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https://www.theguardian.com/news/2001/oct/30/netnotes.markoliver | Sport | 2001-10-30T18:57:16.000Z | Mark Oliver | Michael Jordan | 1. Sports tickets don't get much hotter than this. Michael Jordan is playing in a clash between the Washington Wizards and the New York Nicks on the opening night of the new NBA season tonight. He has not played professionally for three years.
2. Many are wondering why he has decided to return after his last, breathtaking appearance. Jordan made the last shot in the dying seconds of a match to win a third straight championship with the Chicago Bulls, his team since 1984. But his answer for his return is simple: he loves the game and "had an itch to scratch".
3. This time, his $1m salary for the Wizards will be donated to post-September 11 charities - small change compared to the $33m he once earned with the Bulls. Cynics may suggest his appearance has something to do with a new line of Jordan sportswear, a Nike brand that generates $300m in annual sales.
4. Jordan's appearance tonight has certainly boosted Wizards season ticket sales. Replica shirts bearing his number, 23, are also walking off the shelves, costing the best of £100.
4. But basketball is a team game, and there will be a gulf in class between Mike and his rookie Wizards team-mates. There is no contest between them and other Bulls greats like Dennis Rodman and Scottie Pippen.
5. By 1993, Jordan had led the Bulls to three titles and the US to two Olympic titles, but, distraught at the murder of his father, he announced his withdrawal from the sporting and celebrity world.
6. However, a few months later, Jordan made the astonishing announcement that he intended to take up baseball, the game his dad wanted him to play when he was a kid. Jordan signed a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox and was assigned to the team's minor league system.
7. But at the end of the 1994-1995 NBA season, Jordan returned to the Bulls and to basketball. More trophies followed. In the 1995-1996 season, Jordan was named Most Valued Player of the finals, becoming the first player to earn the honour four times.
8. But there is more to Michael than basketball. In 1996, he starred in Space Jam alongside Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fud and Tweety Bird. His latest film, shot for Imax cinemas, is called Michael Jordan to the Max.
9. MJ is married to Juanita and they have two sons and one daughter.
10. And one final little-known fact: in his new dressing room he has insisted on bagging the corner peg, because it's tucked away behind a cupboard and is out of the way of anyone hoping for a peek at the world's most famous sportsman. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/jul/31/jay-rayner-restaurant-review-gigi-gao-swansea-a-fabulous-creation | Food | 2022-07-31T05:00:45.000Z | Jay Rayner | Gigi Gao’s Favourite Authentic Chinese, Swansea: ‘A fabulous creation’ – restaurant review | Gigi Gao’s Favourite Authentic Chinese, 23 Anchor Court, Victoria Quay, Maritime Quarter, Swansea SA1 3XA. Starters £4.98-£8.98, larger dishes £6.98-£13.98, wines from £19.98
Gigi Gao is her own special creation, and what a fabulous creation she is. She serves us wearing a full-length, silvery, sequined fitted dress, and a veil of gold tassels. It becomes clear, when the house wine arrives, that this is a fashion, rather than cultural choice; on the bespoke wine bottle label she is pictured, unveiled, raising a glass. Another waiter is in a rainbow sequined dress, and a third has a black sequined dress with a dashing opera cape. Rightly, they pair these outfits with sensible-looking trainers. The brilliant thing about all of this dress up is that it suits the decor. It’s the best kind of nuts.
The floors and many of the walls are painted mandarin orange, apart from those bits decorated with expanded images from Willow pattern, among many other things. The ceiling is strung with fairy lights and wide bolts of red, diaphanous cloth. In one corner there’s a huge, soft panda and in another a small deer. The stuffed toy animal looks thoroughly startled. I can quite see why. For no obvious reason, silver bunting reading “Happy 50th Birthday” is strung across our side of the dining room. Oh well. It’s bound to be somebody’s 50th some time. The table cloths, under thick, transparent protectors which your bare arms might later stick to, are decorated with Chinese stories and legends and the wine is served less in glasses than goblets, with multicoloured swirling and filigreed metal stems. Outside, overlooking the marina, are bright-red tables under a broad spreading tree hung with numerous lanterns. The laminated menu is an equally garish riot of images and typefaces.
‘A dear old friend’: spare ribs. Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Observer
All of this pageant and jollity would be merely annoying if the food served at Gigi Gao’s Favourite Authentic Chinese wasn’t up to much, but it is very much up to everything. Aside from two deep-fried seafood dishes right at the start, which had been allowed to wallow in the deep fat fryer for too long, the largely Sichuan-accented food here is a grand old wallop of flavour and intent and just all round bloody good things.
Gigi arrived in Swansea almost 20 years ago to study law at the university and was apparently struck by the dearth of good Chinese restaurants. Hence, in 2014, she opened this one at a location further into town, before moving it here in 2019 and letting her idiosyncratic eye for design run riot. By necessity, the long menu has a few standard Anglo-Chinese crowd pleasers, especially among the starters. Yes, you can have crispy duck and spring rolls, prawn toast and dumplings. There is a list of black bean dishes and another of sweet and sour.
‘Fiery sauce’: lazy bean curd. Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Observer
Don’t. Order instead a plate of the invigoratingly sharp black fungus salad or another of the smashed cucumber with julienned carrot. The menu is rich in these non-meat options, the most thrilling of which is a dish of griddled potatoes. They arrive in a small wok suspended within an ornate brass frame, with a guttering candle underneath. The discs of potato manage to be both crunchy and soft at the same time and appear to have been blanched, then deep fried, then turned in a mess of spice and chilli and black beans, to create a joyously massive hit of crusty flavour. They are so good, so compelling, we order a second portion. To be fair there were eight of us at the table. To be even fairer, it cost only £8.98, which I regard as a weird, vaguely arbitrary price, the weirdness of which is entirely appropriate to the location.
I scan the menu. The price of almost everything ends in 98, presumably because it is 1p less than 99 and 2p less than the full rounded-up £1. Oh yes, I can do all the maths. The key thing, of course, is the number before the 98s. Mostly it’s 6s, 7s and 8s with a handful of seafood dishes reaching the lofty altitudes of 12 and 13. Or to put it another way, we rampaged through the menu like toddlers let loose on a no-limits sweetie pick’n’mix, did not skimp on the booze and still came in at under £40 a head. You could eat here for a lot less and have a fabulous time.
‘Thumping flavours’: griddled potatoes. Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Observer
The vegetarian options include a rarely seen dish of shredded potato, served with a little bite. I’m used to it being cold. This is served warm, though it works well with the thumping flavours of the griddled potatoes. We have long-stewed aubergines in the deepest and darkest of sauces, and bright, a verdant meadow of garlic spinach to freshen everything up. There is a list of “lazy” dishes, because customers kept mishearing and misreading the Chinese word lazi, for chilli. The lazy bean curd, made with tofu skin boasting a proud, determined meatiness, comes in another fiery sauce with peanuts and dried chillies to be pulled to the side.
There is something called barrel beef which, as the name suggests, is a barrel-shaped receptacle, lined with foil and filled with the kind of broth you could lose yourself in on a cold night or even a warm one, thick with ribbons of just-cooked beef and fresh green herbs, fresh and dried chillies. We order the chicken wings in Coke and conclude from the eye-widening, tooth-juddering sweetness of the thickened sauce that it was indeed made with a lot of Coke. Spare ribs in the kind of glossy five-spice sauce with which you could varnish a boat deck are an old Cantonese throwback to another sort of Anglo-Chinese restaurant, the ones I went to as a kid and loved. It’s like going to a party full of interesting people you don’t know, and in the middle coming across a dear old friend.
‘Invigoratingly sharp’: black fungus salad. Photograph: Francesca Jones/The Observer
We had among our number the great Jeremy Pang, panellist on the world-beating BBC Radio 4 show The Kitchen Cabinet and host of his own terrific ITV show on Asian cookery. He was able to guide us through the menu, but you really don’t need a Pang at your side. Just order anything that’s even slightly unfamiliar. It’s fair to say that Gigi took a shine to Jeremy, but in truth I think it’s just that we were a big table of enthusiastic eaters ready for everything she had to offer. And she offered the lot. To embellish the old line about Sinatra, it was Gigi Gao’s candy-coloured, garlanded, ribboned, sequined and tasselled world; we were just living in it. Is it really authentic? I don’t care. What matters is that it’s good.
News bites
Yorkshire-based Truefoods, which makes restaurant-quality stocks and sauces – I swear by their veal jus and so do many top-flight kitchens – has finally opened an online shop. Products include everything from basic stocks, through ready-made gravies to steak Diane sauce, kombu dashi and Thai broths. The minimum order is eight pouches and must be placed by noon each Monday, for delivery across most of mainland Britain the following Thursday. Order here.
The steakhouse group Hawksmoor is once more staging its annual charity fundraiser in aid of Action Against Hunger. The dinner takes place at Hawksmoor Guildhall on Saturday 10 September and tickets cost £200 for a multi-course feast cooked by a starry line up of Tomos Parry of Brat and Florence Knight of Sessions Art Club, alongside Hawksmoor’s Matt Brown. The night will be hosted by the fabulous me. Tickets here.
A mark of just how tough it is to find restaurant staff these days: both Northcote Manor in Lancashire and JKS, the company behind big-hitting London restaurants such as Gymkhana, Sabor, Bao and Lyle’s have launched paid apprenticeship schemes. The JKS apprenticeship Academy will offer programmes for two sets of 11 candidates both back and front of house and will last up to 16 months, with jobs offered to successful apprentices at the end. The Northcote scheme is looking for five apprentices.
Email Jay at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @jayrayner1 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2018/feb/21/film-club-tackling-loneliness-older-people-hiv | Healthcare Professionals Network | 2018-02-21T09:59:57.000Z | Sophie Goodchild | The magic of cinema': the club supporting older people with HIV | Inside the Regent Street cinema in Marylebone, London, a group of men and women are in high spirits singing along to a dancing Doris Day. It is a gloomy Wednesday in February but these filmgoers, aged in their 50s to 80s, are determined to enjoy their weekly trip, on this occasion to see the 1955 film Love Me or Leave Me.
As members of the Silver Surfers club, they have one thing in common apart from age and a love of cinema – a diagnosis of HIV.
Simon Horvat-Marcovic, 53, a Silver Surfers regular and former retail manager, was made redundant around the time of his HIV diagnosis in 2015. As someone who lives with depression, he struggles on days when he does not speak to “a single human being”. For him, the club means “you’re not wallowing”.
“Having people understanding how you’re feeling, what’s going on inside your head and who you don’t have to explain yourself to. For me, that’s been brilliant,” he says.
The film club was launched in October 2017 and has 15 members. It is an initiative from the Health, Wealth & Happiness project, a Terrence Higgins Trust (THT) programme offering support to older people with HIV.
The magic of cinema is you go in as a stranger and come out as friends. It brings you together with others
With visits to see classics like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and High Noon, Silver Surfers came about after research by THT into the reality of life in the UK for people growing older with HIV.
At least one in three people accessing care after a diagnosis are aged 50 and over, and they are three times more likely to experience loneliness than the general population, according to the charity. Their social isolation can be compounded by the death of friends during the 80s and 90s, when Aids was at its peak, by no longer being part of the gay scene, and by their reluctance to discuss their diagnosis.
The health of those who are HIV-positive is generally stable thanks to advances in antiretroviral medication, so GPs do not consider them in need of additional support. The result is that their psychosocial needs may be overlooked, a gap in care that can be filled by initiatives like Silver Surfers, according to Clive Blowes, a national coordinator for THT.
