ‘Well of course she’s furious.’ It felt like the entire planet got sexually harassed [when Trump was elected].”
I Love Dick’s the perfect show for now, because so many women are so filled with rage
Soloway’s production company is called Topple, as in toppling the patriarchy. What does that mean in a practical sense? “Well, I would just like to topple the whole thing: get Trump out of office, have a female president, a queer president, a person of colour, that war is not the default. And if Trump can be president I have to believe that something like this can also rise. I just hope [I Love Dick] is something women will tuck under their arms and hold close to them, because if Transparent was about the trans community then Dick is really about the female gaze. This really is a celebration of the feminine,” they say.
Kathryn Hahn and Kevin Bacon in I love Dick. Photograph: Jessica Brooks/Amazon Prime Video
Soloway has been trying to celebrate the feminine since they started writing for TV. While working on shows including Six Feet Under, United States of Tara and Grey’s Anatomy, Soloway kept writing their own stuff, and has “at least 10 scripts” on their desk featuring female characters, many of which have what they describe as a “hipster Jewiness” to them and “a so-called inappropriate attitude to sex”.
“I do feel lucky that there was a sea change in the past five years with Lena Dunham, Tina Fey, Broad City and Amy Schumer, where a quote unquote unlikable – that’s just a phrase that reflects the mainstream view – female heroine can carry a show. Because before I kept being told: ‘Where’s the great man at the centre of this?’ or ‘She seems a little difficult,’” Soloway says, their voice spiking with sarcasm.
Soloway was also known for being a little difficult. In 2011, Soloway was turned down for a writing job on Glee because of their tricky reputation and their agent lent them money to tide them over. But instead of using that loan to pay off their debts, Soloway made Afternoon Delight, which led to a best director award at Cannes, which in turn led to Transparent. It’s a classic Soloway story, in that they refused to do the conventional thing and ended up winning anyway, which would certainly annoy a lot of people. But what does Soloway think people meant when they labelled them “difficult”?
“I probably was a little bit difficult, actually. If I was on somebody else’s show and I felt something could be better, it would be hard for me not to stand up,” Soloway says.
On set, Soloway encourages everyone to speak up if they see a problem, pointing out mistakes that will “illuminate the path to a more truthful moment”, wresting the usual directing techniques away from those with “masculine intention”. Talking with Soloway is a little reminiscent of the conversations I had with friends when we discovered feminist and queer theory and revelled in the jargon. And, as in those university days, the experience is both thrilling and occasionally bewildering.
Soloway talks about how “the gaze is male, and the urge to squarify the activity is male”, which is fun, even if it doesn’t get us very far (so should screens now be circular?). But no one can accuse Soloway of being just talk: their sets are famously diverse and I Love Dick has been directed largely by women, including Andrea Arnold and Kimberly Peirce. Soloway doesn’t even yell “Action” or “Cut”, preferring “Go on then” and “That’ll do.”
“All the traditions of film-making – the shouting, the prioritising of schedules, the way it feels a little like war and there’s a lot of men on set, the being on call all the time, they work very well for anyone who has a masculine intention and never wants to be home. But we brought feminist, cooperative, utopian ideals to the workplace in a way that gave this immediate bounty,” Soloway says proudly, and the Emmys in the booze cupboard are a testament to that.
One utopian ideal that Soloway brings to their sets is what they call “doing box”, which is when everyone gets together at the beginning of the day, stands on a box and shares whatever they’re going though in their personal life. This way, Soloway says, “Everyone knows humans are prioritised over time and money here. It’s a patriarchal-toppling tool.”
Kathryn Hahn and Juno Temple in Afternoon Delight, 2013. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock
Soloway pauses for a moment: “I’m actually renovating a house down the road and I brought this theory to the guys working on it.”
And how did the builders take to being told to share their feelings?
“I was really worried they were just going to think I was a total asshole. Then I finally gave myself permission to say one day: ‘I do this thing at work and I want to try it here.’ We now have a weekly meeting and we go around and say how they are. We call it emotional check-in. It’s really sweet,” Soloway grins.
Has it helped with the house? (Soloway is moving to this new house, and Gilbert is staying in the family home.) “For sure and … OH MY GOD YOU GOT YOUR HAIR CUT IT LOOKS AMAZING!”
Soloway breaks off to shout at a short-haired woman who has just walked in. It’s Soloway’s older sister, Faith, who stays with them a few months a year while they work on Transparent together, and the conversation that ensues could be straight out of the show:
Faith: It’s great, but it feels a little Hitler-y.
Jill: You don’t look like Hitler.
Faith: I don’t?
Jill: No, you look so cute. Will it change the way you move through the world, do you think?
Faith: I’m sure it will [she does an exaggerated cowboy walk and they both laugh.] I’m such a boy, right?
Jill: Yeah, it looks great. Super cute.
I point out that the two of them are wearing near-identical checked shirts.
Faith: Oh yeah!
Jill: Yeah, it looks cute, right?
“Cute” is one of Soloway’s favourite praise words now when referring to a person’s looks. “When people gender me as female, I feel strange, and if someone is like, ‘You look so pretty’ or ‘beautiful’, I feel offended. It’s like I’m succeeding at something feminine when I’m not trying, and that feels like a strange insult,” Soloway says.
These days, Soloway adds, they get rid of their whole wardrobe every six months: “I’m changing every day, so every six months I’m like: ‘None of this stuff makes sense any more.’ I got rid of every even slightly feminine shoe. There’s a feeling of being grown up, and moving through the world and feeling like I’m the subject instead of the object and that doesn’t really work for me if I’m feeling feminine.”
But, I say, surely the revolution is in re-defining what feminine or female attractiveness means rather than rejecting femaleness? After all, I Love Dick makes the feminine the subject.
“I think it’s more about the binary, the masculine and feminine,” Soloway says, lapsing back into the jargon. “There will always be incredibly masculine people and completely feminine people, but that has nothing to do with people’s bodies, whether they have a penis or vagina. And besides those two poles there’s also a place in the middle, the non-binariness, the people who don’t register as one or the other. I’m happy to speak on behalf of women and on behalf of feminism. But I notice when people see me as non-binary, I get treated more as a human being,” Soloway says.
Soloway (third from left) with some of the cast of Transparent, 2017. Photograph: David Crotty/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image
Hearing Soloway, whose work is so profoundly feminist, suggest that the best way to be treated as a human is to not be a woman is so befuddling that I am almost speechless. But, I manage, isn’t the point that the definition of a woman should be broader, as they have shown in their work. To retreat from being called a woman feels as if they are giving up the field.
“I hear that, and I felt that way a couple of years ago,” Soloway says. “I do agree that ‘woman’ shouldn’t mean a particular thing, that it can mean anything. But the words man and woman, male and female, they describe who we used to be. You know, there are a lot of trans men who menstruate and there are a lot of trans women who get offended if the feminist movement is about vagina hats. [The binary] is not going to stand in the future.”
I notice when people see me as non-binary, I get treated more as a human being
I don’t doubt that the world would be better with fewer divisions, but the reason Soloway gives for wanting to dissolve the gender binaries is so astonishing to me it feels like a betrayal. Unfortunately, time is pressing and I have to move on, but as soon as I leave the house I send Soloway an email: “Do you see any contradiction,” I write, “in that your work celebrates femaleness but you personally are rejecting it?”
A lengthy correspondence ensues, in which Soloway sends me emails filled with phrases such as “a non-binary, spherical, balanced crucible for being that is un-gendered”. But after a few weeks of this, in which I basically ask the same questions over and over and they patiently reply in various ways, Soloway sends an email that makes me sit up: “I identify as trans, which means that I am not seeking to synthesise my appearance with the label assigned to me at birth and instead am opting to live in a space where a label other than male or female is used to define me,” they write.
I hadn’t heard Soloway use the word “trans” in relation to themself before, so I ask them to elaborate. “Under the transbrella, there are so many identities. I haven’t made the big ‘I’m trans’ announcement because the politics in the community are so intense. It’s more like I had the realisation that the word cis didn’t work for me, so first there was the ‘not-cis’ revelation, which linguistically means the same thing as trans. As I said, most people who play with gender norms like butch women don’t identify as trans so it’s a little wobbly. I think in a year or two, more people will.”
Soloway grew up in Chicago and their father was an emotionally absent psychiatrist. Their mother, by contrast, was a teacher and enthusiastically involved in the civil rights movement: “Faith and I definitely grew up just knowing that trying to make something happen is your antidepressant for getting through the day – I have to change the world.” When Soloway’s father came out as trans in 2012, a lot “made sense.” The highly sophisticated second series of Transparent looks at how gender and sexual traumas reverberate in families and impact later generations, so I ask if Soloway thinks their father’s issues with gender affected Soloway and Faith?
“Oh totally. Faith and I, we used to have an idea for a play called The Soloway Brothers, and we both have thought of ourselves as boyish our whole lives, even though I was more female. I guess I didn’t see myself as a boy when I was younger, but now we both see ourselves as boys, kind of jokingly.”
However Soloway sees themself, there is no doubt they are now having a good time. They are currently single, having recently come out of a relationship with beat poet Eileen Myles. “I’m having my queer adolescence now,” Soloway smiles. “It’s fun.” We then talk a little about the cliched dynamics men and women fall into in relationships, and Soloway tells me a story about how they recently eavesdropped on some couples in a jacuzzi (“And the men were like: ‘If I get her a kitchen, maybe I’ll get sex!’”) that makes me double up laughing.
At this point, the Guardian’s photographer, Sarah, turns up and suddenly the room is flooded with women: aside from Faith, there’s the photographer, me and at least three assistants variously connected to Soloway, and Soloway promptly involves us all in the photo.
“I don’t want to look like a girl, OK?” Soloway tells Sarah, and one of the assistants brings down a recent magazine shoot to show what shouldn’t be done.
“Look how they fixed my hairline, and it looks like they airbrushed on makeup or something,” Soloway says, and we all collectively recoil. Soloway produces a photo of Pedro Almodóvar, saying they want to look like him instead.
“You should wear this blazer,” one of the assistants says.
“Do you think? What do you think?” Soloway asks, turning to me and putting on the blazer. Soloway looks great and I say so.
My taxi back to the airport arrives and we hug goodbye. As I leave, Soloway, Sarah and the assistants are all deciding which pair of glasses Soloway should wear (“So cute!”). In another era I would have described them as looking like a creative female collective. Now, I don’t know what the right words would be. But I will say this: it sure looks like they’re having fun.
I Love Dick is on Amazon Prime Video now. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/jul/31/can-we-avoid-stamp-duty-on-a-second-house-if-my-husband-buys-it-in-his-name | Money | 2023-07-31T06:00:30.000Z | Virginia Wallis | Can we avoid stamp duty on a second house if my husband buys it in his name? | Q I bought a house before I met my husband. We now live in this house together but the mortgage is solely in my name. I have almost paid off the mortgage. We are looking to move to a bigger property and keep my house, so that we can rent it out. Our hope is that my husband is able to buy the new house in his name only so that we avoid paying second home stamp duty. Would this work? Or would we have to pay it, as we are considered financially intertwined now that we are married?
LS
A I don’t think your cunning plan will work as a way to avoid paying second home stamp duty land tax (SDLT). According to Tax Insider: “Where only one of the spouses purchases a dwelling, it is assumed (for the purposes of the 3% SDLT charge) that the other spouse is a joint purchaser (even though this is not, in fact, the case). If either (or both) of the spouses satisfies the conditions for the 3% charge to apply [by owning two properties], it applies to the whole transaction.”
So, yes, in this instance, you are considered financially intertwined. This works in your favour if you end up selling your home within 36 months of buying your new home because you’ll be able to claim a rebate of the 3% charge. That’s because you are deemed to be replacing a main residence with another main residence that does not attract the higher rate of SDLT (which is why a refund is available).
Different land taxes - with different thresholds and rates - apply in Scotland and Wales. SDLT is charged in England and Northern Ireland. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/09/will-the-eu-emerge-from-the-coronavirus-crisis-stronger-or-weaker | Opinion | 2021-03-09T10:59:20.000Z | Timothy Garton Ash | Will the EU emerge from the coronavirus crisis stronger or weaker? | Timothy Garton Ash | Ayear ago this week, we learned with astonishment that Italy was going into a national lockdown to fight a strange new virus that had apparently come from somewhere in China. Within a fortnight, Spain, France and Britain had followed. Now here we are a year later, still in a state of emergency.
We work at home and live online. Our children have become babyzoomers. “You’re on mute!” is the most frequently heard sentence of our time. Face masks and 2-metre distancing from other human beings seem almost normal. Our languages have acquired a whole new imagery: “second wave”, “flattening the curve”, “herd immunity”, “the British variant”. Demographers will trace the long-term effects of this year of Covid for a century to come. Some say there is already a Generation C.
There have been other moments of shared European experience, such as the 1968 protests or the end of the cold war, but to find one that simultaneously affected so many people so personally you must go back to the second world war. When else since 1945 have we been so conscious that our individual actions, and those of our governments, can directly determine whether we and those we love will live or die? Yet this time Europeans have been fighting not each other but a common enemy.
This shared threat should have pulled us all together. But has it? And what will happen as solidarity fades and differential long-term impacts become apparent? Will the EU ultimately emerge stronger or weaker?
Thus far, the EU’s response to Covid has chalked up one great success and one great failure. The success is last summer’s agreement on a seven-year budget and a dedicated European recovery fund (AKA Next Generation EU) with a combined total of more than €1.8tn (£1.6tn). This decision, which introduced shared European debt, was the greatest step in economic intergration since the introduction of the euro. It offers the possibility for the EU to help all its member states recover economically and “build back better”.
The great failure has been the attempt to demonstrate that only the EU can deliver vaccines quickly and equitably for all member states. The German finance minister elegantly described the European commission’s performance on vaccine procurement as “really shit”. Germany’s leading tabloid, Bild, delighted Brexiters with a front page headline telling the Brits “We Beneiden [envy] You”. (The Sun riposted with “Wir Beneiden Dich Nicht ... over the EU vaccine shambles”.) Now Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and the Czech Republic are off getting vaccines from China or Russia, while Austria and Denmark are developing a vaccine partnership with Israel.
This is the personal failure of the European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and of the relevant commissioner and department. The European commission has handled this incompetently because it does not have the competence, in two senses of the word. Public health is largely a national competence, in the sense of legally assigned authority; as a result, the EU institutions do not have the competence, in the sense of the ability and experience to do a good job.
Moreover, this was to misunderstand from the start what the EU does well. Its forte is what the American scholar Andrew Moravcsik calls “incremental and technocratic policymaking”. The key word there is incremental. Because the EU is so complicated – having to take account of the views of 27 national governments, three different Brussels institutions and several European party groupings – it is unavoidably slow-moving. Its rather small bureaucracy is also exceedingly bureaucratic. But what was needed here was speed, a willingness to take risks and put lives before red tape.
Brussels would have done better to take a more modest, facilitating role from the outset, supporting those poorer and smaller states which would otherwise have been disadvantaged in the scramble for scarce vaccines.
The main lesson to be learned? For the next three years, the EU must have a single-minded focus on delivery. A recent opinion poll for my research team at Oxford university underscores what other analysts have also found: the EU’s legitimacy derives more from what it delivers than from the political and institutional process by which it gets there. Thus, while a large majority of our respondents said it is important to have a European parliament, no less than 59% agreed with the statement that “as long as the EU delivers effective action, the presence or absence of the European parliament is of secondary importance”.
The very last thing Europe needs at this point is an orgy of introspection in the shape of its proposed Conference on the Future of Europe, preparations for which are currently bogged down in characteristic inter-institutional infighting. If European leaders really care about the future of Europe, they will start by abandoning the Conference on the Future of Europe. Instead, they will focus on what the EU can actually do for its citizens.
Why is the EU running into so many difficulties with its Covid vaccine campaign?
Leo Cendrowicz
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The next step is a so-called “green digital pass”, allowing Europeans who have been vaccinated to travel around the continent again. Freedom of movement is what Europeans value above all else. An amazing 74% of respondents in our poll agreed with the statement: “If it did not offer the opportunity to travel, work, study and live in other EU member states, the EU would not be worth having.” The freedom to move around is what we have sorely missed over this year of lockdown. Delivering it back again smoothly would be an important success for the EU.
Beyond that, there is the giant task of ensuring that the €750bn recovery fund is spent rapidly, effectively and unbureaucratically, but also uncorruptly, in ways that really benefit the people of Europe. It needs to help create new jobs and opportunities; a significant chunk of it must go to genuinely green projects, not just “greenwashing”; and the soaring levels of public debt, especially in southern Europe, must not result in another eurozone sovereign debt crisis.
Politically, the acid test will be whether pro-European parties prevail not just in this year’s Dutch and German elections and France’s presidential election next year, but in Italy, Spain and Poland thereafter, and then in the 2024 elections to the European parliament.
In short, the EU faces one of the biggest challenges of its life. Instead of wasting time on a conference on the future of Europe, European leaders should have the Nike motto pasted on every door in Brussels: Just Do It.
Timothy Garton Ash is a Guardian columnist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/100-tours-100-tales/2014/dec/12/astana-cycling-doping-problem | Sport | 2014-12-12T14:53:10.000Z | Suze Clemitson | Astana have kept their licence but will cycling ever lose its doping problem? | We have been here before. In 1998, when Willy Voet was stopped by customs with a trunkful of EPO and triggered the Festina affair. In 2006, when Manolo Saiz’s arrest set in train Operación Puerto. In 2013, when Lance Armstrong answered “yes” to five questions and nailed the US Postal coffin definitively closed.
And now comes Padua. The birthplace of Palladio, the artistic home of Canova, the setting for The Taming of the Shrew, is now inextricably linked with a doping scandal that Gazzetta dello Sport has described as a “tsunami” – the one doping scandal that will blow the others out of the water.
This week’s revelations are supposedly shocking but for anyone who has followed professional cycling over the last two decades there is more than a whiff of business as usual about it all. We’ve been here before – the Festina hearings that revealed systematic team doping that went unpunished, the Puerto hearings that resulted in the destruction of hundreds of blood bags, the USADA reasoned decision that scapegoated Armstrong but left many other riders still active in the sport.
The UCI, having watched the horse bolt to freedom, finally closed the stable door in June 2011 with the announcement of regulation 1.1.006.2. This precludes riders with a doping violation from taking on team roles including general manager, team manager, coach, doctor, paramedical assistant, mechanic and driver. But, crucially, it was not enacted retrospectively and left more than a little wriggle room - if a rider had committed only one violation, was not sanctioned with an ineligibility for two or more years and if five years had elapsed between the moment of the violation and the first day of the year for which the licence is granted he was good to go. Alexander Vinokourov – the Kazakh at the heart of Astana and its links to Ferrari – is fortunate the UCI chose not to enact 1.1.006.2 retrospectively, though he only narrowly misses being exempted, having finally served a two year ban (upheld by the Court of Arbitration in Sport) for his only doping violation in 2007.
It’s the same strict application of the rules that saw Astana get their golden ticket for the World Tour on Wednesday, almost literally at the 11th hour. After much deliberation, and Brian Cookson’s declaration that, “It’s very important that we give this due process, and do things the right way. It’s not a question if Cookson has the balls to deal with this. We have to consider what is legally viable, and defensible, and that we carry it through due process.”
With the memory of the Katusha debacle fresh in the UCI’s mind, they have played it Cookson’s way. Astana are “on probation” pending the result of the Padua investigation. They will be audited by the Institute of Sport Sciences of the University of Lausanne, to “determine whether and to what extent the team and or/its management is responsible of the recent events”. And there are clear guidelines for the withdrawal of their licence should the tsunami sweep Astana away.
Where Padua differs from any other doping scandal is in the forensic depth of its investigation into the murky networks that lie behind the needle. It’s an old story – details first surfaced in 2012 – involving falsified contracts and a €30m fraud, in what chief magistrate Benedetto Roberti calls “the Ferrari System”. Twenty teams are implicated – not only Astana, but Radioshack and Lampre, among others – in a clever, tangled web centred on T&F Sports Management in Monaco and Dr Ferrari’s 53x12 website and involving lawyers and bank officials.
Roberti’s revelations were accompanied by a wave of raids on riders named in 2014’s 38-strong rider list – including Diego Caccia, Morris Possoni and Giovanni Visconti. Visconti tweeted his denial in no uncertain terms, telling his accusers to “fuck off” before hastily deleting, while Roman Kreuziger – currently facing the Court of Arbitration for Sport – said: “Ferrari case: I am investigated and I don’t know about it? I’m not concerned. I am not involved. My conscience is clear. I have NEVER doped.”
At the time of the Possoni raid, Sky said: “It is important that all the facts are established. Once that has been done, we will follow the appropriate procedures and communicate the process being followed. Team Sky is a clean team and we are committed to protecting the integrity of our sport.” Possoni left the team the following season for Lampre.
What seems clear is that, if Astana are to have their licence revoked as a result of the Padua investigation, they are not the only team who should be worried about the fallout. But we have been here before – remember Phonon? Yellow Fluo have also been granted a Pro Continental licence, with conditions, after a string of high profile doping positives involving, among others, “the Killer” Danilo Di Luca. In another of the sport’s beloved ironies, Roberti has called Di Luca’s 2009 testimony to his enquiry “the most valuable ever received”, crediting it with the increased cross border co-operation that nailed Michele Ferrari and, the ultimate prize, Lance Armstrong.
Dr Ferrari, whose dark shadow continues to fall across the cycling landscape, is cynical in his response to the Italian’s revelations, noting the rider’s significantly reduced ban and that “he went into schools to speak out about doping in the sport, swearing he would never dope again, and then was caught doing EPO.”
Meanwhile, defending Tour champion Vincenzo Nibali will once again sail into the 2015 season at the head of the Azure Armada. After being careful to distance the Italian squadra on the team from the “dirty” Kazakh operation, Nibali has said: “The problems in this team are also in many others. I don’t think our team is the worst because in other teams there are worse people than there are here, I won’t name names. There’s Mafia in Sicily, as in the rest of the world, but that doesn’t mean we’re all gangsters. As cyclists we’re always trying to show transparency. I’ve always practiced clean cycling and I will continue to do so.” He says he is tranquilo about the upcoming audit. He is not named in the Padua report.
And what of Europcar, the French team who lost out on a ProTour licence? Is this a case of a “clean team” unjustly denied participation at the highest level in favour of a rich superteam with questionable ethics? Well, not exactly. Europcar’s bid was, their manager Jean-René Bernaudeau estimates, “5% short” of the necessary financial guarantees. And a cursory examination of the ProTour regulations amply demonstrates that those guarantees easily supersede all other criteria. Bernaudeau has struggled for sponsorship before but there have been rumours that the French outfit are not entirely what they claim to be – the little issue of a failed cortisol test for Pierre Rolland and the suggestion of corticosteroid abuse makes the David v doping Goliath narrative a tougher sell.
But those narratives are where the future of cycling lie – at least according to the new Velon group. The registered brand of the Project Avignon group, their mission statement is “Making Cycling Better”. For who exactly is not yet clear, though the suspicion is that the bottom line involves ways to monetise the cycling fanbase through an American sports-style franchise arrangement. But Velon are very keen on creating what they are calling a “season-long narrative” – a tough ask in a sport whose showpiece event takes place in the middle of its season and whose “World Championship” always plays second fiddle to its major races. Exactly where the enduring fairytale that is doping fits into this story, no one is saying. But after the revelations that a high profile British athlete escaped target testing by the IAAF because “one cannot draw any conclusion on whether or not an athlete has doped on the basis of one single blood value”, cycling will yet again be using the well-worn line “why always us?” Because, might come the reply, we’ve been here before.
What effect Padua will eventually have on the procycling plot is not yet known. Missed opportunities continue to impact the sport and the average fan is justifiably cynical about the appetite to shovel the necessary shit. The UCI’s CIRC continue to gather evidence but they already look like stable boys running helplessly after a lame nag called Lance. Meanwhile the patient, methodical Roberti may just have pieced together the evidence that the UCI can no longer ignore and that may, decisively, change the sport for good. We have been here before, but will this time, finally, be different?
This article appeared first on 100 Tours 100 Tales
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https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/jul/27/galileo-satellite-project-eu-mulls-deal-give-uk-guaranteed-access-after-brexit | Politics | 2018-07-27T15:13:22.000Z | Jennifer Rankin | EU may give UK unique Galileo deal after Brexit | British police and armed forces could be guaranteed uninterrupted access to the encrypted signal of the European Union’s Galileo satellite system, it has emerged, as Brussels negotiators consider a unique deal for the UK on the project after Brexit.
The EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, is mulling an offer on the satellite project that would put the UK on better terms than other third-party countries over use of the encrypted service, according to diplomatic sources.
The plans, which are still on the drawing board, suggest a bit more flexibility than Barnier’s public position that the UK would be treated like any other non-EU country.
But in a blow to the government, the EU has not budged in its insistence that UK-based firms should be excluded from building modules for the secure signal.
Five UK scientific investments threatened by Brexit
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Conceived as the EU’s answer to the US global positioning system (GPS) and Russia’s global navigation and satellite system (Glonass), the €9.7bn (£8.6bn) Galileo project now has 26 satellites orbiting the globe, providing free global positioning to smartphone companies, app developers and search and rescue services anywhere in the world.
At the heart of the Brexit clash is Galileo’s public regulated service (PRS), the encrypted signal that cannot be jammed by hostile powers. The PRS can be used by governments during national emergencies, such as terrorist attacks, and allows the military to plan operations and guide missiles. Barnier has said he wants a partnership with the UK over the “most sensitive signal”, but it now emerges the commission could go a step further.
At a closed-door meeting last month, the commission floated the idea of involving British officials in decision-making over any restrictions on the PRS. “To me this is not heresy, this is the logical consequences of a close partnership on security,” said one source.
Another official said the UK could be offered a guarantee not to be “cut off in any circumstances”, albeit stressing none of the ideas had been agreed among EU member states.
An Ariane 5 rocket with four Galileo satellites onboard lifts off from the European Space Centre in French Guiana. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
But any suggestion of UK special status may complicate talks with other non-EU nations that have requested access to the PRS signal. The EU opened talks with Norway and the US in 2016, but progress has been slow.
The EU remains adamant that only companies based in the bloc can bid for PRS contracts. It wants to ensure that security clearance for contractors is managed by authorities inside the bloc, subject to EU oversight. EU officials like to remind UK counterparts that the British government signed up to this rule.
What is Galileo and why are the UK and EU arguing about it?
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The UK was once sceptical about Galileo, which used to be referred to in British official circles using the uncomplimentary term “the common agricultural policy in space”. Having spent £1.2bn on Galileo, the UK wants to ensure access on the same terms after Brexit to prevent British-based space companies moving operations to the continent.
The government has said that UK-based firms must have the right to “compete fairly for PRS-related contracts” and has threatened to walk away from Galileo and build its own satellite system unless this demand is met. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/dec/28/a-man-called-otto-review-tom-hanks-goes-grumpy-in-remake-of-quirky-heartwarmer | Film | 2022-12-28T14:00:52.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | A Man Called Otto review – Tom Hanks goes grumpy in remake of quirky Swedish yarn | Seven years ago, a frankly peculiar, quirky dramedy-heartwarmer from Sweden appeared: A Man Called Ove, based on the bestselling novel by Fredrik Backman. It was about a grumpy old widower who snaps at everyone on his street – officiously enforcing the Neighbourhood-Watch-type rules about parking and recycling – and keeps on trying to take his own life. These attempts are continually thwarted when he spots some local outside his house breaking some bylaw and Ove can’t resist rushing out to remonstrate. But a nerdy, sweet-natured young couple move in next door and insist on befriending Ove, and their artless friendship relieves Ove’s repressed sadness and affords him redemption. Ove was played in the original by Rolf Lassgård (Wallander on Swedish TV) and now by Tom Hanks – renamed Otto – in this Hollywood remake from screenwriter David Magee and director Marc Forster. The goofy-friendly new neighbours are played by Mariana Treviño and Manuel Garcia-Rulfo.
Hanks’s performance amplifies and colourises the original curmudgeon, and his star-quality soups up the drama and makes a clearer sense of the backstory, yet the very fact of it being Hanks means that we never for a moment believe that he really is going to be that nasty (or that unhappy) for long. Soon, the lovable Hanks will surely reappear, and it duly does as the sad story of his late wife emerges in sucrose flashback – although she is always a bland cipher, not a convincing person. Finally, of course, Otto is going to be absolutely adorable. With his fierce short haircut and blank, open face he looks very familiar. Not grump, but Gump.
But just as with the original, the real problems come with those wacky unsuccessful attempts to kill himself; they represent the same jarring and baffling tonal misjudgment. Newspapers are very restricted about what they can describe on this subject; not so the cinema, which is (rightly) afforded artistic freedom. But the scenes with Hanks buying the means from a hardware store, arguing about the change with the manager, then unhilariously having to abandon his plan in order to tell someone off … it’s not serious enough to do justice to the subject, not dark enough for scabrous black comedy, or funny enough for comedy of any sort, being weirdly sentimental from the outset.
Otherwise, the movie follows the form of the original pretty faithfully, although the gay teenage boy that Ove helps in the first film is now trans. Hanks carries the film with his personality and his easy address to the camera, but this oddity of a film never quite comes to life.
A Man Called Otto is released on 25 December in the US, on 1 January in Australia and on 6 January in the UK.
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email [email protected] or [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 helplines can be found at befrienders.org. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/19/hiroshima-john-hersey-1946-100-best-nonfiction-books-no-24-atom-bomb-1945-japanese | Books | 2016-09-19T04:45:37.000Z | Robert McCrum | The 100 best nonfiction books: No 34 – Hiroshima by John Hersey (1946) | American print journalism, possibly thanks to its special place in the US constitution, occasionally delivers exemplary knockout blows, world-class reporting on great subjects. John Hersey’s Hiroshima stands at the head of this tradition. These 31,000 words of searing testimony were written and published just a year after the dropping of the first A-bomb on Japan in August 1945, a terrible act of war that killed 100,000 men, women and children and marked the beginning of a dark new chapter in human history.
Hiroshima was the result of an inspired commission about an event of global significance from a renowned war correspondent by a magazine editor of genius. It was in the spring of 1946 that William Shawn, the celebrated managing editor of the New Yorker, and protege of its founder Harold Ross, invited his star reporter, John Hersey, to visit postwar Japan for an article about a country recovering from the shattering experience of the atomic bomb. The piece was intended to be a standard four-parter about Japan’s ruined cities and devastated lives nine months on from the country’s humiliating unconditional surrender.
John Hersey driving a US army jeep in 1944. Photograph: AP
On the Pacific sea voyage to Japan, however, Hersey chanced on a copy of Thornton Wilder’s novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey, the tale of five people who are crossing an Inca rope bridge in Peru when it collapses, for which Wilder had won a Pulitzer prize. Accordingly, Hersey decided to focus his narrative on the lives of a few chosen Hiroshima witnesses. As soon as he reached the ravaged city, he found six survivors of the bombing whose personal narratives captured the horror of the tragedy from the awful moment of the explosion. This gave Hersey his opening sentence, a unique point of view, and a narrative thread through a chaotic and overwhelming mass of material. In a style later developed and popularised by the “new journalism” of the 1960s, the opening of Hiroshima pitches the reader into the heart of the story, from the viewpoint of one of its victims:
At exactly 15 minutes past eight in the morning on 6 August, 1945, Japanese time, at the moment when the atomic bomb flashed above Hiroshima, Miss Toshiko Sasaki, a clerk in the personnel department of the East Asia Tin Works, had just sat down at her place in the plant office and was turning her head to speak to the girl at the next desk.
From here, Hersey embarks on an exploration of the lives of five other interlocutors: the Rev Mr Kiyoshi Tanimoto, of the Hiroshima Methodist church, who suffers radiation sickness; Mrs Hatsuyo Nakamura, a widow with three children; one European, Father Wilhelm Kleinsorge, a German Jesuit priest who had endured exposure to radiation; and finally, two doctors – Masakazu Fujii and Terufumi Sasaki (not related to Miss Sasaki). Some of these interviewees had been less than 1,500 yards (1,370m) from the site of the explosion, and their harrowing accounts of vaporised, burnt and mutilated bodies, of blasted survivors, of hot winds and a devastated city tormented by raging fires, a scene from hell, gave a voice to a people with whom the US and its allies had been brutally at war only a year earlier. Hersey’s brilliant reportage gave his story an existential dimension:
They still wonder why they lived when so many others died. Each of them counts many small items of chance or volition – a step taken in time, a decision to go indoors, catching one streetcar instead of the next – that spared him. And now each knows that in the act of survival he lived a dozen lives and saw more death than he ever thought he would see. At the time, none of them knew anything.
Hersey also used all his skill as a novelist and as a war reporter to bring home the horror of what he, one of the first correspondents into Hiroshima, had learned:
Dr Sasaki had not looked outside the hospital all day; the scene inside was so terrible and so compelling that it had not occurred to him to ask any questions about what had happened beyond the windows and doors. Ceilings and partitions had fallen; plaster, dust, blood, and vomit were everywhere. Patients were dying by the hundreds, but there was nobody to carry away the corpses. Some of the hospital staff distributed biscuits and rice balls, but the charnel-house smell was so strong that few were hungry. By three o’clock the next morning, after nineteen hours of his gruesome work, Dr Sasaki was incapable of dressing another wound.
Hersey’s decision to use the testaments of Dr Sasaki, Mrs Namakura and the others, was both an inspired creative and also a tactically brilliant decision. The US army of occupation had prevented many US journalists from taking material out of the country, censoring photographs and tape-recordings alike. Hersey avoided such restrictions. He would stay only a few weeks in Hiroshima, but he returned to New York with a suitcase full of extraordinary first-hand material, and now set about fashioning a four-part piece for the New Yorker.
Hiroshima by John Hersey, which has never been out of print since it was first published in 1946.
Part I, A Noiseless Flash, introduced Hersey’s six witnesses. Part II, The Fire, reported the immediate, horrific aftermath of the explosion. Part III, Details are Being Investigated, described the wider, Japanese response to this unimaginable act of war. Part IV, Panic Grass and Feverfew, followed Father Kleinsorge and the sufferings of Hersey’s other witnesses in the weeks after the bombing, describing the Japanese people’s hatred for the Americans who had perpetrated this “war crime”. So soon after the end of the second world war, with feelings still running high, to achieve any kind of objectivity was a remarkable challenge.
In hindsight, Hersey frankly acknowledged the first technical difficulty he encountered with this story: there was no way he could bring his usual style to bear on his material, he said. “A show of passion would have brought me into the story as a mediator. I wanted to avoid such mediation, so the reader’s experience would be as direct as possible.” Instead, he went for cool and low key. As the New Yorker writer Hendrik Herzberg has written: “Hersey’s reporting was so meticulous, his sentences and paragraphs were so clear, calm and restrained, that the horror of the story he had to tell came through all the more chillingly.” Hersey’s flat, plain, deliberately unemotional style immediately caught the imagination of his editors, Ross and Shawn. In conditions of great secrecy, they decided to do something unprecedented: devote an entire edition of their magazine to the story of Hiroshima.
The ironic cover of the 31 August 1946 edition of the New Yorker gives nothing away: a summer-in-the-park illustration of a carefree picnic. It was not until the reader turned past Goings on About Town and the usual metropolitan advertisements for motor cars and diamonds that the editors’ intentions were revealed in a simple statement: “TO OUR READERS. The New Yorker this week devotes its entire editorial space to an article on the almost complete obliteration of a city by one atomic bomb, and what happened to the people of that city. It does so in the conviction that few of us have yet comprehended the all but incredible destructive power of this weapon, and that everyone might well take time to consider the terrible implications of its use.”
The impact of this New Yorker was extraordinary. The edition sold out 300,000 copies within hours of publication, inspiring a storm of commentary across the US, and abroad, especially on radio. Harold Ross said he had never got “as much satisfaction out of anything else” in his life. Hersey’s piece was reprinted worldwide. Albert Einstein, an outspoken opponent of the bomb, who tried to buy a thousand copies of the New Yorker to send to fellow scientists, had to settle for a facsimile version. Copies of the original edition changed hands at many times the cover price.
The New Yorker’s rival, Time magazine, gave the best immediate verdict:
Every American who has permitted himself to make jokes about atom bombs, or who has come to regard them as just one sensational phenomenon that can now be accepted as part of civilisation, like the airplane and the gasoline engine, or who has allowed himself to speculate as to what we might do with them if we were forced into another war, ought to read Mr Hersey. When this magazine article appears in book form the critics will say that it is in its fashion a classic. But it is rather more than that.
Within a year, Knopf had published Hiroshima as a book. It has never since been out of print, and has now sold upwards of 3m copies.
Hiroshima by John Hersey: an enduring memory of reportage
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John Hersey returned to Hiroshima in 1985 to meet his informants once again, and to write a retrospective, The Aftermath, which described the postwar lives of the hibakusha*. Mr Tanimoto, he wrote, still “got up at six every morning and took an hour’s walk with his small woolly dog, Chiko. He was slowing down a bit. His memory, like the world’s, was getting spotty.”