“It can be a challenge to bring up the personal in a routine discussion with your GP,” says Blowes. “And if you’re a gay man then doors close to you, like the club scene, once you’re 50-plus.” The film club provides an alternative outlet, where people feel safe to discuss their physical and mental health issues over tea before the screening, he says. One woman in the group is less reliant on counselling services, for example, after joining outings, says Blowes.
For Mary Jones* the film club offers more than the opportunity to enjoy a classic film, have a laugh and chat about films. Despite being diagnosed in 1995, she has never disclosed her HIV status to even close friends because of the stigma and her fear of “being defined by it”. The club provides an essential support network for the 74-year-old, who can compare health notes, share problems such as side-effects of medication and pick up tips without fear of being judged or misunderstood.
Older people with HIV may encounter specific health problems. Ageing may mean the liver is less able to withstand the toxicity of HIV treatment, leading to symptoms such as jaundice. HIV drugs may also interact with other medications, triggering issues such as high blood pressure, which Jones has been experiencing. One club member helped by recommending a new app. “You feed in your information and it tells you exactly what drugs can and can’t be taken together,” says Jones, who contracted the virus from a partner who eventually died from Aids.
I've seen colleagues wear gloves to handle notes of patients with HIV. Why?
Read more
“Not even my GP knew about this. They’ve all had HIV training but you get some who are more interested in your condition than others,” she says. Through swapping contact details at the film sessions, Jones has access to peer support when she requires it.
The need for services offering direct health support, such as integrated HIV and cardiology care, for older people is beginning to be recognised by the NHS, according to Tristan Barber, an HIV consultant at Chelsea and Westminster hospital. However, he says there is still a way to go, especially on the psychosocial side, which is why clubs like Silver Surfers are vital. “This is more than just going to see a movie – it gives people a chance to share their stories with others like them and realise their psychological needs,” he says.
David Munns is a clinical nurse specialist for mental health and HIV at the Kobler clinic, part of Chelsea and Westminster hospital. Increasingly, he is getting referrals for over-50s with HIV needing mental health support, partly as a result of people living longer as treatability improves.
Munns has seen the psychological benefit of cinema for patients, including those with HIV, through MediCinema, a scheme set up in 1999 at St Thomas’ hospital offering film screenings to those receiving treatment. He recalls one patient with HIV who was moved to tears after seeing a particular film clip because it reminded him of friends lost to Aids. Now Munns is planning to set up his own cinema support group for people over 50 with HIV.
He says: “It can be a lonely future if you’re getting older, you’ve lost your partner and you’re living with the stigma of HIV. The magic of cinema is you go in as a stranger and come out as friends. It brings you together with others, it gets you talking about and sharing your own experiences.”
* Name has been changed
Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views
If you’re looking for a healthcare job or need to recruit staff, visit Guardian Jobs | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2005/aug/18/whatsnew.onlinesupplement | Technology | 2005-08-17T23:53:22.000Z | Ashley Norris | What's new, Auugust 17 | Digital players
Cheap tunes
British maker Bush is claiming to have driven down the price of personal digital radios with the launch of its new model. The PSDAB2004 is smaller than most of its rivals and, with a retail price of £60, it is also significantly cheaper. It will tune in to all the available DAB stations and features 10 presets to store the user's favourites. The radio features a white rubberised protective shell and a basic LCD dot matrix display, and is powered by a pair of AA batteries. It comes with a pair of inner earphones that also house its aerial.
www.bushdigital.co.uk
Play time
JVC's latest digital music players are due to go on sale this week. Both the £99 XA-MP51 and £129.99 XA-MP101, are compact Flash memory-based players that also feature an integrated FM tuner. The key difference between the two is size - the MP101 offers one gigabyte of storage while the MP51 has 512MB. Both models will also play back MP3, WMA and downloaded WMA-DRM files, sport a backlit four line dot matrix display and feature voice recording facilities. The models are powered by one AAA battery, which delivers a playback time of 17 hours.
www.jvc.co.uk
Bean bagged
Sony, meanwhile, is expanding its range of digital music players with a new series of Flash-based Walkmans. Aimed at the youth market, the Walkman Bean - named after jelly beans, and not kidney beans, as we initially thought - was unveiled today and should be available at the end of the month. The players, which come in blue, pink, black and white, offer MP3 and Atrac playback, and include a pop-up USB connector for easy docking with PCs. Battery life from the onboard Lithium Ion rechargeable is rated at about 50 hours, and the 512MB or 1GB players cost £79 and £99, respectively.
www.sony.co.uk
DVD players
See double
Those wanting to convert their old VHS tapes to digital formats might be interested in Sanyo's new DVD/VHS combo. The snappily-named DVR-V100E is part of the company's new range of DVD players, and allows recording on both video cassette and DVD, and between the two. It's a well-featured machine with a straightforward but uninspiring design that could help those not yet ready to dump their video collections. It's out now and retails for about £200.
www.sanyo.co.uk
Handsets
Dual dialling
A cordless handset that can access standard and internet-based telephone services has arrived in the UK. The DU@L phone features a base station that plugs into both a standard landline connection and a USB socket on a PC. This enables users to make conventional calls or to use Skype's Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) service. Users can make free calls to other Skype subscribers or use the SkypeOut service, which offers inexpensive calls to landline and mobile phones. They can also assign different ringtones to landline or Skype calls. The phone/base station is on sale now for £80, with additional handsets retailing for £40.
www.new-tech-products.co.uk
Mobile phones
High-end hopes
The first phone in Nokia's N series of high-end 3G models launches in the UK this week. Unusually for Nokia, the N90 is a clamshell phone with a swivelling screen. The onboard camera, which is the first on a phone to include high-end Carl Zeiss optics, takes two megapixel images and features a macro mode and a 20x digital zoom. Other facilities include an MP3/AAC music player, web browser, video camera, MPeg4 video playback, POP3 email, Bluetooth and 31MB of internal memory. It runs on the Symbian platform with the Series 60 interface.
www.nokia.co.uk
Six of the best: Geek blogs
Boing Boing
www.boingboing.net
Dave Winer
www.scripting.com
The Scobleizer
http://scoble.weblogs.com
TechDirt
www.techdirt.com
JoHo
www.hyperorg.com/blogger/
Engadget
www.engadget.com
Stat of the week - English leads the web
Much is being made of China's internet adoption, but English remains far and away the most spoken single language on the internet. German and Japanese manage to punch above their weight, but such anomalies are likely to even out as web use continues to spread.
· If you'd like to comment on any aspect of Online, send your emails to [email protected] | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/marketforceslive/2012/aug/02/agrekko-ftse-smith-nephew-olympics | Business | 2012-08-02T09:44:41.000Z | Simon Neville | Power generators Aggreko profit boost thanks to £55m Olympic contract | A flurry of gold medals by British athletes – well, two – has left the FTSE up slightly, while other european markets start down, with all eyes turned to the ECB and Bank of England for the monthly rates decision.
The FTSE 100 is up 15 points at 5728 on a busy day for company announcements perhaps in the hope of drawing analysts and investors away from the Olympics.
Starting with the Games, there is one outsourcing company that has managed to quietly go about its job without resorting to drafting in the army or being hauled before MPs, unlike G4S (up 0.7p at 251.9p).
Aggreko, the Glasgow-based temporary power firm, revealed it expects its contract of 550 generators and 1,500km of cable it is providing across 44 Olympic sites is worth £55m.
Reporting its half-year results this morning, the company said it has expanded well in Latin America but Europe remains troubling.
Pretax profits for the first six months of the year were up 23% from £119m to £146m, while revenues were up to £734m from £637m.
However, because of the uncertainty in Europe, the company was propping up the FTSE 100 as the biggest faller, down 64p, 3%, at £20.56.
Chief executive Rupert Soames (younger brother of MP Nicholas) said:
Our order-book is at record levels; we have opened our new manufacturing facility in Scotland; and we have delivered what will be the world's largest contract for temporary power for a major sporting event, in the form of our work as the exclusive supplier of temporary power for the London Olympics
By comparison (and trying to keep to the Olympic theme going) one of the biggest risers was Smith & Nephew, up 14.5p at 673p.
The artificial hips and knees maker, who may or may not offer any retiring Olympians a discount, said trading margins were up 80bps thanks to cost cutting, while patients who may have previously delayed surgery are finally going through with their operations.
Revenues in the second quarter of the year was at $1.03bn – down from $1.08bn during the same period a year ago – while trading profit was down to $234m from $236m last year.
All in line with expectations, but the key reason for the strong growth is the 50% increase in the company's interim dividend. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/aug/09/sutton-hoo-steamship-hulk-in-suffolk-gains-legal-protection-lady-alice-kenlis | Culture | 2023-08-09T04:01:03.000Z | Harriet Sherwood | Sutton Hoo steamship hulk in Suffolk gains legal protection | The hulk of a 19th century iron steamship abandoned in a river on the Sutton Hoo estate has been given legal protection by the government.
The Lady Alice Kenlis was designed by Hercules Linton, the Scottish shipwright who later designed the tea clipper Cutty Sark.
The ship was built in Glasgow and launched in December 1867. It was named after Alice Maria Hill, the daughter of the Earl of Hillsborough who married Lord Kenlis the same year.
The Lady Alice Kenlis was used as a cargo ship, carrying cattle, goods and passengers between Northern Ireland, Scotland and England. It was briefly used as a ferry, and in 1913 was converted to a suction dredger and reregistered in Bristol as the Holman Sutcliffe.
The ship was partially dismantled in the 1930s, and the remains of the hull were towed to its present location in the River Deben in Suffolk and scuttled in the late 1930s or early 1940s.
“Hulks” are ships that have been abandoned, partially dismantled and stripped of fittings, rather than “shipwrecks”.
After designing the Lady Alice Kenlis, Linton formed a shipbuilding company, Scott and Linton. The Cutty Sark was among the vessels built by the company.
The famous ship was a state-of-the-art Victorian tea clipper, one of the fastest of its kind and capable of making the journey from Sydney to London in 73 days. It is now part of the Royal Museums Greenwich by the River Thames in south London.
Two years after the Cutty Sark’s launch, Scott and Linton went bankrupt.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay, arts and heritage minister, said the Lady Alice Kenlis was an “important piece of our national heritage”.
Its hulk “offers us an important insight into the work of Hercules Linton, who – as the designer of the Cutty Sark – became one of the most notable shipwrights of the 19th century”.
Angus Wainwright, an archaeologist at the National Trust, which owns the Sutton Hoo estate, said: “Although we knew that the Lady Alice Kenlis was an interesting ship, we didn’t appreciate just how historically important she was.
“This is now our second scheduled ship at Sutton Hoo, as we also look after the site where the famous Anglo-Saxon burial ship was excavated in 1939.”
The ship’s protection as a scheduled monument was granted by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on the advice of Historic England. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/nov/20/half-tree-species-amazon-risk-extinction-study | Environment | 2015-11-20T20:12:25.000Z | Damian Carrington | Half of tree species in the Amazon at risk of extinction, say scientists | More than half the myriad tree species in the Amazon could be heading for extinction, according to a study that makes the first comprehensive estimate of threatened species in the world’s largest rainforest. Among the species expected to suffer significant falls in numbers are the Brazil nut, and wild cacao and açai trees, all important food sources.
The world’s most diverse forest has endured decades of deforestation, with loggers, farmers and miners responsible for the removal of 12% of its area. If that continues in the decades ahead, 57% of the 15,000 tree species will be in danger, according to the researchers.
However, if existing protected areas and indigenous territories across the vast area suffer no further damage, the number of species at risk would be restricted to a third of the total.
“Forests in the Amazon have been declining since the 1950s, but [until now] there was a poor understanding of how this has affected populations of individual species,” said Prof Carlos Peres, at the University of East Anglia, one of the 158 scientists from 21 countries who worked together on the study.
“Protected areas and indigenous territories now cover over half of the Amazon basin. But forests and reserves still face a barrage of threats, from dam construction and mining, to wildfires and droughts intensified by global warming.”
Virola surinamensis, a valuable timber tree in Caxiuanã National Fores, Brazil Photograph: H. Steege/Science Advance
Brazil, which holds 60% of the Amazon forest, has sharply cut its rates of deforestation in the last decade. But elsewhere the felling continues unchecked, and it is increasing in Bolivia and Peru. Overall, an area the size of about 4,500 football pitches is still being lost every day.
If Brazil can restrict its deforestation to current levels and other countries improve to match that, protected areas could remain largely untouched. But Rafael Salomão, of Emílio Goeldi Museum in Belem, Brazil, and a member of the research team, said: “The vast majority of protected areas in the Amazon have no management plan or budget and few resident qualified personnel.”
Furthermore, demand for beef, soy and palm oil, which drives much deforestation, is likely to rise rapidly as the global population grows, increasing the pressure to clear more forest. “It’s a battle we’re going to see play out in our lifetimes,” said William Laurance, of James Cook University in Australia, who was also part of the study.
Scientists reveal there are 3tn trees in the world
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The study, published in the journal Science Advances, compared almost 1,500 forest surveys from across the Amazon with maps of current and projected deforestation. From this, the scientists could estimate how the overall populations of the different tree species have changed and how they may change in future.
They used these population changes to work out how threatened the species were according to the criteria used by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) to draw up its “red lists” of endangered species. To be placed on the red list of species requires detailed analysis of past and projected population changes.
A Yanomami woman with a medicinal tree Photograph: William Milliken/Science Advance
In the last 10 years, scientists have had the resources to place 1,275 plant species from tropical South America on red lists. The much broader approach taken in the new research provides strong evidence that the number of red-listed Amazonian tree and plants should be 10 times higher.
If the Amazon nations are unable to check deforestation between now and 2050, the scientists estimate that 63% of wild Brazil nut trees will be lost. But if protected areas are left intact, the loss falls to 32% – a major decline, nevertheless, which would still class the species as vulnerable to extinction. Similarly, continued deforestation would lead to the loss of 72% of wild açai palm and 50% of wild cacao trees. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/aug/30/matthias-maxime-review-xavier-dolan | Film | 2020-08-30T06:52:07.000Z | Wendy Ide | Matthias & Maxime review – Xavier Dolan's tale of unspoken love | The latest from Canadian arthouse wunderkind Xavier Dolan is the story of two men and one kiss. The men are Matthias (Gabriel D’Almeida Freitas), a rising star lawyer who is starting to question whether his fast-track career is taking him in the right direction, and Maxime (Dolan), a carer for his addict mother who is about to leave behind a life that has rather stalled in Montreal to make a new start in Australia. The kiss is scripted – the pair find themselves roped into a student film by the insufferable younger sister of a friend. But the emotions it unlocks are real and perplexing, skewing the balance of a friendship that has threaded together the lives of both since they were children.
Matthias & Maxime is recognisably the work of Dolan, who at 31 has crammed a lot of Quebecois melodrama into a relatively short career. His trademark flourishes are very much in evidence: the high-octane onslaught of dialogue, the dominant mothers and invisible fathers, the speeded up montages – his sly way of taking the most hackneyed of all cinema devices and giving it a punky, irreverent energy – and slick changes of aspect ratio (more on which later). But there is also a tonal shift here. The strident, splintering bitterness of some of Dolan’s earlier films (Mommy; It’s Only the End of the World) is replaced by a softer, enveloping melancholy. It’s not exactly gentle in approach – Dolan’s film-making has always been the kind that snaps and bares its teeth – but it’s more forgiving, perhaps, of the flaws in his characters.
These are lives at a turning point: carry on and become their parents, or plough a fresh furrow
One of Dolan’s great gifts as a film-maker is the way he captures the dynamics of discord. The camera latches on to every sniping side eye, every cheap dig that finds its target. There is love lurking in his families, but that doesn’t stop warring siblings and sparring mothers and sons tearing each other apart from the inside out. A combative quality within the wider group of friends around Matthias and Maxime highlights the easygoing, instinctive relationship between the two.
There’s a lovely shot early on: Matt and Max are framed in a lit window as they companionably work their way through the washing up, their heads bent together in a small, glowing square in the centre of the frame. It feels almost jarring when another character wanders into the shot. Later on, Dolan employs one of his aspect ratio shifts – the frame stretches like a lovestruck pupil dilating – and places the friends at opposite sides of the widest of widescreen shots. Between them is an endless expanse of beige sofa and a lifetime of unspoken words.
These playful frame changes mirror the shifting focus of the film: it’s an intimate portrait of two men who can’t quite bring themselves to admit that their relationship might be more than platonic, but it also has a broader generational scope. These are lives at a turning point: carry on and become their parents (in one of the film’s cruder elements, Dolan includes a grotesque, cackling band of moneyed older women as a cautionary Greek chorus), or plough a fresh furrow.
Ultimately, the revelation here is not so much Dolan’s more contemplative approach to film-making, but the subtlety and sensitivity of his performance. Max is sharp and witty, but lacks something of the invincible alpha-bro confidence of his buddies – certainly there’s a vulnerability here that is not evident in D’Almeida Freitas’s more erratic turn as the deeply confused Matt. Dolan doesn’t overplay Max’s diffidence but he does, in a couple of tremendous scenes, lay bare his easily bruised soul to wrenching effect.
Matthias & Maxime is on Mubi
Watch a trailer for Matthias & Maxime | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/27/jeremy-corbyn-article-50-vote-two-labour-whips-refuse | Politics | 2017-01-27T09:08:31.000Z | Jamie Grierson | Two Labour whips defy Jeremy Corbyn on article 50 vote | Two Labour whips have said they will refuse to vote in favour of the article 50 bill, as the Labour frontbencher who resigned on Thursday said she felt her decision to defy the whip was “truly reflecting the will of the people”.
Jeff Smith and Thangam Debbonaire, whose constituencies strongly backed remain in last summer’s referendum, said separately they would not be voting to invoke article 50, which triggers the process of leaving the EU.
Tulip Siddiq, the shadow minister for early years, resigned on Thursday saying she could not vote for the bill. Her Hampstead and Kilburn constituents voted by almost 75% to remain in the EU.
Writing in the Guardian, Siddiq said she had received a torrent of abuse since her resignation, which she said was unfortunate but hardly surprising given the divisiveness of the Brexit vote.
I’ve quit as shadow minister over article 50 to follow the true will of my people
Tulip Siddiq
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“That said, it does amaze me that the decision of an MP to represent the will of her constituents is met with disgust from those who have been so adamant for our country and our politicians to ‘take back control’ and to reflect ‘the will of the people’,” she wrote.
“The majority in my constituency that voted for remain far exceeded the national majority for leave. Even that national majority might have looked quite different had our current hard Brexit not been so firmly denied by prominent leave campaigners during the referendum campaign.
“In resigning my frontbench role and fighting Theresa May’s hard Brexit from the backbenches, I believe I am truly reflecting the will of the people – my people.”
The MP, who was elected in 2015 and gave birth to her first child last year, said it had been one of many highly emotional issues for her, with “sleepless nights, cold sweats, recurring nightmares” over votes in the House.
Siddiq said others in the party also had hard decisions to make. “Many of my colleagues have far more divided constituencies than my own,” she said. “I can well imagine how hard their decisions must be too.”
Corbyn has imposed a three-line whip, the strictest form of instruction to attend and vote, on article 50. Smith and Debbonaire’s role as whips is to ensure the party’s MPs vote as the leadership demands.
The shadow transport minister, Daniel Zeichner, has also said he will not vote in line with Corbyn’s instructions. Zeichner said he expected to be sacked from the transport role for defying the order.Smith, MP for Withington, told the Manchester Evening News: “My constituents voted strongly for remain and I think it’s important to represent their view. I am not convinced that the government has a proper plan for negotiating a deal in the UK’s best interest, and I also think any deal should go back to the country.”
Debbonaire, MP for Bristol West, which returned a remain vote of nearly 80% last June, told the Bristol Post: “I have always said I would be minded to vote against article 50 if it meant leaving the single market or something close to it. And Theresa May has indicated that that is what she wants to do, so I’m minded to vote against.”
'Labour is running scared': our readers on Corbyn's article 50 vote
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She told the newspaper she understood why Corbyn and the shadow Brexit secretary, Keir Starmer, had called for the party to back the triggering of article 50, but said it was not “in the best interests” of Bristol.
“The 25 most leave constituencies and the 25 most remain constituencies are represented by Labour MPs and mine was one of those remainers,” she said. “I need to be mindful of their views but most importantly I’m doing this for the jobs, the industries and knowledge-creation sector that we have in Bristol West in particular.
“The engineering companies, the creative industries and the universities – they have got in touch, in different ways, to tell me they need to be as fully in the single market as possible.”
Zeichner, whose Cambridge constituency also voted for remain, said it had been a “very straightforward decision”.
“It’s my strongly held personal position, and I represent three-quarters of the people of Cambridge,” he told the Cambridge News. “I’ve had perfectly civilised conversations [with the Labour leadership]. They know my position and they understand exactly why I’m doing what I’m doing, and it’s for them to decide what to do next.”
The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, defended Corbyn’s stance. She told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “You have to remember how this looks to people in post-industrial Britain, former mining areas, the north, the Midlands, south Wales – it would look as if elites were refusing to listen to them.
“It would be wrong. How could MPs vote for a referendum and then turn around and say: it went the wrong way so we are ignoring it?”
Corbyn, who during his time as a backbencher defied the party whip hundreds of times, has said he understands the pressures facing his MPs, many of whom strongly supported the remain cause, but he has urged the party to unite and make sure the legislation goes through the Commons.
He said: “Labour is in the almost unique position of having MPs representing constituencies in both directions, and very strongly in both directions. I say to everyone: unite around the important issues of jobs, security, economy, rights, justice, those issues, and we will frame that relationship with Europe in the future outside the EU, but in concert with friends, whether those countries are outside or inside the EU.”
The shadow business secretary, Clive Lewis, who has previously said May’s plans for Brexit were not in the best interests of his constituents or the country, said he would toe the party line.
“I have been clear throughout that I respect the result of the referendum and will, therefore, join my colleagues in voting for the bill on its second reading,” he said. “However, Theresa May does not have a mandate to dictate the terms of Brexit without listening to the British people.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/10/scotland-will-not-take-knee-at-euro-2020-but-pledge-to-tackle-racism | Football | 2021-06-10T21:32:26.000Z | Louise Taylor | Scotland will not take knee at Euro 2020 but pledge to ‘tackle racism’ | Scotland have decided against taking a knee during Euro 2020 but will continue to stand up to racism. Steve Clarke’s squad switched from kneeling before kick-off to standing before their World Cup qualifiers in March, with the manager claiming the impact of the former gesture had become “maybe a little bit diluted”.
Nerves, hopes, dreams: why Euro 2020 will be a tournament like no other
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The transition reflected a wider trend among Scottish Premiership clubs, who had replaced taking a knee with standing, but contrasts with an England squad determined to keep kneeling.