John Hersey died in 1993.
* In referring to those who went through the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, the Japanese tended to shy away from the term “survivors”, because in its focus on being alive it might suggest some slight to the sacred dead. The class of people to whom Hersey’s witnesses belonged came to be called by the more neutral name hibakusha – literally, “explosion-affected persons”. For more than a decade after the bombings, the hibakusha lived in an economic limbo, apparently because the Japanese government did not want to find itself saddled with anything like moral responsibility for heinous acts of the victorious US.
A signature sentence
“In the street, the first thing he saw was a squad of soldiers who had been burrowing into the hillside opposite, making one of the thousands of dugouts in which the Japanese apparently intended to resist invasion, hill by hill, life for life; the soldiers were coming out of the hole, where they should have been safe, and blood was running from their heads, chests, and backs.” Page 10
Three to compare
John Hersey: A Bell for Adano (1945)
John Hersey: The Algiers Motel Incident (1968)
Jonathan Schell: The Fate of the Earth (1982) | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2018/dec/07/jose-mourinho-manchester-united-relegation | Football | 2018-12-07T20:00:25.000Z | Barney Ronay | A reminder that Manchester United were not always too rich to go down | Barney Ronay | There was a good story at the start of this week’s BT Sport documentary Too Good To Go Down, a highly watchable 90-minute blockbuster about Manchester United’s relegation in the 1973-74 season. Ten minutes into the film the United winger Willie Morgan starts to talk about Wilf McGuinness, who enjoyed an uneasy succession to Matt Busby.
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With United in the middle of a losing run McGuinness called Bobby Charlton out for a talk on the Old Trafford pitch after training. Charlton had already showered and changed into his suit and tie. It was a wet, freezing day and as he spoke he put his hands in his pockets briefly. At which point McGuinness pointed out that hands in pockets was a breach of club rules during what was still technically training.
Dutiful as ever, Charlton bent down in his pinstripes to do 10 penalty press-ups on his own in the rain in the Old Trafford centre circle so his manager would agree to talk to him again. “McGuinness was sacked a few days later,” Morgan added, not really needing to say much more.
Later in the film there are some great shots of a gorgeously ripe, slightly fried-looking George Best – beard sprouting, hair a little straggly, but still whippet thin and with that same playful sadness in his lovely blue eyes. Best is shown pouring champagne down a foaming tower of glasses, something people seemed to do at pretty much every social gathering in the 1970s but which has now sadly gone out of fashion, due to political correctness going mad or the popularity of the flute over the more decadent goblet, one or the other.
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There was footage of a TV reporter door-stepping Miss Great Britain, literally in her Miss Great Britain robes, to ask if Best was feeling depressed. “You saw George last night didn’t you,” the reporter demands of Miss Great Britain, which is to be fair probably a fairly decent guess just on the basic percentages. Miss Great Britain rolls her eyes then smiles a private smile, remembering something. “Well … he looked OK to me.”
But it wasn’t George or Miss Great Britain who stood out as the most poignant on-screen presence. And it certainly wasn’t José Mourinho, who appeared earlier in the evening inside BT’s new “manager box”, a panel that pops up in the comer of the screen giving live and uninterrupted coverage of middle-aged men looking worried while football happens. At one point Mourinho just stood completely still in his little box for what felt like ages, face completely blank, hanging in the bottom of the TV screen like a particularly sour and sallow Halloween pumpkin.
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Jonathan Wilson
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It was instead the basic premise of Too Good To Go Down that made it so apt. United being relegated has always been an interesting oddity. These days it seems medieval. The stratification of resources in club football has created an oligarchy of interests at the top. It is impossible this could ever happen again. Money will not allow it.
The downside of which is that – whisper it – we now have a high grade but deeply predictable league. This week the research group CIES Football Observatory published a paper called Competitive Balance: A Spatio-Temporal Comparison. Its conclusions reflect what we already know to be true, that the top clubs in every European league are pulling away.
The champions of the big five leagues raked in 83.3% of all possible points last season. More games are being won by a wider margin by a group of elite clubs, all of whom are now too big to fail. United can have a wretched season, can clank about the pitch like a group of sad, misfiring robots, and still the worst thing that might happen is they finish behind Everton.
The upside of this is the presence of some truly spectacular champion teams. Here is another stat from midweek: Manchester City have the best goal difference of any club at this stage since Sunderland in 1892-93. It might seem perverse to see this as a problem: City are a pure joy to watch, drilled and styled with such a luminous set of footballing rhythms, such a generous, captivating style of play.
But this comes with its own issues when you’re just too global-scale for 80% of your own league. BT also had City’s trip to Watford on Tuesday. The game was enlivened at the end by Watford pulling a goal back, something the entire post-match debrief was given over to marvelling at, as though nobody there could quite believe they’d been present at a moderately tight 2-1 away win.
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How to address all this? How to fight the inbuilt competitive obsolescence of Big Sport? Regulation is a dirty word. The market will not stand for salary caps or rules on ownership, or even, it seems, for the existing financial strictures. This is unfair and regressive, the argument goes. Liverpool and United had more money than everyone else back in the 1970s and 1980s. But then, in the 1970s and 1980s the league was also won by seven teams in 11 years, back when having a little more did not mean being able to buy the world and all that is in it.
Plus, United could still go down back then. And guess what? It was good for them too. A team haunted by past glories were cleared out and energised, freed up to play thrillingly carefree attacking football. United came back with the shackles of the past thrown off, those red shirts treading lightly. Just imagine. Hmm. Relegation maybe. But let’s keep it credible.
This article was amended on 8 December 2018 to reflect that Manchester United were relegated at the end of the 1973-74 season, not in 1973 as an earlier version said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2016/apr/22/artist-olafur-eliassons-my-last-supper | Food | 2016-04-22T11:00:02.000Z | Dale Berning Sawa | Olafur Eliasson’s last meal | My last supper | In the same way that we talk about a full moon, for my last meal, I’d like to have a full Earth in front of me. So, I’d be sitting on the moon, looking at the Earth rising above the moon’s horizon. Because the moon is tidally locked to the Earth, the moon rotates with a speed that means it always appears to have the same side facing the Earth – so I’d be sitting on the Earth side. Incidentally, I recently made a map of the moon with Ai Weiwei.
When we eat, we are so much more connected with the world. It is one of the few times when our insides touch the outside world – quite literally: the process of eating means the mouth, the throat, the belly, the gut are all in physical contact with the external world. Sitting on the moon would nicely amplify that connection between our insides and the Earth: it would be a kind of planetary amplifier, if you will.
My last meal would be about eating the Earth. Maybe not the whole thing, but a thin sliver of it, leaving enough for the 7.3 billion other people who live on it. Eating it is being in contact with it, or being connected to it.
Making, eating and digesting food have consequences – you don’t need to be an academic to understand that. When you’re cooking, you can’t help thinking about where the food comes from – who made it, under what conditions, asking yourself if the harvesters were in a union, if they were paid properly. So, thinking about food leads you to understand the difference between, say, supermarket tomatoes grown in a greenhouse in the Netherlands and the tomatoes we grow ourselves.
I’m well aware of the complexities of the system. For example, until we got a rainwater management system working for our roof garden, growing our own tomatoes was probably far less environmentally friendly than buying those Dutch tomatoes. But once we got it right, it became much better.
In my studio, we are healthily obsessed with these things. We think about how to be rational while still celebrating irrationality and creativity. A secret of the studio is that the rational part is often the creative part. Sometimes the creativity is in being able to foresee, to plan.
Everything is connected, everything has consequences, we are what we eat.
Olafur Eliasson is a Danish-Icelandic artist and food fanatic. Studio Olafur Eliasson: The Kitchen (Phaidon), a cookbook inspired by the food prepared at his Berlin studio, is out now, and features the burdock root, apricot punch and gingerbread pictured above. Follow the studio kitchen on Instagram: @Soe_kitchen | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/mar/07/insiders-guide--turin-italy-church-bells-rock | Cities | 2016-03-07T12:04:33.000Z | Aurora Percannella | An insider's guide to Turin: church bells and post-industrial electronic rock | In five words
Hazelnut chocolate; post-industrial innovation
Sound of the city?
Church bells ring every day at 6pm across the city. In one of Italy’s largest urban centres, neighbourhoods are still organised as little communities around Catholic churches, and bells mark the passage of time by rhythmically announcing the end of the day. This sound represents the tension between Turin’s conservative heritage and the push towards modernisation that the city has experienced in recent years.
Best building
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The Palavela, an arena named after its surprisingly graceful vault made of reinforced concrete, is my personal favourite. Ugly, industrial and grey when it was first built at the end of the 1950s for the 100th anniversary of Italy’s unification (it even made a brief appearance in The Italian Job a few years later), it was redesigned in 2003 by architect Gae Aulenti to host figure skating at the 2006 Winter Olympics. The building is located on the left bank of the river Po and it’s one of those rare examples of Olympic infrastructure still in use a decade after the Games.
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Favourite venue of the moment
Turin is a place where student movements, creative professionals and progressive ideals often come together to shape lively community hubs, and the Cavallerizza Reale in the city centre is the latest example of this trend. Originally the Royal Stables in the 17th century, it became a Unesco World Heritage Site in 1997 as part of the Residences of the House of Savoy.
When the local administration attempted to privatise the building complex in 2014, a spontaneous assembly of citizens occupied it. Since then, they have been keeping the area publicly accessible and culturally alive by organising a growing range of events and workshops: from meditation, creative writing and drama classes to DJ sets, food nights, guided tours, folk gigs and meetings to discuss the creation of new queer spaces.
Homegrown talent
One band in particular has been shaping the local musical landscape since the mid-90s: Subsonica. They have produced the sound that has accompanied the transformation of a city known in the past exclusively for car factories, grey buildings and polluted skies, into a lively and stimulating urban centre.
Gone are the days when you could catch their unique brand of “made in Turin” electronic rock in the clubs along the river, now defunct to accommodate gentrification. Although Subsonica have moved on to play clubs and arenas across Italy and beyond, their close interaction with the city hasn’t changed. Many of the local emerging indie acts, for example, enjoy the supervision of Max Casacci, the band’s founder, guitarist and one of Italy’s most eclectic producers.
The look on the street
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Torino is often compared to Paris for its cold temperatures and architectural aesthetics. Street outfits tend to mirror this trend.
Most underrated location
Parco San Vito is a small park on the hills in southern Turin with the best view of the mountains. It has green meadows, a row of wooden benches and is great for Sunday picnics. Not so many people go there because it’s hard to find and is a 30-minute uphill walk uphill from the city centre. Over 600 metres above sea level, it’s a good place to escape urban pollution and spend time in a public space that feels like countryside.
Best Instagram account
The city of Turin’s Instagram account regularly reposts fragments of urban landscapes, photographed by residents. The municipality has also actively engaged citizens by allowing them to briefly become official photographers for the profile, so the resulting collection is varied, authentic and offers subjective insights into the different ways in which locals experience their city.
Biggest controversy
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In January, two cyclists were run over and killed by cars in two days, which brought the conversation on how to make the city more bike-friendly back to the headlines. Turin has an active association called Bike Pride that has been pushing for consistent investments in sustainable forms of transport, to move away from an idea of city as a place consumed by cars.
Following the two accidents, they launched an online campaign and organised a demonstration to urgently demand the creation of safe spaces for cyclists and pedestrians alike. The municipality has finally confirmed the allocation of €8m (£6.1m) to improve the bike sharing system, extend cycle paths and establish areas where cars are required to travel at a maximum speed of 30km/h, but tensions remain high.
Moment in history
The 2006 Winter Olympic Games changed Turin drastically. They played a decisive part in the revitalisation of the city’s industrial face. I still remember the feeling of anticipation my high school friends and I shared when we started seeing crowds of international tourists in the centre of Turin, surprised at all the different languages and the sudden interest in our city. At the time, we were still very much a gap in Italy’s tourist maps.
Buildings had been cleaned and elegantly lit up, schools had been shut for the duration of the Games to increase citizen participation. The city acquired its first ever metro line. There were weekly Notti Bianche (official nights of celebration) with restaurants, museums, cinemas, artisanal hot chocolate stalls and shops open until the early hours, and gigs with global artists echoing in the main squares. Cars could barely circulate, overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of people walking in the streets.
That’s when we started proudly discovering beauty in our city for the first time, too.
Best local artist
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Mario Merz died in 2003, but the impact of his work on the city is still visible today. His installations are known for their characteristic neon lights that add vibrancy to ordinary materials, often indigenous to the place. His igloo fountain on a large traffic island in Corso Mediterraneo, for example, is a structure of metal and stone integrated with neon lights that indicate cardinal directions and are reflected on a water surface. Another well known installation is the Fibonacci sequence drawn vertically in red neon lights on Turin’s iconic tower, the Mole Antonelliana.
After the artist’s death, the Fondazione Merz was established to preserve his legacy and support emerging talent. Merz’s close interaction with the city has been a catalyst for the transformation of the area into a globally renowned centre for contemporary art, together with institutions such as the museum Castello di Rivoli and the annual fair Artissima.
Top insider’s tip
On the first Wednesday of every month, people of all ages and from different cultural backgrounds meet in a corner of Piazza Castello at night, in front of the Royal Palace, and dance together to Occitan folk ballads from the region’s mountain communities and the south of France. The atmosphere is magical considering the urban surroundings – it feels like travelling back in time. Anyone who plays traditional Occitan instruments can take part in the jam session, while everybody else can watch or leap in the welcoming, collective dance. There always seems to be someone keen to explain basic steps and persuade newcomers to join the crowd.
From me
Aurora Percannella shows us around. Photograph: Aurora Percannella
Aurora is a freelance journalist and editor from Turin, and currently works between her hometown and London. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.
Five to follow
Le strade di Torino
Torino Piemonte Antiche Immagini
Balon Torino
I love toret
Zeno Photography
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https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jun/23/maggie-o-farrell-17-brushes-with-death-memoir-i-am-i-am-i-am-interview | Books | 2018-06-23T14:00:06.000Z | Lisa O'Kelly | Maggie O’Farrell: ‘As a child ill in bed for two years, I read all the time. That’s all I did’ | Maggie O’Farrell is the author of seven bestselling novels, including This Must Be the Place and the Costa prize-winning The Hand That First Held Mine. Her new book, I Am, I Am, I Am, is a memoir about her brushes with death, among them a severe childhood illness, an armed ambush, a near-drowning, and her daughter’s life-threatening allergies.
You once told your husband you were more likely to become a mathematician than to write a personal memoir. What made you change your mind?
You don’t necessarily choose the books you write; they choose you, in a way. Sometimes one arrives when you are least expecting it, a bit like an unplanned pregnancy. This book was very much like that. It just sort of appeared in the backs of my diaries. But I had huge trepidations about publishing it. I only let my publisher give me a £1 advance in case I changed my mind.
Why?
I knew because it was so personal that I needed to get it completely right, not just so that I was happy with it but so that my husband and family and anyone else who was in it was happy with it. I love reading memoirs, especially writers’ memoirs, but sometimes I feel viscerally shocked at how exposing they are to people who don’t have a right of reply. So, it was very important to me to write a memoir that didn’t fleece people I love.
Do you think it is unusual to have as many near-death experiences?
Perhaps I have had more brushes with death than most people, although a lot of them can be traced back to the illness I had as a child and the related medical conditions. But I do think people have more close encounters with death than they acknowledge. They put them away in their minds. It’s a natural human reaction not to want to think about them. The reactions I have had to the book have been very interesting from this perspective. People are usually amazed and say: “Seventeen brushes with death! How come?” I can see the wheels turning in their mind and they start to say: “Oh, yes, there was that time… and that time.…”
The other person in the book who has regular brushes with death is your daughter, your middle child, who from birth has suffered chronic eczema and extreme allergic reactions up to 15 times a year. Daily life, just keeping her safe, sounds like a military exercise…
It is a bit. I am not naturally a very organised person but I’ve had to become so out of necessity. You have to be very practical, make sure you have all her medication with you and that everyone she’s with knows exactly what to do in case she has an episode. She can go into anaphylactic shock just by sitting next to someone who opens a bag of peanuts. But the other part of parenting is the emotional work. It’s very challenging to have to explain to a three- or four-year-old why they’re in pain, why they look different to everyone else, why they’re in an ambulance, why they’re in an ICU. I have learned a huge amount.
What’s the most important thing that being your daughter’s mum has taught you?
The human need for narrative. It had never occurred to me before that it is a requirement that we have, a bit like oxygen and water and food. I found the thing I reached for again and again when she was having a crisis was making up a story for her about what was happening: why we were in the hospital unit; why her eczema was so sore; why she needed to put cream on every day. It was the only thing that helped, making up a story about her – and also about what happened to me. In saying to her, I was different at school as well, I was ill, I spent time in hospital, I was able to help her. I suppose in a sense that is what I was trying to do with the book. I was trying to normalise it for her and for other people when she’s older. To say, we all go through this. You’re not alone.
You had viral encephalitis at her age, which confined you to bed for two years and is the subject of a very affecting chapter in the book. To what extent did the illness determine who you are?
I think it must have done to a significant extent but it is impossible for me to disentangle who I might have been and who I actually am. Someone asked me, if you could turn back the clock and not have the illness, would you? I found that impossible to answer. I was really floored. I thought, well, actually I don’t know, maybe I wouldn’t. It is part of who I am and continues to feature in my daily life.
How?
I have huge balance issues and I can’t walk around in the dark – I need to be able to see where I am going. I drop cutlery and knock over glasses. Sometimes I see things that aren’t there: lights, flashes or spots in the fabric of my vision. When I’m very tired I see things upside-down. I also have a problem with sequencing – I wouldn’t be able to read out a phone number.
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You describe how you read a huge amount while you were ill. Is that what turned you into a writer?
I would say it guided me on the path I eventually took. I pretty much read for two years. That’s all I did. I listened to audiobooks over and over again. And I would read from one end of my bookcase to the other and start again. Also, when you’re a child and you’re ill in hospital nobody tells you what’s going on and it is only by watching and interpreting the behaviour of the adults around you that you find out your destiny. So, I developed that writer’s skill of being an observer at an early age.
How do you manage to find the time and the space to write?
To do my tax return or to do the washing-up or the laundry I have to be very self-disciplined but never with writing. It’s what I want to do. Our domestic life is perhaps more demanding than others’ but for me writing is a coping mechanism. Sitting at my desk I can live an alternative life. In any case, being hungry for time at your desk is good for you. Children in that sense are very good editors. I cut a lot less from my books than I did before I had children.
I Am, I Am, I Am is published by Tinder Press (£8.99). To order it for £7.64 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/03/labour-conference-fails-to-give-party-a-bounce-in-opinion-polls | Politics | 2021-10-03T05:30:19.000Z | Michael Savage | Labour conference fails to give party a bounce in opinion polls | Labour has not enjoyed a poll bounce in the immediate aftermath of its party conference despite the government being blamed by most of its own voters over the fuel shortage crisis.
Senior figures in Keir Starmer’s team were satisfied by the outcome of last week’s conference, believing the Labour leader was able to show the public that he was shifting the party away from the Corbyn era and focusing his attack on Boris Johnson as a figure not serious enough to govern competently.
However, the latest Opinium poll for the Observer found that the Tory lead remained intact. It found that the narrow Conservative lead had increased by one point to 39%. The party’s rating actually fell by one percentage point, but Labour’s rating fell two points to 35%. The Lib Dems were on 8%, up a point on the last poll.
Despite a highly anticipated conference speech that marked his first major opportunity to spell out his vision to voters, there was also no immediate sign of an improvement in Starmer’s personal approval ratings. It was up only marginally to -5, with 32% approving of the job he was doing and 37% disapproving.
The results reveal the challenge Starmer still faces in making an impression on voters, as well as the apparent stubbornness in the polls that have seen the Tories retain a lead despite a pandemic and a series of shortages and price rises increasingly concerning the public.
Meanwhile, figures on the party’s left said that Starmer would be wrong to conclude that he had decisively seized control of Labour after the conference. The left of the party is planning how to regroup after Starmer successfully changed party rules to make it harder for figures such as Jeremy Corbyn to win a future leadership election.
Senior figures on the Labour left said that Starmer had only secured the change with the help of one major union and that the left still held significant power within the party. Campaigns are being designed around demands for a £15 minimum wage, one of the issues Starmer was heckled over during his speech. There are also plans for a coordinated campaign between leftwing unions, MPs and the pro-Corbyn leadership group Momentum to prevent Starmer from making a further shift to the centre.
One influential figure said that there was evidence the left still had significant strength within the party that could yet cause problems for Starmer’s team. “There isn’t a kind of great, right-wing advance throughout the Labour movement,” said one senior figure. They said that, unlike Tony Blair, Starmer had won the leadership on a “soft left platform” before adopting a leadership team “very much firmly on the right”.
The latest Opinium polling shows the extent of the challenge Labour faces in turning public concerns into electoral success. The Tory poll lead came despite the fact that the public is worried about shortages of food and fuel, and that many blame the government for the situation. More than two-thirds (69%) think the government has responded badly to the HGV driver shortage, including more than half (52%) of 2019 Conservative voters. Two-thirds (67%) blame the current government for the crisis, including half (51%) of 2019 Conservative voters – and 61% of voters blame Boris Johnson directly.
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Adam Drummond, head of political polling at Opinium, said: “The early data from after the conference, with most of the fieldwork taking place immediately after the leader’s speech on Wednesday, saw the Conservatives retain a narrow lead and Starmer’s approval ratings hold stubbornly in negative territory. This is despite a crisis that voters both directly blame the government for handling poorly and also blame its flagship policy of Brexit for contributing to. It appears Labour has yet to demonstrate that it would be an improvement on the current government, despite its flaws.”
Opinium polled 2,004 people between 29 September and 1 October. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/ukraine-war-briefing-kharkiv-residents-suffer-as-russia-intensifies-attacks | World news | 2024-05-01T00:34:09.000Z | Warren Murray | Ukraine war briefing: Kharkiv residents suffer as Russia intensifies attacks | Russian strikes on Kharkiv killed at least one person and wounded nine on Tuesday, the regional governor said. Russian bombardment of Kharkiv, which lies near the Russian border and is Ukraine’s second-largest city, has intensified in recent weeks. Ukraine’s railway company said the 24-year-old victim was one of its employees. “This is another targeted attack on civilian railway infrastructure by the enemy,” the company, Ukrzaliznytsia, said in a statement.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) on Tuesday described a worsening situation in Kharkiv, north-east Ukraine, with an increasingly anxious population subjected to regular air raids. It said the city now regularly suffers “severe power outages, interruptions in water and heating supply, and a complete halt of trams for public transportation”. The IRC said recent attacks had caused “extensive damage to civilian infrastructure and led to a sharp increase in casualties among the local population … air raid sirens sound day and night”, with people “experiencing heightened anxiety and distress”.
A 98-year-old woman in Ukraine has escaped Russian-occupied territory by walking almost 10km (six miles) alone, wearing a pair of slippers and supported by a cane. Lidia Stepanivna Lomikovska became separated from her family and continued alone after they decided to leave the frontline town of Ocheretyne. “Once I lost balance and fell into weeds. I fell asleep … a little and continued walking. And then, for the second time, again, I fell. But then I got up and thought to myself, I need to keep walking, bit by bit,” Lomikovska said. Eventually she was picked up by Ukrainian soldiers and taken to safety.
Russian-occupied Crimea has come under Ukrainian attack, the Moscow-installed authorities said, from what they described as US-supplied Atacms missiles. Sergei Aksyonov, the Russian-backed head of Crimea, posted on Telegram a photo showing what he said were undetonated submunitions of Atacms missiles that had been shot down. The photo and the Russians’ version of events could not be verified.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed “a significant acceleration” in deliveries of weaponry. “We are very much counting on prompt deliveries from the United States,” he said. “These supplies must make themselves felt in disrupting the logistics of the occupiers, in making them afraid to base themselves anywhere on occupied territory and in our strength.”
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said he was encouraging countries with Patriot missile systems to donate them to Ukraine, which has appealed for more of the air defence systems. “There are countries that have Patriots, and so what we’re doing is continuing to engage those countries,” Austin told a congressional hearing. “I have talked to the leaders of several countries … myself here in the last two weeks, encouraging them to give up more capability or provide more capability,” he said, without identifying the countries by name. Various European Union countries possess the systems, including Spain, Greece, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Zelenskiy has previously told Nato members that his country needs a minimum of seven additional Patriot or other high-end air defence systems.
Poland will not “protect draft dodgers” who are on its soil avoiding Ukrainian military service, a Polish deputy foreign minister, Andrzej Szejna, has told state television. Warsaw had not received any formal request from Ukraine but “when Ukraine turns to Poland with a request, we will act in accordance with Polish and European law”.
Norway is to accelerate its military and civilian aid for Ukraine for this year by 7bn kroner to a total of 22bn kroner (£1.6bn/US$1.97bn). The prime minister, Jonas Gahr Store, said it would be brought forward from 75bn kroner pledged to Ukraine covering 2023 to 2027. Of the 7bn kroner brought forward, 6bn kroner would go military aid, primarily desperately needed anti-air defence and ammunition.
Shipping insurers who are “within the reach of the UK and the G7” are breaching the oil price cap imposed on Russia by the G7, a UK parliamentary hearing was told on Tuesday. “These are names that should be being added to the sanctions list and should be drawn to the attention of the international community that dealing with that particular insurance company is going to get you into hot water,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Royal United Services Institute’s Centre for Finance and Security, without naming any firms.
A group of western insurance firms, the International Group of P&I Clubs, complained to the same hearing that the oil price cap is being bypassed by Russia using its own fleet or switching to shipping companies that are outside the west’s influence.
Kyiv authorities on Tuesday began taking down a Soviet-era monument celebrating friendship with Russia. The series of stone sculptures will be transferred to a Kyiv museum. Since the invasion began in 2022, Kyiv authorities had already taken down two bronze statues depicting a Ukrainian and a Russian worker at the same site. “It has to be done,” said Alyona Yavorivska, a 32-year-old psychologist and Kyiv resident. “I don’t understand how a monument like that can still stand here,” she said. But Oleksandr Severyn, a 32-year-old firefighter, said the removal was “inappropriate” and officials should instead be spending the money on the army. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/jan/25/grave-of-matthew-flinders-discovered-after-200-years-under-london-station | Science | 2019-01-25T08:03:40.000Z | Esther Addley | Grave of explorer Matthew Flinders unearthed near London station | Some said he was buried under platform 4; others suggested platform 12 or 15. When a statue of Captain Matthew Flinders was installed at Euston in 2014, the only regret of those who had campaigned for a memorial to the explorer – who led the first circumnavigation of Australia – was that his final resting place, understood to be somewhere near the London rail station, was unlikely ever to be known.
Five years later, that mystery has been solved by archaeologists working on the new HS2 rail link. The remains of the British navigator – buried over 200 years ago – have now been discovered in a graveyard being excavated to make way for the high-speed line between London and Birmingham.
Only a small proportion of the 40,000 bodies being exhumed from St James’s cemetery, behind the station, have been identified so far, making the discovery of Flinders’ remains earlier this month a “needle in a haystack” find, according to HS2’s lead archaeologist, Helen Wass.
Archaeologists remove the breastplate of Captain Matthew Flinders during work on London’s HS2 high-speed rail project at Euston. Photograph: HS2 Ltd/PA
While some of those buried in the cemetery had tin name plates on their coffins, many of these have not survived. But when Flinders died in July 1814, aged 40, the plate on his coffin was made of lead, meaning it was still legible.
“All the records showed that he was buried there, but actually finding someone with a breastplate confirming their name is really amazing,” said Wass. “It is so exciting.” The find is more remarkable because when Flinders’ sister-in-law visited the cemetery in 1852, the location of his grave was already lost.
As the first person to circumnavigate the continent and the explorer who popularised its name, Flinders is a figure of national importance in Australia, where a mountain range, two national parks, a university in Adelaide and one of the main streets of Melbourne, among many other things, are named after him.
As such, said the country’s high commissioner to the UK, George Brandis, the discovery of his remains is “a matter of great importance to Australia”.
The breastplate of Matthew Flinders, the explorer who led the first circumnavigation of Australia and is credited with giving the country its name. Photograph: HS2 Ltd/PA
In his native Britain, however, he has been largely forgotten, despite a biography that could almost compete with Robinson Crusoe, the novel that first inspired him as a child to go to sea.
Born in Lincolnshire in 1774 to a family of surgeons, Flinders joined a navy ship aged 16 and a year later was sailing with the notorious Captain William Bligh, formerly of the Bounty, who taught him navigation and chart making. By 24 he had charted Tasmania and been the first to prove it was an island.
Five years later Flinders had circumnavigated the entire continent, and charted much of its coastline, accompanied by his beloved cat Trim and an Aboriginal man called Bungaree – notably the first person ever to be described as an “Australian”.
The find is more remarkable because when Matthew Flinders’ sister-in-law visited the cemetery in 1852, the location of his grave was already lost. Photograph: HS2 Ltd/PA
Forced to dock in Mauritius on his way home in 1803, Flinders was arrested by the French, with whom Britain was by now at war, and held on the island for seven years. Trim, his companion in captivity, disappeared the following year, likely, he thought, stolen and eaten by a hungry slave. Years later Flinders was still mourning “the best and most illustrious of his race”. In many of the statues of Flinders in Australia – and at Euston – he is accompanied by the faithful Trim.
Rebekah Higgitt, a historian of science at the university of Kent, said that like Captain James Cook and Bligh, Flinders was one of “the great explorer-surveyor-commanders” of the intense period of navigational advances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As well as being a talented navigator, she said, he was clearly an impressive character in other ways.
“He wants to go to sea, and the way to do that is to get to grips with mathematics and trigonometry, which he does really, really well. I think he must also have had quite a lot of charm, as he is promoted and supported by people quickly.”
Archaeologists working on the HS2 project in St James’s burial ground in London, where they discovered the remains of Matthew Flinders. Photograph: HS2 Ltd/PA
Along with many of the other skeletons excavated from the St James’s site, Flinders’ remains will now be examined by osteo-archaeologists. They will be looking for lessons as to how his life at sea affected his health. With excavations due to continue until late next year, Wass hopes the site has more secrets to reveal.
“We are going to be able to tell so many stories about the life of London … we will look across the spread of the burial ground, the rich, poor and everything in between, so we can try to tell as holistic a story as possible about who is buried there.”
Once they have been examined, the bodies will all be reburied in a site yet to be confirmed.
This article was amended on 25 January 2019 to make it clear that it was Flinders’ belief that his cat had likely been stolen by a hungry slave. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/aug/31/romance.comedy | Film | 2007-08-30T23:03:11.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | No Reservations | Here is a romcom that has been developed on a Petri dish in some unspeakable secret department at the Porton Down biological warfare unit, designed to release a gaseous vapour into cinemas, rendering the civilian population immobile with a mixture of embarrassment, boredom and distaste. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a top New York chef - beautiful, fiery high standards, lonely personal life - whose world is rocked by two twists of fate. Her sister dies, leaving her in charge of a 10-year-old niece-moppet played by Abigail Breslin, and a handsome sous-chef called Nick comes into her kitchen, played by Aaron Eckhart, renowned for his coldly brilliant performance as the seducer-destroyer in Neil LaBute's 1997 classic, In the Company of Men, but now evidently re-positioning himself in the market as an unthreatening slice of beefcake. Both events humanise her, and open her to life's possibilities. It is remade from a much-admired German film from 2001 called Mostly Martha, which starred Martina Gedeck.
God help us, but Zeta-Jones is terrible. For all the conviction she gives it, she might as well be playing a neurosurgeon, or a jockey, or a piece of Jarlsberg cheese. The flash of sly vanity and self-mockery she showed in the Coens' underrated Intolerable Cruelty or even the very moderate romp America's Sweethearts has entirely gone. Her face is eerily blank as if she has been self-medicating with Prozac-Loganberry Smoothies. When she has to come storming out of the kitchen in her white chef's outfit to kick the ass of some complaining diner, she just sort of whinges at him. And those lovely, and distinctively prosperous features are never disturbed by a single droplet of sweat. Eckhart is just as bad. His character is supposed to be exuberant and life-loving, given to singing opera in the kitchen in a way that in the real world would mark him out as a hyperactive, condescending prat.
When the entire staff gather round, laughing and coo-ing as he sings, it reminded me of John Hannah obsessively doing the Monty Python parrot sketch in Sliding Doors. It's supposed to be absolutely adorable. In real life, behaving like this would get you hit over the head with a length of pipe.
As for the supporting cast, Patricia Clarkson is on cruise-control as the restaurant's proprietor who sort of stabs Kate in the back by planning to over-promote Nick. Then there's a very odd and completely pointless character who is Kate's neighbour Sean (Brian F O'Byrne): a nice, divorced Irish guy with kids and a crush on Kate. He has been inserted into the script, I suspect, to target the female audience demographic who feel they would never stand a chance with handsome Aaron but might with Brian.
The statuesque and starry Zeta-Jones is in any case wasting her time with material like this. She is born to play one role and one role only: it would be in the film version (forthcoming from someone, somewhere, surely) of Tom Bower's book Conrad and Lady Black. She would play the sexy journalist Barbara Amiel, married to the doomed Canadian tycoon - who would of course be played by Michael Douglas. Until that script arrives, it's just films like this. Which should be sent back to the kitchen. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/nov/30/ant-dec-production-company-gallowgate | Media | 2011-11-30T18:44:00.000Z | Mark Sweney | Ant and Dec's production company to launch strategic review of its future | Gallowgate, the TV production company owned by Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, is to launch a strategic review of the future of the business after ITV decided not to recommission Push The Button.
It is understood that a review of the business will take place in the new year, when Ant and Dec return from filming I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here in Australia, with a number of options being considered.
Two industry sources claimed the company could be wound up. However, a spokesman for Gallowgate said: "It is not closing, no."
The independent producer was founded in 2004 as a vehicle to produce Ant and Dec shows including ITV1 hit Saturday Night Takeaway as well as Vernon Kay's ITV1 quiz Beat the Star.
Gallowgate also holds the rights to ITV children's show SM:tv Live and all 18 series of BBC children's drama Byker Grove – shows which launched the careers of Ant and Dec.
Tim Hammond, Gallowgate's managing director, who was given "overall responsibility for all Gallowgate business" following the sudden death of Ed Forsdick in June, has also left the business.
Emails to Hammond are met with the message that he "no longer works at Gallowgate".
The company had not responded to a request to clarify Hammond's status and whether a replacement as managing director had been appointed by the time of publication.
Earlier this year ITV held talks to potentially buy a stake in Gallowgate, or even buy it outright, but no deal emerged.
The company, which made a loss of £358,000 in the year to 31 March 2010, is currently in the process of producing a hidden camera show for BSkyB, Meet the Pranksters.
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To get the latest media news to your desktop or mobile, follow MediaGuardian on Twitter and Facebook. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/jul/23/jay-rayner-restaurant-review-sharkbait-and-swim-london | Food | 2023-07-23T05:01:32.000Z | Jay Rayner | Sharkbait & Swim, London: ‘Rock oysters here are plump and pert’ – restaurant review | Sharkbait & Swim, Arch 11, 4 Deptford Market Yard, London SE8 4BX ([email protected] for bookings). Small and large plates £4.50-£22, wine from £26
Oyster lovers travel hopefully. It’s not that we think we’ll always be the ones to dodge the “bad” oyster. We don’t fret about the bad oyster at all. That’s a paranoia for oyster agnostics, for the ones who think they ought to like them, but will quietly admit they are suspicious of the proposition. Our hope is that we’ll encounter not just the good oyster, but the better oyster and perhaps even the very best, for not all oysters are made equal. Some deliver that invigorating hit of saline and briskness, but lack body. Others are more substantial, but a touch one-note.
And then there are oysters like those served to me at Sharkbait & Swim, a restless, mildly eccentric seafood restaurant in the Deptford Market Yard development by Deptford overground station in southeast London. They are rocks, of course, for there is currently no R in the month and the natives are out of season. That doesn’t make them second-class citizens. These rocks are plump and pert. Along with the slap of brine and roaring surf comes a profound creaminess and sea urchin funk. My reference point for these is the superb pearly specimens I have eaten at the Acme Oyster House in New Orleans, where men with forearms like hams keep them coming across the bar all night, with only Tabasco for company. That is high praise indeed.
‘Superb pearly specimens’: rock oysters. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer
Here they cost £2.80 each, or £15 for six, a good price for anywhere within the M25, and most places outside it for that matter. They arrive with a plastic aerosol of whisky, which we are invited to spritz over the top, followed by a squeeze of lemon. I am not sure about the whisky thing; it feels like an affectation – until I try it and begin to wonder whether a dab behind the ears wouldn’t go amiss, too. It would surely attract all the right people. The oyster is lent the airiest touch of sweetness, which is then saved from itself by the squirt of lemon.
For £3.20 each you can also have them haute couture-dressed: with the citrus burst of, say, ponzu, ginger and coriander, or the seafood-enhancing Thai fish sauce-wonder that is nam jim jaew. These oysters are more than capable of holding their own and, indeed, being helped along by these big flavours. It’s a serious opener. After dinner, as dusk falls, chef owner Steve McClarty tells us the oysters are Colchesters, which adds a sweet historical resonance. In the 19th century, at the height of London’s dizzying oyster cult, barges full of them would steam down from Colchester, turn right at Southend and go up the Thames estuary to deliver their cargo to an eager city. Our slightly rickety chairs out here on the cobbled yard are only a few hundred metres from the Thames. It is the kind of historical resonance, the whispers and echoes of the past, that old cities are so good at.
‘Chilli-boosted golden crumb’: whitebait with garlic mayo. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer
Sharkbait & Swim occupies a red-brick railway arch amid a clutch of restaurants, including an izakaya and a jerk place. There’s an open kitchen in the arch that, in winter, can seat around 20 at high-top tables, as long as diners don’t mind a bit of armpit and elbow intimacy. As a result, they depend on summer, when seating outside means they can double their covers. Certainly, the current menu is tailored to the warmer season. The list of small plates, mostly priced at between £10 and £12, feels very now. Fat cubes of trout ceviche arrive in a dazzling piece of blue glazed ceramic, swimming in a chilled, heady broth of yuzu and soy. For texture, there are big puffed grains of rice, like larvae. There are lightly bitter deep purple leaves and a scattering of peppery spice.
Big, oily fillets of mackerel have been grilled until the skin is blackened and blistered. There is a sweet tomato and butter sauce and the bosky green of herb oil. Deep-fried whitebait, and sizeable specimens at that, have a chilli-boosted golden crumb of such rough heft, you can hear them rub against each other when you shake the plate. There is a pot of soft-peaked garlic aioli on the side, to lubricate everything. The most expensive dish, at £22, is a whole sea bream, lightly battered and deep fried, so it’s starting to curl in on itself, then pelted with what seems to be togarashi spice. This corner of southeast London has a fine collection of very good Vietnamese restaurants, where whole fish treated like this is a part of the deal. They don’t, however, generally come with a pile of chips underneath. Ah, hello carbs my old friend. We could do with a bit of that right now. We pull at the fish with our grease-slicked fingers, as if we’re excavating.
‘The most expensive dish, at £22’: sea bream and chips. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Observer
The special tonight is ox cheek and miso croquettes, with a softly warming jalapeño jam. They look terrific: round, sturdy and golden. They also win on big meaty and umami flavours. But something has gone a little awry with the bechamel. When I cut in, the filling flows out across the plate like the plumbing has failed. I give thanks that I didn’t just pick one up with my fingers and bite in, or I’d probably be combing oxtail goo out of my beard to this day. I’m aware this is not an image anybody needs. There is no sweet offering save a mercifully short “dessert booze” list, including limoncello, the Toilet Duck of the booze world, and various milk and dark chocolate liqueurs, which might seem like a good idea at the time and really aren’t. The wine list is perfunctory, but they’ll mix you a sticky cocktail. Service, by just one person juggling tables, is on point.
Deptford right now is feeling the hot, steamy flush of new money. Older businesses remain, but you’re also never far away from a bar eager to sell you a natural wine smelling of arse or a coffee that’s a classy tribute to carbonic maceration. Some might now be moved to sing the gloomy ballad of gentrification. Before you hit the chorus, let alone the second verse, know this. Steve McClarty has worked as a chef for Google and alongside Jason Atherton on television. But when he was 17, he was homeless. He kept himself going in hostels by watching YouTube cooking videos, then cooking for his fellow residents. Eventually, he enrolled himself in catering college. Which brought him here. If you begrudge him this delightful small restaurant, perhaps you’re really not quite as enlightened as you think you are.
News bites
Just published: the debut cookbook from the Syrian chef and restaurateur Imad Alarnab, who fled Damascus for London during the civil war, arriving in London in 2015 where eventually he was joined by his family. He went on to open his rapturously received restaurant Imad’s Syrian Kitchen. The book, which has the same name, is subtitled ‘A Love Letter from Damascus to London’ and shares recipes from the restaurant, alongside the story of Alarnab’s journey to the UK and of Syria itself.
I am very much divided on this one. On the one hand I am dismayed to learn that the owners of Simpson’s in the Strand, which never reopened after lockdown, have decided to sell off all of its fixtures and fittings, from its beautiful art deco mirrors to stacks of Wedgwood plates; from the red leather chairs to battered metal trays from the kitchens. This includes the famed roast carving trolleys. It is the dispersal of a truly extraordinary heritage. On the other hand, as it’s happening, I’ve signed up to bid. The viewing is 1 August and the sale is on 2 and 3 August. You can register here.
And Jeremy King, co-founder of the Wolseley, Delaunay and Zedel among others, has announced a new venture. King, who was forced out of the company last year, will open The Park in a newly developed ground floor space at the corner of London’s Bayswater Road and Queensway next spring. He says it will be a modern version of the grand café and brasserie for which he is renowned.
Email Jay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/13/google-glass-winky-mike-digiovanni | Technology | 2013-05-13T10:46:41.000Z | Charles Arthur | Google Glass: what it's like to use, by the inventor of the 'Winky' photo app | The hype and noise around Google Glass has been colossal – triggering discussions about privacy, the limits of wearable computing, and social interaction in a world where the internet is available just an eye-glance away.
But what's it like to use Google Glass? I spoke to Michael DiGiovanni, an emerging technology leader at Isobar, a global digital marketing company – and who earlier this month released Winky, which is "Glassware" (an app for Glass) that lets you take a picture by winking.
DiGiovanni has quite a history in apps. As an Android developer for Barnes & Noble.com, he was instrumental in the creation of the Nook app for Android devices and contributed to the reading experience of the Nook Color device.
As an independent mobile developer, he has brought apps through the entire development process from conception to release. His self-published software on the Android market totals over 300,000 downloads and none has less than four stars.
How long have you been using Google Glass, and what are your first impressions?
DiGiovanni: Two weeks ago I got to pick them up – and I've been using them non-stop. It takes a while to get used to them. But I've been wearing them while driving, walking, essentially all the time. It's quite similar to wearing glasses – I don't normally – but without something sitting in front of your eyeballs.
The display is just outside your normal range of vision, so that you have to roll your eyes upwards – it sits on the top right. I turned it on by nods. You can still wear them while driving and know that you are not going to be interrupted by something popping up in your view.
The software experience is primarily voice activated. You say "OK Glass" and then "take a picture", or "Google something" or "give me directions to somewhere".
You can ask it maths questions, you know like "what is two plus two" as you can in Google, as well. As you take pictures, and emails and text messages come in, they go into your timeline which is shown in the display. If you're driving or going somewhere, you get a Google Map with directions. It's much better than having a sat nav – much less distracting, because you're not really taking your attention down off the road – you still have your head up, though you do look up to the right.
You enhance the experience with apps, called Glassware – think of them as micro-web pages. There's some HTML that can be pushed in there. So I got the New York Times headlines pushed there into my timeline. But they don't take priority over other things.
What about reports that people have developed headaches from using Google Glass for a while?
I haven't had any headaches. People who have have been those who have tried it very briefly, for a few minutes. One of the nice things about what Google's doing now with this Explorers programme [in which it is seeding Glass with a few thousand people around the US] is that they let you pick them up from their offices and outlets. So you get a personalised service, where they fit them to your face. [Google Glass has adjustable elements for the bridge of the nose, like normal spectacles.]
If you're wearing it incorrectly, so that the prism is blocking your view, then you will have something out of focus in your view and that will give you a headache, I think. So those people who've reported having headaches, I think it's because they haven't had them fitted right.
Here's what I think – my wife got a new pair of eyeglasses the other day and had to go back to get them fitted perfectly. With Glass, you can bend them yourself, but they can do it much quicker at Google than you can on your own, because they've had the experience.
With the general consumer market, I would expect that they would have some sort of experience in store so that people don't get a bad experience from trying to fit them on their own.
(That could explain the rumours that Google is going to set up stores specifically to sell Google Glass: if it needs individual attention to get right, then it wouldn't be the same as buying a phone or computer by mail order.)
Tell us about the Winky app [which allows Glass users to take a photo simply by winking].
The Winky app isn't what Google considers normal Glassware. It's basically a mobile app like you would put on an Android phone. It's undocumented, officially unsupported. We have the tools and debug capability to create it, and it works, but there's no documentation.
(There's video of the app here and more on DiGiovanni's Google+ page.)
What differentiates Glass from other products is the sensors for things like winking or voice recognition. At present, it only does a location update once every 10 minutes. But I think you could treat it like any Android device and change that to the default for those – which is once every 20 milliseconds. Then you could get access to the camera and do stuff with computer vision. Or you could get access to the accelerometer [which detects sudden changes in velocity] and trigger it by, say, nods.
What's the battery life like?
There's varying experiences with that. It goes from two hours to six hours – I have seen people online say that they only got a couple of hours from it. But yesterday there was a new update, XC5, which is supposed to change that and improve the battery life. For instance, it used to be that when you took a photo it would automatically upload it to Google+. But the new update will only upload when it's being charged and is connected to a Wi-Fi network. That should improve the battery life because it won't have to connect all the time to take photos.
What are your general impressions of Glass?
This is much better put together than I ever expected to get. I don't think it's ready for the average consumer because of the battery life. And assuming the price point isn't one that most people will want for something that is basically showing you email and text. I think people will be mostly using it as a cellphone accessory.
But in some businesses it could revolutionise working life. Anywhere you could use an extra hand, or have extra data in front of your eyes. So, you know, a restaurant chef who needs to see what the orders stacking up are. Or if you're carrying something it means you don't have to pull out your phone. Or a point-of-sale systems, where shop assistants can help customers directly on the shop floor.
What are the onscreen maps and directions like?
The Maps system is one of the best features currently. The walking directions are really good – as you turn, you will see the screen turn with you. I've never been able to get that to work with my smartphone, that when I turn that the map display turns with it. It means that rather than walking around and trying to find where you are, you know where you are.
When driving, I found it better than the GPS on my car dashboard. The best thing is that you aren't taking your eyes off the road as much as you would when using a GPS.
I know it's scary to some people to have a display up there by your eyes. But in practice, it's not distracting at all. It's easier to look at than the rear view mirror.
What smartphone are you using?
I've got a Samsung Galaxy Note 2 with an extended battery. It connects to Glass via Bluetooth. Without a data connection, Glass is a bit limited.
What about storage – for those times when you aren't wearing your Google Glass? I've heard that the arms don't fold like standard glasses.
It's true, the arms don't bend. If you had to take them off – say if you're going into some place that says you're not allowed to wear them – well, I'd throw them around my neck. Or push them up into my hair, like sunglasses.
But there are certainly places that won't want something that can do recording. Casinos in the US don't want you to have anything able to record what's going on [because you could be counting cards, or transmitting and receiving information about the game from someone outside who is counting].
Google does provide a carry case for them, which it fits into. Women might be able to put that into their purse, but a man might be out of luck.
That's one of the biggest problems – if you go somewhere and the owners don't want you to have them, where do you put them.
How long did it take to get used to wearing them?
About three days.
What's the reaction been like from other people? There have been mixed reports. What's your experience?
I've had an amazingly positive reaction from people. I haven't seen any negative reactions at all. The most "negative" reaction was from security guards who wanted to know if I was recording them. But when I explained that I wasn't, then they were really interested, and they wanted them for their job so they could film or photograph to demonstrate that they were doing things as they should.
In my experience, once you explain to people what it does then they get really excited. I've even had staunch iPhone users who are really excited about wearables. [Google Glass can work with iPhones; it uses the Bluetooth and data connections.]
I thought people would be turned off by wearing something. Turns out that's not the case at all.
Google Glass is expected to go on general sale either late in 2013 or in 2014. No price has yet been set, though "Glass Explorers" – of whom DiGiovanni is one – are paying around $1,500 per pair. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/may/20/liars-by-cass-r-sunstein-review-in-search-of-the-optimal-chill | Books | 2021-05-20T06:30:30.000Z | Steven Poole | Liars by Cass R Sunstein review – in search of the ‘optimal chill’ | At the end of February 2020, Cass Sunstein, the academic lawyer and “nudge politics” entrepreneur who was once Barack Obama’s regulatory tsar, wrote an opinion piece about Covid-19 for Bloomberg News. “A lot of people are more scared than they have any reason to be,” he complained; the real peril was “excessive fear”, which might hurt the economy. Within a month, more than 1,000 people had died in New York alone. In his new book about what we can do to mitigate the spread of false information in society, Sunstein castigates the Fox News anchor Sean Hannity for failing to take Covid seriously on 27 February – the day before his own opinion piece, which he mysteriously fails to mention. Must Sunstein now cancel himself?
Sunstein was not lying, any more than Hannity was: they both believed that the risk of coronavirus was being overstated. But Sunstein was doing one thing that Hannity was not: he was presenting himself as an expert by adopting a wonkish pseudo-scientific tone, ascribing the supposedly ungrounded fears about the new virus to cognitive bias: one he himself named “probability neglect”. This appeal to the realm of the “cognitive” lent unearned rhetorical authority to Sunstein’s pronouncements about the virus, which were no less dismissive than the Fox News presenter’s.
Luckily, Sunstein can be merciful. “I am not suggesting that in a system committed to freedom of speech, anything said by Hannity should be regulable in any way,” he writes, which is convenient. However, there are a lot of other things he wants to regulate more heavily, including deliberate falsehoods, libels and conspiracy theories.
Who, though, will decide what is false and whether it should be banned? Why, the government, best understood as a depersonalised version of Sunstein himself, well known as he is for the paternalistic assumptions of “nudge politics”, the point of which is to leverage ordinary people’s cognitive biases to trick them into doing what the nudger believes is best for them. (Examples of such nudging for which success has been claimed include switching employee retirement plans from opt-in to opt-out, or putting healthy foods at eye level in supermarkets.)
Sean Hannity believed that the risk of coronavirus was being overstated. Photograph: Brian Cahn/ZUMA Wire/REX/Shutterstock
Government in Sunstein’s image will be similarly benevolent once given, as he wants, “the power to regulate certain lies and falsehoods”. If we can outlaw perjury and false advertising, why not more? Sunstein is not persuaded by John Stuart Mill’s argument in On Liberty that the desire to suppress falsehoods is based on an erroneous “assumption of infallibility”, perhaps because the assumption of infallibility is a prerequisite for someone designing political nudges.
“It is true and important,” Sunstein allows, “that any effort to regulate speech will create a chilling effect.” People will be dissuaded from saying true things as well as false things, for fear of prosecution. But in Sunstein’s view the right amount of chilling effect is not zero: we should instead aim for a state of “optimal chill”, by which he does not appear to mean Netflix and pizza.
Any “chilling effect” is by contrast anathema to the UK government, or so it claims: the phrase appears three times in the announcement of its new higher education (freedom of speech) bill, the aim of which is allegedly to hold “universities to account on the importance of freedom of speech in higher education”. One example of the “chilling effect” it seeks to prevent is the fact that “over one hundred academics signed a letter expressing public opposition to professor Nigel Biggar’s research project Ethics and Empire, because he had said that British people should have ‘pride as well as shame’ in the empire”. You might suppose that signing a letter opposing an academic project is just the kind of academic freedom of speech that the government claims to want to protect; really, this is about chilling inconvenient criticism.
The underlying philosophy of this sort of performative culture-war meddling, though, is in perfect harmony with the view Sunstein takes in this book: he considers the subject only from the perspective of whether we should “allow” certain falsehoods that he considers noxious, rather than whether we should censor them. It is a world in which everything is forbidden unless it is explicitly permitted.
This is necessary, or so the book’s argument goes, because the status quo is leading us to chaos and ruin. “Many people are now being subjected to ‘cancellation’ on the basis of lies, some of which are libellous,” Sunstein claims, with no citation given. (The UK government, too, promises with its new legislation to “stamp out unlawful ‘silencing’”, giving no examples: and if it’s already unlawful, why pass a new bill?) Sunstein does give some concrete examples of falsehoods that he thinks should be officially suppressed, though: for instance, the “Pizzagate” conspiracy of 2016 that Hillary Clinton was involved in a paedophile ring, or “negligent falsehoods about actors”.
Boris Johnson has been sacked from two previous jobs for lying. Photograph: Lee Smith/Reuters
Any refusal to stamp out such falsehoods constitutes, Sunstein does not shrink from saying, a threat to democracy. “Citizens might lose faith in particular leaders and policies,” he worries, “and even in their government itself.” Whenever someone tells you that something must be done for the sake of preserving people’s faith in democracy, you should check your wallet. How much faith, exactly, are people still imagined to have? Surveys show public trust in western governments declining ever since the Pentagon Papers and Watergate proved conclusively to US citizens that their government could and would lie to them if it felt like it.
Today, of course, we live in an age of incontinently lying “democratic” governments. Donald Trump is not named in this book, but Sunstein alludes to him when he writes: “The real fake news is the cry of fake news.” Boris Johnson, meanwhile, is not simply a man who has been sacked from two previous jobs for lying, he is, in the philosopher Harry Frankfurt’s definition, someone who simply doesn’t care what is true and what is false, and is simply too lazy and contemptuous to bother finding out.
So if it’s to be the government’s job to regulate lies, what happens when that power rests in the hands of a lying government? Yes, it’s the old quis custodiet ipsos custodes question, which applies just as much to the social media giants whom Sunstein praises in this book for their “inventive” approach to the problem, such as tagging dubious statements with “get the facts” and so forth. But who is accountable when Twitter decides to suppress links, as it did last October, to a New York Post story about Hunter Biden? In a recent financial statement, though not in this book, Sunstein discloses having done consulting work for Facebook and Apple, so he is perhaps inclined to take a friendly view.
If it’s the government’s job to regulate lies, what happens when that power rests in the hands of a lying government?
The formula Sunstein arduously arrives at for his new regulatory scheme is as follows: “False statements are constitutionally protected unless the government can show that they threaten to cause serious harm that cannot be avoided through a more speech-protective route.” But this is precisely what autocrats such as Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin claim they are showing when they shut down dissent. We could have a law, Sunstein also suggests, “that speakers may be fined for knowingly spreading lies about candidates for public office”, as though such power could never be abused.
In Sunstein’s world, though, such powers will never be abused (perhaps because of magic democracy), and instead will regulate speech smoothly for everyone’s increased benefit. What shall we call the new government department responsible for such regulation? If only “the Ministry of Truth” didn’t have such unfortunate connotations. Don’t sweat the details, though. “The only question is whether it is possible to administer such a system,” Sunstein writes. “The best answer is that when there is a will, there is a way.”
This isn’t an answer but merely a hand-waving hope, quite apart from the general rule that when you see an American popular nonfiction writer claiming to identify “the best answer” to something, you should check your wallet again. Happily, at least, the best answer to the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t, in fact, to lecture people about their cognitive failures to understand probability, but more along the lines of what celebrated legal scholar Sunstein told the trusting readers of Bloomberg News less than a month later: that lockdowns actually work.
Liars: Falsehoods and Free Speech in an Age of Deception is published by Oxford (£17.99). To support The Guardian, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/may/18/lars-von-trier-cannes-2011-nazi-comments | Film | 2011-05-18T12:49:41.000Z | Charlotte Higgins | Lars von Trier provokes Cannes with 'I'm a Nazi' comments | Lars Von Trier is known for being unpredictable, quixotic, puckish and deliberately provocative. But even he over-leaped his high standards of eccentricity as he spoke before the Cannes premiere of Melancholia, his latest film, announcing “I’m a Nazi” and that he “understands Hitler”.
He also jokingly claimed he was writing a four-hour-long hardcore porn film featuring Melancholia stars Charlotte Gainsbourg and Kirsten Dunst. It would, he said, contain “a lot of very, very unpleasant sex”.
The nazism remarks, which were jestingly made in response to a question about his German roots, would probably spell career suicide if uttered outside the rarefied atmosphere of the Cannes film festival – and indeed may yet.
As Melancholia’s star Dunst looked on ashen-faced – at one point attempting to halt his flow with a restraining arm on his shoulder – he said: “I thought I was a Jew for a long time and was very happy being a Jew ... Then it turned out that I was not a Jew ... I found out that I was really a Nazi which also gave me some pleasure.
“What can I say? I understand Hitler. He did some wrong things, absolutely, but I can see him sitting there in his bunker at the end ... I sympathise with him, yes, a little bit.”
Attempting to extricate himself from his self-dug grave, he added: “But come on, I am not for the second world war, and I am not against Jews. I am very much for Jews; well not too much because Israel is a pain in the ass. But still, how can I get out of this sentence ... OK I’m a Nazi.”
Lars von Trier claims to ‘understand Hitler’ at Cannes press conference, and Xan Brooks reviews his latest film, Melancholia guardian.co.uk
The organisers of the festival issued a statement saying they had been “disturbed” by the remarks, that he had apologised, and that the festival would never allow the event to become the forum for such pronouncements.
Von Trier issued his own statement: “If I have hurt someone this morning by the words I said, I sincerely apologise. I am not antisemitic or racially prejudiced in any way, nor am I a Nazi.”
The question that led to von Trier’s remarks came from the Times film critic, Kate Muir, about his German origins and the influence of the Gothic on his work.
Von Trier said “he let himself be egged on by a provocation”, the festival statement said.
In an another capricious riff, which Gainsbourg and Dunst watched in a state of what appeared to be nervous hilarity, Von Trier claimed Dunst had insisted she be filmed naked for a scene in Melancholia. “And now she wants more,” claimed the Danish director. “That’s how women are, and Charlotte is behind this. They want a really hardcore film this time, and I am doing my best.
“I said let’s have a lot of talking in it, and they said, ‘We don’t give a shit about the dialogue, we just want to have a lot of very very unpleasant sex,’ and that’s what I am writing right now.”
No one could accuse Melancholia of a lack of ambition. If Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life, which screened earlier in the festival, sets a family drama against the origins of the cosmos, then Von Trier’s Melancholia sets a family drama against the end of the world.
The film’s first screening was greeted with applause, but has already split its early viewers – though it seems likely that the film itself will be overshadowed by the director’s ill-advised public statements. In any case, Von Trier himself is apparently siding with Melancholia’s sternest critics. He said, “Maybe it’s crap. Of course I hope not, but there’s quite a big possibility that this might be really not worth seeing.”
He said that he felt he may have got carried away with the film’s high Germanic romanticism, with the first 10 minutes devoted to a series of visually arresting, apocalyptic tableaux set against the complete Prelude to Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde.
Of the mood of the film, he said: “Melancholia is a good title ... and melancholy is a quality that is in all art that I like, and I am sure it is part of all good art. It was the starting point of the film and the inspiration came from there. To be melancholic has to do with a longing, which is something a little special for this film.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/oct/26/alan-wake-2-review-playstation-5-xbox-series-xs-pc-remedy-entertainmentepic-games-27-october | Games | 2023-10-26T13:00:35.000Z | Rick Lane | Alan Wake 2 review – a confidently strange horror thriller | Inspired by Twin Peaks, The Twilight Zone, and Stephen King 2010’s Alan Wake told the story of an author with a case of writer’s block so severe he became literally haunted by his own creations. It was an ambitious but muddled psychological thriller that struggled to overcome the inherent silliness of its premise.
Alan Wake 2 is no less ridiculous, but this time the tale is penned more assuredly. For the sequel, Finnish developer Remedy Entertainment splits the story between two different perspectives, using them to alternately ground and embrace the game’s narrative absurdities. The result is a thoroughly entertaining blend of detective procedural and surrealist survival horror, one that powers through some mechanical weaknesses with strong characterisation and endlessly inventive imagery.
At first, the narrative perspective belongs not to the titular Alan but to FBI agent Saga Anderson, a young black woman with Swedish heritage. Saga arrives in the Pacific north-west town of Bright Falls to investigate a series of ritualistic murders, 13 years after Alan Wake vanished in the same town. The early scenes of crime-scene investigation are tonally distinct from the original game, more David Fincher than David Lynch. Saga’s logical, centred personality contrasts with Alan’s more frantic mindset, making her a reassuring presence when events take a supernatural turn.
Ineractive menus are more David Fincher than David Lynch … Saga Anderson’s Mind Place. Photograph: Remedy
Saga keeps the game’s feet on the ground in other ways too. Her Mind Place (she’s far too sensible to call it a Mind Palace) is a traversable menu screen she can enter at any time. Here you’ll find an interactive murder wall where Saga keeps track of cases, and a Profiling table that lets her delve into the minds of suspects and witnesses. Little deduction is required to solve the game’s mysteries, but these features also help untangle the knotty threads of the story. This helps avoid the sensation that events are being made up on the fly, even when, according to the game’s own fiction, they actually are.
Eventually Saga’s investigation brings her into contact with Alan, and the narrative shifts to his point of view. Where Saga’s story takes place in the lush forests surrounding Bright Falls, Alan’s scenes mainly occur in the Dark Place: a twisted alternate dimension shaped around his memories of New York, governed by “loops and rituals” that make no logical sense but can be understood intuitively. Alan carries with him a lamp that can absorb light from one source and deploy it in another; this not only switches the light on or off but reshuffles the entire scene. He can also exercise his writerly talents to alter the environment around him. In one particularly mind-bending chapter, he pursues an interactive theatre experience in which a play about a murder cult is infiltrated by an actual murder cult.
Once both characters have been introduced you are able to pursue their parallel stories as you choose, switching between the logical world of Saga and the wild dreamscape of Alan. However you choose to experience the story, the two sides grow more entwined as they progress. As Alan rewrites the Dark Place, his changes bleed out into the real world, affecting Saga’s investigation and her personal connection to the story.
Alan Wake 2 is good at selling you on its metafictional hokum, equally confident in its serious and silly modes. It also features the best implementation of developer Remedy’s more idiosyncratic ideas, such as its fondness for mixed media and self-referential throwbacks to its previous games. Live action cutscenes are well shot and acted (including a delightful performance from David Harewood as the enigmatic Mr Door), and woven naturally into the game.
Based on twisted memories of New York … Alan Wake’s Dark Place. Photograph: Remedy
For all it does well, Alan Wake 2 disappoints with its combat. It’s a slower, more methodical shooter than the first game, heavily inspired by Capcom’s recent Resident Evil remakes. Remedy’s facsimile of that system is robust enough, with weighty shooting and fights that can feel like a scramble for survival. But the trademark use of light to weaken enemies is barely evolved, and the whole thing feels conservative compared with the slow-motion spectacle of Max Payne or the debris-flinging battles of Control. Combat encounters are also sparser than you might expect, and rarely challenge you for long.
If Alan Wake 2 matched its narrative charms with greater depth in play, you’d be looking at a very special game indeed. As it stands, it’s a thrillingly spooky ride that can, at times, feel too much like you’re just pressing forward while weird things happen around you. That said, I very much enjoyed those weird things, and while Alan Wake 2’s combat lacks the developer’s usual pizzaz, it is Remedy’s best narrative adventure yet.
Alan Wake 2 is released on 27 October; from £39.99 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/feb/25/equality-act-lgbtq-bill-tough-fight-senate | World news | 2021-02-26T02:08:04.000Z | Sam Levin | We shouldn't still be fighting for equal rights': LGBTQ+ bill faces tough battle ahead | Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletter
The US House of Representatives voted to pass a landmark bill that would establish federal anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQ+ people, setting up a tough battle in the Senate to turn the proposal into law.
“We shouldn’t still be having to fight for equal rights,” said Nic Talbott, a 27-year-old Ohio resident, who was forced to abandon his plans of joining the military due to Donald Trump’s ban on trans service members. “We should be able to go to work, find housing and just live our lives without having to worry about whether or not we’re going to be excluded just for being transgender or gay.”
The Equality Act passed the Democratic-led House in a 224-206 vote, with three Republicans joining the Democrats. The bill amends existing civil rights laws to explicitly prohibit discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation and provides clear legal protections for transgender and queer people in employment, housing, education, public accommodations, federally funded programs and other sectors.
Outrage as Marjorie Taylor Greene displays transphobic sign in Congress
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But the proposal’s future is uncertain. Joe Biden has said signing the bill into law is one of his top priorities, but it first has to clear the Senate, where Republican lawmakers could block the legislation with a filibuster.
The Equality Act builds on the landmark US supreme court ruling last year prohibiting employment discrimination against LGBTQ+ workers. Biden has already issued executive orders to defend trans rights, undoing some of Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ policies and directing federal departments to follow the guidance of the supreme court decision. But advocates say the Equality Act is vital because it would enshrine protections into law beyond employment, and prevent future administrations from rolling back anti-discrimination rules.
The act would be particularly significant for LGBTQ+ residents in the 27 states that do not have anti-discrimination laws on the books for trans and queer people, where it is legal to deny them housing based on their identities.
“Legislation like this is crucial for shifting the tides for trans folks, especially in red states,” said Aria Sa’id, the executive director of the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District, a community group in San Francisco. Trans people flee to California from other states where they have fewer rights or access to services, she said: “We’re coming from other places in the US where we are not safe. We come to San Francisco for refuge … We should be protected in the law no matter where we live.”
The Equality Act fight comes amid unprecedented attacks on trans rights in the US and overseas. Republican lawmakers in at least 20 states are currently pushing local bills targeting trans people, backed by rightwing groups. Many of the bills seek to block trans-affirming healthcare or ban trans youth and adults from certain spaces, including by prohibiting them from using the correct bathroom or participating in sports teams that match their gender.
Some extremist GOP members of Congress have supported those efforts and have been promoting misinformation and transphobic hate speech this week as the House debated the Equality Act.
David B Cruz, a constitutional law professor at the University of Southern California, said federal protections would, in effect, make it illegal for states to enforce discriminatory rules meant to exclude trans people. The Equality Act would also make it harder for the supreme court, which has become more conservative since last year’s ruling, to carve out trans rights in the next LGBTQ+ discrimination case it reviews, he said.
Legislation like this is crucial for shifting the tides for trans folks, especially in red states
Aria Sa’id
“It would be a monumental achievement,” said Cruz. “It’s not always simple or easy for people to enforce their statutory rights, but even having a federal law that expressly protects those rights on the books, by itself will deter discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.” It would help disrupt “cycles of poverty, due to anti LGBTQ+ prejudice”, he added.
Some Republican legislators are vocally opposing the act by citing concerns about religious freedoms. But Cruz noted that a super-majority of Americans in every state support anti-discrimination laws for LGBTQ+ people, including a majority of Republican voters.
Khloe Rios-Wyatt, the president at Alianza Translatinx, a Latinx trans rights group in Orange county, California, said she faced discrimination for being trans when she was terminated from her first job out of college: “It can be traumatizing. You lose your income and then you’re facing potential homelessness.”
She said she regularly talks to trans people who were denied housing even though they qualified: “You show up in person and they tell you it’s no longer available. It breaks my heart and it has to change.”
Bamby Salcedo, the president of the TransLatin@ Coalition in Los Angeles, noted that 2020 was the deadliest year on record for violence against trans and gender non-conforming people, the majority people of color. While the Equality Act could make a difference for the broader LGBTQ+ community, it would not end discrimination for trans people, she said.
“The reality is that even in California and places that are super progressive, trans people continue to experience discrimination while trying to obtain employment, housing, healthcare and the basic things we need to exist … There is still a lot of work that needs to be done.”
There are at least nine LGBTQ+ members in the House and two in the Senate, and supporters in Congress spoke of their trans and queer family members while championing the bill. Polling released earlier this week confirmed that more Americans than ever before now identify as LGBTQ+. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/dec/26/arctic-30-protester-litvinov-release | Environment | 2013-12-26T22:32:53.000Z | Conal Urquhart | Arctic 30 protester: 'Russia owes me a medal' | The first environmental activist to leave Russia after more than two months of detention said that Russia owed him a medal rather than a pardon for his work to protect the environment.
Dima Litvinov, a Greenpeace campaigner, was the first member of the Arctic 30 to be allowed to leave. His fellow activists are expected to leave Russia in the coming days.
He told told the Guardian of his relief at leaving Russia and arriving in Finland. "In Finland, it's completely relaxed and welcoming. My last memory of Russia is the border police woman who told me I should not be proud of myself. 'Why don't you do these things in the United States?' she asked. I said that I do and she said, 'Why don't you stay there?"
Litvinov was one of 30 people who were arrested in September after a protest at a Russian offshore oil rig and spent two months in jail before being granted bail in November.
Hooliganism charges were dropped after Russia's parliament passed an amnesty law that was seen as an attempt by the Kremlin to assuage criticism of the country's human rights record before the Winter Olympics in Sochi in February.
Speaking from a train to Helsinski, Litvinov said the Arctic 30 had been warmly received by ordinary Russians, but treated as criminals intent on destroying Russia by government officials. "They saw us as criminals involved in a conspiracy against Russia. They say that we are trying to push Russia from its rightful place on the Arctic shelf," he said.
Litvinov is the fourth generation of his family to be imprisoned in Russia for political activity. His great-grandfather Maxim Litvinov opposed Tsar Nicholas II before being made Soviet foreign minister. His grandfather Lev Kopelev was imprisoned by Stalin for 10 years for opposing the regime and speaking out against Soviet atrocities against German civilians in the second world war. Lev was imprisoned with his friend Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and was the inspiration for the main character in Solzhenitsyn's novel First Circle. In 1968, Dima's father, Pavel Litvinov, was one of seven people who protested against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in Red Square, for which he was sentenced to internal exile in Siberia when Dima was six years old. The family left Russia when he was 11 and Litvnov now holds US and Swedish nationality.
He said that he was surprised to be released, especially as he was interrogated on Christmas Eve, but remained angry at his treatment. "They do not owe me an amnesty, they owe me an apology. They owe me a medal for trying to save the Russian environment," he said, "The amnesty is just a way for the authorities to save face but we are still described as violent criminals that the Duma, in its magnanimity, is willing to pardon, which is really irksome."
Litvinov was given his passport with an exit visa stamped in it on Thursday, along with a letter explaining that the authorities had decided not to prosecute him for illegally entering the country. "That was incredible. We were taken in international waters and forcibly taken to Russia. I collected my bag and said goodbye to my friends and got on the train to Helsinki," he said.
Litvinov was released on 22 November after six weeks in prison in Murmansk and two weeks in St Petersburg. Freedom was pleasant but limited, he said.
"It was freedom of sorts, but it was really just a much more comfortable prison cell. We had to attend regular interrogations. We could only stay in the hotel and we could not leave the city. There was the same psychological pressure as prison, the lack of knowledge, the sense of injustice," he said.
Litvinov expected to meet his wife in Helsinki and spend a night there before taking a ferry to Sweden for a holiday before returning to campaigning.
"I'm going to decompress and enjoy the rest of Christmas, but after that it's back to work. The Arctic has still not been saved and there's a lot to be done," he said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jun/19/golden-goal-dennis-bergkamp-arsenal-newcastle-2002 | Football | 2015-06-19T08:23:41.000Z | Alan Smith | Golden Goal: Dennis Bergkamp for Arsenal v Newcastle (2002) | Alan Smith | If Dennis Bergkamp was not a footballer, he would probably have been an architect, perhaps turning Amsterdam into a city renowned for modern design rather than canal houses and windmills. From a young age he was fascinated by dissecting angles, understanding shapes and, above all, how best to utilise space. He was also fascinated by movement: how balls bounce in certain ways when a particular spin is put on it and how to control every situation.
Outside his childhood home, just off the A10 motorway in the east Amsterdam suburbs, Bergkamp spent hours kicking a ball against a wall below his bedroom window. Understanding the physics, teaching himself. “Most of the time I was by myself, just kicking the ball against the wall, seeing how it bounces, how it comes back, just controlling it,” he recalls in Stillness and Speed. “I wasn’t obsessed, I was just very intrigued by how the ball moves, how the spin worked, what you could do with spin.” It is apt, then, that a spin – of both the ball and his body – is the lasting image of his career.
World Cup stunning moments: Dennis Bergkamp's wonder goal
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Bergkamp, now an assistant coach at Ajax, has always said his last-minute wonder goal against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup was his best. It was an exceptional moment and he, albeit with a touch of reluctance, has previously described it as perfect. For a man whose career was spent striving for perfection and abided by a mantra of constant improvement, his use of that word says a lot. But for all the magnificence of those three touches it ultimately did not result in success for his team. Holland were beaten on penalties in the semi-final by Brazil, subsequently finishing fourth behind Croatia, and he probably should not have played against Argentina having escaped a sending off for a nasty stamp on Yugoslavia’s Sinisa Mihajlovic in the previous round.
That is why there is a case for his other piece of individual brilliance, the pirouette goal away to Newcastle in March 2002, to be considered his best. It spurred Arsenal on to two pieces of silverware. Newcastle were title challengers that season, spending Christmas on top of the table, but Arsenal’s 2-0 win – the second was scored by Sol Campbell, predictably assisted by Bergkamp – knocked the stuffing out of them and Bobby Robson’s team stuttered to the finishing line and dropped to fourth. The following weekend the sides met again in the FA Cup quarter-final and though it finished 1-1, Arsenal won the replay 3-0 at Highbury when Bergkamp scored again.