Clarke’s captain, Andy Robertson, stressed that Scotland’s commitment to helping eradicate discrimination was in no way diminished. “It is important we continue to tackle the issue of racism and raise awareness of the need to change people’s mindsets but also their behaviours,” said the Liverpool left-back.
“Prior to our World Cup qualifiers in March we spoke as a group and felt that taking a stand was the best way for us to show solidarity and also to reinforce the need for meaningful change in society.”
Scotland’s first opponents, the Czech Republic, will be without Slavia Prague’s Ondrej Kudela on Monday at Hampden Park in the wake of a 10-match Uefa ban. He was found to have made racist comments to the Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara in Glasgow in March.
By Monday the Scotland centre-half Liam Cooper should have fully attuned himself to the similarities and sometimes stark contrasts between Clarke and his club manager at Leeds, Marcelo Bielsa. “At Leeds we’re very man for man but, under Steve, we have a different formation and tactics that work for us,” Cooper said. “But they’re both demanding managers that bring out the best in you. They leave you to express yourself and that’s been great for me. When you’ve worked with Marcelo you can work with any manager.”
Bielsa’s uniquely intense leadership style is largely responsible for the likelihood that Cooper and his Elland Road teammate Kalvin Phillips will be on opposite sides when England face Scotland at Wembley next Friday. “Marcelo’s 100% demanding,” said Cooper. “But he’s brought the best out in me and a lot of my teammates at Leeds. He’s taken my career to places I never thought possible.
“I have much to thank him for but I also have to thank Steve for showing a lot of faith in me, bringing me into the squad and letting me show what I can do. Steve gets the best out of this squad, 100%. He lets us express ourselves but, at the same time, he commands that level of respect which all managers need. This group have taken to him and listen to him. He’s been different class.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/15/police-and-cps-had-key-dna-evidence-16-years-before-andrew-malkinson-cleared-of-rape | UK news | 2023-08-15T19:12:45.000Z | Emily Dugan | Police and CPS had key DNA evidence 16 years before Andrew Malkinson cleared of rape | Police and prosecutors in the Andrew Malkinson case knew there was another man’s DNA on the victim’s clothes in 2007 – three years after he was wrongly convicted of rape – but he remained in prison for another 13 years.
Malkinson was cleared by the appeal court last month after spending 17 years in prison for a 2003 rape he did not commit. His exoneration came after fresh DNA testing linked another man to the crime.
Case files released to Malkinson as he fought his conviction, and now seen by the Guardian, reveal that police and prosecutors knew forensic testing in 2007 had found a searchable male DNA profile on the female victim’s vest top that did not match Malkinson’s.
They decided not to take further action, and there is no record they told the body responsible for investigating miscarriages of justice, though Malkinson’s lawyers were notified.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission declined to order further forensic testing, or refer the case for appeal in 2012, with the files showing the CCRC raising concerns about costs.
The DNA discovery was made in 2007 as part of a nationwide review of the forensics used in historic rape and murder cases called Operation Cube.
Malkinson, 57, was convicted of a stranger rape in Manchester in 2004 on the basis of witness evidence, with the prosecution arguing he left no DNA because he was “forensically aware”. He always maintained he was innocent.
Yet the discovery of another man’s DNA – which was not that of the victim’s then boyfriend – in a “crime specific” area of the victim’s clothes did not result in the CCRC referring his case for appeal. During the attack, the victim suffered a bite that partially severed her left nipple, meaning saliva staining on the vest above the left breast was considered “crime specific” by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
A log of a meeting between the Forensic Science Service, the CPS and Greater Manchester police in December 2009 reveals that the CPS was aware of the potential enormity of the discovery.
Its then head of complex casework in Manchester said: “If it is assumed that the saliva came from the offender, then it does not derive from Malkinson. This is surprising because the area of the clothing that the saliva was recovered from was crime specific.”
However, he said “he did not see that there was a need to do any further work on the file” unless the case was brought to appeal, and then his focus would be on “bolstering” the case against Malkinson.
The CPS is supposed to write to the CCRC at the earliest opportunity about any case in which there is doubt about the safety of the conviction.
An internal log of Malkinson’s first application to the CCRC in 2009, in an attempt to appeal against his conviction, shows the body raised the cost of further testing and argued it would be unlikely to overturn the conviction.
It took three years to reject his application, and did not request the full police file or conduct new forensic tests.
Emily Bolton, Malkinson’s lawyer at the charity Appeal, said: “The documents are a shocking chronicle of how Andy was utterly failed by the body, which should have put an end to his wrongful conviction nightmare, but instead acted as a barrier to justice. An overhaul of the CCRC is needed to prevent it failing other innocent prisoners.”
By relying only on the CPS file, the CCRC missed the chance to identify disclosure failures so grave that senior judges have since ruled they would have rendered his conviction unsafe.
It was left to Appeal to uncover disclosure failures and commission more forensic tests. Without the CCRC’s automatic access to police files, they had to take extensive legal action against Greater Manchester police to access them.
Refusing to refer his case for appeal in 2012 and explaining why it would not conduct further DNA testing, the CCRC told Malkinson the cost of forensic investigation was not its “overriding consideration”. Yet the internal case log reveals the CCRC made comments including “the cost cannot be ignored” and “further work would be extremely costly”.
Malkinson has called for the head of the CCRC, Helen Pitcher, to resign and a petition urging her to apologise has more than 100,000 signatures.
Malkinson said: “If the CCRC had investigated properly, it would have spared me years in prison for a crime I did not commit.
“I feel an apology is the least I am owed, but it seems like the very body set up to address the system’s fallibility is labouring under the delusion that it is itself infallible. How many more people has it failed?”
The CCRC has previously argued that the science to exonerate Malkinson was not there when it considered his two earlier applications to appeal. While science has advanced, basic testing that isolates the male chromosome, similar to that commissioned by Appeal in 2019, existed when the CCRC was first considering Malkinson’s case and was widely used from 2003.
This testing could have been used on fingernail scrapings taken from the victim. Internal records show this was suggested as an option by a forensic scientist to the CPS in a 2009 meeting after the vest-top DNA discovery.
Internal logs from 2009 show a CCRC worker being “bemused” at the fresh application, writing: “Just because it appears there is someone else’s DNA on the complainant’s vest … cannot surely produce a hope of a successful referral in view of all the other strong ID evidence.” The comment appears to ignore the location of the DNA.
Malkinson’s lawyers say the characterisation of witness evidence as “strong” was questionable, given it was already known that Malkinson did not match the victim’s description of her attacker in key ways, including having no scratch on his face when she recalled causing “a deep scratch” and the fact that one witness picked out a different person in the identification procedure.
Refusing to refer the case for appeal in 2012, the CCRC said there was “no realistic prospect” that further testing would yield a searchable profile “capable of being compared with the national DNA database”.
Yet the CPS had already been told by scientists that the database was searchable. Part of it had been searched in 2007, without any matches identified.
A man named only as Mr B has been arrested in connection with the rape and released under investigation.
When the CCRC considered Malkinson’s case again in 2018, presented with new information about witness evidence flaws, it did not undertake a new search on the database with the DNA from the vest. Nor did it carry out its own testing or refer the case for appeal.
James Burley, Malkinson’s investigator at Appeal, said: “The CCRC’s internal comments show that in deciding not to commission any DNA testing, cost was at the forefront of their considerations. That decision may have saved the CCRC some money, but it came at a brutal cost for both Andy and the victim.
“The CCRC has been giving the false impression that a DNA breakthrough could not have been achieved by them sooner. These records show that is nonsense.”
A CPS spokesperson said: “It is clear Mr Malkinson was wrongly convicted of this crime and we share the deep regret that this happened.
“Evidence of a new DNA profile found on the victim’s clothing in 2007 was not ignored. It was disclosed to the defence team representing Mr Malkinson for their consideration.
“In addition, searches of the DNA databases were conducted to identify any other possible suspects. At that time there were no matches and therefore no further investigation could be carried out.”
Sarah Jackson, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester police (GMP), said: “This was an appalling miscarriage of justice and I am sorry to Mr Malkinson for all that he has suffered, and for any part GMP has had in the difficult journey of proving his innocence.”
The CCRC said: “We note the observations that have been made in relation to Mr Malkinson’s case and are considering the court of appeal judgment. As we have said before, it is plainly wrong that a man spent 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/publicservicesawards/digital-innovation-tags | Public Services Awards | 2012-11-20T21:00:11.000Z | Kate Murray | Tags help keep tabs on crime | When Mark Turner was released from prison at the start of this year after serving 21 months for a string of 200 thefts, he soon had a knock on the door from the police. A crime had been committed in his area and, as a prolific offender with convictions stretching back to 1995, Turner was an obvious suspect. But thanks to the GPS tracker he was wearing around his ankle, he was able to prove that he was sticking to his vow to go straight.
"Those police officers didn't realise I had a tracker on – but once they did, they left on the spot, rather than dragging me into the police station," he says. "Now the police in my area know I'm not at it any more. They can see I'm making a real effort to change my life – in a sense, it's like putting people's worries to rest."
Turner is one of 50 ex-offenders who have agreed to wear a GPS tracker as part of the successful Hertfordshire Horizons programme, set up by Hertfordshire Probation Trust and the police. Unlike the usual tags for ex-offenders, which simply flag up whether someone has broken a curfew, the GPS device, worn by around 20-25 individuals in Hertfordshire at any one time, can show exactly where the wearer is at any time of the day or night.
According to probation trust chief executive Tessa Webb, that is a welcome development for police and ex-offenders alike. She says: "We could see there would be benefits for the policing side, but what we perhaps hadn't anticipated was how much the people wearing them would like it. For them, there's the relief of not being pulled in every five minutes when they are trying to make a go of turning away from crime."
Horizons also involves intensive support for participants, including help tackling their addictions and advice on housing and job training. Since it was launched in April last year for the county's 200 most prolific offenders, their offence rate has dropped by 41% in the first year and 70 of them have stayed crime-free altogether.
Those figures are testament to the success of an intensive approach, says Webb: "About 10% of offenders commit 70% of crimes, so if we can turn their lives around we are going to have the biggest impact on crime," she says. "We need to work with the ones that cause the most harm to the community in a really joined-up way."
Lasting crime reduction
Detective Chief Inspector Julie Wheatley, Hertfordshire constabulary's lead on offender management, says: "I'm all for catch-and-convict but to get long-term sustainable crime reduction we need to do more than lock people up."
For Turner, who is now clean of the drugs which contributed to his offending, support from Horizons has included small grants to help buy clothes and household goods, help regaining his driving licence and work experience. "My life has changed and that's credit to probation and the police putting in the effort, and understanding it does take more than one appointment a week."
Digital innovation: Runners up
National Police Improvement Agency
The NPIA's online community for police officers has 47,000 users sharing information and ideas to promote best practice. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jul/16/should-i-worry-about-ticks | Life and style | 2023-07-16T14:00:01.000Z | Joel Snape | Should I worry about ticks? | As arachnid superorders go, ticks are pretty evolutionarily successful. They’ve been around for at least 100 million years in one variety or another, with their main party trick – hanging around until they can latch a host to feed on – working on thousands of different animals across almost endless environments. But how concerned should you be about them in the UK? You won’t miss the blood they take, but they can cause a variety of unpleasant conditions in their hosts – and there’s some evidence that their population is growing.