The league goal was the catalyst for a bulldozing end to the season and ensured both Tony Adams and Lee Dixon signed off with a double. “It was very important because Newcastle were doing well at that time,” Bergkamp said at the end of the season. “Nobody really expected us to take the points at that stage. To score the first goal, to me that was one of the most important goals.”
Bergkamp’s 1998 World Cup goal against Argentina, the brick-by-brick replay. Guardian
This was a man who changed a club and some might say English football. When Bergkamp arrived at Arsenal as a £7.5m club-record signing following a miserable two seasons at Internazionale in June 1995, some of his new team-mates bowed at his greatness and chanted only semi-sarcastically ‘We are not worthy’ at the training ground. However, it was not until Arsène Wenger replaced Bruce Rioch and they rapidly transferred from boring, boring Arsenal to an attacking machine that combined power with flair, that Bergkamp was fully appreciated. Together they formed a dream partnership. In Bergkamp, Wenger had a player with the quality to base a game-plan around and a platform to build on. Simultaneously in Wenger, Bergkamp had a manager who would allow him freedom to express himself
The galvanising effect Bergkamp had on a squad still stuck in the days of play hard, work hard when he arrived has lived long in the memory. “Dennis Bergkamp was a really big name, we couldn’t wait to see him,” Ray Parlour says in Football’s Greatest. It took a few games for Bergkamp to bed in but soon his class became apparent and with Wenger’s arrival the following season Arsenal were awoken from their slumber and embarked on the club’s most successful period.
Ian Wright, whose relationship with Rioch was so fractured the striker asked for a transfer but stayed and ended up becoming the club’s all-time top scorer in no part thanks to the Dutchman’s assists, says Bergkamp is the “best signing Arsenal have made and ever will make”. Wright used to refer to him as the “messiah who is going to save us”. Thierry Henry loved “every single thing” about Bergkamp and concurs with Wright by saying he is the greatest he has played with despite taking to the same pitch as Lionel Messi at Barcelona.
So to St James’ Park and a decisive Saturday evening meeting between title challengers. Newcastle started strongly but the Arsenal defence weathered the storm, fighting off a succession of early attacks. Then, with pretty much their first chance, Bergkamp strikes. The fervent home support were silenced, their team carved open by a move of such quality that even the world’s greatest defenders were never going to stop the juggernaut.
Due to the individual brilliance of the goal, the buildup play is often under-appreciated. Or at least, it is not given the praise it deserves. It was a quintessential mid-Wenger era counterattack: blisteringly incisive, 15 seconds after Newcastle lose possession 10 yards from the Arsenal box, the ball is in the net. It begins with Patrick Vieira gaining possession in midfield and gliding forward, his long legs galloping ahead with that familiar deceptive grace. Vieira gives it to Bergkamp who, after a cursory glance around picks out Robert Pires on the left wing near the halfway line.
Pires dribbles forward menacingly while Newcastle, who had committed too many forward in search of a deadlock breaker, desperately retreat. At the bottom of the screen, you can see the top half of Bergkamp’s body as he charges forward, right arm raised, bellowing at Pires, who by now had lured two barcoded shirts, to give a return pass. The Frenchman looks up and spots his team-mate reaching the edge of the area with only Nikos Dabizas as protection for Shay Given in the Newcastle goal. He plays an exquisite 30-yard pass straight to Bergkamp, whose back is to goal when he receives it.
Nikos Dabizas can only watch on as Bergkamp gives Arsenal the lead. Photograph: Reuters
At this point the magic happens. Look at the positioning of his body: he anticipates Dabizas’s movement as Pires dispatches. Bergkamp has previously stated the goal had an element of luck on account of Dabizas standing a yard off him and because of that some, bafflingly, argue that it was not deliberate. “Ten yards before the ball arrived, I made my decision to turn the defender,” Bergkamp said in an interview with Four Four Two in 2011. He puts his left boot out and manipulates the ball in a way that it spins in a perfect arc around Dabizas’s right as Bergkamp turns on his left.
Martin Keown, the defender who Bergkamp regularly took great pleasure in winding up in the changing room, describes him as a ballet dancer due to his balance and flexibility. “I remember playing against Dennis [for England] in 1992 at Wembley against Holland and he scored an amazing goal and I thought he surely didn’t meant that, it was a bit flukey. But then when I got to work with him every day I realised he meant every bit of it.”
“I thought the ball was a little too much behind me so I had to turn to control it,” Bergkamp says of Pires’ pass. “The quickest way to turn the ball was going that way. It looked a bit special or strange or nice but for me it was the quickest way to the goal. The finish: it was just trying to get it past the goalkeeper in such a way he cannot reach it.”
Dennis Bergkamp: Arsenal, aesthetics and a blueprint for British coaching
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Bergkamp’s insouciance only adds to its legendary status. Few would have pulled off such a nonchalant finish after producing a breathtaking piece of skill. Many would have fluffed their lines but not Bergkamp. He steadies himself after spinning the ball, displaying impressive strength to hold off Dabizas after turning, before coolly side-footing past a helpless Given. “Usually when you do something amazing you get carried away,” Henry said. “How many times did you see a guy do a great control and then rush the finish? Dennis did something amazing but then stayed composed. That’s the difference between great players and normal players.”
Some of those sat inside the ground did not fully appreciate it. The move was so rapid, so instinctive that it was not until replays were shown that the beauty was fully appreciated. There was a whiff of disbelief in Martin Tyler’s commentary until he was given a second chance to look at it. “It’s Bergkamp, it’s magnificent,” he says, before finally getting a fuller sense of how unique the move it was. “The move, then this,” he adds, placing quite a significant emphasis on the this, almost flabbergasted by the audacity of the first touch.
It is like he had never been seen and while imitations have been plentiful, such a clean manoeuvre has not been executed at an elite level since. It was voted Arsenal’s greatest goal in 2009 and considering some of those scored by Henry, not least the Frenchman’s turn and volley against Manchester United in October 2000, that is quite the feat.
But why were people shocked in the first place? That Bergkamp was able to improvise in such a manner should have been no surprise. He had a long history of producing unexpected, daring moments in games. There was the drag back and outside of the boot flick to Freddie Ljungberg against Juventus in the 2001 Champions League, coming from another counterattack started by Vieira. There were many deft lobs to leave goalkeepers looking foolish and the dream-like assists are countless.
Yet the statue of Bergkamp outside the Emirates depicts his first touch for Holland against Argentina rather than him spinning Dabizas. There had been attempts to model the pirouette but the designers said it was too complicated to replicate. “The whole move was inch perfect. It could have gone completely wrong but that time it worked,” Bergkamp said the following summer.
Amazingly Bergkamp says when he watched the footage of the goal it was unlike how he had remembered it at the time. “It looks quite different to what was in my mind. On TV you see the defender. I knew he was there, but I never saw him. I felt him a little bit, his presence, and I knew he was on this side,” he recalls in Stillness and Speed. “Generally, though, I don’t like tricks … it’s really not something on my mind.” Quite the self-effacing statement from a man whose trick remains, possibly, the most memorable in Premier League history.
Watch the goal here. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/dec/31/dark-matter-existence-space-astronomers-us-experiment | Science | 2016-12-31T20:14:14.000Z | Robin McKie | Will scientists ever prove the existence of dark matter? | Deep underground, in a defunct gold mine in South Dakota, scientists are assembling an array of odd devices: a chamber for holding tonnes of xenon gas; hundreds of light detectors, each capable of pinpointing a single photon; and a vast tank that will be filled with hundreds of gallons of ultra-pure water. The project, the LZ experiment, has a straightforward aim: it is designed to detect particles of an invisible form of matter – called dark matter – as they drift through space.
It is thought there is five times more dark matter than normal matter in the universe, although it has yet to be detected directly. Finding it would solve one of science’s most baffling mysteries and explain why galaxies are not ripped apart by stars flying off into deep space.
However, many scientists believe time is running out for the hunt, which has lasted 30 years, cost millions of pounds and produced no positive results. The LZ project – which is halfway through construction – should be science’s last throw of the dice, they say. “This generation of detectors should be the last,” said astronomer Stacy McGaugh at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio. “If we don’t find anything we should accept we are stuck and need to find a different explanation, perhaps by modifying our theories of gravity, to explain the phenomena we attribute to dark matter.”
Other researchers reject this view: “Theory indicates we have a really good chance of finding dark matter particles,” said Chamkaur Ghag, chair of the Dark Matter UK consortium. “This is certainly not the time to talk of giving up.”
The concept of dark matter stems from observations made in the 1970s. Astronomers expected to find that stars rotated more slowly around a galaxy the more distant they were from the galaxy’s centre, just as distant planets revolve slowly round the Sun. (Outermost Neptune moves round the Sun at a stately 12,000mph; innermost Mercury does so at 107,082mph.)
That prediction was spectacularly undone by observations, however. Stars at a galaxy’s edge orbit almost as fast as those near its centre. According to theory, they should be hurled into space. So astronomers proposed that invisible dark matter must be providing the extra gravity needed to hold galaxies together. Proposed sources of dark matter include burnt-out stars; clouds of dust and gas; and subatomic particles called Wimps – weakly interacting massive particles. All have since been discounted, except Wimps. Many astronomers are now convinced they permeate space and form halos round galaxies to give them the gravitational “muscle” needed to hold fast-flying stars in place.
Getting close to Wimps has not been easy. Scientists have built increasingly sensitive detectors deeper and deeper underground to protect them from subatomic particles that bombard Earth’s surface and which would trigger spurious signals. These devices resemble huge Russian dolls: a vast metal tank containing water – to provide added protection against incoming stray particles – is erected and, within this, a giant sphere of an inert gas such as xenon is suspended. Wimps making it through to the final tank should occasionally strike a xenon nucleus, producing a flash of light that can be pinpointed by electronic detectors.
Despite three decades of effort, this approach has had no success, a failure that is starting to worry some researchers. “We are now building detectors containing more and more xenon and which are a million times more sensitive than those we used to hunt Wimps 30 years ago,” said astrophysicist Professor David Merritt, of the Rochester Institute of Technology, New York. “And still we have found nothing.”
Last July, scientists reported that after running their Large Underground Xenon (Lux) experiment for 20 months they had still failed to spot a Wimp. Now an upgraded version of Lux is being built – the LZ detector, a US-UK collaboration – while other devices in Canada and Italy are set to run searches.
The problem facing Wimp hunters is that as their detectors get ever more sensitive, they will start picking up signals from other weakly interacting particles called neutrinos. Tiny, almost massless, these constantly whizz through our planet and our bodies. Neutrinos are not nearly heavy enough to account for the gravitational abnormalities associated with dark matter but are still likely to play havoc with the next generation of Wimp detectors.
“I believe the Wimp hypothesis will be truly dead when we reach that point,” said McGaugh. “It already has serious problems but if we get to the point where we are picking up all this background interaction, the game is up. You will not be able to spot a thing.”
This point is rejected by Ghag. “Yes, occasionally a neutrino will kick a xenon nucleus and produce a result that resembles a Wimp interaction. We will, initially, be in trouble. But as we characterise the collisions we should find ways to differentiate them and concentrate only on those produced by Wimps.”
But there is no guarantee that Wimps – if they exist – will ever interact with atoms of normal matter. “You can imagine a scenario where dark matter particles turn out to be so incredibly weak at interacting with normal matter that our detectors will never see anything,” said cosmologist Andrew Pontzen, of University College London.
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Indeed, it could transpire that a Wimp is completely incapable of interacting with normal matter. “You would then be saying we can only make sense of the universe by proposing a hypothetical particle that we can never detect,” said Pontzen. “Philosophically that is a highly unsatisfactory situation. You would be saying you cannot prove or disprove a key hypothesis that underpins scientific understanding.”
However, Pontzen also pointed out that dark matter has proved invaluable in making scientific predictions and should not be dismissed too quickly. “Scientists in the late 20th century attempted to predict what the cosmic background radiation left behind by the Big Bang 13 billion years ago might look like. Those who used dark matter in their calculations were found to have got things spectacularly right when we later flew probes to study that radiation background. It shows there was dark matter right at the birth of the universe.”
McGaugh is unconvinced. He points to the failure of Geneva’s Large Hadron Collider, used to find the Higgs boson, to produce particles that might hint at the existence of Wimps. “It was hailed as the golden test but it has produced nothing, just like the other experiments.” Instead, more effort should be directed to developing new theoretical approaches to understanding gravity, he argues. One such theory is known as modified Newtonian dynamics, or Mond. It suggests that variations in the behaviour of gravity could account for the unexpected star speeds. Such approaches should take precedence if LZ should fail to find dark matter in the next two or three years, McGaugh said.
Ghag disagrees. “I think it is ridiculous to suggest we stop,” he said. “Are we just going to say ‘OK, we have no idea what makes up 85% of the universe just because we are finding it all a bit hard’? That’s not realistic.”
The uncertain nature of the problem was summed up by Pontzen. “We have been looking for dark matter for so long. Sometimes I think I should get real and admit something is up. On the other hand, the technology is getting better and we are opening up new possibilities of where to find dark matter. Which of these scenarios I feel closest to depends what sort of day I am having.”
Was Einstein wrong? Physicists challenge speed of light theory Guardian | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/oct/22/bobby-and-jack-charlton-the-brothers-who-won-together-but-lived-apart | Football | 2023-10-22T07:00:09.000Z | Paul Hayward | Bobby and Jack Charlton: the brothers who won together but lived apart | Amonth after the 1966 World Cup final, Jack and Bobby Charlton returned to their Northumberland birthplace, Ashington, to be greeted as kings in a colliery town rechristened “Charltonville” for the day.
The brothers rode through town in an open-topped Rolls Royce for an evening of celebration topped off with a gala dance organised by the Ashington Mineworkers Federation. Perched in the vintage Rolls, in August 1966, the Charltons looked like returning movie stars. They were never to seem so close again.
It was through these streets in February 1958 that a local shopkeeper had run to tell Cissie Charlton, the boys’ mother, of a plane crash in the snow in Munich. Many who knew Bobby said the 23 deaths of the Munich air disaster induced in him survivor’s guilt and haunting emotional pain.
The Charlton boys who were paraded around Ashington never bonded in childhood. Jack was an outdoor type who resented having to watch out for his younger home-loving sibling. Divided by family discord in their post-playing lives, they were united by one terrible detail of their twilight years. Both succumbed to dementia and spent their final months in the shadowland of pain and memory loss.
Bobby and Jack Charlton are driven through Ashington as World Cup winners. Photograph: PA Images/Alamy
Jack Charlton died on 11 July 2020, aged 85, with lymphoma and dementia. Four months later, Bobby, then 83, was diagnosed with the same brutal illness. The most famous and respected English footballer disappeared from view, and has now joined the litany of 1966 World Cup winners to fall prey to dementia. Ray Wilson, Nobby Stiles, Martin Peters, Roger Hunt and both Charlton brothers were beset by a disease that also beset Alf Ramsey in his final years in suburban Ipswich.
The convergence of the Charlton brothers’ medical histories is a grim counterpoint to the fond memories each left behind, in ways as contrasting as their characters.
Bobby was to become the modest statesman of the English game and a stabilising presence at Manchester United, where he was a director all through Sir Alex Ferguson’s reign. Jack, resentful at not being granted an interview when Don Revie vacated the England manager’s job in 1977, was to enter folklore in exile as the Republic of Ireland’s manager, leading them to the 1988 European Championship finals and 1990 World Cup, where they reached the last eight.
Sir Bobby Charlton and Jack Charlton cruise the Thames by boat before a 1966 reunion dinner at the Tower of London in March 2006. Photograph: David Benett/Getty Images
The two boys who had learned the game under the tutelage of Cissie on the rough fields of Ashington diverged in physical shape, playing styles and personality. Jack was a rugged, combative, tall defensive enforcer. Bobby was a shorter, lighter, more floaty, creative attacking midfielder with a gift for pinpoint long-range shooting. He was the most naturally talented English footballer since Tom Finney. Jack on the other hand once said of himself: “The one thing I couldn’t do is play. But I was very good at stopping other people playing.”
Jack was the artisan, Bobby the artist, yet the casting of the older man as “Bobby Charlton’s brother” did a disservice to his playing career at Leeds United, where he spent 23 years and made a joint-record 773 appearances before retiring in 1973.
But Bobby had radiance and grace. His talent placed him in the thick of a late-60s global golden generation: Pelé, Eusébio, George Best and Johan Cruyff. Jack’s 35 England caps were eclipsed by Bobby’s 106. The polarities of talent and temperament were irrelevant though when the two walked out at Wembley on 30 July 1966, to face West Germany.
2:57
Sir Bobby Charlton: remembering the England and Manchester United legend – video obituary
By a quirk of family biology, the Northumbrian odd couple were 20% of the outfield unit in England’s only World Cup winning side. It was quite a claim for the working-class community of Ashington, where Jackie Milburn, Cissie’s cousin, had been the local hero until the Charltons came along.
The boast in east London has always been that West Ham provided 3/11ths of the England starting team – Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters. Statues near the old Upton Park and West Ham’s new home at the London Stadium memorialise those cockney bragging rights. Ramsey was from nearby Dagenham. Yet the story of the Charlton boys was an even more remarkable strand in England’s 4-2 extra-time win.
Jack Charlton looks in the direction of Ray Wilson, who is holding the trophy, and Bobby Charlton as England celebrate winning the World Cup. Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
At England level, Walter Winterbottom and then Ramsey imposed a lesson on Bobby that was to complete his ascent to greatness. The message was that playing his own expressive game in the tough world of the 1960s would stop him being remembered as a great team player. Ramsey made Charlton understand that only by helping out defensively and respecting the workings of the machine could he fully contribute to how England were trying to play.
Ramsey’s utilitarian outlook was that of a realist who knew Brazil had transformed international football. England would fall back on what they knew, with the former Ipswich manager as the unflinching organiser.
Bobby Charlton was at the mission’s core. He was receptive, obedient and deeply committed, all virtues the England manager went searching for at a time when keeping players out of the pub was almost a tactical skill. Bobby was seldom inclined to challenge the authority of “The General”, as Ramsey’s Tottenham Hotspur teammates had known him.
Jack was another matter. To Ramsey he appeared cocky and insubordinate. The England manager’s most acid put-down of his giant centre-back was to remind him that international teams weren’t always built from the best players: a reminder, to Jack, that he was in the side for qualities other than natural ability.
Jack Charlton puts an arm around Bobby at an England training session in March 1965. Photograph: Mirrorpix/Getty Images
Bobby found Ramsey’s contrived officer class brusqueness forbidding. When the England players persuaded him to confront the boss over his choice of World Cup training ground at Roehampton – the squad were staying an hour’s drive away in Hendon – Bobby returned from the meeting ashen. “Boys, don’t ever let me do that again,” he said after Ramsey had dismissed him with trademark coldness.
And yet in the final in ‘66 Jack was arguably more influential than the younger brother who had shone against Portugal in a gleaming 2-1 semi-final win. With heavy symbolism, Bobby had scored both goals while Jack gave away the 82nd-minute penalty that left England sweating on their lead for the last eight minutes.
Bobby Charlton, not Eusébio, was the star of that show, but a shock was coming. For the final, Ramsey made him man-mark the young Franz Beckenbauer. An oddity of that game is that the best players on each side were mutually nullified by their managers. Jack was more conspicuously engaged in a range of tasks: tackling, heading, blocking and bollocking, a defensive leadership task that came naturally to such a blunt speaker.
After the final whistle Jack said to Bobby: “Well, what about that kidda. What about that.”
And Bobby told him: “Jackie, our lives are never going to be the same.”
Years later Jack refused to nominate 1966 as the pinnacle of his career, explaining that he’d felt like a latecomer to a group dominated by Ramsey’s favourites, one of whom was Bobby. Instead the older Charlton settled on Leeds United’s title win in 1969.
By then Bobby was a European Cup winner as well as world champion, and part of the Holy Trinity of Best, Law and Charlton, the measure by which all Manchester United’s forward lines are judged. Bobby was in the stratosphere. Jack was an intimidating stalwart of Revie’s outlaw vibe at Leeds, though some of their play was exhilarating too.
The breakdown in their relationship was caused by friction between Cissie Charlton and Norma, Bobby’s wife. On Desert Island Discs in 1996, Jack spoke about the rupture: “I couldn’t understand why there was a rift between Bobby and my mother. Suddenly he stopped going home. I don’t know why.” Asked by Sue Lawley whether the damage was irreparable, Jack replied: “I think so.”
Sir Bobby Charlton receives the Lifetime Achievement Award from Jack during the BBC Sport Personality of the Year awards in December 2008. Photograph: David Davies/PA
In his autobiography in 2007, Bobby broke his silence: “My wife is a very strong character and does not suffer fools gladly. I am not suggesting my mother was a fool. There was a clash and it just never went away really.
“Jack came out in the newspapers saying things about my wife that were absolutely disgraceful. Nonsense. Ask anybody that ever met my wife: ‘hoity-toity’ is not a word they’d use. My brother made a big mistake. I don’t understand why he did it. He could not possibly have known her and said what he said.”
The feud was put aside for Ray Wilson’s funeral in 2018. But the two weren’t fully reconciled. Their lives ran down parallel tracks that converged beautifully on a honeyed day in 1966, but then diverged again, as if to remind the world that sibling bonds are fragile and conditional. Now the scourge of dementia has made them equal in death.
Jack Charlton has his place in football’s Elysium. “Our kid,” as he called his younger brother, arrives now cast in his own special light. If the spirit of English football had to be expressed by the recital of a single name, it would be: Bobby Charlton. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/20/the-deal-that-shocked-the-world-inside-the-china-solomons-security-pact | World news | 2022-04-20T05:33:37.000Z | Kate Lyons | The deal that shocked the world: inside the China-Solomons security pact | The rumours started in August.
Chatter surfaced among the political class in Honiara that China and Solomon Islands were negotiating a security agreement which could allow Beijing to send military and police personnel to its new Pacific ally, and base naval vessels on the islands.
If the rumours proved to be true, it would be the first known bilateral security agreement between China and a country in the Pacific, a region that has become the centre of a geopolitical and strategic tug of war between China and the US and Australia in recent years. And if Australia’s gravest fears were realised, such an agreement could also allow China to establish a military base less than 2,000km from its eastern border.
Matthew Wale, the leader of the Solomon Islands opposition, says he first learned of the proposed deal in mid-2021 from a source. He claims the deal was being negotiated by a very small team of elected representatives trusted by the prime minister, Manasseh Sogavare, but was being kept secret from everyone outside this tight circle including the rest of Sogavare’s cabinet.
Anti-Covid supplies from China which arrived in Solomon Islands February. The island nation is one of China’s newest political allies beginning from 2019. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock
“They were concerned and raised it with me and I obviously was extremely concerned,” he says.
In March, these fears proved to be justified when the draft text of the security agreement, granting Chinese military and police significant access to Solomon Islands, was leaked online. The news set off shockwaves that were felt in Canberra, Wellington and Washington.
According to accounts from diplomatic sources, politicians and analysts, the China-Solomons security pact was a deal shrouded in secrecy, which took diplomats and government officials – even from within Solomon Islands – by total surprise, prompting a scramble by western powers to try to block Chinese influence in the region and outrage among Solomon Islanders.
In response to the leak, two delegations were dispatched from Australia to Honiara, and this week two top US officials, including Kurt Campbell, the national security council Indo-Pacific coordinator, will land in the capital.
But the hurried diplomatic overtures proved fruitless. Late on Tuesday, China’s foreign ministry announced that the deal had been signed.
Caught ‘off guard’
It was sign of just how closely guarded the deal was that news only emerged publicly seven months after the first rumours began. On 24 March Dr Anna Powles, a senior lecturer in security studies at Massey University in New Zealand, posted a series of tweets that contained photographs of the leaked security agreement, setting off alarm bells across the region.
The draft security cooperation agreement between China and Solomon Islands has been linked on social media and raises a lot of questions (and concerns). (photos of agreement in this and below tweet) 1/6 pic.twitter.com/nnpnJJQC7r
— Dr Anna Powles (@AnnaPowles) March 24, 2022
“I really weighed it up quite heavily about whether or not to put it on to Twitter,” said Powles. “Given the secrecy around the document and the contents of the agreement, I was certainly pleased that some light was going to be shone on it.”
“It’s confirmation of what Canberra and Wellington have long suspected,” said Powles.
But the deal was news to many, reportedly including key government officials from within Sogavare’s government.
The Guardian is aware of at least one senior Solomon Islands diplomat who learned of the deal’s existence from Powles’ post and urgently rushed to have someone text him a link to it.
Christian Mesepitu, the premier of Western Province, said the premiers had likewise not been consulted. “Like many other Solomon Islanders, we were only made aware of the security arrangement on social media, and we are indeed very concerned,” he told Solomon Business magazine.
In the days after the leak, New Zealand’s defence minister, Peeni Henare, said he and the Australian defence minister, Peter Dutton, had been caught “off guard” by the draft deal.
“We were both surprised, because the intelligence we were getting didn’t exactly match that,” Henare told Stuff. “We knew that there were some challenges there, with respect to China, but the leaked draft agreement … it did catch me as a surprise, and even minister Dutton.”
James Batley, the former Australian high commissioner to Solomon Islands, says the secrecy around the deal was to be expected. “The Solomon Islands government would be aware of the sort of reaction this would’ve caused in Australia, New Zealand, the US etc, so I think the idea would’ve been: let’s complete this before it becomes public.
“The idea that Solomons could be surprised by [the] reactions of countries like Australia to this beggars belief. They have very experienced people working there.”
But Wale claims that Australia should not have been shocked by the news when it leaked. He says he tried to raise the alarm, telling Australia’s high commissioner to Solomon Islands, Dr Lachlan Strahan, about the deal in August or September 2021. He said Strahan “took note of it and that’s the last I heard”.
Some experts doubt much negotiation between Honiara (pictured) and Beijing took place regarding the security agreement. Photograph: Zahiyd Namo/The Guardian
The Australian department of foreign affairs disputes this, with a spokesperson saying “The Australian high commissioner to Solomon Islands met with opposition leader Wale in May 2021, not August 2021. Opposition leader Wale and officials did not discuss a possible security agreement with China during this meeting or any other.”
Announcing the signing of the deal in parliament, Sogavare said: “Let me assure the people that we entered into an arrangement with China with our eyes wide open guided by our national interests.”
However, Batley doubts that much negotiation actually took place between Beijing and Honiara.
“The text looks like it was drafted in Beijing and presented to Solomon Islands,” he said. “I think the initiative would’ve come from Beijing. I don’t think Solomon Islands went to China and said: ‘please can we have a security agreement?’
“I don’t think there’s been a lot of negotiation around it to be honest. I think the language that is used is very much in China’s interest and not in Solomon Islands’ interest. If the initiative had come from Solomon Islands you’d expect it to be modelled on agreements that already exist between Solomon Islands and Australia and New Zealand.”
A Chinese naval base?
Australia, New Zealand and the US are particularly concerned that the deal could allow China to establish a military base just 2,000km from Australia’s east coast, with the draft text permitting China to “make ship visits to, carry out logistical replenishment in, and have stopover and transition in Solomon Islands”.
“It’s the biggest concern of this deal for Australia,” said Batley. “This expression ‘naval base’, it stands for a broader set of strategic anxieties. For Australia, it’s potentially a strategic nightmare, but it’s equally … of concern to other Pacific Islands as well for the same reason.”
Since the draft deal leaked, Sogavare has sought to allay concerns by saying his country has no intention of allowing a Chinese naval base and has fiercely defended his country’s right to make its own foreign policy decisions, adding it was “very insulting to be branded as unfit to manage our sovereign affairs”.
A senior Chinese official told the Guardian: “We are not interested in building a naval base here in Solomon Islands.”
Scott Morrison, the Australian prime minister, appeared convinced on Wednesday, saying Sogavare had “made it very clear that they are not accepting of any [military] base in the Solomon Islands. They are not.”
However, his own deputy broke ranks to contradict him and warn that the deal could mean that the Solomons could turn into “our own little Cuba”. Barnaby Joyce said: “China is able, if they follow through, to set up a military base there.”
Those fears are backed up by a reportedly leaked letter published on News.com.au on 7 April that raised concerns that China might have found a site for a potential base on Isabel Province. The letter, said to be from the president of Avic International Project Engineering Company – a Chinese state-owned company – to Isabel Province’s former governor said the company had “intent to study the opportunity to develop naval and infrastructure projects on leased land for the People’s Liberation Navy, for the [Isabel] Province with exclusive rights for 75 years.”
The new premier of Isabel Province, Rhoda Sikilabu, said she had doubts about the letter provided to News.com.au. “I truly believe that this letter has been created by some people with negative intentions, because I do not believe the previous executive would be involved in such deals. And I personally do not think a naval base will be built anywhere in the country.”
‘Sovereignty undermined’
For Solomon Islanders, concerns about a naval base are secondary.
“From a Solomon Islander point of view, the concern is very much about sovereignty being undermined,” said Batley, “and potentially their country being a focus of much greater geostrategic competition. And not to mention the way this might contribute to general social unrest, contribute to mistrust of government, cynicism of politicians and so on.”
Georgina Lepping, a young Solomon Islander film-maker and campaigner, said there were fears among young people in the country that the deal could allow the government to call in the Chinese military for political purposes such as crushing protests.
“Since the security deal with China made headlines, all over social media, especially Facebook, I saw many youths as young as 16 posting status[es] like … ‘This is the government’s own military’,” said Lepping.
A politically cartoon that has been widely shared in Solomon Islands on social media. Photograph: Supplied
A cartoon that has been widely shared in Solomon Islands on social media shows protesters being held back by Xi Jinping in military gear, while Sogavare stands behind Xi calling to the protesters: “He’s protecting you from you”.
Powles says that while the Solomons’ government argues that “this agreement gives them options and it fills a gap … it’s not clear what that gap is.”
“It’s not clear what advantages there are of an agreement like this, other than the fact that it includes some very ambiguous statements around its scope and therefore could potentially be used for … activities other than humanitarian assistance and maintaining public order.”
A spokesperson for China’s ministry of foreign affairs said the purpose of the agreement was to promote ‘social stability’ in Solomon Islands and the wider Asia-Pacific. Photograph: Charley Piringi/AP
Wang Wenbin, a spokesperson for China’s ministry of foreign affairs, said the deal rested on the principle of “equality and mutual benefit.”
“The purpose of China-Solomon Islands security cooperation is to promote social stability and long-term stability in Solomon Islands, which is in the common interests of Solomon Islands and the South Pacific region.”
But there are also concerns that the deal could trigger internal unrest in the country, with Wale saying he believed the agreement was “targeted at Malaita”, the most populous province in the country, which did not support the diplomatic switch from Taiwan to China.
“I am very concerned given the situation on Malaita, that Malaitans will see this deal [as] targeted at them. So that is a real threat to the unity of this country and certainly internal stability,” said Wale.
The Guardian attempted to contact Solomon Islands’ foreign affairs permanent secretary, Collin Beck and prime minister Sogavare for comment. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/dec/11/communities-dementia-friendly-uk-g8-summit | Society | 2013-12-11T08:30:00.000Z | Kate Murray | The communities driving through change for people with dementia | Kate Murray | It was when Bert started ringing up for a taxi in the middle of the night that Glennys Glover knew he had a problem. “He was a lovely old gentleman but he’d started to get confused. He’d be on the phone at 1 or 2am and we would ask him: ‘Where are you going at this time?’ and he’d say: ‘I’m going to the shops for my breakfast’, recalls Glover, director of Salford-based cab firm Mainline Sevens. “We would tell him to go back to bed and that we’d come and pick him up when it was light.”
It is experiences like that which persuaded Glover to sign her firm up to Salford’s bid to become a dementia-friendly community. “We know our customers really well and we have seen several like Bert who have been affected by dementia and two of my aunts got it too,” she says. “By doing something like this, we are helping to look out for people. I hope somebody will give back to me in this sort of way if I get to that stage.”
Mainline Sevens’ commitment to becoming dementia-friendly includes training the drivers of its 500-strong cab fleet to spot the signs of dementia and how to help, and setting up accounts so that customers with the condition don’t need to fumble with money for their fare. In the longer term, Glover hopes that her business’s investment in modern technology might help people with dementia and their carers, by, for example, allowing them to use GPS tracking to pinpoint their whereabouts when they are out and about.
More than 800,000 people in the UK have dementia and that figure is set to rise to more than 1 million by 2021. But the Alzheimer’s Society, which is spearheading the push for communities to commit to becoming dementia-friendly, says too many people with the disease feel isolated from the rest of society.
A survey for the charity this autumn found that one in three only left their homes once a week and 44% felt they were a burden and so avoided getting involved with local life. More than half of all adults who took part in the survey felt that the inclusion of people with dementia in their community was poor. But now, with the spotlight on the condition at this week’s G8 summit in London, there are hopes that is changing as more villages, towns and cities join the 24 that have already signed up to becoming better places for people with the disease to live.
“This is a challenge to society as a whole to change attitudes and challenge stigma. Dementia touches every part of the community way beyond the GP’s surgery or the hospital ward – it’s about the way in which all our services are delivered,” says George McNamara, head of policy and public affairs at the Alzheimer’s Society.
It estimates that keeping people with the condition in their communities for longer, so avoiding costly residential care, saves more than £11,000 per person per year. But more important than the savings is the opportunity for people with dementia to live better lives. Becoming a dementia-friendly community doesn’t mean a big investment.
“Often it’s just about assessing the way you deliver services and changing the way you respond. Everyday tasks we take for granted like withdrawing money from a bank or going to the post office can be very difficult for people with dementia and become a real barrier,” says McNamara. “But small changes in the way services are delivered on the high street or in how transport is accessed can make a massive difference and enable people to spend their later life in their own home for longer.”
Examples of how communities are responding include a dementia training programme for student hairdressers in Crawley, and mystery shoppers in Bradford helping to improve banking services for people with the condition.
In Salford, organisations that have signed up to make the city more dementia-friendly include a shopping centre, two housing associations, a law firm, the Lowry arts centre and the University of Salford.
At the university, students have been working on practical projects, including a robot reminding older people to take their medication, and special dinner plates and flooring designed to be better suited for people with dementia, who often have problems with visual perception.
The university is now establishing an institute for dementia to carry out research on dementia-friendly care and design. But its commitment to being dementia-friendly also extends to support for student and staff touched by the condition and training in becoming a “dementia friend”.
“Our students and staff need to be dementia-aware so that they can be good citizens and when they go home on the bus and see someone struggling they can help,” says Professor Maggie Pearson, the university’s pro-vice chancellor and dean of the college of health and social care. “I am passionate about dementia not being swept under the carpet. We don’t have a cure for it yet but while we’re waiting, we can make these people’s lives a damn sight less distressing and we have all got a responsibility to do that.”
Local MP and former Labour cabinet minister, Hazel Blears, has also joined the campaign. Blears, whose mother has dementia, is believed to be the first MP in the country to make her constituency office dementia-friendly, with better signage and access, training in clearer communications and even a brightly coloured loo seat specially designed to be more easily recognised by people with dementia.
“The shocking fact is that one in three of us will get dementia – every single family will be touched by it,” she says. “I’d like to see not just more awareness but a positive willingness to go that extra step. Whether they are going shopping, to the bank or to the swimming pool, people with dementia should be treated with respect, with dignity and above all with warmth because they are valuable and loved human beings.”
Backers of dementia-friendly communities, including the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which has been supporting work on the concept in Yorkshire and nationally, say it is crucial that people with the condition are involved too.
In Salford, retired dentist Michael Howorth is contributing his ideas. Howorth, now 83, became the first person with dementia to be taken on as a paid employee by an NHS trust when he was employed to support others with dementia in Greater Manchester West Mental Health Trust’s Open Doors project. He says reducing stigma is key to helping people live well in their communities. “Thirty or 40 years ago with cancer, people couldn’t use the word cancer and they got around by calling it the big C. It’s a bit like that with dementia – it’s the big D,” he says.
Ann Johnson, a former nurse and lecturer, is also involved in Salford’s work. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease eight years ago at the age of just 52 and now sits on the national champion group for dementia-friendly communities, set up as part of the dementia challenge launched by David Cameron back in 2012.
For Johnson, a dementia-friendly community is one where she can get help with her shopping or using a cashpoint. “Simple things like that mean a lot,” she says. “People do want to help – they just don’t always know how to do it. I tell people it’s important not to be scared of the word dementia – it’s just a word. Never walk by on the other side. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jul/21/too-much-and-never-enough-by-mary-l-trump-review-donald-trump-niece | Books | 2020-07-21T06:00:36.000Z | Peter Conrad | Too Much and Never Enough by Mary L Trump review – a scathing takedown of Uncle Donald | Like America, Trump claims to be unique, exceptional, a shining self-creation. This book by his estranged niece demolishes that myth. Mary Trump’s ruthless memoir blames their family for creating him: she sees it as her patriotic mission to “take Donald down”, and she does so by showing how derivative and dependent the ultimate self-made man has always been. Trump was bankrolled at first by an indulgent father, who paid him to be an idle show-off and proudly collected grubby tabloid reports on his antics; nowadays he is propped up by tougher, cannier men such as Vladimir Putin and Senator Mitch McConnell, for whom he is an easily manipulated stooge.