Just so we’re all on the same page, there are at least 900 species of ticks currently operating across every continent – some targeting seabirds and lizards, others cattle or dogs. Ticks sense vibrations and body heat, and will find a good place to wait for a host, then latch on to it, finding a patch of skin where the animal’s blood vessels run close to the surface and where it’s hard to be scratched away. At this point, it digs in and inserts its barbed, tubular mouthpart – sometimes secreting attachment “cement” to make itself harder to remove. In between slurps, it squirts saliva into the wound, containing a protein that prevents the host’s blood from clotting.
It’s this saliva that causes a lot of tick-related issues, not only by transmitting pathogens, but by countering the host’s own bodily responses in ways that can be harmful. Shutting down pain receptors and the immune system is helpful for ticks, for example, but for hosts, it can lead to serious problems.
How to protect yourself from tick-borne TBEV virus
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“Lyme disease, probably the condition most strongly associated with ticks, is a bacterial infection, which might affect as many as 5,000 people each year in the UK,” says Dr Tim Brooks, head of the rare and imported pathogens laborator (RIPL). “The most common symptom is a spreading, bulls-eye rash at the site of the tick bite, which typically develops up to a month after being bitten, but other symptoms include a non-specific flu-like illness, a facial droop, nerve pains and numbness or tingling in the hands or feet.”
More recently, ticks have also been found in the UK carrying tick-borne encephalitis, or TBE, which can cause a range of diseases, from a completely asymptomatic infection or mild flu-like illness, all the way to severe infection in the central nervous system such as meningitis or swelling of the brain. More information about symptoms can be found on the NHS website. TBE has been prevalent in many parts of the world, including several European countries, but was first detected in ticks in England in 2019. Cases in humans in the UK have been – so far – thankfully rare.
In 2017, former England rugby captain Matt Dawson had to undergo heart surgery after a tick bite. So, is there more cause for concern now? It’s tough to say. “Since data collection began in 2005, there has been a general trend of increasing cases of laboratory-confirmed Lyme disease,” says Brooks. “That rise may be due to a combination of increased awareness as well as improved surveillance, and better access to diagnostics – but it may also be related to increased potential for encounters with ticks due to changes in wildlife populations and habitat modification that may have resulted in changes in tick distribution across the country.”
At the same time, ticks don’t move around much by themselves, and this works in your favour if you’re trying to avoid them. “The most common UK tick species, the deer/sheep ticks, survive in many habitats, but prefer moist areas with dense ground level vegetation, which can be found in woodland, grassland, moorland, heathland and some urban parks and gardens,” says Brooks. “They don’t fly or jump. They wait on vegetation for a host to pass by, and then climb on – so while walking in green spaces, consider wearing clothing that covers your skin to make it more difficult for ticks to access a suitable place to bite, using insect repellent such as DEET and wearing light-coloured clothing so that you can easily spot ticks and brush them off.”
It’s also not disastrous if one does manage to sink its fangs – well, mouthpart – into you. “On average, approximately 4% of ticks are infected with the bacteria that can cause Lyme disease in England and Wales,” says Brooks. “But the presence of the bacteria in a tick doesn’t automatically mean that the person will be infected, especially if the tick is removed promptly.”
After spending time outside, it’s worth giving yourself and your pets – or children – a once-over for ticks: data from the UK Health Security Agency’s (UKHSA) Tick Surveillance Scheme shows that adults are commonly bitten on the legs, while children are commonly bitten around the head or neck. If you do find an unwanted passenger, removing it with a tick removal tool or fine-tipped tweezers can mitigate the risk of infection. And, if you start to experience symptoms, remember that rashes only occur in roughly two-thirds of cases of Lyme disease: contact your GP for antibiotics to fend it off.
Try not to use ticks as an excuse to stay on the beaten track, however. Research suggests there are enormous benefits to getting out in nature, with forests, in particular helping to mitigate everything from anxiety to depression. Ticks might have made an evolutionary success of sitting around snacking for most of the time, but you don’t have to. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/jan/16/roy-battersby-obituary | Television & radio | 2024-01-16T19:54:29.000Z | Anthony Hayward | Roy Battersby obituary | The director Roy Battersby, who has died aged 87 following a stroke, was one of the leftwing radicals who joined the BBC in the 1960s and sought to bring stories of working-class struggle to the television screen. But his overt political activism with the Workers’ Revolutionary party led to his being blacklisted by the BBC, a result of secret vetting carried out on the corporation’s employees by MI5.
The period of his finest work, at a time of political upheaval in Britain as trade unions took on the government, ended with Leeds – United!, a 1974 Play for Today, written by Colin Welland, about an unofficial strike by female textile workers in the north of England whose unsuccessful action was undermined by their own union.
It was based on a real-life strike by women at a factory in Leeds, including Welland’s mother-in-law, fighting to be paid the same as their male colleagues. The militant trade union leader was played by Lynne Perrie, a singer whose naturalistic acting talent had been discovered by the director Ken Loach and producer Tony Garnett – also using television to seek social and political change – when they were casting the 1969 film Kes.
Leeds – United!, written by Colin Welland and directed by Roy Battersby
Alongside complaints about the accuracy of the play, which Welland vigorously defended with proof of his intensive research, Mary Whitehouse, the self-appointed guardian of Britain’s morals, complained about swearing by some of the women. But the drama was most significant for Battersby’s directing style. He shot in black-and-white and opened with an aerial shot of a female worker walking along dark, early morning streets while a voiceover spelled out her limited new contract.
Loach, Battersby and Kenith Trodd, the producer of Leeds – United!, were among those who from 1968 – the year of anti-Vietnam demonstrations and student sit-ins – met at Garnett’s house for Friday-evening gatherings to discuss the opportunities for radical politics after feeling let down by the promises of Harold Wilson’s Labour government.
Battersby also joined the Socialist Labour League, forerunner of the Trotskyist WRP, in 1968 and never hid his views or his activism, which included a historical pageant, Two Hundred Years of Labour History, at an anti-Tory rally organised by the SLL in 1971.
In 1972, he was assigned by the BBC’s head of plays, Christopher Morahan, to direct The Operation (1973), about a crooked property developer. As revealed in Mark Hollingsworth and Richard Norton-Taylor’s 1988 book Blacklist: The Inside Story of Political Vetting, MI5 informed the BBC that Battersby was an active member of the WRP. “It was indicated to me that [the personnel department] would be happier if he was not engaged,” said Morahan. “I said he was the best director for the job and I wasn’t prepared to accept it.”
The Southport premiere of the 1986 film comedy Mr Love, directed by Roy Battersby, centre, with members of the cast. Photograph: ANL/Shutterstock
Trodd, branded a “security risk” by MI5, similarly survived a BBC attempt not to renew his contract, in 1976, while Battersby left to work full-time for the WRP for five years (1975-80). He was a member of its central committee (1970-80), and, with his then partner, Liz Leicester, he ran its education centre, White Meadows, in Derbyshire from 1975 until 1978.
After leaving the WRP and returning to programme-making with ITV, Battersby was blocked from working for the BBC – a result of the blacklist. Trodd wanted him to direct Pebbles from My Skull, a play about Italian resistance fighters, but the corporation refused to give him a contract.
It did the same when he was set to direct the series King of the Ghetto (1986), about racial tensions in the East End of London, but Graeme McDonald, controller of BBC Two, overruled the personnel department.
Battersby continued to direct for another 20 years, across channels. Politics rarely invaded his work, but he was handed the meaty, authority-challenging drama he craved when Garnett – reviving his own career to become a hugely successful independent producer – hired him as a director on Between the Lines (1992-94), which starred Neil Pearson as head of a team of officers investigating police corruption.
Roy was born in Willesden, north-west London, to Amy (nee Putman) and Frank Battersby. He graduated in economics from University College London and gained a PhD from the London School of Economics before starting his career in the theatre, behind the scenes at Nottingham Playhouse, in 1960.
From 1963, he worked for the BBC, directing Men and Money, a series about the City of London, the following year, then working as a producer on the first three runs (1965-67) of the science series Tomorrow’s World, making documentary features.
Switching to drama, Battersby directed Some Women (1969), reconstructing real-life stories of female prisoners. The BBC, concerned about the realism, cancelled the broadcast but, following a public campaign, screened it late at night on BBC Two.
Between contracts with the corporation, Battersby made several dramas for ITV, notably Roll on Four O’Clock (1970), written by Welland (a former teacher), about homophobic bullying in a school, again shot in a naturalistic way. Back at the BBC, he directed The Punchy and the Fairy (1973), written by Jim Allen, another leftwing radical.
Following Battersby’s decade with the WRP, the producer David Puttnam told Battersby that he wanted him to direct a big-budget film but could not raise the finance because of his blacklisting. However, Puttnam did assign him to two low-budget films, the romantic drama Winter Flight (1984) and the gentle comedy Mr Love (1986).
Returning to TV, he directed episodes of the police series Eurocops (in 1989 and 1990), Inspector Morse (in 1991) and A Touch of Frost (between 1994 and 2006). He brought atmospheric tension to a three-part Cracker story in 1995 and directed Olly’s Prison (1993), Edward Bond’s only play written specifically for television, which starred Bernard Hill.
His film Red Mercury (2005), starring Stockard Channing and Pete Postlethwaite, released shortly after the 7/7 London bombings, proved a bitingly topical drama about British-born Muslims holding hostages in a restaurant.
In 1995, Battersby received Bafta’s lifetime achievement award.
His first marriage, in 1959, to Audrey Chaney, with whom he had two sons, Ben and Frank, and a daughter, Anna, ended in divorce. He married the actor Judy Loe in 1997, after they had been together for 15 years. He also had two sons, Tom and Will, from his earlier relationship with Leicester, and a stepdaughter with Loe, the actor Kate Beckinsale. He is survived by Loe and his children.
Roy John Battersby, director, born 20 April 1936; died 10 January 2024
This article was amended on 18 January 2024 to correct details of Roy Battersby’s family. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/23/france-libya-humanitarian-doctrine | Opinion | 2011-03-23T16:00:00.000Z | Jean-Christophe Rufin | Which humanitarian doctrine should France follow in Libya? | Jean-Christophe Rufin | Le Monde (France) newspaper logo Photograph: PA
Let's welcome the fact that the threat of civilian massacres in Libya may have been removed. The bloodthirsty dictator who oppresses his people doesn't deserve any compassion. But this legitimate feeling should not prevent us seeing the situation as it is and worrying.
France is at war. It isn't just actively involved in a broad coalition. The predominant role that we have played in the operation at every stage, including the military, puts us in the frontline. Libyans on both sides are well aware of this: Benghazi is bedecked with tricolour flags and in Tripoli, curses are hurled against France. We can feel quite proud that our country has had the courage to act, but that doesn't stop us thinking about how this action is heavy with consequences, risks and unresolved questions.
The war in which we are engaged cannot be reduced to the sterile formula of an "air exclusion zone" which the members of the UN security council have approved.
This term suggests a protective hand stretched across the sky to gently prevent any violence. The reality is harsher. We are killing. We are bombing vehicles full of soldiers. The fact that they are probably criminals launching an assault against unarmed members of the population doesn't change anything in this assessment: it's no good saying "we will not intervene on the ground", for it's on the ground that these soldiers have been killed.
We are in effect engaged in ground combat, even if we are striking – for the moment – from the air. To justify it, French diplomacy invokes the small print of the contract, which you don't read properly before you sign it: the UN 1973 resolution stipulates that one can take "all measures, including military, intended to protect civilians".