Sleaze and graft, we here discover, are Trump’s genetic heritage. His grandfather slunk out of Germany to avoid military service and made a fortune from brothels in Canada. His father was a landlord who passed himself off as a property developer to rake in government subsidies for schemes that were never built. His mother, born to penury in Scotland, remained so meanly thrifty that every week she dressed up in her fur stole and drove her pink Cadillac around the New York suburbs to collect small change from the coin-operated laundry rooms in buildings the family owned; her piggy banks were empty tin cans that once contained lard. She remained emotionally absent, preoccupied by her ailments, while her husband viewed their male offspring as mere off-prints of himself, begotten to ensure that the family kept a grip on its spoils.
Donald Trump (left) his siblings Fred (Mary’s father), Elizabeth, Maryanne and Robert. Photograph: Donald J. Trump/Facebook
Raised in such an environment, how could Donald Trump not emerge as “a petty, pathetic little man”? Never having received affection, he bestows it on himself in orgies of preening and boasting; the life partners he serially selects seem to have been chosen from a mail-order catalogue. His first wife, Ivana, is summed up by Mary as “all flash, arrogance and spite”, with a telling “penchant for regifting”. Ivana’s ritualised gift-giving is portrayed as an exercise in contempt: one Christmas she presents Mary’s mother with a luxurious handbag containing a used Kleenex. Melania is a trophy, destined to occupy a glazed niche in a display case. Presiding over a Father’s Day meal at Trump Tower, she utters just one word all evening. That word, expressing at best a theoretical curiosity about the world, is: “Really?”
Throughout the book, Mary’s uncle is not President Trump but simply Donald. With casual disrespect, she even deprives him of the definite article deployed by Ivana who always referred to him as “the Donald”. Mary’s professional credentials as a psychologist entitle her to briskly check off what she calls Donald’s “pathologies”, which include narcissism, sociopathy and learning disabilities that may be due to the dozen Diet Cokes he daily siphons into himself. In a startling final condemnation, she charges that his “craven need for ‘revenge’” on opponents makes him, in his nonchalance about coronavirus in New York, responsible for what she calls “mass murder”.
Once at the Mar-a-Lago pool, Donald disgusted Mary by sizing up her breasts
Erotomania can be added to the list of his vices. Once at the Mar-a-Lago pool, Donald disgusted Mary by sizing up her breasts: “Holy shit,” he remarked, “you’re stacked.” This wicked uncle is all slavering id, with no superego to restrain the fingers that itch to tweet, to toy with a big red nuclear button, or to “grab ’em by the pussy”. I suppose we shouldn’t make snobbish fun of Donald’s verbal lapses, but it’s enjoyable to hear him commission the architect Philip Johnson to design a “porta-co-share” for an Atlantic City clip joint. He meant, Mary explains, “a porte-cochère, basically a large carport”.
Whenever Donald attempted to manage an actual business – an airline, casino or dodgy university – the result was bankruptcy. The lies he compulsively tells are for Mary another “mode of self-aggrandisement”, a cover for his quaking inadequacy. Sadly dim-witted, he even had to hire a surrogate to take the entrance exams for college on his behalf. All his life he has “failed upwards”; he relies on being “rewarded for bad behaviour”, which happened again when the Senate blocked his impeachment. As viewed by Mary, he is an undeveloped human being, who instantly passed from whiny infancy to doddery old age, missing out the intermediate age of reason and responsibility where the rest of us spend time.
Nations mistakenly see themselves as clans, rather than amalgams of individuals bound by a social contract. The US began by denying tribalism: its founding assertion was made by “we the people”, whose equality overrode disparities of origin or social standing. But the country has lost touch with its early ideals, and Mary rightly accuses Donald of wanting to remake it as “a macro version of my malignantly dysfunctional family”, with America’s innate optimism warped into a cult of “toxic positivity”.
Nor will Donald’s expected drubbing in November put an end to the menace. He has already Xeroxed a zero-talented diminutive of himself in the form of Donald Trump Jr, the cousin whom Mary, with a curled lip, patronises as “Donny”. Her narrative begins in 2017 at the White House, with Donny toasting Donald at a birthday party for his two elderly aunts. Ignoring the guests of honour, the heir apparent instead congratulated voters who “saw what a great family this is, and connected with our values”. Hearing that, Mary begged a waiter to refill her wine glass. In view of the outrages and abuses that lay ahead, she should have asked him to leave her the bottle.
Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man by Mary L Trump is published by Simon & Schuster (£20). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Free UK p&p over £15 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/feb/28/storm-jorge-heavy-downpours-more-uk-floods | UK news | 2020-02-28T11:59:00.000Z | Amy Walker | UK weather: Storm Jorge expected to bring more floods | Heavy downpours are expected to cause further flooding to homes and businesses over the weekend, as the latest storm to hit the UK takes hold.
Yellow weather warnings are in place for Storm Jorge on Friday, with the south-west and north-west of England, Wales and Northern Ireland expected to experience the worst of the deluge.
The Met Office has warned that public transport is likely to be disrupted, while some buildings – including those that have already been hit by February’s extreme weather – are expected to flood.
In Wales, where many homes and businesses were devastated in the aftermath of Storm Dennis, the forecaster warned that fast-flowing or deep flood water could cause “a danger to life” and some communities could be cut off by swamped roads.
“During the height of that storm, it may not be possible to continue all those operations. It may be a case of suspending them for a period and resuming them at first light on Sunday morning when conditions improve”. He urged people to check in on vulnerable neighbours.
While rain warnings remain in place and spread to the east on Saturday, strong winds expected over the weekend could also cause delays at airports, train stations, ferry ports and on Britain’s roads.
The Met Office meteorologist Luke Miall said the UK should be braced for snow in some areas on Friday. “[Initially in] Wales over the hills then for northern England and also parts of Scotland we could see some fairly heavy snow over the higher ground,” he said
He added that further heavy rain in places where weather warnings were in place was likely to cause “tricky conditions” for commuters on Friday evening.
Flood warnings will remain in place throughout Friday night, with the weekend staying unsettled. Continued downpours forced people in east Yorkshire to evacuate their homes earlier this week after the River Aire flooded.
In Ireland, defence forces were on standby to help flooded areas that are bracing for fresh torrents.
Record rainfall for February – in some places three times the monthly average – has flooded communities in the Midlands and west, especially in the Shannon catchment area, cutting several roads and rail links. Rivers remain dangerously swollen.
The National Emergency Coordination Group was due to meet on Friday in advance of Storm Jorge, which is due to arrive on Saturday. Keith Leonard, the chair of the group, told RTE it may need to suspend flood relief operations until winds and rain ease.
An emergency evacuation took place in Ironbridge, in Shropshire, after the River Severn burst its banks.
Storm Jorge is the third to hit the country this month, coming less than a fortnight after Storm Dennis caused widespread damage and killed five people.
In Worcestershire, the body of Yvonne Booth, 55, was found after she was swept away by flood water.
Meanwhile, the trail of destruction left behind by Storm Ciara earlier in February has been projected to cost up to £200m in insurance claims. Communities in the north of England, including in Cumbria, Greater Manchester and Lancashire and West Yorkshire, suffered the brunt of flood damage.
The government has come under increasing scrutiny for its reaction to the floods. On Thursday, the environment secretary, George Eustice, was criticised for not meeting residents in Ironbridge who had been evacuated from their homes.
The prime minister, Boris Johnson, was accused of hampering recovery efforts by refusing to call a Cobra meeting, while Jeremy Corbyn castigated him for not visiting flood-hit communities. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/07/patients-getting-sicker-as-they-face-long-waits-for-nhs-care-says-top-gp | Society | 2023-05-07T17:31:16.000Z | Denis Campbell | Patients getting sicker as they face long waits for NHS care, says top GP | Patients are developing cancers and enduring so much pain that they cannot climb stairs because of the 7.2 million-strong waiting list for NHS scans and treatment, Britain’s top GP has said.
Prof Kamila Hawthorne, the chair of the Royal College of GPs, said the record delays for care and the uncertainty for patients about when they would finally be seen was leaving people feeling “helpless and forgotten”.
These included people with heart problems, those awaiting a hip or knee replacement, and people with potential signs of cancer whom GPs have said need to be seen urgently, she said.
In an interview with the Guardian, she voiced serious concern that some of these patients saw their health deteriorate as a direct result of the delay in accessing hospital care.
“Patients getting sicker while they are on the waiting list is something GPs see and worry about, because the risk to the patient is so much greater. It’s inevitable that some people stuck will get sicker, because that’s the nature of illness,” she said.
“It could be someone awaiting a hip or knee replacement. They come and see you and say, ‘it’s been three months and I’ve heard nothing’. Often the waiting times for orthopaedics can be a year or two, so you know it’s going to take ages. Then they’ll tell you that their toilet is upstairs and in order to get up there they’re having to crawl. Or it could be that their hip or knee pain is coming to the point where they can’t sleep at night. That’s the kind of thing we hear.”
Women with persistent heavy bleeding that has not responded to treatment are a particular worry when they have to wait a long time for their condition to be investigated, because the blood loss could be a sign of gynaecological cancer, she said.
“The waiting list [for a test] will be eight to 12 months, and in the old days, so to speak, it would have been eight weeks. The risk that’s being carried is so much greater because of that wait time.”
Hawthorne, who represents Britain’s 50,000 family doctors, called on the NHS to set up an Amazon-style tracking system that would let patients monitor when they would be seen.
She said: “Something like the Amazon system would be amazing. In an ideal world, the NHS would have a system that would let people track where they are on the waiting list.
“When we buy something online, we’re told our order’s been received, when it’s ready for dispatch and the date and time it’s coming. Something along those lines … will help patients understand [where they are on the list] and help GPs manage their expectations as well.”
A tracker system would reassure patients who are “anxious, worried and frustrated” about when they will finally be seen and help them to negotiate “the jungle of the NHS”. In addition, it would mean they would no longer need to ask their GP to ring the hospital to find out when their appointment will happen, thus freeing up more appointment slots.
Patients with serious shortness of breath who GPs suspect to have heart failure can see their health decline to the point where “they can’t take the dog for a walk, can’t get upstairs and are waking up short of breath, gasping for breath, in the middle of the night”, Hawthorne added.
The British Heart Foundation said it shared Hawthorne’s concerns, and there was “no doubt that some heart patients are getting sicker while facing extreme waits for care”, with some dying as a result. It identified long waits for tests, surgery and other treatment as major reasons.
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Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, its associate medical director, said: “People waiting for new heart valves may develop new symptoms that stop them from working or enjoying a full and healthy life. Missed opportunities like these are putting people at risk of avoidable heart failure.
“These delays are having utterly devastating consequences, leaving too many families wondering whether their loved ones would still be here if they had received treatment sooner.”
The Association of Optometrists disclosed recently that at least 551 patients in England had experienced sight loss since 2019 as a direct result of having to wait to receive ophthalmology care.
Reducing NHS waiting times is one of Rishi Sunak’s five key policy pledges. The 7.2 million people on the waiting list for hospital care in England is the highest number ever.
An NHS England spokesperson did not respond directly to Hawthorne’s remarks but said: “NHS staff have made significant progress in bringing down the longest waits built up during the pandemic, with waits of over 18 months down by more than four-fifths on their peak, over 24m vital tests and checks delivered in the last year, and record numbers of patients starting treatment for cancer.”
Patients could already check waiting times at their local hospital by using the My Planned Care website, they added. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/aug/09/suicide-squad-tops-uk-box-office-finding-dory-jason-bourne | Film | 2016-08-09T14:06:53.000Z | Charles Gant | Crime pays: DC's Suicide Squad tops UK box office with £11.25m | The winner: Suicide Squad
Critics may have been largely unimpressed, but Suicide Squad defied sunny skies to deliver a robust UK opening of £11.25m from 573 cinemas. The film’s most apt comparison is probably Guardians of the Galaxy, because both comic-book properties were little known to broad audiences until their respective owners, Warner/DC and Disney/Marvel, announced movie adaptations. Guardians of the Galaxy began two years ago with £6.36m, including £1.37m in previews.
Another comparison for Suicide Squad might be Deadpool, which was also given a 15 certificate in the UK. Deadpool debuted in February with £13.73m, including £3.76m in previews. Strip out the previews and Suicide Squad has the bigger opening number.
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In fact, discounting previews, Suicide Squad has delivered the third-biggest UK opening of the year, behind Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (£14.62m) and Captain America: Civil War (£14.47m). In August 2015, no new release opened bigger than £3m.
There is a big disparity between critical and fan appreciation of Suicide Squad, which has a 40/100 score at Metacritic and a 7.0/10 user rating at IMDb. At Rotten Tomatoes, the critics’ rating is 26%, which compares with an audience score of 72%.
The runner-up: Finding Dory
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In term time, family films earn the vast majority of their takings on Saturday and Sunday, and showtimes typically reduce on weekdays. In the school holidays it’s a different story, with every day of the week a potential opportunity for a cinema trip. A case in point is Finding Dory, which debuted a week ago with £8.12m and added another £3.98m at the weekend. The film’s cumulative total is £20.25m, which means it grossed £8.15m during the Monday-to-Thursday period. Over its first 10 days, the daily average gross is an impressive £2.03m.
Among Pixar films, only Toy Story 3 reached £20m at a quicker pace. In fact, Finding Dory has already exceeded the lifetime grosses of the three Pixar titles (Cars, Cars 2 and The Good Dinosaur), and is closing in on Brave (£22.2m), WALL-E (£22.9m) and Ratatouille (£24.8m).
Universal/Illumination’s The Secret Life of Pets remains the biggest-grossing animated film of 2016 so far, with £32.1m. That film had reached £16.62m after two weekends of play, so Finding Dory is currently 22% ahead of the pace set by its rival.
The BFG is also performing well on weekdays, adding £5.73m over the last seven days, for a 17-day total of £20.21m. After the US, the UK is by far the most successful market for The BFG, with Australia in third place.
Third place: Jason Bourne
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It’s official: Jason Bourne is the second-biggest-grossing film in the Bourne franchise, and after just 10 days of play. The film has grossed £14.06m so far, which compares with lifetime tallies as follows: The Bourne Identity (£7.88m), The Bourne Supremacy (£11.56m), The Bourne Ultimatum (£24.00m) and The Bourne Legacy (£11.11m).
The latest instalment fell 54% at the weekend – in line with other adult films in the market, which were all affected by the particularly sunny weather. Among the major films on release, only animated ones had drops of less than 50%, with The Secret Life of Pets, Ice Age: Collision Course and The Angry Birds Movie all falling 39%.
The Irish hit: Bobby Sands
Data gatherer comScore lumps together takings in Ireland and the UK, treating the territories as one marketplace. And it’s thanks to success in Ireland and Northern Ireland that documentary Bobby Sands: 66 Days has landed at No 11 in the chart, with £46,410 (including £11,840 in previews) from 28 cinemas. Of that total, £43,556 was earned in Ireland and Northern Ireland, from 24 venues. (Mainland UK delivered £2,854 from four sites.) The film recounts the 1981 hunger strike that led to the death of Sands, who became an elected MP during the protest, and nine other IRA prisoners.
In Northern Ireland, it ranked fifth at the box-office, and in Ireland it was in eighth. Distributor Wildcard reports that Bobby Sands: 66 Days delivered the biggest ever opening for an Irish documentary in Ireland, and the second biggest documentary overall, behind Fahrenheit 9/11, bumping Amy into third place.
The lopsided marketplace
The current UK Top 10 shows a stark contrast between top and bottom, with top title Suicide Squad earning 166 times the weekend box office of 10th-placed The Legend of Tarzan. With just £68,000 weekend gross, Tarzan had the lowest weekend takings of any film in the Top 10 since the first session of July 2015, when Minions was the top film on release and the Keanu Reeves thriller Knock Knock was in 10th, with takings of £67,000. Only eight films managed six-figure takings last weekend, which compares with sessions earlier in the year where you would regularly see 17 or 18 films grossing £100,000-plus.
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Suicide Squad couldn’t quite compensate for the declines of every other title on release, wilting in the August sun, so takings are overall 10% down on the previous frame. No matter: they are also a very encouraging 105% up on the equivalent weekend from 2015, when the rebooted Fantastic Four debuted weakly at the top spot. Cinema programmers now have their hopes pinned on a quartet of wide new releases, beginning on Wednesday with the comedy Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, starring Zac Efron, Adam DeVine, Anna Kendrick and Aubrey Plaza. Teen-skewing thriller Nerve (which may lose some of its potential audience due to a 15 rating) follows on Thursday. On Friday arrives shark-peril thriller The Shallows, starring Blake Lively, and Disney remake Pete’s Dragon. Indie cinemas, which are crying out for an indie hit, and many of which are currently playing wall-to-wall summer blockbusters – will be welcoming Todd Solondz comedy Wiener-Dog. Alternatives include Valley of Love, The Wave, The Idol, the documentary Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words and football hooligan sequel ID2: Shadwell Army.
Top 10 films, 5-7 August
1. Suicide Squad, £11,252,225 from 573 sites (new)
2. Finding Dory, £3,975,736 from 624 sites. Total: £20,251,204
3. Jason Bourne, £2,448,307 from 593 sites. Total: £14,062,015
4. The BFG, £1,713,088 from 614 sites. Total: £20,207,813
5. Star Trek Beyond, £894,739 from 529 sites. Total: £12,945,488
6. The Secret Life of Pets, £449,472 from 481 sites. Total: £32,070,805
7. Ghostbusters, £284,109 from 344 sites. Total: £9,995,592
8. Ice Age: Collision Course, £114,961 from 357 sites. Total: £6,485,440
9. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, £85,319 from 135 sites. Total: £15,608,295
10. The Legend of Tarzan, £67,766 from 154 sites. Total: £9,071,717
Other openers
Bobby Sands: 66 Days, £46,410 (including £11,840 previews) from 28 sites
Up for Love, £13,751 from 27 sites
Kasaba, £7,657 from 43 sites
Sid & Nancy, £6,048 from 15 sites (rerelease)
Thirunaal, £5,920 from 13 sites
Sweet Bean, £4,669 from seven sites
How to Be Yours, £4,348 from three sites
The Carer, £2,974 from eight sites
Fever, £1,245 from four sites
Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/sep/28/kelvin-mackenzie-destroyed-reputation-years-hillsborough | Opinion | 2012-09-28T19:00:01.000Z | Tanya Gold | Kelvin MacKenzie destroyed his own reputation years before Hillsborough | Tanya Gold | Kelvin MacKenzie, the former editor of the "soaraway" Sun, is now an Ozymandias lying in a sandy pile of topless girls playing darts, and trampolining dwarves. He writes in the Spectator that he wants an apology from the South Yorkshire police, because they lied to his sources about what happened at Hillsborough, and that is why he printed his infamous headline "The Truth".
This "led to my personal vilification for decades. Where does that leave me?" he asks, the sad, small boy who is one of his fascinating selves. Does he really believe the South Yorkshire police destroyed his reputation? Read Stick It Up Your Punter! The Rise and Fall of the Sun, by Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie. It is an astonishing narrative about the Sun under MacKenzie's editorship, which is so shocking he would probably have serialised it, if it hadn't been about him. MacKenzie was misinformed about Hillsborough, it is true, but he was already heading for a crisis.
MacKenzie was the editor, and the embodiment, of the Sun when it was at its zenith, from 1981 to 1994, with sales of 4 million. He presided over a culture of fury, malice and lies. It was not journalism, designed to enlighten. It was anti-journalism, designed to obscure, and he corrupted a generation of his own journalists and political discourse generally, as he created a newspaper in his own image. He was the Sun, and retrospective self-pity does not sit well with him, even as he stews at home, and calls his lawyers.
A few MacKenzie scoops, Hillsborough aside, from Chippindale and Horrie: a five-year-old boy with septicaemia and meningitis, who has no fear of danger and so constantly hurts himself, is photographed making a fist (the photographer told him to) under the headline "The worst brat in Britain". This destroys MacKenzie's own fantasy that he was a kind of screaming Robin Hood, for the weak against the strong, a bulwark against corrupt politicians and hedonistic (that is to say, gay) celebrities. His homophobia was all-consuming. Stories included these: straight people can't get Aids; Elton John uses rent boys; Aids is a "gay plague"; Peter Tatchell goes to gay Olympics (this was splashed when Tatchell was running for Labour in the Bermondsey byelection in 1983. MacKenzie knew it wasn't true when he published it; he just put "goes to gay Olympics" in quotation marks). None of the above stories were true.
Then there was his politics. The "barmy left" narrative did not begin under MacKenzie – it was David English at the Daily Mail who created it – but he inflated it, like a wild balloon. He ran stories about children being banned from singing Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. The rights groups and the left are still tainted by the ghost of this nonsense. He employed a psychiatrist to assess Tony Benn and printed the "results": Benn was apparently "insane". In the 1987 general election campaign, mediums were employed to contact dead leaders and ask their voting preferences. The only ghost to endorse Labour was Joseph Stalin; Genghis Khan was a "don't know". MacKenzie often claimed to protect "the people" – like Charles Foster Kane, he talked of the people as if he owned them – but he did more to corrupt political debate than anyone.
There was an entire culture of dishonesty at the Sun, known in the trade as "Let's fudge it". MacKenzie told Harry Arnold, his royal reporter, to get a Monday splash about the royals, no matter what. "Don't worry if it's not true," he says in Stick It Up Your Punter, "so long as there's not too much of a fuss about it afterwards." The wealthy sued, but it usually didn't matter; the papers had already been sold. And the obscure? They couldn't afford to sue.
There was invasion into privacy too, a phenomenon that has led to Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant wandering around the Liberal Democrat conference last week, campaigning with Hacked Off for an end to press intrusion. MacKenzie published a deathbed shot of David Niven and put the victim of the Ealing vicarage rape on the front page as she went to church, with only a black bar across her eyes. "Why do it?" his colleagues asked. "Why not?" MacKenzie replied. He always pushed the line – he called it bravery.
Tabloids can, and do, produce great journalism; the schism between broadsheet (good) and tabloid (bad) is an invention, born of snobbery and ignorance, perpetrated by people who read them not at all, or far too much. MacKenzie's "soaraway" Sun was something different. MacKenzie destroyed his own reputation years before Hillsborough. That is the headline, although he would phrase it differently.
Twitter: @TanyaGold1 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2013/jun/25/vault-england-le-tournoi-france-1997 | Football | 2013-06-25T09:08:00.000Z | Paul Campbell | From the Vault: recalling how England won Le Tournoi de France in 1997 | In the same way that every World Cup offers Fifa an opportunity to make some money, each passing tournament also gives England a chance to end their “years of hurt”. Frank Skinner and David Baddiel coined the phrase back in 1996 to commemorate the 30 years of disappointment England suffered after winning the World Cup in 1966. When the comedians returned to milk their Three Lions single before France 98, the words changed to “no more years of hurt”. Presumably the songwriters couldn’t bear the thought of doing the maths; or maybe the number 32 didn’t fit so well with their poetic metre.
Either way, England will have gone 48 years without winning a major international trophy by the time the World Cup kicks off in Sao Paulo next summer. As things stand, just qualifying for the tournament will be an achievement for Roy Hodgson’s team. No one seriously believes they can win it, so, to save the embarrassment of looking back on nearly half a century of broken hopes, England fans should savour what blessings they can find.
Now that the Confederations Cup is classified as a tournament worth winning, England supporters should revisit their past and make more of their minor triumphs on the international stage. They are proud holders of the Rous Cup, which was won most recently in 1989 thanks to a fine 2-0 victory over Scotland and a goalless draw against Chile. Only 15,628 people turned up to watch England play Chile at Wembley, but a trophy is a trophy, even if few supporters watch it being lifted.
Memories of the Rous Cup are unlikely to pacify England fans, but they should make more of their triumph in Le Tournoi de France, a competition that served as a warm-up to the 1998 World Cup. England beat France and Italy on their way to winning it, with Ian Wright, Paul Scholes and Alan Shearer scoring their goals.
It was a happy time for the England football team, who looked capable of putting together a challenge at the forthcoming World Cup. Paul Wilson watched England play in Nantes, Montpellier and Paris and was keen to praise the England manager: “The first year of Glenn Hoddle’s reign has been characterised by better results and fortune than experienced by any of his predecessors dating back to Alf Ramsey. How you get to be so lucky is of course the essence of management. You don’t do it by just keeping your fingers crossed. Hoddle is lucky in the sense that he has Shearer, one of the most coveted strikers in world football, at his disposal, but much of the rest is down to man-management, at which he appears adept.”
Hoddle would show tactical intelligence later in the year when England traveled to Italy to secure their place in the World Cup, but he was fortunate to possess a bunch of players that would make Hodgson jealous. Shearer was his captain and obvious star, but he was well supported by Wright, Teddy Sheringham and Andy Cole in attack. Paul Scholes, Paul Gasgoigne and David Beckham provided creativity from midfield, with Paul Ince shielding a defence that contained Sol Campbell, Gareth Southgate and the Neville brothers. With David Seaman in goal and strong support cast that included Stuart Pearce, Graeme Le Saux, Martin Keown and Nigel Martyn, Hoddle possessed a squad capable of beating the best teams in the world (in friendlies).
England 2-0 Italy
For France, the Tournoi was a warm-up event for the World Cup; for England, it provided practice for a World Cup qualifier. To make it to France 98, England would have to go to Rome in October 1997 and secure at least a draw against Italy. From that perspective, Le Tournoi provided England with a vital lift, as David Lacey reported from Nantes:
England 2-0 Italy: a positive step on the road to Rome By David Lacey
L’Equipe summed up England’s exhilarating but unexpected 2-0 victory over Italy in the Tournoi de France in Nantes on Wednesday night thus: “Chics, ces Anglais!” Which only goes to show how limitless football ‘s capacity for surprises continues to be.
For among the many words that might have been employed to describe the performance of an England team containing such luminaries as Martin Keown, Stuart Pearce and Teddy Sheringham, “chic” would not readily have sprung to mind. Call Paul Ince “chic” and he would probably give you a funny look.
Yet yesterday’s L’Equipe got it right to the extent that England ‘s first win over Italy for 20 years was achieved by playing football which was certainly radical chic. Glenn Hoddle’s highly experimental side blended a caucus of Manchester United youth with some Premiership wrinklies to produce one of the most stylish performances seen from an England team since Ron Greenwood’s side went to Barcelona shortly before the 1980 European Championship and defeated Spain by a similar score.
The principal difference is that whereas Greenwood fielded most of his first choices at Nou Camp – Ray Wilkins, Kevin Keegan, Steve Coppell, Trevor Francis and Tony Woodcock – Hoddle used the match against Italy to try out a system previously seen only in training and did so, moreover, with an untried team.
He was rewarded with several excellent individual performances. Pearce, himself outstanding, reckoned yesterday that he had never seen a better full international debut than that of the 22-year-old Paul Scholes, whose inspired long pass set up the opening goal for Ian Wright after 25 minutes. Wright returned the favour shortly before half-time.
By playing Phil Neville wide on the right and moving David Beckham inside, Hoddle gained the pace and perception of the former while widening the latter’s scope for those raking, crossfield passes which are part of Beckham’s stock-in-trade. Then Gary Neville came off the bench for Graeme Le Saux, moving to right wing-back with his brother switching flanks.
“We played with one up (Wright) and two little inside-forwards (Beckham and Scholes) and it worked a treat,” said Hoddle. “It takes good players to do that. We’ve worked at this system in training over the last 12 months but until now we haven’t been able to put it into a match situation. This is what this tournament’s all about, looking at new players, new shapes and systems.”
“I didn’t expect to be in the squad so soon,” said Scholes. “But I wasn’t nervous. It’s just something that doesn’t seem to bother me.”
“The way we played in the first half,” said Beckham, “with our one-touch football , has made people sit up. Nerves? No. We play so many big games for United, every one a cup final, you don’t get the chance to feel nervous. And we’ve all grown up together.”
Beating Italy in a tournament designed as a dry run for the French World Cup organisers before next summer’s real thing can hardly be related to what might happen when England go to Rome in October, but Cesare Maldini and his players will be feeling decidedly less sanguine than they did after Gianfranco Zola’s goal won them the game at Wembley in February. For Maldini senior it was the first defeat since he took over as coach from Arrigo Sacchi.
England 1-0 France
France became the sixth hosts to win a World Cup when Zidedine Zidane knocked in two headers and Emmanuel Petit strolled through the Brazil defence to give them a 3-0 victory in the 1998 final. Asides from their lack of an obvious goalscorer, that France team was almost perfect, but they were not overly fancied before the competition began. France had not qualified for Italia 90 and the arguments provoked by their failure to qualify for USA 94 were far from resolved. Nevertheless, when David Lacey watched England beat them in Montpellier, things seems to be aligning for Hoddle and his team:
Shearer paints picture of an English renaissance By David Lacey
If this is a false English dawn, then clearly somebody is a dab hand at forging Constable landscapes. Glenn Hoddle’s team continue to rewrite history. England are no longer about Euro 96 and all that. Only nine days ago no England side had won in Poland for 31 years, Italy had not been beaten for 20 and France had not lost to an English side on French soil since 1949. Records may be there to be broken but Hoddle’s players have just wrecked an entire HMV store.
The latest success in the Tournoi de France was achieved in the Stade de la Mosson in Montpellier on Saturday night. Alan Shearer punished a fumble by Fabien Barthez four minutes from time to give England a 1-0 win and the French their first home defeat since losing to Bulgaria in a World Cup qualifier in Paris in November 1993.
Hoddle calls Shearer his “cutting edge”. Some understatement: were Shearer a knife, he would be banned in public places. It was Gary Lineker who observed that “goals come in bunches”. His most prolific spell for England came during the 1990-91 season and the tour of Australasia that followed. Four goals against Malaysia brought his total to 10 in 10 appearances. Shearer has now topped this with 11 in 11. Not only that, he is a more complete footballer than Lineker, as consistent a goal-provider as he is a goal-taker more of a Geoff Hurst in fact.
If England do return to France for the World Cup next summer and Shearer is still in this sort of form, all things will be possible. “Alan has got everything,” Hoddle said. “He’s got the right temperament. With him, for all the praise he receives, it’s just a matter of going on to the next game.”
In the case of Shearer and England, the next game is against Brazil at the Parc des Princes tomorrow night. England have beaten Brazil only three times in 18 meetings going back to 1956. Their last win was at Wembley in 1990. Such is the mood of optimism among Hoddle’s players that anything is possible now.
Graeme le Saux remembered similar vibes when Blackburn Rovers won the championship in 1994-95. “There’s something you need to be successful, something you can’t coach. You become protective of each other as a team. It’s like an aura.”
Le Saux, like David Beckham, is suspended for the Brazil match, having received a second yellow card in Montpellier. He was cautioned for a foul on Marc Keller Beckham, absurdly, for refusing to board the stretcher for a five-yard journey to the touchline to receive treatment after a tackle by Patrick Vieira.
Past World Cups have been littered with the eccentricities of North African referees, and if England do qualify this time then they can afford to be charitable and regard the Moroccan Said Belqola as part of the learning process. He, presumably, would have carded Lazarus for taking up his bed and walking.
Bookings apart, the victory, though less spectacular than the 2-0 win against Italy in Nantes three nights earlier, was nearly as satisfying in a different way. Sol Campbell looks a better international defender with every game and Hoddle was pleased with the defensive discipline shown by Beckham and Paul Gascoigne in protecting the back three.
With Paul Ince’s midfield thrust replacing David Batty’s passive passing, Gascoigne improved after half-time. He stopped trying to put the ball through the legs of worldly wise opponents and concentrated more on his passing. Gascoigne and Beckham found the quality of pass or cross to expose the defence, although it was a centre from Le Saux that found Shearer rising at the far post 10 minutes before half-time for a header which drew an excellent save from Barthez.
Six minutes later, after Beckham’s through ball had sent Shearer clear, the England captain’s cross left Ian Wright with just Barthez to beat but his shot hit the goalkeeper’s body and ricocheted over. Just past the hour, after Beckham’s searching centre, Barthez dropped smartly on another header from Shearer, and by then Christophe Dugarry had twice gone close enough to suggest France could win the game.
Yet the French attack lacked an ability to pick a pocket or two, and this was what decided Saturday’s outcome. Shearer accepted a pass from Gascoigne and immediately found Teddy Sheringham, who had just come on for Wright, in space on the right.
As Sheringham drove the ball across low, it took a deflection off Bixente Lizarazu, one of the French substitutes, which possibly confused Barthez. The keeper allowed it to slip through his grasp, and that left Shearer to grab the unexpected gift.
Poland was serious, these are just war games, and England still have to meet Italy in Rome in the World Cup. But as Hoddle said: “With good results and good performances, you get respect from other teams. Sometimes people give Brazil too much respect. They think they’ve come from another planet. Maybe we have to start looking at ourselves rather than Brazil.”
England 0-1 Brazil
Of course, this being England, reality was always going to strike at some point. England won the tournament with their victories over Italy and France, but they were well beaten by Brazil. The old uncertainties came back. England were overly reliant on their main striker; they struggled to keep the ball; and, like every other team in international football, they were susceptible to a toe-poke from Romário.
England revival as delicate as a glass football By David Lacey
The glass football that England bore home in the early hours of yesterday morning, the winners’ trophy from the Tournoi de France, was tangible evidence of the success Glenn Hoddle has achieved in his first year as coach to the national team. It was also a reminder of how fragile a commodity new-found optimism can be.
By any yardstick Hoddle has done well since he took over the England squad from Terry Venables when the nation was still abuzz after Euro 96. It is to his credit that, 12 months on, England are looking forward in expectation rather than back to what might have been. Under Hoddle, England have won nine matches out of 11, and the victory in Poland 12 days ago has revived the team’s chances of qualifying directly for next year’s World Cup finals.
A great deal now rests on the result in Rome on October 11, when England will try to reverse their defeat by Italy at Wembley in February. Brazil could not deprive England of their pretty French bauble in Parc des Princes on Tuesday night, but the 1-0 win by the World Cup holders was a timely reminder to Hoddle and his players about the task ahead.
The principal message from the Brazil match was that, if Alan Shearer does not score, England’s alternative match-winning options are thin indeed above a certain level. It was the same against Italy at Wembley, and beating the Italians 2-0 in Nantes last week, when Shearer was kept out of the firing line, did not alter the basic fact.
If England qualify, Hoddle will be heavily reliant on Shearer, Paul Ince and David Seaman each surviving the 1997-98 season without serious injury. Those three players represent the core of England’s ambition, and the loss of one or more of them would be a body blow to the coach’s plans.
Then there is Paul Gascoigne, who in the Tournoi de France demonstrated that he can still perform for 90 minutes at international level – although questions about his true value remain unanswered. Hoddle’s faith in him is admirable but if England qualify it will be important that David Beckham, suspended for the Brazil game, and Paul Scholes emerge in a year’s time as serious prospects for what is going to be a long and demanding 32-nation tournament.
England’s main gains from the Tournoi de France have been in defence, where Sol Campbell now wears the look of a genuine international footballer and Southgate has become more of the player he was under Venables. In Phil Neville England have potentially a genuine wing-back although against Brazil he did not look quite the finished article.
For Hoddle an important benefit of this summer’s exercise has been to work with his squad for three and a half weeks uncluttered by club commitments, a problem that is bound to arise next season when the programme will be busier than ever.
At least the coach appears to be happy within himself. Graham Taylor completed his first year in office by complaining that the England job did not command enough respect. “When I was Chelsea manager, looking on from the outside, it looked a very difficult job,” said Hoddle, “and it is just that. But it’s one I’m enjoying and taking a lot of pride in. The ups are very high and the downs very down but I’ve got a good family behind me and that is the most important thing, whether you’re up or down.”
The less Hoddle’s family see of him over the next year will be a measure of how well things are going for England, and so much depends on what has happened by the time he returns home from Rome.
The aftermath
On the Sunday after England returned home from France, Amy Lawrence wrote in the Observer about a new closeness among the England squad: “Luton Airport may not have been the scene of tearful partings when England arrived home from the Tournoi, but the lads had forged a strong enough bond to suggest a few heartfelt hugs and a bientots weren’t out of place.
“In going their disparate ways to be reunited with their folks, Glenn Hoddle’s squad were leaving a second family behind. Before we know it they will be entering the world’s sporting arenas holding hands. Brazil, the team who ended England’s six-match winning streak, do precisely that, so perhaps it’s another detail for Hoddle to mull over in the weeks before he organises his next reunion.”
There was much praise for Hoddle, who was keen to share the compliments with his staff. When asked about England’s disciplinary record, the manager was happy enough to crack a joke: “Just for once, it’s nice to miss out on the Fair Play Award but win the actual tournament.”
That sanguine approach to his team’s disciplinary record would be gone within a year, when Hoddle would find himself bemoaning a costly red card given to David Beckham in England’s defeat to Argentina at the World Cup. Beckham had missed England’s final match in Le Tournoi due to suspension, but Hoddle did not seem too concerned. The player was distraught: “I was gutted. Playing against Brazil is every player’s dream.” He did not learn from his mistake quickly enough.
In other post-tournament news, Hoddle sent out a warning to Paul Gascoigne, who was playing for Rangers at the time. L’Equipe reported that the manager had criticised Gascoigne’s lack of focus: “Paul no longer thinks of football as a priority in his life. Today football comes fourth in his list of interests. He thinks too much about money and is beset by personal problems. It’s time the penny dropped. If not, I’ll wash my hands of him.”
Hoddle claimed the quotes had been mangled to misrepresent him. Perhaps he should have been a bit more forthright. A sterner warning may have pushed Gascoigne harder and saved him from the anguish he experienced the following summer, when Hoddle rejected him on the eve of the World Cup finals and was nearly clobbered for it. Gascoigne, who reacted like a “man possessed”, later admitted: “I went to the wardrobe and kicked the door in. Then I overturned the table, smashing a pottery vase. I didn’t try to hit Hoddle, though I’d have liked to.”
All in all, 1997 was to prove an apex for England. They could look back on a successful Euro 96 with pride, look forward to the 1998 World Cup with hope, delight in their performance away in Rome and feel united by their success in France. Le Tournoi is not quite the World Cup, but at least it broke up the years of hurt.
Read other stories From the Vault and share your memories below | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jan/12/computer-gaming-whats-happening-2014 | Games | 2014-01-12T10:00:02.000Z | Chris Dring | Computer gaming: what's trending in 2014 | PS4 v Xbox One: Second Round
The epic showdown between PlayStation and Xbox over Christmas saw PS4 come out on top as the UK's No 1 console. This year, the gloves are off. PlayStation will hope to stay ahead with games such as DriveClub and Infamous. But Xbox believes it has the edge thanks to blockbuster shooters Titanfall, below, and Halo 5. It's going to be competitive, with big advertising campaigns and major game reveals.
PC gaming invades the living room
PC games giant Steam will launch its own console next year. Actually, it will release several consoles. These "Steam machines" are PCs that have been designed to play on the TV in the living room, and will come with a specially crafted controller. This uses special touch pads, and if the early buzz proves right it could become the "standard" gamepad for all PC games, which could allow PC gaming to go toe-to-toe with Xbox and PlayStation this year.
Prices rising
The cost of games keeps on rising, and it's the gamers who will have to pay. The price of blockbuster games in hard-copy form are already increasing slightly, but there will also be more games that encourage players to pay real money to unlock items more quickly. Major Xbox racing title Forza 5, right, for instance, lets players unlock cars faster by paying, and these sorts of microtransactions will only become more prevalent this year. On the plus side, expect more smaller, cheaper games, too.
Wii U to bounce back?
Actually, the answer's probably that it won't. Nintendo Wii U has sold so poorly in its first year that PS4 outsold it in just two days. But a price cut this year should help, as will a number of promising big titles, including Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Brothers.
New games, new ideas
Forget Call of Duty and FIFA, 2014 will be a year for entirely new games to come to the fore. There will be more new IP from major game makers than we've seen for almost half a decade. The team behind Halo are creating online action game, Destiny, the developers of Call of Duty are preparing the aforementioned multiplayer shooter Titanfall for a March release, while the publisher of Assassin's Creed will launch a sci-fi thriller called Watch Dogs in the spring. And that's just scratching the surface of the new brands coming in 2014.
The rise of eSports
Overall, 32 million people watched The League of Legends gaming finals online (peaking with 8.5 million at the same time) on 4 October last year. That's not Super Bowl or Champions League levels, but professional gaming (or eSports) is growing rapidly and attracting serious money from big-name sponsors such as Coca-Cola and Red Bull. Professional gaming is now starting to take off in Britain too, and this could be the year when we see our first UK eSports superstar. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2016/jul/21/gin-tour-northern-ireland-strangford-lough | Travel | 2016-07-21T05:30:00.000Z | Glenn Patterson | Road to ruin: a gin tour of Northern Ireland | Cards on the table here: I have been led astray by strong drink.
A few weeks back, waiting to be served at the Woodworkers Tap Room on Belfast’s Bradbury Place, I heard someone order a Jawbox, a name once associated with Belfast sinks, but apparently now shared with a craft gin, conceived in Belfast but distilled, the bartender told me, in County Down, at Echlinville Estate, outside Kircubbin on the west coast of Strangford Lough.
Next day I asked a friend whose in-laws lived out that way whether he knew the distillery. “Never heard of it,” he said, then added, “that road, mind you, is full of surprises.” Which was all the invitation I needed, that and the vague notion that Northern Ireland’s only other gin – Shortcross – was being distilled in County Down, too, on the opposite side of Strangford Lough. Sometimes the less you go looking for the more you find.
Finding Strangford Lough
Tourist numbers continue to rise in Northern Ireland, but for many visitors “seeing the sights” means the Antrim coast – Giant’s Causeway, Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge – Titanic Belfast, with a twist these days of Game of Thrones, and maybe a Troubles taxi tour. And no harm in that, but even so …
The view across Strangford Lough towards the Mourne Mountains
Strangford Lough separates the Ards peninsula – that leg dangling into the Irish Sea – from the west of County Down, and ends, where most Belfast people would probably tell you it begins, just south of Newtownards. The road from Belfast takes you pretty much the route that travellers have followed since the stone age: down from the Antrim hills, crossing the river Lagan at its most easily forded point (the foot of Belfast’s present-day High Street) and on out east, past the Parliament Buildings at Stormont and the suburb of Dundonald, which long ago ate the picturesque village of the same name. Up a hill it goes, then down to Newtownards where there are roundabouts to negotiate, the inevitable Tesco superstore, before, just beyond the Ulster Flying Club, you catch your first glimpse of water.
Instantly the road narrows to two lanes – sea wall hard by the one on the right – and stays that way for the 20 miles to Portaferry, where the mouth of the lough comes within a whisper of closing on Strangford village.
A sign a little way out of Newtownards reads, “Strangford and Lecale Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.” It is perhaps the only ugly thing on the entire stretch and surely the most unnecessary, although if I told you the ingredients you might well shrug: low-rise countryside on one side of the road, that wall and the lough immediately beyond it on the other, the far shore always visible with, to the south, the outline of the Mourne mountains.
Beauty mark … sign on the Portaferry Road
The effect is more beguiling than breathtaking, but it builds and – through Greyabbey, then Kircubbin – builds. The turn off for Echlinville Distillery is about half a mile outside Kircubbin: left at the bus shelter is the best direction I can give, there being, as yet, no signpost. If you find yourself at the Saltwater Brig bar, turn about, but not necessarily straight away. Go in, enjoy the seafood – all locally caught, locally as in Portavogie, on the outside leg of the peninsula, but since that’s only a few miles away no one would argue – or maybe just reserve a table for tomorrow, when according to the blackboard outside there will be free beer.
Echlinville Distillery
Echlinville is a B1-listed house by Charles Lanyon, Belfast’s leading Victorian architect. Lynn and Shane Braniff bought it during the recession and began the distillery by reviving the historic Dunville Whiskey name. They have since crafted their own whiskey, or what will be their own whiskey once the three years and a day stipulated by the whiskey gods have passed. They’ve been at the gin since 2015, growing and malting their own barley, making Jawbox, Ireland’s only single-estate gin. More recently they created an Echlinville Gin, flavoured with whin (gorse) and seaweed, which they have sold into Fortnum & Mason. There was a box on the floor the day I was there. “That’s the Echlinville,” said Suzanne, one of the staff of six, who was showing me round. “Right,” I said. “No,” she said, “I mean that’s all of it.”
The Echlinville House & Distillery on the Gransha Road, Portaferry
Even the Echlinville tours (£15pp) are craft: one group of 12, the first Saturday of every month. Mine was met by Lynn herself (in the library) as well as Suzanne and Graeme the distiller, who introduced us to the Echlinville still, a contraption of such copper and glass wonder – helmets, swan necks, line arms and two enormous rectifying columns – that you half expect Gene Wilder to pop out Willy Wonka-like from behind it. There are plans for a dedicated visitors’ centre in the courtyard, even overnight accommodation. For now, if you intended to make a night of it your best bet would be to carry on to Portaferry.
Portaferry
The Portaferry Hotel (doubles from £80 B&B) occupies a large corner site overlooking the harbour. Again Portavogie features prominently in the seafood menu, along with Portaferry cockles and mussels. It seemed only fitting that I should order a Jawbox with my dinner – butternut squash gnocchi. A case, I admit, of matching food to drink, but before you question my judgement, try it. Either they were out, though, or they never had it in. They did have Shortcross, served up (as recommended) in a brandy glass.
Match of the day … Glenn’s lunch of butternut squash gnocchi – paired with a glass of gin
“Gin makes you sin,” a woman said as I sat next to her.
I told her with me it was more like sing, although some would say that is sin enough.
The hotel is barely a minute’s walk from the ferry that will take you the half-mile across the lough to Strangford village. The ferry goes back and forth from 7.45am to 10.45pm (11.15pm on Saturday, 7.30am to 10.30pm/11pm in the opposite direction). The eight-minute crossing takes you within spitting distance of the tidal turbine – a world’s first when it started generating power for Strangford and Portaferry in 2008, though it has now been decommissioned. Shorn now of its enormous wings, the turbine resembles an oversized red-and-black buoy. John who maintains the ferry told me conservationists and marine experts were arguing over how to remove it, this lot saying it needed chopped off at the foot, that lot that it had to be dug right out. “There’ll be big money involved either way,” John said: divers only have 20 minutes to work in-between the tide finishing coming in and starting to go out.
The Cuan, Strangford
Cuan Guesthouse
Strangford’s population is about a fifth of Portaferry’s, much of it concentrated in an arc around the ferry landing. The Cuan Guesthouse (doubles from £95 B&B) is almost the first building you come to on the left-hand side. If you time your arrival right, you might be fortunate enough to find yourself in the company of Marie-Therese Brownlee and Sarah FitzSimons, aka Mrs B and Sally, aged 92 and “a dyslexic 78” respectively, sisters who have been coming in every day for the last 11 years.
In the course of the lunch that I spent next to them (scampi to beat the band, though the signature dish is chowder), the conversation ranged over the spelling of the solfège syllables (do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do), misspelt, Mrs B contended, on the programme of a production of the Sound of Music, whether colliding with a man walking down the middle of the street with a herd of cows while reading his newspaper could be considered driving without due care and diligence and why exactly the door to the function room was open when they were being “blown away”. (It was over 20 degrees outside and hardly a breath of air.) Dale McKibbin, the bar manager, commiserated with me that I didn’t get a bit of poetry thrown in.
You could happily spend the hours between lunch and dinner in the Cuan and, having eaten again, sit on into the night – it has accommodation too, although if by then you wanted a change of scenery and had the wit to book in advance there are camping pods from £38 a night at Castle Ward, a couple of miles out of Strangford. Castle Ward is one of three National Trust properties flanking the lough (Mountstewart, near Greyabbey, and Rowallen are the others), and has doubled in recent years as Winterfell in Game of Thrones.
The magical ‘Game of Thrones’ door at the Cuan Guesthouse
The roads this side of the lough, I get the sense, are a little more travelled by the tour buses; even the Cuan boasts a Game of Thrones door. Turning left beyond Strangford will take you, by way of Ardglass, to Coney Island, which besides inspiring that Van Morrison track (“Wouldn’t it be great if it was like this all the time?”), provided the location for Terry George’s 2012 Oscar-winning short, The Shore. My mission, though, required me to stick to the Strangford shore for as long as possible, heading north to Killyleagh then inland to Crossgar.
Shortcross Distillery
Fiona Boyd-Armstrong of the Rademon Estate Distillery, maker of Shortcross gin, had given me directions involving a left turn at a filling station at Crossgar (the “short” in Shortcross derives from “gar” in old Irish), an injunction to ignore one set of gates a mile down the road, but turn left again shortly after and (another quarter mile) left again before the humpback bridge and the tree in the middle of the road. A direction, that last, you would want to follow to the letter.
Fiona’s parents own the 500-acre Rademon estate on which she and husband David started the distillery in 2012. David himself is the Shortcross distiller. He grew up between two former Belfast distilleries – Avoniel and Connswater – and told me the city in the early 1900s produced 40% of all whiskey drunk on these islands. Which made me think there was a marker being set down here, the rebirth of a tradition. (Rademon like Echlinville is counting down the 1,068 days to the Declaration of Whiskey.) Rademon’s visitor centre is already built – the entrance via a stunning slate porch – and tours will start later this year, though not, David stressed, “like Bushmills: on the hour every hour”. This is still a small-scale family operation: small enough that Fiona’s brother-in-law was signing the labels in the bottling room when I passed through; small enough that when they were taking their first batch of Shortcross out to potential customers they didn’t even have a box to put the bottles in.
I don’t know whether the tours will take in all of Rademon estate – from what I saw it rivals any of the neighbouring National Trust properties – but on a rise just beyond the distillery an obelisk is clearly visible, a monument to a previous owner, William Sharman Crawford, a Chartist, champion of Catholic emancipation, founder of the Ulster Tenant Right Association, and a reminder that politics here, like the roads along Strangford Lough, sometimes contains welcome surprises.
Back to Belfast
I finished my own tour back in Belfast, in Muriel’s Cafe Bar, with a Jawbox served “the Belfast way” with ginger ale, lime and a wedge of honeycomb. Later in the Crown Bar (OK, I didn’t finish in Muriel’s), I bumped into a group of Canadians who had arrived earlier in the day from Dublin. I asked them what they had seen so far. Giant’s Causeway, they said, Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge. And tomorrow? Black Taxi Troubles tour, Titanic, back to Dublin.
In the nicest possible way, I wanted to say they didn’t know what they were missing. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2013/jan/29/scarfe-netanyahu-cartoon-offensive-hurrah | Art and design | 2013-01-29T18:30:02.000Z | Martin Rowson | Scarfe's Netanyahu cartoon was offensive? Hurrah | Igreeted news of Rupert Murdoch's apology for an allegedly antisemitic cartoon by Gerald Scarfe in the Sunday Times with a sigh of deep weariness. But before we get up to our oxters in the guts of my foul craft, let's pick some of the bones out of this latest scandal. Note, first, that Murdoch's apology was to Binyamin Netanyahu personally, as one member of the global elite showing solidarity to another. Remember, also, that Bibi is a favourite posterboy for Murdoch's brand of neo-conservative cheerleading.
As to Scarfe's cartoon specifically, it seems to me almost identical to every other blood-spattered pictorial lament for man's inhumanity to man he's knocked out over the past 40 years. Except in this case, because of the subject matter and the timing – on Holocaust memorial day – the trademark Scarfean gore could, if you chose, have wider ramifications. And so it has proved.
If, like me and other cartoonists, you've produced cartoons critical of the actions of the state of Israel and then received thousands of emails, most of which read "Fuck off you antisemitic cunt", you tend to get a bit jaded. But over the years I've received similar responses – and worse, including death threats – from Muslims, Catholics, US Republicans, US Democrats, Serbs, atheists and the obese, as well as from supporters of Israel. After a while, the uniformity of the response can tempt you into thinking that this is all contrived and orchestrated, and certainly a lot of it is.
But then again, you may know that the standard complaint – "This is the most disgracefully antisemitic cartoon to be published since the closure of Der Stürmer" – can only be made because Julius Streicher's foul Nazi rag regularly published the vilest antisemitic cartoons imaginable, which prepared the ground for and then cheered on the greatest crime in human history. In the long shadow of the Holocaust, perhaps it's just about understandable – if not forgivable – that each time I drew Ariel Sharon, a fat man with a big nose, as being fat and having a big nose, it was therefore considered reasonable for me to be equated with mass murderers.
The responses, though, probably have more to do with the nature of the medium than its content. Visual satire is a dark, primitive magic. On top of the universal propensity to laugh at those in power over us, cartoons add something else: the capacity to capture someone's likeness, recreate them through caricature, and thereby take control of them. This is voodoo – though the sharp instrument with which you damage your victim at a distance is a pen. None of this is benign. It's meant to ridicule and demean, and almost all political cartooning is assassination without the blood.
But add to that the way we consume this stuff and you get the perfect recipe for offence. In newspapers, cartoons squat like gargoyles on top of the columns, and while you nibble your way through the columnists' prose for several minutes, you swallow the cartoon whole in seconds. The internet has also changed things. British cartoonists find their work being consumed, via the web, by people in nations who haven't had more than 300 years of rude portrayals of the elite.
When Steve Bell and I first had our cartoons for the Guardian published online, many Americans would recoil in horror at our depictions of their president. Steve and I got many emails pointing out that Bush was their head of state, deserved some respect, and then asked if we'd ever depict our royal family in the same disgraceful way.
At that point, of course, you pull back the curtain on Gillray's depictions of George III shitting on the French fleet. Indeed, in the mid-1780s, the French ambassador warned Versailles that Britain was teetering on the verge of another revolution, 150 years after they'd last cut off their king's head. His evidence? The kiosks stretching down the Strand, all selling satirical prints depicting the royals in the most disrespectful and disgusting ways imaginable.
That he was wholly wrong should, perhaps, give the armies of the offended pause, even if other cartoons – like the filth in Der Stürmer – have misused the voodoo.
You need, in the end, to apply the simple acid test for satire – as well as journalism: does it comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable? True, the Nazis used cartoons, but so has everyone else, from Stalin's Soviet Union to Iran today.
Iran countered the Danish Mohammed cartoons with their own joking about the Holocaust. But that's not satire, because state-sponsored satire is the ultimate oxymoron.
And speaking of Nazis, Hitler was a huge fan of the Evening Standard's David Low. The Express cartoonist Carl Giles, then a war cartoonist, was given a Luger as a souvenir by the Commandant of Belsen after its liberation because the man was a huge fan of his cartoons. Of course, after Hitler got into power and Low started, beautifully, to take the piss, Low, along with his cartooning colleagues Illingworth, Vicky and even Heath Robinson, was placed on the Gestapo's deathlist. (In fact, Vicky got it from all directions: a cartoon for Beaverbrook's Evening Standard in the 1950s calling for the abolition of the death penalty so enraged a doctor in Harrow that he wrote to the paper lamenting the fact that Vicky and his family managed to escape from Nazi Germany 25 years earlier.)
Which gets us back to Scarfe. As the Israeli paper Haaretz has already observed (arguing the cartoon isn't antisemitic at all), if Scarfe had spent the last 50 years solely offending Israel, his critics might have a point. The fact is, he, like the rest of us, is there to offend everyone. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/20/rishi-sunak-accused-economic-illiteracy-pledge-block-onshore-windfarms | Politics | 2022-07-20T10:51:23.000Z | Peter Walker | Sunak accused of ‘economic illiteracy’ over pledge to block onshore windfarms | Opposition parties have accused Rishi Sunak of “economic illiteracy” and a lack of seriousness over the climate emergency after he announced a plan for the UK to become energy independent while at the same time making it harder to use onshore wind.
Before the fifth and final round of MPs’ voting for the Conservative party leadership on Wednesday, the former chancellor set out what he called an “energy sovereignty strategy”, intended to achieve UK energy independence by 2045 at the latest.
Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss reach final two of Tory leadership race – as it happened
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But in the same announcement, Sunak pledged that as prime minister he would make it more difficult to build onshore windfarms in England.
Ministers had been considering a relaxation of planning rules for onshore wind that were tightened under David Cameron’s government in 2014 following pressure from Tory activists who disliked wind turbines in rural areas. The view is shared by a number of Conservative MPs.
The 2014 change required more local consultation and acted as a de facto halt on new developments in England. Planning rules vary across UK nations.
The possible relaxation was potentially part of an energy independence plan, unveiled in April, which opted not to change the planning rules but did say the government would look at offering communities cheaper electricity bills in return for their consent for windfarms.
But Wednesday’s announcement by Sunak’s campaign said: “In recognition of the distress and disruption that onshore windfarms can often cause, Rishi has also promised to scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore windfarms in England, providing certainty to rural communities.”
Instead, he would put the 2045 self-sufficiency target into law and split up the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, creating a new secretary of state for energy sovereignty. Offshore wind would be prioritised as well; this tends to be more expensive than onshore developments and takes longer to build.
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Sunak said: “Wind energy will be an important part of our strategy, but I want to reassure communities that as prime minister I would scrap plans to relax the ban on onshore wind in England, instead focusing on building more turbines offshore.”
Ed Miliband, the shadow climate change secretary, said: “As Britain boils in an unprecedented heatwave, it is economic illiteracy and unilateral economic disarmament in the fight against the climate crisis that Rishi Sunak wants to keep the ban on onshore wind.
“Anyone with such dangerous views is not a serious candidate for high office. But this is the reality: a Conservative leadership race in which candidates have engaged in fantasy climate denial that will lead to higher energy bills, damage our security and burdens future generations with extreme weather events.”
Wera Hobhouse, the Liberal Democrat climate change and energy spokesperson, said: “Just a day after the UK’s hottest ever day, and with soaring energy bills, Rishi Sunak has shown that he is completely out of touch with reality.
“Any supposed energy security strategy without onshore wind simply makes no sense. The plan flies in the face of any energy security plan and chooses to ignore climate change. This plan not only flies in the face of energy security but completely misunderstands climate change and its terrible impacts.
“Onshore wind sites can be up and running, providing low-cost clean power for bill payers, in around a year. Not only is Rishi Sunak failing to grasp climate change but he is ruling out a key tool to bring down people’s energy bills as quickly as next year.”
A source within Sunak’s campaign said offshore wind prices had fallen to record lows, and that in one recent auction it was less than that for onshore. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/08/teach-children-survive-ai | Opinion | 2023-07-08T09:00:11.000Z | George Monbiot | How we can teach children so they survive AI – and cope with whatever comes next | George Monbiot | “F
rom one day to the next, our profession was wiped out. We woke up and discovered our skills were redundant.” This is what two successful graphic designers told me about the impact of AI. The old promise – creative workers would be better protected than others from mechanisation – imploded overnight. If visual artists can be replaced by machines, who is safe?
There’s no talk of a “just transition” for graphic designers, or the other professions about to be destroyed. And while there’s plenty of talk about how education might change, little has been done to equip students for a world whose conditions shift so fast. It’s not just at work that young people will confront sudden changes of state. They are also likely to witness cascading environmental breakdown and the collapse of certain human-made systems.
Why are we so unprepared? Why do we manage our lives so badly? Why are we so adept at material innovation, but so inept at creating a society in which everyone can thrive? Why do we rush to bail out the banks but stand and gawp while Earth systems collapse? Why do we permit psychopaths to govern us? Why do blatant lies spread like wildfire? Why are we better at navigating work relationships than intimate ones? What is lacking in our education that leaves such chasms in our lives?
The word education partly derives from the Latin educere: to lead out. Too often it leads us in: into old ways of thinking, into dying professions, into the planet-eating system called business as usual. Too seldom does it lead us out of our cognitive and emotional loops, out of conformity with a political and economic system that’s killing us.
I don’t claim to have definitive answers. But I believe certain principles would help. One is that rigidity is lethal. Any aspect of an education system that locks pupils in to fixed patterns of thought and action will enhance their vulnerability to rapid and massive change. For instance, there could be no worse preparation for life than England’s Standard Assessment Tests, which dominate year 6 teaching. If the testimony of other parents I know is representative, SATs are a crushing experience for the majority of pupils, snuffing out enthusiasm, forcing them down a narrow, fenced track and demanding rigidity just as their minds are seeking to blossom and expand.
The extreme demands, throughout our schooling, of tests and exams reduce the scope of our thinking. The exam system creates artificial borders, fiercely patrolled, between academic subjects. There are no such boundaries in nature. If our interdisciplinary thinking is weak, if we keep failing to see the bigger picture, it is partly because we have been trained so brutally to compartmentalise.
Education, to the greatest extent possible, should be joyful and delightful, not only because joy and delight are essential to our wellbeing, but also because we are more likely to withstand major change if we see acquiring new knowledge and skills as a fascinating challenge, not a louring threat.
There are arguments for and against a national curriculum. It’s a leveller, ensuring everyone is exposed to common standards of literacy and numeracy. It provides a defence against crank teachings such as creationism and Holocaust denial. It permits continuity when teachers leave their jobs, and a clear knowledge path from year to year. But it is highly susceptible to the crank teachings of politicians, such as the Westminster government’s insistence on drilling young children in abstruse grammatical rules, and its ridiculous tick-lists of sequential learning tasks.
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When we are taught broadly the same things in broadly the same way, we lose the resilience diversity affords. What the teachers I speak to regret most is the lack of time. The intense combined demands of the curriculum and the testing regime leave almost no time to respond to opportunities and events, or for children to develop their own interests. One teacher remarked that if a pterodactyl landed on the school roof, the children would be told to ignore it so they could finish their allotted task.
If we are to retain a national curriculum, there are certain topics it should surely cover. For instance, many students will complete their education without ever being taught the principles of complex systems. Yet everything of importance to us (the brain, body, society, ecosystems, the atmosphere, oceans, finance, the economy … ) is a complex system. Complex systems operate on radically different principles from either simple systems or complicated systems (such as car engines). When we don’t understand these principles, their behaviour takes us by surprise. The two existential threats I would place at the top of my list, ranked by a combination of likelihood, impact and imminence, are environmental breakdown and global food system collapse. Both involve complex systems being pushed beyond their critical thresholds.
Instead of enforcing boundaries between subjects, a curriculum should break them down. This is what the International Baccalaureate does. I believe this option should be available in every school.
Above all, our ability to adapt to massive change depends on what practitioners call “metacognition” and “meta-skills”. Metacognition means thinking about thinking. In a brilliant essay for the Journal of Academic Perspectives, Natasha Robson argues that while metacognition is implicit in current teaching – “show your working”, “justify your arguments” – it should be explicit and sustained. Schoolchildren should be taught to understand how thinking works, from neuroscience to cultural conditioning; how to observe and interrogate their thought processes; and how and why they might become vulnerable to disinformation and exploitation. Self-awareness could turn out to be the most important topic of all.
Meta-skills are the overarching aptitudes – such as self-development, social intelligence, openness, resilience and creativity – that help us acquire the new competencies that sudden change demands. Like metacognition, meta-skills can be taught. Unfortunately, some public bodies are trapped in the bleak and narrow instrumentalism we need to transcend. For example, after identifying empathy as a crucial meta-skill, a manual by Skills Development Scotland reports that: “Empathy has been identified as a key differentiator for business success, with companies such as Facebook, Google and Unilever being recognised as excelling in this area.” I’ve seldom read a more depressing sentence.
Schooling alone will not be enough to lead us out of the many crises and disasters we now face. Those who are adult today must take responsibility for confronting them. But it should at least lend us a torch.
George Monbiot is a Guardian columnist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/25/dump-new-labour-playbook-keir-starmer-and-set-out-programme-for-radical-change | Opinion | 2021-09-25T19:00:04.000Z | John McDonnell | Dump the New Labour playbook, Keir Starmer, and set out your programme for radical change | John McDonnell | When Jeremy Corbyn and I stood down from the leading positions in the Labour party, we agreed Keir Starmer should not be treated the way we were by some Labour MPs, doing all they could to undermine us.
Although it was a bit tongue in cheek, I said I would become an elder statesman and until this last week that is exactly the role I have tried to play, offering constructive, and occasionally critical, support to the new leader and his team.
It’s now, though, time for some hard talk. By the time Labour’s conference ends, we could be just 18 months off a general election. Boris Johnson won’t want to risk going to the polls in the last year of the electoral cycle and he’ll be desperate to avoid exposure in the Covid inquiry, which I doubt he can put off much longer.
So it’s time for all Labour members to make a realistic appraisal of where we are electorally and why. When you have been in the frontline of two election defeats, no matter how close we came in 2017, you become pretty sanguine in assessing the party’s electoral prospects.
Labour support in the polls is bouncing along behind the Conservatives with a corrugated trajectory. As each Johnson failure or ministerial gaffe is exposed, the Tory lead over Labour narrows, mainly because Conservative voters move to undecided. When coverage of the incident fades, the Conservative lead is restored.
The other consistent story from the polls is the worrying scale of the slide in Starmer’s personal ratings. This has been in a period when, in comparison with its treatment of past Labour leaders, the mainstream media have been relatively benign and the Conservative artillery has been barely trained on the opposition leader. Of course, being the leader of the opposition in a period of national emergency is always tough. People naturally expect politicians to suspend the usual knockabout party politics and pull together in a national crisis. Nevertheless, they still want to hear someone sticking up for them and offering the hope of something better when things go wrong, as they so badly have during the pandemic: the highest death toll in Europe and among the G7 second only to Trump’s US.
For too long, they haven’t heard the voice of Labour sticking up for them loudly enough and apart from a few sporadic policy announcements there hasn’t been much of a Labour offer of something better. The result is that people have been left without knowing what or who the party stands for.
The fear is also that the public may now have a settled opinion of Starmer and, judging from the polls, it’s not one that believes he is a prime minister in waiting. He has abandoned the platform on which he was elected Labour leader, sidelined much of the broad team that got him elected and has reached for the Blairite playbook and resuscitated Blair’s old crew of Peter Mandelson as his consigliere, combined with an appetite for internal factional purges that makes the Kinnock era look tame.
We are witnessing something akin to the performance of a Blairite tribute band
The result is we are witnessing something akin to the performance of a Blairite tribute band with the same old stunts and strategies being rolled out on schedule but with a great deal more venom. It starts with setting up a confrontation with his own party members to demonstrate the strong leader, exercising mastery over his party. Serious political analysis within the party is replaced with meaningless statements that have been focus-grouped to absolute banality. In prospect is a policy review that subjugates a meagre policy programme to the lowest common denominator demands of the rightwing media, big business and the City.
The New Blairites have had to adapt their strategy to the massive surge in membership under Corbyn and they have done so by an old-fashioned, ruthless purge of party members and an attempt to stitch up rule changes that neutralise the power of the membership.
The party conference has been planned as the major relaunch of Starmer. It’s blindingly obvious that he has to change course if Labour is to stand any chance of winning the next election but rehashing New Labour just won’t work. That model crashed to defeat in 2010, with Mandelson running the campaign, in which the party slumped to 29% of the vote. The truth is no faction of Labour has found a winning formula post-bank crash – and we need to unite with some humility to find that. Starmer became leader on that basis, but is squandering goodwill internally and looking increasingly out of touch to the electorate.
The next six months could determine Johnson’s fate as the economic blizzard of rising energy prices, increasing inflation and a public sector pay freeze blows in hard. This is the opportunity for Labour to come out fighting and break down that defensive shield around Johnson that has protected him so far.
That’s why at this Labour conference it is so foolhardy to be blundering around stoking up internal disputes over the party’s rulebook, when Starmer should be setting out the argument for radical change and the programme that would bring that change about. It should be a conference to inspire our members, not attack and demoralise them.
As it is, we’ve wasted five days now that have completely overshadowed important policy announcements by Lucy Powell on housing and by Angela Rayner and Andy McDonald on workers’ rights. All the while, the government has been floundering as petrol stations run dry and energy companies collapse. Before any attempt at a New Labour rerun, it might be best to consider the words of an old German philosopher: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.”
John McDonnell has been the Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington since 1997. He was shadow chancellor from 2015 to 2020 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/may/08/broadway-musicals-movies-tv-peaky-blinders-fever-pitch | Stage | 2017-05-08T15:35:16.000Z | Noah Gittell | Broadway boredom: the worst screen-to-stage musicals ever | If you stroll down Broadway or the West End these days, you might think you’re in Hollywood. The names of movie stars pepper the marquees, and stage adaptations of hit movies have become commonplace. Sometimes it’s a natural fit: musicals such as The Lion King, Newsies and An American in Paris were each adapted seamlessly for the stage. But news that Peaky Blinders may be turned into a West End musical and Fever Pitch will soon hit the stage as an opera is harder to understand. It’s difficult to imagine Tommy Shelby singing a tune in between beatings and nightmares, or the football-loving hero of Fever Pitch breaking into an aria.
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Turns out musicals based on non-musical films aren’t as rare as you’d think. At their best, musicals such as Sunset Boulevard, Kinky Boots and Spamalot shed new light on their iconic origin stories and expose the magic of theater to movie buffs who wouldn’t normally leave the cozy confines of cinema. But more often than not, it’s an expensive attempt to cash in on a successful product with little thought given to whether the story lends itself to the musical form. Theatergoers, it turns out, are a bit more discerning than those who pack multiplexes every weekend. With an average price of over $100, they deserve better than these colossal errors in the screen-to-stage genre.
Big
In 1996, when the musical adaptation of Penny Marshall’s Big premiered on Broadway, the New York Times panned it, writing: “In an uncertain world, Big operates on one certainty – audiences know the story and they like it.” A reliance on the audience’s pre-awareness may have been a novelty back then; today most of our pop culture is defined by it, which is surprising considering how badly Big turned out. The reviews weren’t uniformly awful, but the Broadway crowd, perhaps turning up their noses at an adaptation of a relatively lightweight film, just didn’t show up. The show was also criticized as corporate propaganda, as it brought on FAO Schwartz as a producer. With the legendary toy store closing its doors in 2015, we can now safely say that absolutely no one emerged from this disaster unscathed.
High Fidelity
If Rob, the hero of Nick Hornby’s book High Fidelity and Stephen Frears’s film adaptation, were to make one of his famous Top 5 lists about the worst screen-to-stage adaptations, he would have to point his incisive critical gaze squarely at himself. “Nothin’s great, and nothin’s new, but nothin’ has its worth,” he belts out in the opening song of this Broadway flop. The audience was not convinced of the latter part. The musical, which was criticized for its overreliance on obscene lyrics in a transparent attempt at edginess, was a side-one, track-one failure, closing in December 2006 after only 13 performances.
Carrie
If there was a how-to book for making musicals, here’s a rule that should go on page one: don’t open the second act with a song-and-dance number about pig slaughter. Carrie opened on Broadway in 1988 and quickly became the biggest money-loser of its time, costing investors $7m (admittedly chump change by today’s standards). It closed after 16 previews and five performances, giving it one of the shortest runs in Broadway history, although it performed better in a 2011 revival off Broadway, where the audience was more accepting of its campier elements. It turns out the older-skewing Broadway crowd wasn’t ready for a musical featuring a copious amount of pig blood that resembled, as one critic put it, “strawberry ice cream topping”.
The Fly
Adapting a movie into a stage musical may be common these days, but it takes special kind of madness to turn one into opera. Then again, the opera based on David Cronenberg’s The Fly was not without precedent. If Metamorphosis could work, why not The Fly? Quite a few reasons, as it turns out, not the least of which was that the adaptation just wasn’t particularly good. Despite pulling off some neat stunts – the lead actor literally crawls across the set ceiling at one point – The Fly wasn’t musically compelling. Veteran film composer Howard Shore’s score was called “curiously tame”, and the bad buzz from early performances quickly swatted this misguided opera back into non-existence.
Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark
Critics and investors expected Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark to open the door to a slew of superhero stage adaptations to match the recent trend in cinema. Instead, it became Broadway’s latest and greatest cautionary tale. With high-wire stunts and songs by Bono and The Edge, and with cultural fascination with comic book stories at an all-time high, how could it have failed so badly? It actually ran for three years, but high production costs (weekly budget of $1.3m) kept the show firmly in the red. In addition, it was dogged by reports of serious injuries to the cast and crew. One stunt double even required “unspecified amputations” after getting his foot stuck in a stage lift. Between this and The Fly, maybe it’s just time to stop making musicals based on films about men who turn into insects. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/oct/20/contagion-film-review | Film | 2011-10-20T21:10:01.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Contagion – review | Tellingly, and with an ambiguous hint of moralism, it all begins with a dangerous liaison. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Beth, a woman taking a call at an airport from someone she's just slept with, and who isn't her husband. She is pale, sweaty, nauseous, but wearily puts these symptoms down to jet-lag. Actually, she's a human Ground Zero: the first person to suffer from a horrific new contagious disease soon to encircle the globe.
The all-star disaster-movie genre is taken out of the 1970s and given a stylish and largely persuasive 21st century makeover by director and cinematographer Steven Soderbergh. Armed with a pulsing, driving score by Cliff Martinez, he flits from city to city, from deserted airport departure lounge to scarily antiseptic hospital lab. His cast includes Matt Damon as Beth's husband, Kate Winslet as Erin the harassed medic, Laurence Fishburne as a careworn epidemiologist, Marion Cotillard as a worried UN official and Jude Law as Alan Krumwiede, the cocky blogger and conspiracy tweeter rattling out online jeremiads about the establishment coverup. The rumours and the panic, inevitably, go viral.