That's where we are – a "humanitarian" war. We are launching destructive military operations against a country which has not attacked us and which is not threatening our interests. In other words, we are totally outside military doctrine as laid out in particular by the white paper on defence in 2007.
Our sole motive for using force is the violation of human rights. We are in a perfect case of the "right to intervene", a concept which paradoxically is triumphing at a time when its originator has left the ministry of foreign affairs.
This concept poses numerous problems, which has led to its being kept out of international law in favour of a more consensual formula: "the responsibility to protect".
The dangers of the right to intervene, which leaves it to the discretion of the powerful to attack whom they want, have often been highlighted.
The most flagrant case of dangerous intervention was the US intervention in Iraq in 2003. At the time France was the country that stood up against this intervention and pointed out its pernicious effects. Do we believe such a principle is less dangerous when it is France that is applying it?
Let's not make unjust accusations about those who launched this operation. Let's give them credit for acting according to their conscience, to spare human lives. But the fact remains that the phase governed by emotions must be left behind and, in order to carry out this war and perhaps others, we must work out a doctrine. What is it and who should formulate it?
We are waging a humanitarian war. We are attacking a regime in accordance with the idea that we have of human dignity. Well done. But is this principle applicable everywhere? Should it form the basis of our foreign policy and guide all our decisions? In other times this question would be theoretical, but in these days of Arab revolt it is completely concrete. Must we prepare ourselves to act tomorrow in Syria, Yemen, and Algeria?
The other hypothesis is that we cannot, and would not want to, champion our humanitarian principles everywhere. To put it clearly, that would mean that we would have to choose. But who is to choose? Is it an exclusive and discretionary prerogative of the president of the republic? Does a situation have to make tears flow at the Elysée for us to send our soldiers?
All these choices are engaging France greatly, and are not without risks. The international consensus that carried us is fracturing now, and Arab countries, along with others, are beginning to express their reservations. In addition, whatever the superiority of our army in a head-on confrontation, we must think about the serious harms – firstly, of course, terrorism – to which we expose ourselves by intervening against people with neither scruples nor boundaries, like Muammar Gadaffi.
I don't suggest that we should stop intervening. But in order to continue to act and to do so in unity, whatever the surprises, good or bad, a national debate is necessary.
The Assemblée nationale must not just be consulted after the event. It must be able to lead a general discussion on the subject, one in which public opinion must participate. It is not a question of hobbling the executive body but of giving it a clear mandate and setting limits.
Of course we expect a president of the republic to have the courage to decide on a military offensive. We also need to hear that he is capable of not succumbing to pure emotion. Our republican heritage gives us special international privileges, and all peoples naturally turn to us when their liberty is threatened. What answer must we and can we give them? That is what the French will have to decide one day. Together. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2019/jun/12/road-trip-madrid-seville-extremedura-region-roman-history | Travel | 2019-06-12T05:30:29.000Z | Stephen Burgen | Western Spain road trip: Madrid to Seville | Extremadura takes a little bit more effort to get to than many other parts of Spain. And because there is no beach, few of the 82.8 million people who visited Spain last year went to the region. Yet it is home to some of the country’s finest medieval towns and Roman architecture – and all the people who created Spain (Romans, Goths, Jews, Arabs) have made their mark here.
Visitors should pick up their hire car in Madrid and set the GPS for Navalmoral de la Mata. Pay attention getting out of town as the ring road is a nightmare. Once on the A5 head to Talavera de la Reina for a first encounter with classic Extremeño landscape: dehesa, rolling acres of holm oaks. This is what much of Spain looked like long ago before the trees were chopped down for firewood and shipbuilding, but here the oaks have been preserved so that blackfoot pigs can feed on their acorns and produce Spain’s treasured jamón de bellota (acorn-fed ham).
Head up into the hills to Jaraíz de la Vera, famed for its smoked pimentón (paprika) – there’s even a pimentón museum in the village. Carry on through the wooded hills towards Jarandilla de la Vera and book yourself into the rural hotel Villa Xarahiz (doubles from €70 B&B), which also has a good traditional restaurant with a €12 lunch menu. In the morning visit the Monasterio de Yuste (admission €7) then head south, dropping down off the sierra and through tobacco fields to Navalmoral where you pick up the A5 again.
Monasterio de Yuste, Jarandilla de la Vera. Photograph: Alamy
Stop off at Trujillo, the birthplace of Francisco Pizarro, the conqueror of Peru, and to several hundred other conquistadores who returned home to build palaces around the town’s square, one of the finest in Spain. One perfectly acceptable version of the afterlife would be to spend eternity sipping something nice and watching the light change in Trujillo’s Plaza Mayor. Stay at Eurostars Palacio Santa Maria (doubles from €60 B&B), a converted 16th-century palace. There are two museums – Casa-Museo de Pizarro and Centro de Visitantes Los Descubridores – in the town dedicated to Pizarro and his fellow conquistadores, though they give a one-sided view of the defeat of the indigenous Inca population. Dine at Meson Asador Alberca (menus at €15 and €21) or, if you can ignore the brash lighting, go to Restaurante Sandra for a plate of good jamón (€20) and the local cheese speciality, torta de casar. Extremadura red wine, mostly from the Almendralejo area, is excellent and almost unobtainable elsewhere.
Trujillo town square. Photograph: Getty Images
On day three head east into the hills to Guadalupe for a visit to this pretty hilltop town, its 13th-century monastery and gardens. Columbus made a pilgrimage here after this first voyage to give thanks for discovering America. Have lunch in the cloister of the Hospederia del Real Monasterio (three-course lunch €20) before heading back to Trujillo for a gin and tonic in the plaza then dine in El Mirador de las Monjas where dishes on the €20 menu include garlic soup, trout and calf’s cheek casserole.
From Trujillo it’s just a 20-minute drive west to Cáceres whose medieval centre is a Unesco world heritage site. The city’s fortunes rose and fell with the Romans, Moors and thrived during the New World conquest. It was home to one of Spain’s largest Jewish communities until their expulsion in 1492 under the Alhambra Decree. You get a good idea of its history at the museum (free) in the old city that contains a perfectly preserved aljibe, an Arab technique for conserving rain water. There are a variety of restaurants and tapas bars to choose from around Plaza San Juan, the charming Meson San Juan among them, or for something less traditional try the Tapería Torre de Sande. The Hotel Palacio de Oquendo offers double rooms at €90.
Old town, Cáceres. Photograph: Santiago Urquijo/Getty Images
On day five take the A66 75km south through the dehesa to Mérida, which has more Roman remains than any other city in Spain as well as the magnificent Moorish Alcazaba fortress, all within easy walking distance of each other. Mérida was founded by Augustus in 25BC and became the capital of the province of Lusitania. It’s worth buying a single ticket that will give you entry to all the monuments and museums (adult €15, under-18 €7.50). Start at the Roman bridge across the River Guadiana and work your way up town, starting at the Alcazaba, then stroll up through to the towering temple of Diana. The real spectacle, however, is the complex that includes the Roman theatre and the 15,000-seat amphitheatre built in 8BC. An international festival of classical theatre is held in the Roman theatre every summer. Good places to eat include A de Arco (for tapas) and La Tahona (two-course dinner around €20). Stay at the Parador de Mérida (doubles from about €70 room-only), an 18th-century convent.
Roman theatre, Mérida. Photograph: Alamy
On your second day in Mérida a visit to the National Museum of Roman Art is a good idea. The building is impressive and the artefacts are well displayed, the mosaics in particular. The museum will give you some context to what you’ve been looking at, although only some of the written information is in English. There are audio guides available.
On day seven it’s a short hop to Badajoz on the Portuguese border and much of the architecture has a Portuguese feel, as do the tiled street names. The huge Alcazaba that dominates the town on a hill above the majestic Guadiana river boasts the longest ramparts in Spain. This is your last day in Extremadura so order a plate of jamón and a glass of red wine, perhaps some Habla de Silencio, in the Bar Corchuela or El Ajo Negro and, after a night in the Gran Hotel Zurbarán (doubles from about €70 B&B) , head off on the two-hour drive to Seville, Andalucía’s capital city, for the last three nights of the trip.
Alcazaba, Badajoz. Photograph: Alamy
On the way make a short detour to Zafra, a pretty white-washed town with more conquistador history. Enjoy a cup of coffee in the colonnaded Plaza Grande.
In Seville, you won’t be needing the car. Book into the central Apartamentos La Casa del Pozo (doubles from €70 room only) or the Casa Palacio Don Pedro (doubles from €65). There is so much to see and do in Seville, from la Giralda to the breathtaking Alcazar palace to the vast cathedral and the Plaza de España. There is also a small Jewish museum in Santa Cruz. It’s a great city for walking, too, especially the San Bernardo, San Bartolome and Santa Cruz neighbourhoods. And there’s a whole other Seville across the River Guadalquivir in Triana that’s not to be missed. Salmorejo, the city’s take on gazpacho, is a signature dish. Eat at Michelin-listed Puratasca in Triana or the stylish D’Culto in La Buhaira. At lunchtime you can eat fish straight off the market stalls at La Cantina, sending you home with the salt taste of pescaditos washed down with a glass of fino.
Total distance: 880km
Looking for a holiday with a difference? Browse Guardian Holidays to see a range of fantastic trips | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/aug/20/omar-souleyman-syrian-wedding-singer-wooing-the-west | Music | 2015-08-20T17:16:15.000Z | Tshepo Mokoena | Omar Souleyman: the Syrian wedding singer wooing the west | Omar Souleyman was a prolific wedding singer with more than 500 live albums to his name before civil war broke out in Syria in 2011. As his country became increasingly unstable, Souleyman fled to Turkey, where performing for couples tying the knot was no longer an option. Yet he continued to write songs of love and positivity as a welcome distraction from the horrors of war, and in the process found himself something of a star in the west.
“When I started out as a wedding singer, I never thought I’d be able to sing outside of Syria,” he says. “Especially for an audience that can’t understand the lyrics.” But that changed in 2007, when the US label Sublime Frequencies released Souleyman’s earlier recordings, and he developed a cult indie following, thanks in part to the riotously upbeat live show he has taken across Europe, Canada and Australia (whenever he can secure the relevant visas).
It is a success for which he is grateful, but one he is also slightly perplexed by – understandably, as Souleyman doesn’t fit into any traditional western pigeonholes. His thumping Arabic songs aren’t the kind of world music that normally gets played in the background at barbecues, yet neither have they made their way on to the average 2am rave playlist. In fact, his dizzying use of ululating keyboards, pounding synthesised beats and throaty vocals pays homage to dabke, a Middle Eastern line-dance synonymous with weddings and other celebrations. “They can feel the music and the rhythm of the songs,” he says of his western audience, “and that fills me with pride. I’m so happy to be able to do this; few Arabic or Syrian singers have the opportunity to play festivals, or even perform outside the region.”
Lyrically, Souleyman’s music explores romance and companionship, themes he sticks to on his new album, Bahdeni Nami. Such universal messages help him to cope with the mounting troubles he sees whenever he returns home, and sees President Bashar al-Assad’s government losing control to Islamic State. “I don’t feel bad or bothered about the way I often sing about love,” he says. “It doesn’t mean I’m speaking about my personal love. I’m including the audience, the wider world. It’s not just about lovers, or love in one specific context. It’s a general understanding of love.”