We are all probably primed to smile at the cliches and absurdities of the disaster genre, expecting Leslie Nielsen to make an unsmiling appearance at any moment, and deliver his brusque, baritone definition of the word "hospital". Actually, Soderbergh exterminates any potential microbes of mockery early on with a couple of brutal, personal catastrophes, and he doesn't scruple to visit bio-calamity on the big names. One of his stars gets a particularly stomach-turning closeup, which got a gasp of horror and disbelief at the screening I attended.
The film moves with sinuous urgency and the script by Scott Z Burns has some nice moments. When Krumwiede hassles scientist Dr Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould) for some info, Dr Sussman snaps that he is a mere blogger and blogging is just graffiti with punctuation.
Contagion hangs together perfectly well as a movie, though sometimes it looks like a mosaic of earnestly tense mini-dramas represented by the ensemble cast: Soderbergh is much less strong on showing the fear and horror of ordinary people, and the massive sense of loss. (I felt, for example, that Fernando Meirelles's little-liked 2008 movie Blindness conveyed this rather better.) And the apparent contradictions in Krumwiede's position are also slightly uncomfortable.
Nonetheless, Soderbergh shapes this story with muscular confidence and, as his own director of photography, he captures some great images. It is sad to think that the director is now planning to quit the film business after his next two projected features. If that is really true, it is going to be a real loss. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/oct/22/former-mp-frank-field-reveals-he-is-dying-at-euthanasia-bill-reading | Society | 2021-10-22T17:26:45.000Z | Lucy Campbell | Ex-MP Frank Field reveals terminal illness as he backs assisted dying | Frank Field, the former Labour MP for Birkenhead, has revealed that he is terminally ill as he backed a law that would allow assisted dying.
Field, 79, represented the Merseyside constituency for almost 40 years – making him one of the longest-serving MPs in the Commons – before forming his own party and losing the seat in the 2019 general election. He was later made a crossbench peer.
During a Lords debate on the assisted dying bill, which would allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales to legally seek support to end their lives, a statement was read out on behalf of Field by Molly Meacher, who tabled the bill.
The statement said: “I’ve just spent a period in a hospice and I’m not well enough to participate in today’s debate. If I had been, I would have spoken strongly in favour of the second reading [of the bill].
“I changed my mind on assisted dying when an MP friend was dying of cancer and wanted to die early, before the full horror effects set in, but was denied this opportunity.”
He added that concerns that people would be pressured to end their lives were “unfounded”: “The numbers of assisted deaths in the US and Australia remains very low, under 1%, and a former supreme court judge in Victoria, Australia, about pressure from relatives, said: ‘It just hasn’t been an issue.’ I hope the house will today vote for the assisted dying bill.”
The bill proposes that only terminally ill patients with full mental capacity, and who are not expected to live more than six months, would be eligible to apply for an assisted death.
Campaigners argue this would give those at the end of their lives greater control over how and when they die, while opponents say it could leave vulnerable people exposed to unwanted pressure.
The former Scottish Conservative leade Ruth Davidson used her maiden speech in the Lords to argue for people to be given “the right to die”. She said voting against an assisted dying bill in Holyrood six years ago had “felt like cowardice” that had “nagged at my conscience ever since”, and there was a clear imbalance in the argument between those who sought to offer choice and those who sought to deny it.
Her own experiences with IVF and of seeing loved ones with dementia had changed her views on assisted dying, she said. “It made me consider that … for the mind to stay clear, and the body to be crippled in unendurable pain with the certain knowledge of a slow death outcome where the law says ‘endure you must’ goes beyond conscience.”
Also in favour was Michael Dobbs, whose father and eldest brother both died of prostate cancer. His remaining brother has been told he will not survive it, and he was diagnosed with it himself earlier this year.
A law that says he and his loved ones “must suffer in agony and without hope” is one of “the utmost cruelty” and must be changed, Dobbs said.
However, the archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, said that although safeguards in the legislation were stronger than in previous attempts to change the law, they still do not go far enough.
“What we want is assisted living, not assisted dying. There is no difference between us in compassion. It is our concern about the effectiveness of the safeguards and the care for the vulnerable,” he told BBC Breakfast, adding that mistakes in diagnoses left people open to “very, very intangible forms of coercion and pressure”.
Previous attempts to introduce similar laws have all been defeated. The issue was debated on Friday in parliament for the first time in more than six years.
Lady Meacher said that in that time there had been a “radical shift” in medical opinion, with the Royal College of Physicians ending its opposition to assisted dying in 2019, followed by the British Medical Association last month.
A recent YouGov poll showed 73% of the public supported doctor-assisted dying for people who are terminally ill, compared with one in three MPs.
The former Scottish secretary Michael Forsyth, who had previously been opposed, also changed his position. He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme of going to see his father, who had terminal cancer and was in “very great pain”, before he died.
“I said to him, ‘Dad, I am so sorry you are in this position,’ and he completely took me aback by saying: ‘You are to blame.’ And I said, ‘how am I to blame?’ and he said: ‘Because you and others have consistently voted against the right to die. I would like to be relieved of this, and they can’t relieve me of the pain, and I am in this position because of folk like you.’”
Forsyth added: “I also had this nagging guilt, I’ve always voted against it but actually at the same time felt a complete hypocrite because I would want it for me if I got some terrible motor neurone disease or something, I would want it for me to spare not just me, but my family.”
Speaking in opposition to the bill, Lord Curry of Kirkharle told peers that six years before her death, his daughter, who had learning disabilities, had become very ill and was not expected to survive.
“We were torn between wishing her to pull through and yet thinking that perhaps the best solution might be for her to slip quietly away so that her pain and suffering could be over,” he said. Had they been offered assisted dying at the time, they might have agreed, he said.
But she pulled through and lived another six years. “What a tragedy it’d have been had her life been cut short six years too early,” Curry said.
The bill, which is having its second reading in the Lords, is unlikely to become law without government support. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/29/watching-hospital-chilling-nhs-underfunding-bbc-documentary | Opinion | 2018-03-29T07:00:08.000Z | Frances Ryan | Watching Hospital is chilling. Just how bad can NHS underfunding get? | Frances Ryan | Halfway through the opening episode of BBC’s Hospital this week, we see an orthopaedic surgeon stand in the middle of an empty operating theatre. It’s 8.30am and the surgeon – dressed in scrubs and ready to work – is forced to stop for the day: without enough intensive care beds, there’s nowhere for his patients to recover after surgery.
Filmed at two Nottingham hospitals this winter, this scene takes place a few days after the government announced all non-urgent operations would be cancelled across the country because of mass bed shortages.
Watching Hospital is a scary, surreal experience: a sort of shot-by-shot chronicle of what feels like something historians may later use as evidence of the decline of one of the world’s greatest social institutions.
Waiting for an ambulance, unable to breathe, brings austerity home
Frances Ryan
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I happened to be in A&E at Nottingham Queen’s Medical Centre with breathing problems while the series was being filmed. As I waited to be seen, A4 posters stuck to the doors told me of my right to choose to be filmed or not, while an elderly woman behind a screen in need of a catheter repeatedly called out for a member of staff to tell her where she was. I was relatively lucky: I had several tests fitted into six hours, and the medical team were kind and efficient. A few days later, as I recovered at home, a respiratory nurse told me: “If you need to call 999, do, even if you see on the news we’ve got no beds.”
It’s shameful this would ever need to be said – that in someone’s most vulnerable moment, they would have to calculate whether the NHS could help them. But then, this all feels quite shameful, doesn’t it? There’s a moment in Hospital in which a 12-year-old boy, Keilan, with a spinal curve so severe it’s reducing his lung capacity – is shown quietly asking if his major surgery to correct it will be postponed. It has already been cancelled twice. He has waited almost a year for the surgery – and he’s so anxious that his dad tells the doctor Keilan can’t sleep. “As time goes on, his curve has gone from 35 to 80 degrees in less than two years,” his dad explains.
This is what happens when a vital public service is vastly underfunded. Scared children. Ventilator and oxygen shortages. Ambulance delays. Even deaths. A study by the University of Oxford this month found there were an additional 10,000 deaths in the first six weeks of 2018, with the authors blaming “sustained underfunding” by the government. (This is a level of underfunding so severe that NHS England will have a “funding black hole” of £22bn by 2020-21.) The researchers added that if non-urgent operations hadn’t been cancelled this year, the number of deaths would probably have increased even further.
Hospital: Series 3 | Trailer - BBC Two
It’s somehow easy to forget that these are people’s lives – people who paid into the safety net, and presumably expected that in their time of need it would be there to catch them. It’s not as if this human cost is actually making economic sense – as if, on the nation’s spreadsheet, suffering is worthwhile if it makes enough savings. Rather, this scale of underfunding is costing a fortune – one cut in one system creates pressure on another.
In Hospital, we meet 87-year-old Mavis. Mavis has dementia, and is physically ready to be discharged from the ward, but because there’s no care home to take her to, she has been stuck in hospital for six weeks. The crass term for people like Mavis is “bed blockers” – and with an ageing population and cuts to social care system, it’s a sight we’ll surely be increasingly seeing. It cost Nottingham Trust £380 a day to keep Mavis in a hospital space she didn’t need before she was eventually found a place in a nursing home.
Theresa May pledges to accelerate NHS long-term funding plan
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Meanwhile, research by the University College London this month found abuse is taking place in 99% of care homes across England due to what it calls chronic underfunding. Did the government not see this coming? I’m continually amazed by the enthusiasm for short-termist thinking among our current cohorts of ministers – a paradoxical, long-standing refusal to think about the long-term consequences.
Cut working age benefits and decimate social housing stock – and then pay out millions in temporary accommodation for homeless families. Gut child centres and school funding, while making low-income parents poorer – and watch costly child poverty soar, and expensive intervention services have to step in.
And here, with the NHS, cut preventive care and services such as meals on wheels, as well as obliterating social care funding – and watch as the underfunded NHS strains to pick up the pieces.
Research this month found abuse is taking place in 99% of care homes across England due to chronic underfunding
On Tuesday, Theresa May pledged to accelerate a long-term funding plan for the NHS after pressure to ditch the piecemeal increases provided since 2010, though she stopped short of saying how much more money this would involve. The Office for Budget Responsibility calculates that it would need an extra £20bn more than is currently planned to even begin to get funding back to the level the NHS received from its inception in 1948 until austerity measures began to starve the service in 2010.
“We’ve never had it this bad before,” the surgeon tells the camera in Hospital as the camera spans out to the empty, now useless, theatre. If this shortsighted underfunding continues, it’s hard not to feel that the real question is, how bad is it going to get?
Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
This piece was amended on 29 March 2018, due to a rogue zero inflating the number of extra deaths in the first six weeks of 2018 by a factor of 10 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/aug/25/charles-lloyd-maria-farantouri-review | Music | 2011-08-25T20:31:01.000Z | John Fordham | Charles Lloyd/Maria Farantouri: Athens Concert – review | Charles Lloyd's unique sax playing always sounds voicelike, but even more so on this live show from an Athens amphitheatre with an old friend, Greek singing star Maria Farantouri. The music's grip hardly slackens, from the quiet opening to the poem I Kept Hold of My Life to a thundering finale of traditional Greek songs powered by folk-dance rhythms, funk and loose jazz swing, played by Lloyd's regular band plus two local recruits. The long Greek Suite is a mix of traditional songs, hymns and ballads, but it rocks as much as it laments. Lloyd's Autumn Leaves-like Requiem finds Jason Moran's piano brilliantly mirroring Farantouri's phrasing of the Greek lyric. On the delicate Prayer, the leader's wistful tenor-ballad sound weaves beautifully around the singer and Sokratis Sinopoulos's plaintive, violin-like lyra lines. Lloyd's sound is like nobody else's, and this unusual album is a fascinating setting for it. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/apr/19/sam-mendes-life-is-sweet | Culture | 2013-04-19T22:00:00.000Z | Emma Brockes | Sam Mendes: life is sweet | Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has taken five years to become a stage musical, for reasons logistical – Sam Mendes, the director, was out for three of them doing Skyfall – and practical: the book is a tricky one to adapt. There are the kids; the old folks in bed; the pyrotechnics of the chocolate factory. There is the ambiguous character of Willy Wonka himself. And there is the question that hangs over the entire production: what on earth to do about the Oompa-Loompas. "It's big," Mendes says of the task before him. "Christ, it's so big."
We are in a rehearsal space in south London, where the company is going through its paces before moving to Drury Lane. Anticipation for the show is feverish, thanks to the success of Matilda, another Dahl adaptation, and Mendes's post-Bond nuclear glow. The Dahl estate spent years rejecting offers for other stage adaptations. They said yes to Mendes for sound reason: Neal Street Productions, his company with Caro Newling and Pippa Harris, has staged some of the best musicals of the past decade – most notably the brilliant revival of Sunday in the Park with George. If Mendes pulls this off, he will be loved for a while and forgiven his other successes.
And so here he is, surrounded by a fascinating team: Scott Wittman and Marc Shaiman, the American songwriters, are accompanied by a largely British core of writers, choreographers and designers, some plucked from relative obscurity in a golden ticket-like scenario. David Greig, who is adapting the book for the stage, is a Scottish playwright from a wholly different background from the Broadway duo, who, when they heard they'd be working with him, looked up his plays. "They're all about terrorism," Wittman says with some bafflement.
Greig was equally bemused. He has a great track record with the Royal Court and the RSC – he put Alan Cumming in a production of Euripides' The Bacchae, at the Lyric – but had never done a musical. He thinks he got the job, he says, because at their first meeting, rather than doing jazz hands for Mendes and hustling for the job, he said with gloomy integrity, "I think it's really difficult. I think it's nearly impossible."
There are lots of problems with the book-to-stage conversion of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which, unlike other Dahl stories, doesn't follow a conventional narrative. Charlie Bucket starts out a nice boy, and finishes up a nice boy; there is no progression. There is also no baddie – or, rather, the baddie is to some extent Wonka himself. It's never quite clear how much danger the children are in on their factory tour, but there is an implication, Newling says, that "he sends these children to their deaths. He tests them." This is a large part of the appeal, of course: "People love the deliberate wickedness, but it cuts to the core of what's right and wrong; what's fair," Newling says. It is a story about good and bad parenting.
It is also a story about the eccentricity of genius. "There's no question that there's a Willy/Roald Dahl crossover," Mendes says. "When you listen to Dahl reading the book on the audio tape, he's frightening. He's not some avuncular, twinkly old professorial leprechaun. He's all sorts of things." An epic git, is obviously the current read on Dahl, which has done nothing to undermine his popularity. Nor should it: Dahl's gittishness is at the core of his professional power, that fabulous spikiness that militates against the tweeness of so many kids' productions. "That is the key in many ways," Mendes says. "And that for me was one of the big attractions of doing this. I don't feel that the Willy I perceived in the book had been rendered yet in either of the films, however wonderful Gene Wilder and Johnny Depp are."
Wonka will be played by Douglas Hodge, a casting decision that probably couldn't have been made on Broadway. Hodge's background is classical – he has done a lot of Pinter and was in Titus Andronicus at the Globe and Pericles at the National, which will give Wonka a cultural heft, half pop, half canon. There is no Wonka back story, so Hodge is operating on an assumption of timelessness, he says. "I think of David Bowie, or Michael Jackson – those one-off characters who've been rather separate from the rest of the world for a long time and who have a weird innocence."
The name's Wonka, Willy Wonka: Douglas Hodge (right) rehearsing his role in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Photograph: Helen Maybanks
This is the first time Wonka has been played by a non-American, and Hodge drew on traditions of Gilbert and Sullivan, Noël Coward and Rex Harrison for the role. "Although Gene Wilder's gentle, transcendental, slightly druggy Wonka was marvellous, I didn't quite understand the Johnny Depp-channelling-Anna-Wintour version. This is very different. I'm enjoying the Englishness." Ticklish and giggly is the tone he is after, but also, at the outset, disillusioned. "I think, at the beginning, he's lost faith in innocence. I think it might be darker than it's been played before."
If there is a cure for withstanding the pressure of filling 2,200 seats at Drury Lane every night, of reinterpreting a book beloved by millions, and of handling relations between Warner Bros, the show's co-producers, and the finicky Dahl estate, it would be directing a Bond movie immediately before.
Mendes is back on home ground. In the 1980s, he directed his first plays while studying English at Cambridge, and fresh out of college landed a gig directing Judi Dench in a West End production of The Cherry Orchard. (She wrote about it in her memoirs; what an upstart he was.)
After that, Mendes joined the RSC and put out productions of The Tempest, Richard III and Troilus and Cressida. His greatest productions have been in musical theatre. Musicals date fast, but when they work, he says, they are "the best and the purest form of theatre", and he has a brilliant track record; his 1993 revival of Cabaret is one of the best things I've ever seen on stage.
The film record is more divisive: American Beauty, Mendes's first movie, won the best picture Oscar in 1999 and was variously loved and loathed. He garnered six more Oscar nominations with Road to Perdition and made a good adaptation of the Richard Yates novel Revolutionary Road with Kate Winslet, his ex-wife.
Bond is his biggest film, and the most successful in the franchise to date – it has grossed $1bn worldwide. "The biggest movie I've ever done," Mendes says, "followed by the biggest show I've ever done, almost back to back – not a sensible piece of planning."
Nor, to some of his peers in Hollywood, a sensible career trajectory. Mendes's habit of turning down movies to labour on London theatre projects that only a relatively tiny number of people will see is eccentric to the point of deranged in LA, but he finds it psychologically necessary. He was offered another Bond film almost immediately after this one, but wasn't tempted. "Was I willing to go straight back into a room with a writer and start work on the same set of characters and the same scenarios as I've been working on for the last three years? No. The idea made me feel physically ill." He laughs. "The movie world does not acknowledge the theatre world as a serious entity, on the whole. So you get a lot of, 'Why would you do another play?' "
You also get, "What do you say to all the Bond fans you've disappointed?", which makes Mendes laugh. "I say to them, my life is not a democracy. It's not up for discussion. What? Maybe I should go on to one of the [Bond] chat threads and change my mind? I don't think that's going to happen."
If there is a crossover between Bond and Charlie, you could say it revolves around the topic of Englishness. (In the opening scenes of the Bucket family's shack, Mark Thompson's set design for the stage musical has a Lowryesque air to it, appropriate for a recession-era musical.) Making Skyfall, Mendes thought he was being esoteric with the themes: "Under the surface of the movie is a meditation on ageing, and loss, and England. And what it is to be English, and does it mean anything now?" It is the story, as he puts it, "of someone who disappears for a while, and comes back to England to find everything has changed, but everything is basically the same. And that was basically what I was going through."
After the end of his marriage to Winslet, Mendes moved back to London from New York. (The split, by all accounts, was amicable, and he doesn't miss being part of a megawatt celebrity couple. "I have immense admiration for Kate – how she coped with it, and still does," he says. "Better than I did. I didn't like it." He is now with Rebecca Hall.)
Anyway, the shift back to England was a welcome one. "I tried a bit to become more American when I was doing movies, but I never penetrated certain key things. I don't know how to talk with my crew about what happened last night in the sport. Whereas here I do. I don't know how to read a newspaper in America properly, whereas here I do. I don't know how to watch the news from beginning to end in America, but here I seem to manage to. I like the smell of the streets in the rain here, whereas there I would always want to go inside. This is my home. I never felt it was a permanent thing, being over there. I love New York, but I'm English, and I still feel English and I did when I was there."
His and Winslett's nine-year-old son, Joe, has been around during Charlie rehearsals and his father road-tests some of the material on him. But in any case, Mendes says, the key to a production like this is "locating your inner child, trying to remind yourself of what it was like when you first heard the story. And you have to unremember the narrative; in that respect, it's a little like doing Bond, where everyone in the audience knows that Bond's not going to die. But you have to make people believe that there's a danger he will."
So he does the next best thing – I'm assuming everyone has seen this film already – and kills off Dame Judi?
"Ha! You can't kill him; let's kill her instead! I thought I was going to get so much shit for that. But you know you shock people into rediscovering their first acquaintance with the characters, and it's a similar game being played here. Which is to try to make it impossible for Charlie to win, and then watch him win."
What was it Dench wrote about him in her memoir? "I paraphrase, but she wrote that when I was doing The Cherry Orchard, she said to me, 'Could I try this?' And I said, you can try it, but it won't work. And she thought I was – entirely correctly – completely jumped up."
Was he?
"Oh, I was a pain in the arse. Appalling. Obnoxious and all the things you would expect from a 24-year-old directing Judi Dench in The Cherry Orchard. What the hell did I know? I shudder to think of it now. And then, of course, when we did Skyfall, I said to her, 'Could you try this?' And she said, 'I could, but it won't work.' She said, 'I waited 25 years to get back at you…' "
Mendes with Kate Winslet at the 2007 Oscars (left), and directing Judi Dench in Skyfall. Photographs: Getty Images; Francois Duhamel
It is corny, Mendes says, but being back in London and working on Charlie reminds him of what makes him happiest in this world: the deep, satisfying security of working with people he has known for most of his career. The first rehearsal for Charlie was in a church hall in Brixton and he was in a horrible mood that morning, grousing at how far it was, exhausted from Bond, and then walking in and seeing all his old friends.
"I thought, 'Oh yeah, I remember this. This is great. Oh yes, it feels like coming home.' I've never felt that on a film set. Film sets don't have that sense of security." (Because of the success of Bond, some of the actors auditioning for Mendes experienced higher than average anxiety. "Yes, they were very nervous. You try to put them at their ease, but I'm not a particularly fierce presence in the rehearsal room. I don't think I'm scary for long.")
The chances of Charlie being good are extremely high, with that combination of posh/brainy/commercial that Neal Street does so well and in the face of testing logistics. The idea of doing a chocolate river was eventually abandoned, but there are other pyrotechnics, and although the show isn't selling itself on gimmickry, the amount of weight hanging over the stage called for steel reinforcement. From a design point of view, Mark Thompson says, he hopes this production will correct earlier versions of the story. "I didn't like the [recent] film," he says. "There was lots of wonderful things in it, but I felt overall it was quite chilly. Dare I say it, an ever so slightly cynical view of the world? And I thought the first film was charming, but a little antiquated."
If the show succeeds, a large part of it will be down to the choreographer, Peter Darling, who was responsible for Billy Elliot and Matilda, and who works on the principle that children should move like children and not show ponies. "You have to understand the parameters," he says. "If you're trying to make a child move in a very expressive, slow, lyrical way, that's not going to happen. You could waste days on that, because children, by the age of 10, have only just come to grips with balance and coordination." Instead, he opts for "lots of sharp, jerky, off-centre movements, and that suits me quite well, because that's probably how I move".
The golden ticket-winning children in Dahl's story will, in part, be characterised through Darling's choreography, so the three boys playing Mike Teavee were chosen for their "kinetic energy" and will move in something like street dance. Augustus Gloop? "He expresses himself through eating, so the boys have learned some magic tricks around eating. There's a degree of embarrassment in him, so his inertness is what makes him unique."
Neither Charlie nor his co-stars were brought in from the dance schools: they are regular kids, and, Darling says, "there's something beautiful about watching children who have never danced, and who think they can't dance, actually find they can. It's magical."
"It's like being a schoolteacher," Douglas Hodge says. "At one point, there are 17 children with every germ known to man in the room. They're so good and so fearless. It's rather alarming, and heartbreaking, to watch them."
And so to the problem of the Oompa-Loompas, described in Dahl's first draft as "pygmies", which even he realised was a bit dodgy, and presented in the final book as a tribe of jungle dwellers "saved" by Wonka and shipped in a crate to his factory, where their love of chocolate inspired them to work in contravention of EU labour laws. There are multiple questions: "Are they real?" David Greig asks. "And if they're real – what? Willy Wonka has an army of tiny slaves? Is that what we're saying?"
They are one of the big reveals of the show, so no one will tell me what they're going to look like, although it involves an element of puppetry (created by the brilliant Jamie Harrison, who made the illusion of Tinkerbell as a ball of fire for the National Theatre of Scotland's production of Peter Pan.) Some of the Oompa-Loompa costumes are hanging at the back of the rehearsal room and, unoccupied, look like Teletubbies on a clothes line.
It's impossible to imagine how the final thing will look, but, given the people involved and the many years of preparation, it's no surprise there's so much buzz about it. With expert hype deflation, Mendes says you can't let these things affect you. "You can theorise all you like," he says. "You can go on and on about it and try to dress it up." He smiles. "But, ultimately, it's just a story told with joy."
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory previews from 17 May at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, London WC2; go to charlieandthechocolatefactory.com for details. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/24/liberal-economics-free-social-capitalist-safety-net | Opinion | 2023-07-24T05:00:03.000Z | Nesrine Malik | Our generation was told liberal economics would make us free. Look at us now. We were misled | Nesrine Malik | Jane is a junior doctor working several extra locum shifts to make ends meet. Burnt out after the pandemic, and struggling with her physical and mental health, she would really like to take unpaid leave, but she cannot afford to do so. Last month, her landlord hiked up her rent, then served her with an eviction notice when she said she couldn’t afford it. She now has to move for the fourth time in three years, and is back in a flat-hunting market where rents are higher everywhere.
She feels trapped, she tells me. Trapped in her job, with her accommodation options diminishing and her time permanently constrained by balancing long work hours with the demands of looking for a home. There is no space for socialising or relaxation, only for a fleeting sleep, from which she wakes up to go back to work, to look at places to live that are almost certainly out of her reach, and to run her numbers again, hoping that an overlooked saving will magically appear.
Behind the strikes, inflation numbers and talk of all the difficult decisions politicians have to make are a multitude of trapped people, their choices shrinking. People in bad relationships who cannot leave because rents and mortgages have gone up so being single is no longer viable. People who would like to have a child, or another child, but cannot afford its care, or who would like to return to work after having a child but the sums just don’t work. People in bad jobs with no security or benefits who cannot quit and look for alternatives because they have no savings to buffer rising costs. The end result is a crisis not just of the economy, but of freedom.
With that crisis, an entire liberal ambition becomes thwarted. We talk of liberalism in grand abstract terms, as the noble heart of an ideal political order that promotes human rights, the rule of law, civil liberties and freedom from religious dogma and prejudice. We hope for it for others, sometimes taking it upon ourselves to bring it to them at gunpoint, evangelical about this finely calibrated system that manages the relationship between citizens and power, so that it never becomes coercive or abusive.
But when economic arrangements themselves become coercive and abusive, then political liberalism can coexist with, and indeed mask, a state of illiberalism and bondage. In the throes of personal challenges, lofty political ideals feel remote and irrelevant. All that people like Jane and others have the time or energy to register is a set of invisible oppressive economic forces that simply must be weathered because they are facts of nature. The result is a sort of ambient autocracy, where personal choices are increasingly dictated by forces that you had no say in creating and have no means of overthrowing.
You can hear the language and logic of this economic dictatorship everywhere. Tony Blair tells us that with an ageing population, a climate crisis, higher debt interest and an economic workforce increasingly constrained in its ability to seek services such as housing and healthcare outside the public sector, we should be ready to not wait for the NHS and use private health providers for minor health matters, and that we should ultimately be “taxing less and spending less”.
Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves fixate on “growth” and “enterprise”, reneging on plans to put up income tax on higher incomes and refusing to impose a capital gains tax, so those whose income comes from that pot of earnings pay less tax than those whose money is earned from labour. “Tough decisions” has become Starmer’s mantra, as if the point is the toughness of the decisions, rather than what those tough decisions will achieve.
But, in fairness, it’s an accurate mantra for the state many are in. If things are difficult, tough. Because among those for whom things won’t be tough, enough political, media and economic capital has been generated to sponsor politicians’ austerity, and enable it to be branded as realistic truth telling. This, it strikes me, is not only a political choice, but a reneging on a historical deal, forged in the colossal upheavals of the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, and revolution in England, the US and Europe.
The trade-off was that we would lose the traditional supports and solaces of rural values and extended families, but become free from their prejudices and patriarchies, and the associated economic and political exploitations of a hierarchical system that was skewed to landowners, rent seekers and those imbued with authority because of where they were born in that hierarchy. Yes, we would be more prosperous, but more crucially we would also be free to choose how to live our lives. “The only freedom which deserves the name,” wrote John Stuart Mill, “is that of pursuing our own good, in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs, or impede their efforts to obtain it.”
That good is now increasingly limited to those who can afford it – who can purchase the liberty to love, leave and leisure, and the right to indulge in creative work and expression. The rest are caught in a halfway house between the old and new worlds.
Bereft of the support and proximity of family and community, people are deprived of the social safety net that was supposed to replace it, increasingly having to fork out funds for childcare, subsidising boomeranging single children and elderly parents while paying tax, or fretting about their fates in a cutthroat housing market and a scandalously underfunded care system. Anything that disturbs this tenuous balance cannot be contemplated, so the shackles to partners, employers and imperfect domestic arrangements grow ever tighter.
I grew up in the old world and saw only its limitations, chafing against it and impatient for some individual autonomy. My mother had four children, working throughout her childbearing years as a school teacher, only able to go back to work because, with each child, a new family member would move in, or move back in, to help. They joined others who lived with us on and off over the years when they needed housing.
My parents were distant but seemed to be broadly content figures, either at work or obscured by a blur of relatives they were constantly entertaining, feeding or cleaning up after in a gaggle of chat, laughter and gossip. The price for that mutual communal facilitation was paid in other ways – a violating lack of privacy and personal space, and a sense that everyone’s lives, in their most private and intimate detail, were the subject of others’ opinions and policing. It was a “gilded cage”, as it is called in Orientalist literature. In hindsight now, and in adulthood and parenthood, having experienced both in the new world, I can see that gilded cages come in many forms. Political freedoms are precious metal, but when they come with economic restraints, they are a shiny enclosure.
Nesrine Malik is a Guardian columnist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jul/12/harry-potter-deathly-hallows-premiere | Film | 2011-07-12T18:59:01.000Z | Tanya Gold | Harry Potter and the end of a pop-culture phenomenon | Iam reading Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (Part 2), in time for the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 2). The film is the second half of Joanne Rowling's seventh book, which Warner Bros have cut in two, to thrill the fans or increase their $6bn gross, depending on how magnanimous you think global corporations that cross-market wizards can be. By the end of this week, Potter on film is done; it is a beginning of an end.
I bought Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (Part 2), not because I can't get hold of Harry Potter and International Relations, which actually exists, but because I think it is the best example of the response to the mad existence of the Christ Wizard from Surrey. Harry is duller even than Frodo Baggins of Lord of the Rings, the hobbit equivalent of a coffee table, and more successful too, because Warner Bros, which is owned by the entertainment monster Time Warner, has used its publishing and internet arms to build his brand. It is above all a piece of marketing wizardry. Potter has conjured up court cases, book burnings, a theme park in Florida, sales of 450m and a pile of academic texts. This is the impact of Potter on earth and part of it, like a Horcrux, is in the British Library.
The many authors of Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (Part 2) take Rowling's world intensely seriously, which I suppose is why they didn't stop at Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (Part 1). They write like very intelligent children, wandering the corridors of Hogwarts seeking meaning and, although they don't explicitly admit it, more of the contents of Joanne Rowling's head. (I refuse to call her JK. Her British publishers, Bloomsbury, insisted on initials back in 1998 because they feared boys wouldn't read a book by "Joanne".) It is essentially Quidditch played with opinions in university common rooms. The economists seek clarity on the organisation of financial systems: "What is the wizarding economy based on?" The feminists are angry, because they believe gender stereotypes are rampant.
"The 'Fat Lady' in the portrait at the entrance of Gryffindor tower . . . has no personal name and is never called anything but the 'Fat Lady' or a very fat woman," I am told. Did female weakness lead to the creation of evil wizard Voldemort and catastrophe? (Like Eve?) "If she [Voldemort's mother Merope] had been emotionally stronger and been able to maintain better boundaries in her relationships," I am asked, "might she had given Tom Riddle/Voldemort enough love to prevent sociopathy?" Maybe. But if you think Potter is anti-feminist, consider Lord of the Rings, where the only female characters with lines are an hysteric and two elves.
I only have a few more examples from Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (Part 2) before I put it down, even though I can hardly bear to. Take racism. Harry Potter is apparently full of it. Dobby the house elf speaks in "racially charged pidgin" and Goblins "embody many caricatured traits of stereotypical Jews". Animals are ritually abused. A dragon is chained up as a mere "security feature" in Gringotts, the goblin (Jew) bank. And so on, and on, until you wonder if Harry Potter is actually Richard Littlejohn on a broom.
I am a typical adult Potter reader. I came to the books late, with Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, in 1999. I have read them all – twice. I have seen the films – twice. I have sat on the tube, reading the books with their child covers, because to read a book about wizards with a faux chic "adult cover" seems to me as insane and pointless as pretending a strawberry is an olive. I went to late-night screenings and midnight book-buying trips in awful suburban shopping malls and was served by shop assistants dressed as wizards. The bookshops have gone now, a victim of the same revolution in communications that raised Harry Potter high, but he remains. For a brief period, I even had a wand, although I have lost it, or given it away, because I realised it didn't do anything. I remember that the shopping trips reminded me of the "crazes" at school – the exciting ones before puberty and ennui – and that I wanted to beat my friend Jo, who bought the book at the same time, by finishing it first. I got a gossip-column piece out of it once, which made me feel less dirty. It was infantilism and I knew it.
Now I have read them and thrown them away, because I will never read them again, I can say that I don't think I like Harry Potter. Does anyone? He is too whiny, racked and self-righteous; only fate didn't make him his screen namesake, the grotesque Henry Potter of It's a Wonderful Life. He has no sense of humour, although he does smirk. Harry Potter is an everyman, and that is why he sells. If he can save the world then so can a cat. He is, like Baggins, Dorothy and the children of CS Lewis, an extraordinarily ordinary hero and at the end of his adventures, he returns to suburban normality. To his readers.
Literary critics call Rowling a genre-mixing magpie. The books are mysteries, quests, horror stories, pulp fiction, bildungsroman, romances, school stories, sports stories and serials. There is snobbery but almost no sex, and what there is half-hearted and unconvincing. This is why AS Byatt says she reads Tolkien when she is ill: "There is an almost total absence of sexuality in his world," she has written, "which is restful." To some, they conjure a Dickensian past. To others, they tell the future. They incorporate aspects of every story humans have ever told. All the virtues, and all the monsters are here and at the centre is a boy so dull, any of us could take his place.
The fashionable defence for Harry Potter madness is that the books make children read books after they have finished Harry Potter. This is not true; reading, as ever, declines. So why are we over-analysing him? Is it shame? If the adult world suddenly developed a craze for reading Mr Men, and everyone was reading Mr Happy on the Tube, would we endow Mr Happy with fake depths, until he became Mr Putting a Brave Face on Some Secret Sorrow?
Yes, we must. We must search for homophobia. Back to Critical Perspectives: "Professor Flitwick is characterised with words and images that are crude cultural stereotypes of gay men." He drinks cocktails with umbrellas and squeaks, although he never came out. Harry's mentor, Dumbledore, did but only through Rowling, who revealed he was gay in 2007, and irritated John Cloud in Time magazine. "Why couldn't he tell us himself?" he asked, even as he stroked the brand (Time is owned by Time Warner, children). "We can only conclude that Dumbledore saw his homosexuality as shameful."
And mandrakes. What about the mandrakes? They have feelings, and were used as weapons at the final battle of Hogwarts, and got spattered. (Genocide? Ethnic cleansing? Mandrocide?) Fairies are asked to act as Christmas tree decorations. Leprechauns are cheerleaders in the Quidditch world cup, but maybe that is voluntary, because leprechauns are notorious sluts. Where does all the meat at Hogwarts come from? Is it industrial farming? It cannot be so!
Religion obviously took the Potter bait. Fundamentalist ministers have burned Potter books, although, in the words of Viz, today they could have simply downloaded and deleted them. "Without question, I believe the Harry Potter series is a creation of hell," writes Joseph Chambers of Paw Creek Ministries, "helping the younger generation to welcome the Biblical prophecies of demons and devils led by Lucifer himself." Other Christians cite Harry's pleasing similarity to Christ – he was willing to die to save humanity, and he was never out of King's Cross – and think he is OK, despite the baby pagans. The chief prosecutor of Iran is obviously against. He has criticised Barbie, Batman, Israel and Spider-Man, so he was never going to love Harry Potter and his "destructive and cultural consequences".
I enjoyed the books, but I never found them offensive or important. I went to the Accio! (wizard for "Come!") conference in 2005 for this newspaper and watched Pottermania in closeup. I met a woman who was traumatised enough by the treatment of house elves to write an academic paper about it. I also met the writers of Harry Potter porn, who like to imagine the characters in different sexual couplings: Harry and Dumbledore; Dumbledore and Hagrid; Hagrid and Dobby. (To understand how disturbing this is, you have to understand that Hagrid is a half-giant and Dobby is an elf who acts like a drinking alcoholic.) The Elf defender would have loved Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (Part 2), because it notes that the last sentence of the last book includes the phrase, "Thinking now only of the four-poster bed lying waiting for him in Gryffindor tower, and wondering whether Kreacher would bring him a sandwich there [Harry buggered off]."