You can hear this on Bahdeni Nami’s eight-minute title track, which roughly translates as Sleep in My Arms. It ripples through verses about loving a woman, feeling it in your heart when she looks at you, and wanting her to drift off in your embrace. As on just about every uptempo Souleyman track, it is underpinned by handclaps, a thumping four-to-the-floor rhythm and a wildly fluttering keyboard line. Even for those who don’t understand Arabic, there is an infectious insistence to how the trilling keyboards wriggle around Souleyman’s voice. It is hard to resist the urge to wiggle your hips.
DJ and experimental electronic musician Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) produced the song, after Souleyman’s manager asked him to give an early version a polish. “They credited me as producer but I wasn’t involved in the recording at all,” Hebden says. “All I do with Omar is help capture his sound and get it mixed right. His music is already fully formed and I wouldn’t want to get involved beyond that. I just want him to do his thing.” Hebden has worked with Souleyman before – as producer, he helped transform the wedding singer’s sound from the stuff of bootlegged compilation tapes to the cleaner, critically lauded 2013 album Wenu Wenu, released on Domino records imprint, Ribbon Music. Souleyman’s music has since moved from Ribbon to electronic music duo Modeselektor’s label, Monkeytown records. Gernot Bronsert, who runs the label with bandmate Sebastian Szary, found it important to position Souleyman as a dance music artist and not a maker of so-called “world music”.
“I’m really into cultural exchanges, but the term ‘world music’ is something I really don’t want to use for Omar Souleyman because what he does is something more,” Bronsert says, over the phone from Berlin. “It’s a cultural exchange, but on a sensitive and almost invisible level.”
Souleyman is currently in Syria, speaking to me via Skype from his hometown of Ras al-Ayn, near the Turkish border. Hours before our interview, he had been sitting in his garden, sipping coffee and chatting to his children. That, he says, is one of the activities he misses most, now that day-to-day life has become less stable. His voice grows quiet as he remembers the Syria he used to know. “Of course,” he says, “if things return to normal and calm down in Syria, I’d go back to my wedding performances. They remind me of the old days, before the war, and they’re very important for my social life. Now my friends and family are spread across Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Europe. It was good to see weddings bringing people together. If I could do them again, I would.”
Bahdeni Nami is out on Monkeytown. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/oct/25/strangford-lough-county-down-northern-ireland | Travel | 2014-10-25T06:00:21.000Z | Clare Gogerty | Let’s go to … Strangford Lough, Northern Ireland | Tell me about it…
Northern Ireland may not be known as a foodie mecca, but head to Belfast this weekend and the Food and Drink Show Northern Ireland will be offering artisan produce, craft ales and celebrity chefs. Much of the produce comes from the fertile shores surrounding Strangford Lough (or Strangford Loch), around 45 minutes’ drive from the city centre, so once you’ve tasted the wares, head out to their source. The recently opened Poacher’s Pocket in Lisbane is a restaurant with a well-stocked farm shop, while Daft Eddy’s on Sketrick Island has a smart terrace with views of the water and serves local Portavogie scampi and crab claws from the lough. The shop at Pheasants’ Hill Farm in Downpatrick sells organic, free-range ham and bacon, but call first to make sure it’s open.
No shortage of food then, what about a drink?
The Dufferin Arms in Killyleagh serves pints of well-kept Guinness in an interior that hasn’t changed for decades: the wood-panelled snugs are perfect for hunkering down on a wet afternoon with a seafood platter (£29.95 for two) and a bowl of chips.
And when I’m not feasting?
Watch the Brent geese, recent arrivals from High Arctic Canada, at Castle Espie Wetlands, then drive along a string of islands linked by a winding road to the ruins of fifth-century Nendrum monastery on Mahee Island.
Anywhere to stay under £100?
Cowey Cottage, a tasteful well-appointed self-catering cottage on the Ards peninsula, three miles from Portaferry, is surrounded by rolling landscape and converted farm buildings. It sleeps four and costs from £395 a week.
Anything else I should know?
The village of Kearney near Portaferry has been restored to its original state as a fishing village by the National Trust. There’s no fishing these days, but it is an atmospheric place to wander around.
Do I need a car?
A car is preferable for easy exploring, although Ulsterbus service 10A takes you from Belfast along the Ards peninsula as far as Portaferry, and the 16E goes from Downpatrick to Strangford. A regular ferry sails between Portaferry and Strangford. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jan/23/no-deal-brexit-threat-to-global-stability-cbi-head | Politics | 2019-01-24T00:01:28.000Z | Larry Elliott | No-deal Brexit 'poses threat to global stability' – CBI head | Fears are growing internationally that a no-deal Brexit poses a threat to the stability of the global economy, the head of Britain’s leading business body has warned.
Carolyn Fairbairn, director-general of the CBI, said the failure to sort out Britain’s departure from the European Union was damaging Britain’s brand abroad and had joined a list of systemic risks to the world economy.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Fairbairn said there was mounting concern at the potential for a no-deal Brexit to cause damage well beyond the UK. The CBI held a private breakfast for UK business leaders in Davos attended by the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. The UK chancellor, Philip Hammond, will address a CBI lunch on Thursday.
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Fairbairn told the Guardian: “At my meetings at Davos, there is a recognition that the causes of vulnerability of the global economy now include Brexit.”
The annual gathering of the WEF has been marked this year by anxiety about slowing growth and the trade dispute between the US and China. Fairbairn said Brexit had now catapulted up the list of worries. “It is everyone’s interest that Britain leaves the EU in a way that works for the British economy, the European economy and indeed the global economy,” she said.
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Although Theresa May has decided not to go to Davos this year, several senior Cabinet ministers – including Hammond, the business secretary, Greg Clark, and the trade secretary, Liam Fox, have made the trip to the Swiss alps in an attempt to reassure those running UK and international companies that Britain will remain open for business after Brexit.
Fairbairn said damage was already being inflicted on Britain’s reputation. “The world is watching as the UK seeks to navigate Brexit, and some are questioning the UK’s global brand. It’s a vital time to remind global investors about our core British strengths: openness, creativity, practicality, a pro-enterprise culture. The sooner we resolve our Brexit choices, the sooner we can return to these roots.”
She added: “The most critical thing is to avoid a no-deal Brexit. Business wants no deal ruled out for 29 March as soon as possible. The boost to confidence and investment would be immediate. Without that happening, there will be a continuing drain on jobs and investment across the country.” Hammond is likely to face questioning about the government’s plans for controls on migrant labour.
“UK firms are deeply worried that the UK’s post-Brexit immigration model could the government to reconsider its decision to halt most low-skilled EU migration and in particular the £30,000 salary threshold that determines what is considered low-skilled,” Fairbairn said. Hammond will tell the CBI lunch that he is providing £100m to create 1,000 new PhD places across the UK for the next generation of artificial intelligence. “Britain is a great place to do business,” he will say.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, told the Davos audience that Europe must “deal with the shock of Britain’s decision to leave the EU”. She said she was working towards a “well-ordered” Brexit, as Germany wanted a good future partnership with the UK on issues such as security and defence. “The easier the relationship, the easier for all of us,” she told delegates.
The chancellor also used her special address to Davos to push back against rising populism. She warned that the world order was under pressure, and that people must remember that the key decisions underpinning today’s global system were made after the second world war.
After the horrors of that conflict, the people in charge had certain instincts, Merkel says. We shouldn’t cast their decisions aside, as they were taken based on a wealth of experience, she insists.
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China’s vice-president, Wang Qishan, also launched a thinly veiled attack on Donald Trump’s America First strategy. “The Chinese culture values the teachings that one should help others to succeed while seeking one’s own success, create a world for all, treat others with respect and pursue win-win cooperation,” Wang said. “We reject the practices of the strong bullying the weak and self-claimed supremacy.”
With US officials staying away from Davos this year, Wang presented China as a firmer supporter of globalisation. “What we need to do is make the pie bigger while looking for ways to share it in a more equitable way,’’ he said.
Japan’s prime minister, Shinzō Abe, also urged delegates to support the “free, open, and rules-based international order”, hailing Japan’s new trade deal with Europe. “I call on all of us to rebuild trust toward the system for international trade,” Abe said, adding that it must be fair, transparent, and also protect intellectual property rights. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/10/online-uk-pharmacies-prescribing-weight-loss-jabs-to-people-with-healthy-bmi-investigation | Society | 2023-05-10T13:00:57.000Z | Nicola Davis | Online UK pharmacies prescribing weight loss jabs to people with healthy BMI | Online pharmacies operating in the UK are approving and dispatching prescriptions of controversial slimming jabs for people of a healthy weight, a Guardian investigation has found.
Some pharmacies appear to be issuing prescriptions of such medications to people who lie about their body mass index (BMI) on an online form. In one case a reporter was issued a prescription after accurately saying their BMI was about 20. A healthy BMI lies between 18.5 and 24.9.
The findings have raised alarm among eating disorder charities, which have warned that weight-loss medications should only be sold under the strictest conditions. Their concern has prompted calls for online pharmacies to employ stronger health checks and screening for eating disorders.
Drugs originally developed for diabetes have recently been hailed as “gamechangers” after they were found to help people reduce their weight by more than 10%, making them a potential alternative to stomach surgery. While available to some people on the NHS, they can also be bought on prescription through online pharmacies.
However, the medications, which are administered by injection, are controversial because they can cause side-effects such as nausea and fatigue, and it is thought weight loss will reverse when the drugs are stopped.
Saxenda, a brand of the drug liraglutide, has been approved for use in the UK for certain groups of people with obesity – meaning a BMI of 30 or greater – or who are overweight with a BMI of 27 to 30 and have weight-related health problems.
Ozempic, a brand of a similar drug called semaglutide, is licensed for diabetes but is increasingly being prescribed “off-label” for weight loss by online pharmacies. While legal, “off label” prescribing is done at the discretion of the prescriber.
To investigate the availability of the slimming jabs, the Guardian approached a selection of online pharmacies from the top search results returned by Google.
On two occasions an online consultation for Ozempic – accurately filled in by a 1.7-metre (5ft 7in) female reporter weighing 57kg (9 stone), resulting in a BMI of about 20 – was immediately approved and dispatched by the online pharmacy Daily Chemist.
This is despite the form stating the drug should be discontinued once a patient’s BMI fell below 27. The medication arrived by post within days.
A number of other online-only pharmacies contacted, including Click2Pharmacy, Pharmacy2U and Simple Online Pharmacy, refused a prescription to the same reporter based on her BMI, as did the online websites of the high street chemists Lloyds and Superdrug.
Daily Chemist did not respond to a request for comment.
The investigation also found that other online pharmacies have authorised prescriptions and sent medication to individuals who deliberately submitted incorrect information in order to get slimming jabs.
Jenny*, who has a history of disordered eating, meaning she has irregular eating behaviours, said she had sought out the jabs after gaining 4.5kg to 6.4kg after an operation.
“I definitely am not in the weight category to qualify for any kind of weight-loss drug really. But I decided I really wanted the quick fix,” she said. “I could afford it.”
Searching online, Jenny found a huge range of online chemists and that to obtain a prescription for Saxenda it was only necessary to answer a few simple questions. “One of them is: ‘What’s your weight?’ So I just added two and a half stone to my weight, kept my height the same, my age [and] everything else the same,” she said.
To proceed with the order, applicants must allow the company, Chemist4U, the option to contact the patient’s GP and see their summary care record. As a teenager, Jenny had an eating disorder that was discussed with her family doctor but is not known whether her GP was contacted after she filled out the form for Saxenda. Despite this, the prescription arrived in the post within a couple of days.
Sasha* said she sought out Ozempic online in order to lose 6kg to 7kg of weight to reduce her BMI to the lower end of the “healthy” window and cut her risk of diabetes – a disease that was common in her family.