This is the Marxist interpretation of Harry Potter. Harry is an oppressor who has simply "internalised the treatment of Kreacher as a menial servant". I shouldn't go on but I love this stuff. I love watching adults excuse themselves for wanting to be children, as if it were bad. Not that you could say that at Accio! It was full of strange sad women in black, who sat in the front row of the lectures, their ankles spilling over their shoes, longing for details of a world not their own and men dressed as wizards, sweating and arguing about goblins. It was depressing. I never asked the questions that they did. I never looked to Harry Potter for succour or enlightenment. The only unanswered question I have ever had was: why doesn't Voldemort have a nose? I will be at the midnight screening on Thursday, because it is now a ritual with my friend Sophie, but I will watch it mindlessly and chomp it in like popcorn.
As there has been no Accio! since 2008, I go on a Harry Potter film location walk through London. It's a posh London Walk, so no one is in a pointy hat. There are 70 glossy Americans and Canadians, and Richard Walker the guide, who begins by announcing that he drinks the blood of unicorns to stay young. I seriously doubt this. He is wearing a sand-coloured suit and has written a short book called Who Cares? Why War, Poverty, Environmental Destruction and Debt Remain So Popular. As he leads us through the City, which is even more glassy and preening when it is Sunday-empty, I speak to the punters. TJ Romano, 17, is from Pennsylvania. "She [Rowling] makes it feel very real," he says, "because it is like real places. It is easy to relate to." This is a world so like our own it is easily slipped into. "I have read them all twice," says his mother. "I like the underdog becoming somebody. It is good versus evil and good prevails." This is a world that redeems.
Richard shows us the entrance to Diagon Alley in Leadenhall market. He shows us Tower bridge, where the Order of Phoenix flew. He shows us the shop at Borough market that stood in for the Leaky Cauldron, rattling next to the railway line. It is above the Posh Banger Boys. Potter is sitting on a sausage. Don't tell the authors of Critical Perspectives on Harry Potter (Part 2). Harry's window, Richard says, "is the top window nearest to the railway line. It's very odd, because the Leaky Cauldron is in Charing Cross. But they are wizards. They can do what they want." Yes, they can.
We disperse, and I go to the entrance to platform 9¾ at King's Cross, where Harry walked through the wall and caught the train to Hogwarts. So many fans turned up and posed for photographs here, they have moved the sign outside the station, under a low, foul awning by a newspaper kiosk. The entrance platform 9¾ is a photograph of some bricks, and a sign with the "4" half-eaten away. It is foetid and peeling; nothing magical here. A bit of a trolley sticks out of the wall. But still the tourists come and pose – body to the wall, face turned backwards, smiling. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/oct/23/woman-charged-with-after-toddler-falls-from-sixth-floor-window | UK news | 2017-10-23T13:11:58.000Z | Kate Solomon | Appeal for witnesses after fatal fall of toddler from sixth-floor window | The solicitor representing a woman charged with the murder of her 18-month-old son has appealed for witnesses.
Gemma Procter, 23, was charged on Monday after the death of her son, Elliot, at a block of flats in Bradford on Saturday.
Procter appeared at Bradford magistrates court on Monday morning, where her solicitor said she denied the charge of murder.
In an unusual move, district judge Michael Fanning lifted the normal reporting restrictions so that Sajad Chaudhury, representing Procter, could call for witnesses to come forward.
At a hearing, Chaudhury said: “Clearly, it’s a horrific and traumatic incident for all people involved and the defendant’s family is in court supporting her.
“The incident happened around 5pm. It’s very important for any witnesses to come forward who have any CCTV or any video footage on their phones or who have seen anything in terms of behaviour from anyone in the days leading up to the incident.
“There were incidents in the days leading up to and on the day of the incident.”
Chaudhury did not specify what incidents he was referring to but said: “People may have thought them insignificant but, for us, they may be significant.”
Police were called to Newcastle House near the city centre at about 5:10pm on Saturday after reports that a child had fallen from a sixth-floor window. Despite attempts to save the toddler, police said it was quickly apparent he had died.
The flats where Elliot died were part of a large block with a high turnover of residents, Chaudhury said, which was why he wanted publicity to make as many residents as possible aware.
In court on Monday morning, Procter spoke to confirm her personal details and that she understood the charge.
She also acknowledged her family at the back of the court.
One man shouted: “Love you, babe” and Procter said the same back as she was led from the dock after the short hearing during which she appeared clearly to be upset.
Procter was remanded in custody and will appear again before Bradford crown court on Wednesday. West Yorkshire police said inquiries into the incident were ongoing.
DSI Nick Wallen, who is leading the investigation, said on Sunday: “Specially trained officers are working to support the child’s family members and those who witnessed what took place. It is no exaggeration to say that those who witnessed this incident will have been deeply traumatised.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/09/it-was-60-years-ago-today-schoolboys-tape-of-the-beatles-takes-us-back-to-an-era-of-optimism | Opinion | 2023-04-09T06:01:42.000Z | Samira Ahmed | It was 60 years ago today… schoolboy’s tape of the Beatles transports us to an era of optimism | Samira Ahmed | What’s on the set list? Why did he only tell you about the tape now after 60 years? Two of the questions I’ve been bombarded with since I made public the existence of an almost complete concert recording of the Beatles on the cusp of their great breakout.
There’s a third question of my own: why has the news that 15-year-old John Bloomfield made and kept a tape recording of the Beatles playing at Stowe boarding school in Buckinghamshire on 4 April 1963 gladdened our hearts quite so much? Answers to all three lie ahead.
I’ve long felt a bit embarrassed about the fetishisation of every tiny piece of Beatles archive footage as they have emerged, treated like religious relics. When I pitched my story reflecting on the 60th anniversary of the Beatles at Stowe to my Front Row editor, there was no suspicion of a tape.
Please Please Us: Lost tape of Beatles school gig could be saved for the nation
Read more
My idea came from a chance visit last summer. I saw the blue plaque commemorating the gig on the school’s Roxburgh Hall theatre and knew there was a story in that night’s unique collision of class and an all-male teenage audience. Who knows how many young male hearts beat a little faster that night as Ringo Starr sang Boys?
We fixed on a date to go to Stowe in late March, before the Easter holidays. The headmaster, Anthony Wallersteiner, promised to round up any of the diminishing number of old boys he could. Bloomfield, the show’s stage manager, was the only one who could make it, and Wallersteiner, in a memorable email dated 3 March, introduced us, observing: “There was a rumour that one of the boys ran a wire from a microphone to a reel-to-reel tape recording under the stage. Is this a Stowe myth?”
The reply came back from John: “Guilty as charged, ’twas I. Not under the stage, but right in front of it. I will see if I can find the tape and if it is still usable.”
On 22 March, producer Julian May and I turned up to record at Stowe, not knowing if Bloomfield had managed to find the tape. He had. It turns out he’d felt embarrassed too. A self-confessed tech head, trying out his new Butoba MT5 recorder, taking a dozen D-cell batteries costing 10 old pence each, he’d regarded it merely as a poor quality amateur recording of songs better captured in official releases.
Stowe school: ‘We didn’t know what they were like in an upper-class setting in front of 500 public schoolboys. Turns out – they were exactly the same.’ Photograph: Mark Draisey/Alamy
We played the extract he’d brought on his laptop of the start of the gig on the original stage. Bloomfield guided us to crank up the sound louder, to replicate the original bone-shaking experience and I felt my whole body vibrate with the sheer raw power of the Beatles. It was exciting, but also poignant, sharing that moment with Bloomfield, thinking of his school friends. Some are dead and some are living.
The journalist in me needed to know exactly what we were dealing with, and, a couple of days later, I suggested that Bloomfield play the entire tape to me and Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn via a video call. We sat grinning, but both also making careful notes: on the banter – John Lennon’s saucy jokes and voices, on Paul McCartney’s polite thanks and apology for the fact that they were used to playing two half-hour sets. How much did the boys love Ringo, shouting out his name.
Lewisohn pointed out their improvised song order and choices because George Harrison had lost his voice. The few girls – daughters of staff members – at the back were screaming. At the point I realised the band were taking requests shouted out in cut-glass accents, as the uptight pupils threw off their inhibitions, I felt my spine tingling. This was proper time travel. And the track listing was a fascinating interweaving of the new Lennon and McCartney partnership in songs from their brand-new Please Please Me album and their old classic R&B live act, including I Just Don’t Understand and Matchbox.
John Lennon’s saucy jokes and voices, Paul McCartney’s polite thanks… How much did the boys love Ringo, shouting out his name
The tape runs out after 22 tracks, but a fragment of a set list written down from memory by a fellow Stoic suggests Sweet Little Sixteen and Long Tall Sally may have completed a tally of 24.
There’s reasonable speculation from the boys who were there that the Beatles were on speed. It must have been like a hurricane hitting that school. They wolfed down chicken and chips in the school tuck shop and, on the walk back to the car, Starr suggested a quick fumble in the bushes with one of the girls (politely declined). Official photos show the Beatles posing in front of what Lennon dubbed the “corned beef” pillars in the Marble Hall and fooling around with squash racquets in Bloomfield’s rather grotty study room. They never appear awed; only joyful and relaxed.
After my report went out on last Monday’s Front Row, the comment that nails why this tape matters came from a BBC colleague, producer Kevin Core – perhaps not coincidentally, from Merseyside. “We know what the Beatles were like in the Cavern, and in Hamburg clubs, but we didn’t know what they were like in an upper-class setting in front of 500 public-school boys. Turns out – they were exactly the same.”
As for the tape – talks are underway to get it cleaned up and given a permanent home in a national cultural institution. Bloomfield feels strongly that it should not end up, as so many Beatles relics have, in the vault of a private individual. And, since Peter Jackson’s audio restoration for The Beatles: Get Back series, there are cautious hopes for cleaning up what’s been captured on that old magnetic tape.
So while scholars and hardcore fans may want to dive into the minutiae, there is a simpler reason that the Stowe tape is the loveliest scoop of my career. At a time when social divisions are deepening, perhaps the nostalgia we feel, whether we were alive then or not, is for that lost moment when four Liverpool boys convinced us that it might all be changing for good.
Samira Ahmed is the presenter of BBC Radio 4’s Front Row
This article was amended on 9 April 2023. The tape recorder used to record the Beatles at Stowe was a Butoba MT5, rather than a Nagra III as an earlier version said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2005/sep/02/8 | From the Guardian | 2005-09-01T23:51:48.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Red Eye | A white-knuckle ride is what horror specialist Wes Craven has given us with this claustrophobic suspense thriller in the manner of Joel Schumacher's Phone Booth.
Rachel McAdams is Lisa, a hotel manager who finds herself on an overnight flight sitting next to a handsome, flirtatious stranger, played by the always disturbing Cillian Murphy. Once they are in the air, the man's charm vanishes and he chillingly reveals that he is a political assassin and that Lisa must help him - or she will experience some violence on her own account.
Though the plot may not stand up to that much scrutiny, Craven nicely channels some post-9/11 high anxiety. The galère of passengers - grungy guy, sweet old lady, unaccompanied kid etc - calls to mind the Abrahams/Zucker spoof Airplane, but even this resemblance gives it a pleasingly classic, generic feel. Buckle up! | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/mar/21/ecuador-creates-galapagos-marine-sanctuary-to-protect-sharks | Environment | 2016-03-21T14:34:52.000Z | Jessica Aldred | Ecuador creates Galápagos marine sanctuary to protect sharks | Ecuador has created a new marine sanctuary in the Galápagos Islands that will offer protection to the world’s greatest concentration of sharks.
Some 15,000 square miles (38,000 sq km) of the waters around Darwin and Wolf - the most northern islands - will be made off limits to all fishing to conserve the sharks that congregate there and the ecosystem on which they rely.
Several other smaller “no-take” areas have also been created throughout the volcanic archipelago, a biodiversity hotspot around 600 miles (1,000km) off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean.
The announcement of the new reserve, which is the same size as Belgium, means that 32% of the waters around Galápagos will now be protected from fishing and other extractive industries. It will be incorporated into the existing 80,000-square mile marine reserve created in 1998.
Until now, small-scale local fishing cooperatives had been allowed to operate in the area, but the government says additional protection is now essential as the habitat has come under increased pressure from global warming and incursions by industrial trawlers and illegal shark fin hunters.
More than 34 different species of shark can be found off the shores of the Galápagos including the largest shark species, the filter-feeding whale shark, the migratory hammerhead shark and the Galápagos shark.
The world’s shark populations are in steep decline. Scientists estimate that about 100 million sharks are killed every year, representing 6-8% of all sharks and far outstripping the ability of populations to recover.
A Galápagos sea lion chases a large school fish. Photograph: Enric Sala/National Geographic Pristine Seas
The government hopes the new protection will support a breeding ground that can allow sharks to grow to full size and repopulate the world’s oceans. It hopes the shark sanctuary, together with the existing marine reserve, will strengthen international pressure for ocean conservation, action on shark finning and more ambitious action on climate change.
Environment minister, Daniel Ortega Pacheco, said: “These pristine waters around the Galápagos archipelago are precious not just for Ecuadorians but for the whole balance of our ocean systems. Shark populations in steep decline around the world come here to rest and breed and we want to guarantee complete sanctuary for them.”
The Galápagos Islands were the source of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and are seen as a priceless “living laboratory” for scientists.
The combination of cold and warm ocean currents make it one of the most biodiverse marine habitats in the world, supporting almost 3,000 species of fish, invertebrates and marine mammals, endemic seabirds and the world’s only marine iguana. Because of their remote and isolated nature, many species - such as the famous giant tortoises - are found only in the Galápagos and have not changed much since prehistoric times.
Almost 99% of the land area of the islands, which are recognised by Unesco as a world heritage site, are protected as a nature reserve with no habitation allowed and strictly-regulated tourism. The existing marine reserve - one of the world’s largest - was created 18 years ago to protect the unique habitat from industrial fishing.
At the launch of the newest reserve, Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, will say: “The establishment of this marine sanctuary represents a major breakthrough, not least because it hosts the largest biomass of sharks in the world, which is an indicator of the pristine condition of the site as well as the importance of conservation.”
The scheme has been supported by the National Geographic Foundation, which has offered compensation to the local fishing cooperatives. The government says evidence from other no-take zones around the world shows there is net benefit for local fishermen through an increase in fish numbers outside the protected zone.
A 2015 economic study calculated that the tourism value of a shark over its lifetime in the Galápagos is US$5.4m (£3.75,) while a dead shark brings in less than US$200.
Mangroves at Fernandina Island provide habitat for juvenile snappers, but also for adults, which prey on the abundant small fish. Photograph: Enric Sala/National Geographic Pristine Seas | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/may/21/harry-kane-exhibition-aims-spur-children-success-museum-london | Football | 2022-05-21T06:00:13.000Z | Hibaq Farah | Harry Kane exhibition aims to spur children on to success | Never-before-seen family photos, personal items and sporting memorabilia highlighting the England captain Harry Kane’s journey from grassroots football to professional player are to go on display at the Museum of London, with the hope of inspiring young people.
The exhibition will celebrate Kane, who grew up in east London just a few miles from Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium in north London.
Kane playing for Leyton Orient in 2011. Photograph: Action Images
Zeynep Kuşsan, the curator of Harry Kane: I Want to Play Football, said: “We wanted to celebrate Harry’s story and document his career but also take the grassroots element of his journey through football and bring it to the exhibition. I want children to feel inspired and no matter how difficult it can get to achieve their dreams, it is possible for them to get to where they want to be.”
The exhibition will open on Saturday 21 May and runs until December 2022, with free entry.
Kuşsan said Kane’s story was inspirational: “He’s a local Londoner, born in Leytonstone and raised in Chingford and all through grassroots clubs – there is this message of hope within the exhibition.”
The exhibition, which Kane’s family worked closely with the curator, will document his enthusiasm for football as a young boy, and then mark the start of his journey with his time at local youth clubs Ridgeway Rovers and Gladstone Rangers.
Items to go on display will include Kane’s shirts from England, Leyton Orient, Millwall and Tottenham Hotspur, the 2018 World Cup Golden Boot and Kane’s debut England shirt. As part of the display, visitors can listen to Kane’s pre-match playlist in the changing room space. Throughout the exhibition, Kane’s voice is heard through speakers documenting his career and sharing his inspirations.
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Kane said: “The Museum of London got in touch and wanted a Londoner to inspire young children to be their best so I am delighted to have all my memorabilia on show which haven’t been seen publicly before. I’ve got three kids now so I know how important it is to inspire the younger generation and help them understand how far you can go with hard work, dedication and self-belief.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/dec/20/next-goal-wins-review-michael-fassbender-funnies-it-up-in-taika-waititis-football-yarn | Film | 2023-12-20T09:00:07.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Next Goal Wins review – Michael Fassbender funnies it up in Taika Waititi’s football yarn | In 2001, the American Samoa football team achieved hideous immortality by sustaining a world-historically awful defeat, going down 31-0 to Australia. Ten years of hurt followed with no appreciable improvement, and then the team hired a foreign coach with his own issues: the troubled and hot-tempered Dutch-American Thomas Rongen whose unofficial brief was to salvage American Samoan honour with a single goal.
Mike Brett and Steve Jamison’s 2014 documentary about all this, Next Goal Wins, is a much-loved heartwarmer. Maybe it needed a fiction-feature comedy remake and maybe it didn’t. But director Taika Waititi and co-writer Iain Morris have done one anyway, and the result, though necessarily sacrificing the stranger-than-fiction value of the documentary, is broad, affectionate and often funny in a goofy way. But the underdog sports comedy genre can’t really absorb the devastating revelation of tragedy that this real-life story contains (not to have included or acknowledged it, however, would have been a misstep).
David Fane plays the outgoing useless coach Ace; the team’s gifted trans player Jaiyah is portrayed by non-binary actor Kaimana; but the film’s most startling casting choice is Michael Fassbender as Rongen, an actor known for his brutally non-comedy roles and currently playing the killer in David Fincher’s The Killer. Fassbender isn’t Ricky Gervais and he isn’t, say, Chris O’Dowd. But like the intensely committed professional actor that he is, Fassbender works hard to fabricate a comedy performance and more or less makes it work.
In a way, the odder turns are from Elisabeth Moss and Will Arnett as Rongen’s ex-wife and her new partner who are tonally very uncertain – but then that sombre backstory was always going to cause them difficulties. The whole film is a little rough-and-ready in the way it’s put together, but it’s amiable and well-intentioned and the laughs are real.
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Next Goal Wins is released on 26 December in UK and Irish cinemas. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jan/30/sunday-with-jason-manford-i-have-six-children-so-there-is-lot-of-dad-ta | Life and style | 2022-01-30T06:45:13.000Z | Michael Segalov | Sunday with Jason Manford: ‘I have six children so there’s lots of dad-taxiing’ | How does Sunday start? With a little lie-in, but I have six children so there’s lots of dad-taxiing going on first thing. We’re pretty lazy. Whoever’s around will pop to Yardbird – the café in our village – for brunch. While on tour, family Sundays become precious – I always rush home on Saturday night.
Do you work? I present a Sunday morning radio show. Before Covid that was always done live from a studio. Since the pandemic I’ve been pre-recording it from home. The bosses haven’t clocked that I’m still not coming in to do it. I’m keeping my head down and hoping nobody notices.
A day to yourself? I’d see mates. Then go to a pub quiz with my brother, mum and dad. Dad does general knowledge, Mum’s on medicine, my brother and I do sports and entertainment. We’re a good team.
Sundays growing up? We were playing out from 10 in the morning, kicking a ball about on the field. I’d come back starving and my parents would force-feed me Sunday dinner. I hated the vegetables, but if you didn’t eat your whole dinner you’d have to have the leftovers for breakfast. Plenty of nights I went to bed with cabbage squished into my pockets and tears in my eyes.
A special Sunday? Presenting Sunday Night at the Palladium – in my business that’s the FA Cup Final. I flew home halfway through my honeymoon in the Maldives to make the gig. The comic entertainers of the 1960s and 1970s who hosted it are my heroes. To be on that stage, opening the show with a musical number? A dream.
Sunday evening? Preparation for the week ahead starts early: bag packing, homework checking, hair washing. Everything is a military operation. Often I’m in bed before our eldest these days, watching stupid TikTok videos before I fall asleep.
The National Lottery’s Big Night of Musicals is available on BBC iPlayer | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/06/noah-review-preposterous-epic-russell-crowe | Film | 2014-04-06T08:00:14.000Z | Mark Kermode | Noah review – 'a preposterous but endearingly unhinged epic' | Mark Kermode | "The snakes are coming too?" Thus speaks Noah's wife, Naameh, as a carpet of slithering CGI serpents joins the menagerie of digital beasts in this utterly preposterous, often exasperating, but endearingly unhinged epic from the director of Black Swan. Adapted from a bizarrely enduring myth that permeates cultures both east and west, Aronofsky's long-nurtured pet project is a broadly non-denominational fantasia (he calls it "the least biblical 'biblical film' ever"), merrily lifting riffs from a range of canonical and gnostic texts, with a sprinkling of the kabbalism about which he obsessed in Pi. The beasts that Noah wrangles on behalf of "the creator" (the G-word is unspoken) range from the recognisable to the quasi-mystical, with cats and rats and elephants joining griffin-feathered hybrids in the race for survival. I didn't notice a unicorn getting left behind, but frankly it wouldn't have looked out of place.
While images of damned human flesh tumbling from mountaintops recall DeMille, and a shot following a drop of rain nods towards the "tear of God" from Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, Noah has more in common with the traditions of sci-fi and fantasy than with the Ten Commandments. Remember, this project first broke water when Aronofsky and screenwriter Ari Handel were working together on The Fountain, an insanely ambitious time-traversing fable tantalisingly tag-lined: "What if you could live forever?" Even the opening screed ("In the beginning there was nothing… ") seems less Genesis than George Lucas, with the action apparently taking place long ago, in a galaxy far, far away, upon landscapes that veer from Tatooine to Mordor via the forbidden zone of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, before ending up somewhere over the rainbow. Ominous scenes of blackened hordes descending upon Noah's wooden fortress call to mind the Orc attacks from The Lord of the Rings, while the floods themselves evoke the dystopian disaster of Waterworld.
As for the fallen angel rock monsters (gigantic Nephilim-era "Watchers"), they look like the boulder creature from Galaxy Quest and speak with the voice of Optimus Prime from Transformers. When one kneels to converse with Noah, you half expect to see Megan Fox bending over an ox cart while Shia LaBeouf utters biblical epithets. (Unsurprisingly, these bonkers creations were underplayed in pre-publicity, for fear of alienating the lucrative Congregational market who might object to film-makers messing with the gospel truth of a 600-year-old man being instructed by unearthly voices to build a floating zoo.)
Underneath all the madness is Clint Mansell's surging, swirling, haunting score, featuring a recurrent refrain that reminded me of the aching longing of David Bowie's Warszawa (some of the instrumental soundscapes from Low were originally intended as incidental music for The Man Who Fell to Earth – another genetic link to sci-fi). With its blend of eerie futurism and ancient bombast, Mansell's music lends harmony to the cacophony of human voices: Ray Winstone with a hint of pulpit-posh as Noah's meat-eating adversary Tubal-cain; Anthony Hopkins unashamedly Welsh as a wizard-like Methuselah; and Crowe doing all points Robin Hood in between bouts of sullen silence and teeth-gnashing roaring. While posters have portrayed Crowe's Noah as essentially "Gladiator in the rain" (John Logan did uncredited script rewrites), the titular figure is altogether less heroic, descending into swivel-eyed psychosis as he sacrifices children in favour of moths, driven to madness by the voices in his head – or absence of them.
Embodying the last gasp of the creator's pre-covenant vengeful tyranny (forgiveness comes later), Noah is an increasingly deranged extremist, a fundamentalist eco-warrior hellbent on wiping out mankind. In this breast-beating role, Crowe is all teeth, spittle and changeable hair arrangements, and if we believe in him at all (and, frankly, we often don't) it's because of the sterling efforts of Jennifer Connelly. As Naameh (a sorely underwritten role), Connelly anchors everything in credible human emotion, the devotion and anguish that her raging spouse inspires in her allowing us to engage with him. Without Connelly's mediating influence, Crowe's performance is a closed door – and if the movie has anything to say about faith, then it is largely by grace of her intercession.
Throw in a magical serpent's skin, a recurrent Garden of Eden flashback with pulsating apple heart, and a creation-of-life montage that plays like MTV-generation Terrence Malick, and Noah emerges as the strangest $125m ever spent by a major studio. When the film-makers shared an audience with Pope Francis a few weeks ago, Russell Crowe tweeted: "Thank you holy father @Pontifex for the blessing", reminding us that The Passion of the Christ became a record-breaking hit after Pope John Paul II reportedly declared: "It is as it was."
The studio, which had struggled (and failed) to make Noah more orthodox, subsequently heaved a sigh of relief as Aronofsky's grand folly enjoyed a $44m US opening weekend. Yet if Pope Francis offered a whispered critique of the film (his thoughts remain private, although the Vatican says he hasn't seen it), it can only have been along the lines of: "It is as it wasn't, but hey – I always had a soft spot for Zardoz!" | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/aug/30/beat-the-devil-review-bridge-theatre-london-david-hare-ralph-fiennes | Stage | 2020-08-30T11:44:20.000Z | Arifa Akbar | Beat the Devil review – righteous rage of David Hare's corona nightmare | Beat the Devil marks the return of live indoor theatre in the starriest of ways: a “Covid monologue” written by David Hare and performed by Ralph Fiennes. The stage is almost bare, which is a welcome relief – after almost six months, we do not need any visual distraction from the glory of a flesh-and-blood performance, albeit in an auditorium with a radically reduced capacity (from 900 to 250) and a Covid-secure armoury of thermal imaging and social-distancing guidelines.
Since theatres went dark, the Covid monologue has become a staple of rapid-response online productions. This 50-minute play, too, turns recently lived reality into drama, using Hare’s own harrowing experience of the illness as its narrative framework. The playwright contracted coronavirus at the start of lockdown, and this is a dissection of its debilitating effects as well as the politics around the illness.
Deftly directed by Nicholas Hytner, Fiennes emerges on stage looking like a middle-class everyman and speaks in diary dates, taking us through the chronology of Hare’s illness and key government decisions around Covid. The personal segues into the political and slightly overshadows the tender, first-person story. “I don’t have survivor’s guilt. I have survivor’s rage,” says Fiennes, and this play is a spirited expression of that righteous anger.
He speaks of the government’s slowness in announcing lockdown, the U-turn in contact tracing, the failure to provide sufficient PPE in hospitals, the plight of care homes, and much more, all of which amounts to political incompetence, hypocrisy and fiasco more heinous, he says, than the Suez crisis and the Iraq war.
There are dates, statistics and medical science, all powerfully delivered by Fiennes, who magically animates the stage, though he barely moves on it. The monologue has the urgency and passion of recently lived experience but also echoes of the 10 o’clock news at times, with familiar summaries of information and arguments. An initial poetry in the language is lost to a flatter, more muscular polemic when Fiennes launches full-throttle into political diatribe. It is the script’s comic ire that provides the high notes.
In the best moments, there are sparks of sharp, fierce outrage with Michael Spicer-style putdowns of individual cabinet ministers. There is an acerbic aside on Boris Johnson’s leadership that draws parallels between the prime minister’s return to office after contracting Covid-19 and his own recovery: “I know to take it easy. I know not to go back to running the country.” There are other barbed lines that zing: just as his illness enters its delirious or “mad phase”, so, too, the government enters its own state of madness.
Some trenchant points are made on class and race. The disease is “not the sort of thing the middle classes are supposed to get”, but, after Johnson contracts it, the Conservatives stop downplaying it because “it’s no longer a disease for losers. It’s a disease for men, particularly blond, white men.”
The personal tale is given comic treatment, too – his wife, Nicole, doesn’t understand social distancing when she climbs on top of him in bed to keep him warm – but is more often delivered in short, pungent lines. “Am I dying?” Fiennes says, but doesn’t linger on the thought, and remembers a diary entry on the 10th day of illness that read: “Total despair.”
This understated story of suffering becomes the quiet heart of the play, despite the louder passion of its politics. Hare’s illness brings terrors but it is also transformative. “I’m so glad to be alive,” he says, and we glimpse a man – though not always enough of him – who has gone through delirium and despair and come out the other side empathetic, grateful, changed.
Beat the Devil is in repertoire in a season of 12 monologue plays at the Bridge theatre, London, until 31 October. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/apr/04/shailene-woodley-young-adult-badass-divergent | Film | 2014-04-03T17:32:00.000Z | Ryan Gilbey | Shailene Woodley: Spider-Man's loss is Divergent's gain | I'm waiting outside Shailene Woodley's hotel room when the 22-year-old figurehead of Young Adult cinema and soon-to-be Biggest Young Female Actor in Hollywood Except For Jennifer Lawrence bursts out unexpectedly. "Hi, how are you?" she chirrups, rushing past me in such a blur that I have to direct my answer ("Good, thanks!") at the back of her head. The cream-coloured shawl around her shoulders billows behind her like a cape before she ducks into a doorway and is gone. I can hear her talking on the phone a few rooms away, and then suddenly she is skipping back down the corridor at high speed. She screeches to a halt in front of me. "Hi, how are you?" she asks for a second time, adding an introduction – "I'm Shai!" – and clutching me in an embrace so that now my reply ("Good, thanks!") is delivered into her right shoulder.
My research tells me that the hug is her preferred greeting, so frankly I would have been chagrined not to have received one, but even so there is a disparity between that informal gesture and the businesslike briskness with which she conducts herself. It's probably just press-junket fatigue but this is one weary woman. Not that she looks a mess. Her chestnut hair is scraped back from a face which is small and soft as a pompom, the shawl covers a jazzy black-and-white blouse, and she is wearing imperious black boots over black leggings. But she yawns and rubs her face; her voice catches and cracks. Her accent lapses occasionally into Canadian, though she was born and raised in California. "For some reason I start saying 'aboot' when I've been talking all day," she laughs.
Woodley received a Golden Globe nomination a few years back for The Descendants, in which she played George Clooney's bruised, bolshy older daughter, who breaks to him the news of her mother's infidelity. But that attention will pale alongside what's coming next. As the star of film adaptations of two of the biggest Young Adult novels of recent years – the science-fiction adventure Divergent this month, followed by the tearjerker The Fault in Our Stars, about teenage cancer sufferers falling in love – she is about to dominate the teen pop-culture universe. No wonder Jennifer Lawrence, who has trod this path as the lead in the Hunger Games films, a part for which Woodley auditioned, has been dishing out advice to her. (It boiled down to: don't do drugs or make a sex tape.)
Divergent, based on the novel by Veronica Roth, takes place in a futuristic Chicago where the population is divided into five factions. Anyone in whom logic and intelligence predominate joins Erudite; those who leap whooping and howling across rooftops or from speeding trains while wearing muscle T-shirts are known as Dauntless, though don't feel too bad if your first guess was Narcissistic or Frathouse. Tris, played by Woodley, is altogether rarer: as a Divergent, her talents span several factions and therefore dangerously resist categorisation. In Woodley it has a nuanced star who brings subtle inflections to the smallest gestures.
"Shailene was top of my list," says the film's director, Neil Burger. "I'd seen her in The Descendants where she had this incredible blend of rebelliousness and vulnerability, this swagger that didn't quite conceal the hurt underneath the skin. We were gearing up for a worldwide search but she was the first person I met and the only one I wanted. Jennifer Lawrence and Shailene are the two to watch right now as far as I'm concerned."
"I loved the strength in Tris," says Woodley, "and I liked that she wasn't inherently born a badass and that you get to watch her evolution and whatnot; I thought that was an interesting thing to note because I'd never seen a strong female heroine become a strong female heroine and, you know, that's a good example for young girls to hold on to and whatnot. The film is about rejecting mediocrity and not conforming and always dancing to the beat of your own drum and honouring your own instincts because there's so much insecurity and lack of self-confidence out there because of social media and comparisons to others and so the less we conform the more we'll (a) be internally happy and (b) also feel creatively satisfied because we'll be honouring ourselves versus the selves that others give us which are just a projection of others after all." Her breakneck conversational style suggests a person swimming frantically to shore. She stops for a breath: "I just think it's so important to wake up every morning …" The sentiment hangs unfinished in the air.
'I started acting when I was really young and I knew even then that if you go in and give everything and you still don't hook it then it means you weren't right for the role and there's no sense in wallowing in it'
Though she didn't have to try out for Divergent, she loves the audition process, which surprises me since actors tend to describe it as a crucible of rejection. In the case of The Descendants, the audition was even a chance to turn a "no" into a "yes". Woodley won the part when another film-maker was attached, but found herself dropped by Alexander Payne after he came aboard as director. Only once her agents begged him to let her audition again did she win back the role. "I started acting when I was really young and I knew even then that if you go in and give everything and you leave and there's nothing more you could have given and you still don't hook it then it means you weren't right for the role and there's no sense in wallowing in it." I wonder if she has ever seen a glass that she felt was half-empty. Thinking back to her tweets (such as: "The time is now, my friends. It is now"), I admonish myself silently for assuming they were written by some bored intern or underling.
Even winning an audition, though, doesn't necessarily mean you end up on screen. Woodley's cameo appearance as Mary Jane has been cut from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in the interest of "streamlining" the film, according to its director, Marc Webb ("Of course I'm bummed," she has said). I wonder, though, if the prospect of Woodley appearing as a kind of superhero in her own right in Divergent didn't sound the death knell for her role as Mary Jane. The Marvel dynamic might be unbalanced if Spider-Man were to cosy up with someone the audience considered to be tougher than him. Mary Jane is wanted for the next Spider-Man film but there are scheduling considerations: Woodley has already committed to a further two Divergent movies.
Woodley at the film's premiere. Photograph: Willi Schneider/REX
Having acted professionally since she was five, I ask if she can even remember a time when she wasn't performing. "Sure!" Then she changes her mind: "No. I guess not. But I did everything that other kids did so I kind of forget I was acting too." She worked widely in television (The OC, Without a Trace, CSI: NY) and at 16 became the linchpin of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, playing a schoolgirl mum. The show ran for five seasons. Produced by the ABC Family channel, it had a High School Musical gloss that sat oddly with its discussions about abortion and oral sex.
Woodley couldn't sound any less affectionate about it. "My character was nice one week, mean the next," she shrugs. "It didn't really make much sense." Having only seen the early episodes, I ask if there are others I should watch that she is proud of. "No," she replies flatly, "120 episodes and the first was the best." She yawns. My stomach rumbles. I explain that I was going to have a burger for lunch but that I went for the soup in case she found the fast-food aromas off-putting. "Oh that's funny," she says, though I was only half-joking: after all, her reputation for healthy living is both chastening and considerable.
It dates back to when she was 14. "I remember looking up at the sky and there were all these pine needles swirling around in the wind and it was beautiful and then I looked down and there was this eruption of trash swirling around from all the litter and the juxtaposition made me ask, 'Well, which wolf am I going to feed? Do I wanna be up there or do I wanna be down here? And that's when I began learning about indigenous cultures and herbalism and sovereignty and planting seeds and cooking food and seeing how it feels digestively …" But our time is up. Digestion will have to wait. She clutches me in a goodbye hug and I rush off to grab that burger.
Divergent is out 4 Apr in the UK | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/jul/13/whole-government-accounts | News | 2011-07-13T17:24:00.000Z | Lisa Evans | Whole of Government Accounts: The first findings | The first draft of the Whole of Government Accounts (WGA) was published today.
It gives a unique insight into how the Labour government balanced the books during their last year in power - the financial year 2009/10.
The publication today needs some appreciation of how accounts are constructed.
The basic idea behind accounts is that an organisation requiring money to run can be considered in terms of three things:
The amount the organisation owns and is owed to it. The WGA gives a figure of £1.2 trillion for the UK assets.
What the organisation owes to others. The WGA gives a figure of £2.4 trillion for the UK liabilities.
If you take what is owned and owed from others and use that to pay off all the debts, then the resulting figure is the return to the investors or taxpayers in this case. That would leave the UK owing £1.2 trillion for 2009/10 according to the WGA.
One important note is that the figures for assets and liabilities above do not include the public sector banks.
HM Treasury have provided a very basic breakdown of the UK assets and liabilities and the total owed if all assets were used to pay off all liabilities, in this diagram:
Whole of Government Accounts Photograph: Graphic by Paul Scrutton using figures from HM Treasury
One of the striking figures is that £1,133bn is spent on public sector pensions, making up the largest portion of all liabilities.
Other key findings are:
PFI There are 609 PFI contracts included in WGA. If we compare this with 800 agreements listed in this select committee document (PDF) and as explored in the Datablog guide to PFI, we can see that about 200 PFI deals are not included in the WGA publication today.
Money in and money out In 2009/10 the UK received £585.5bn mostly from tax money, it spent £688.7bn, including £195.6bn on social benefit payments, and £180.4bn employing staff.
National deficit In 2009/10 the government had a total deficit of £164.1bn (11.7 % of GPD).
These are the figures highlighted in the first WGA report, what would you like us to look into?
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