Like Jenny, she submitted an incorrect weight to obtain a prescription from the Mayfair Weight Loss Clinic. “I had to boost my weight to make me up to 30 BMI on this online weight loss clinic to get it,” Sasha said. Mayfair Weight Loss Clinic did not respond to a request for comment.
In 2019 new safeguards were introduced by the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC), the independent regulator for pharmacists and pharmacies, to protect people from the risks of buying inappropriate drugs through online providers.
In guidance for pharmacies acting at a distance, including online, the GPhC says: “Some categories of medicines are not suitable to be supplied online unless further safeguards have been put in place to make sure that they are clinically appropriate – these include medicines liable to abuse, overuse or misuse or when there is a risk of addiction and ongoing monitoring.”
The GPhC confirmed this category included medicines used as weight loss treatments.
The guidance goes on to say medicines in this category should not be prescribed unless the pharmacy has been assured “that the prescriber has contacted the GP in advance of issuing a prescription, and that the GP has confirmed to the prescriber that the prescription is appropriate for the patient and that appropriate monitoring is in place”.
Tom Quinn of the eating disorder charity Beat expressed concern at the findings. “The fact that weight loss injections are apparently available online without stringent health checks in place is very alarming,” he said.
“It can feel incredibly tempting to order weight loss injections like Ozempic as they seem to promise fast results, but these medications can be extremely dangerous for those with eating disorders.”
Quinn said rapid weight loss could contribute to eating disorders developing for the first time in vulnerable people. “You can never tell if somebody has an eating disorder based on their BMI, and it’s crucial that thorough health checks and eating disorder screenings are in place to ensure that nobody unwell with an eating disorder is able to access weight loss medications,” he said.
The Guardian passed its findings to the GPhC. The regulator’s director of insight, intelligence and inspection,, Claire Bryce-Smith, said: “We take all concerns that are raised with us very seriously and part of our role is to inspect pharmacies to ensure they are meeting the standards we have set to protect patient safety.
“We have recently taken action to stop a small number of online pharmacies supplying medicines being used for weight loss to potentially vulnerable people. We’ve also reminded all online pharmacies that they need to follow our standards and guidance at all times.
“These include the requirement for pharmacies to ensure they have all the relevant patient information before making a prescription and carrying out a risk assessment to consider the person’s wellbeing, particularly as eating disorders, body dysmorphia and mental health issues can play a part in the reason for requesting these medicines.”
Bryce-Smith said pharmacies should verify the accuracy of the information patients provided them, for example through the use of video consultations. She added that those accessing healthcare services should also always provide truthful and accurate information about their health and medical history.
* Names have been changed. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/mar/25/social-care-ditch-zero-hours-contracts | Society | 2014-03-25T11:59:00.000Z | Vidhya Alakeson | Social care commissioners should ditch zero-hours contracts | Vidhya Alakeson | The latest estimate from the Office for National Statistics suggests that 583,000 people are employed on a zero-hours contract, with the largest numbers in health and social care, hospitality and administration. Overall, more people are employed on zero-hours contracts in the public and third sectors than in the private sector. The growth of zero-hours contracts in public services seems to be driven by a combination of cuts to public funding and a shift in commissioning from block purchasing to activity-based funding.
Way ahead of the rest of public services is social care. More than 300,000 workers in the care sector are employed on zero-hours contracts, including 60% of domiciliary care workers. Coupled with other features of domiciliary care, such as the growth in 15-minute visits and inadequate payments for travel time, the dominance of zero-hours contracts raises real questions about the extent to which today's insecure workforce can deliver care that treats older and disabled people with dignity and respect.
There are limits to how much we can improve terms and conditions for public service workers without additional funding. Two London local authorities – Southwark and Islington – estimate that moving all their social care providers off zero-hours contracts would cost between £500,000 and £4m, depending on how they went about it.
Of course, improving terms and conditions while austerity persists is a major challenge, but the situation is too urgent and too important to do nothing. And a new Resolution Foundation report, Zeroing In: balancing flexibility and protection in the reform of zero-hours contracts, argues there are steps commissioners can take now that can make some difference.
Commissioners can play a more active role in shaping local markets rather than making procurement decisions on a contract by contract basis. In doing so, they can ensure that provider activity is concentrated in a single patch. This can allow providers who want to offer their workers the choice of a fixed-hours contract the option to do so because they can guarantee a set number of hours within the same local area. If providers are spread widely and thinly, fixed-hours contracts become more expensive because providers have to pay their workers for the time in between highly dispersed jobs.
Commissioners also need to recognise improvements in workforce terms and conditions as a central part of the Public Services Act. Both the act, which was introduced in the UK in 2012 and the EU procurement directive, which comes into force this year, expect commissioners to consider the economic, social and environment impacts of procurement decisions. Commissioners have been slow to embrace the spirit of the act but where they have, for example in the London borough of Croydon, they have used it to prioritise providers who employ local apprentices or local people from marginalised groups. But the local economic impact of improving pay and conditions provides a compelling argument for a broadening the scope of the new legislation.
Finally, commissioners must stop talking about outcomes-based commissioning of public services and start doing more. In care, for example, 90% of local authorities continue to commission on the basis of time and task. This approach leaves no latitude for providers to decide how best to deploy their staff and neither does it incentivise providers to be concerned about the impact of the care they provide.
Outcomes-based commissioning, such as that used by Wiltshire council for its Help to Live at Home service, would take councils out of decisions about how much care is delivered to whom and at what time of day. Providers and care recipients could negotiate their own timetables and leave councils to hold providers to account for supporting greater independence, rehabilitation and better quality of life. This would not magically fix a problem that needs more funding, but could help providers who want to offer their workers greater certainty in very difficult times. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2023/dec/29/readers-best-games-2023 | Games | 2023-12-29T10:00:02.000Z | Guardian readers | ‘Pure joy and fun’: readers’ favourite video games of 2023 | Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
Spider-Man 2 was even better than the original. Not knowing who the antagonists were going to be was truly exciting, and that feeling of swooping through the streets of New York City was even more exhilarating! The side missions were full adventures with their own cutscenes and unique objectives. The performers were all superb and the twists and turns of the plot were exciting. Matt, Castlemaine, Australia
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
It has to be Tears of the Kingdom. I was never a Nintendo kid – always Sega – and I bounced off of Breath of the Wild in 2017 and haven’t touched my Switch since. With this year’s release, I had serious fomo watching clips of Tears on social media, so I blew the dust off my Switch and got to work. I am 200 hours in and find it a tranquil and relaxing experience of distractions and goofiness. I am yet to complete the main quest, but I’m in no rush. Its systems are perfectly weighted towards pure joy and fun – something missing in a lot of modern video games. Here’s to another 200 hours of gaming nirvana in Hyrule. Shaun, Penarth, Wales
Baldur’s Gate 3
Engaging … Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3. Photograph: Larian Studios
Hands down, no contest. Baldur’s Gate 3 was a polished game on release and has true attention to detail. I spent 100 hours on my first campaign. I appreciated that the character creation recognises and respects multiple identities, while different sexualities etc are represented in the game. Then there are the detailed visuals, engaging gameplay, compelling NPC arcs, satisfying combat and subtle humour. I have enjoyed myself so much. Liz, Scotland
The Talos Principle 2
The sequel was much better than the first in all senses; the puzzles were better, the philosophical basis (from Straton of Stageira to very recent existential questions about artificial intelligence and humanity’s demise by our own doing) was discussed in much more depth, and by solving the puzzles we were rewarded with nice revelations and dialogue that the much simpler first game lacked. It was really good to transcend our anxious reality not by escaping it, but delving even more into it, through a hypothetical future (one yearned for by Silicon Valley moguls and accelerationists) in which we can not only experience a post-human world, but also grieve and celebrate humanity. Also: cats. Sofia, 35, São Paulo, Brazil
Lies of P
Nailed it! … Lies of P. Photograph: Neowiz Games
Lies of P is my game of the year. I didn’t have high hopes for it, as the Soulslike genre is typically only well executed by FromSoftware, but Neowiz absolutely nailed it! The fighting is tight, fluid, exceptionally well-balanced and features some great mechanics that support each other well to make it a tug of war. Nearly all of the bosses are phenomenal, too, providing a good challenge but not unfair (apart from the swamp monster – it can get in the bin). Iain Pollitt, 33, Scotland
Dredge
I really loved playing Dredge on Nintendo Switch – the style and design of the game are great and I love being a little boat bobbing around the sea, catching fish. I stopped playing for a while because the sea monster attacks were stressing me out – I hate when things chase me in games! So when the developers released a passive mode, where nothing attacks you, I felt as if they read my mind. I was hooked – pun intended. Aoife, 27, Dublin
EA Sports PGA Tour 2023
I realise that picking an EA Sports game as my favourite is like choosing vanilla as my favourite ice-cream. Bland, mass-market, no soul ... But EA Sports PGA Tour became a welcome friend in 2023. My gaming is limited to an hour an evening, and that suits just fine to get 18 holes in. The graphics are gorgeous, it’s calm, serene, and you can take your time to plot your path through each hole. The lush fairways, pink azaleas and polite applause at Augusta National have been a delight this year. Tom, 33, Berkshire
Bramble: The Mountain King
Bramble is a Nordic fairytale horror game that is enchantingly dark and hauntingly atmospheric. The story is engaging, terrifying and beautiful while the world created is simultaneously a stunning, earthy vista and a realm of garish nightmares. Hayley, 32, Dublin
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
Incredible … Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical. Photograph: Summerfall Studios
Stray Gods. It’s a musical, with Greek gods in a modern-day setting. Not only is the music incredible, and the cast a who’s who of voice-acting greats, but it innovates with what games are capable of as a storytelling medium more than any game since Final Fantasy VII. The whole game is based around player choice, to the extent that songs can have different lyrics, instruments, even genres, based on your choices. One song, Challenge the Queen, can be everything from a smooth jazz number to a rap battle. The work and maths involved is mind boggling. That it wasn’t nominated for game of the year is criminal. James Bennett, 32, Havant, Portsmouth
Goodbye Volcano High
Goodbye Volcano High is my game of the year. It is one of the most original games I’ve played; the PaRappa the Rapper style rhythm sections are surprisingly addictive and satisfying, and the art style and aesthetic are gorgeous. Principally though, I love it because I just love explaining the premise – especially to my non-game-playing wife. “It’s about a non-binary dinosaur in a lo-fi band called Worm Drama, trying to navigate their way through the last year of high school while dealing with an impending meteorite and the end of the world.” Standard stuff, really. As an adult with a family where game time is at a premium, it is short but sweet. Philip, London
Final Fantasy XVI
Non-stop action … Final Fantasy XVI. Photograph: SquareEnix
I really enjoyed Final Fantasy XVI. Even though it was a big transition for the franchise, moving from the RPG genre to a heavily action-based style, its story and characters were the main focus. Voice actor Ben Starr and the rest of the cast did an amazing job. The music was exceptional, with Masayoshi Soken proving why he is considered one of the best in the industry. But the biggest highlight was the larger-than-life boss battles, which borrowed elements from different genres to provide non-stop action sequences. Alex, 37, Sydney, Australia
Alan Wake 2
Alan Wake 2 is a supremely artful game from one of the industry’s most creative and thoughtful studios. It immaculately uses different art forms to explore the destructive and salvational power of artistic creativity. It stands out from the competition for 2023’s game of the year for being more aesthetically, thematically and structurally innovative. Nick, 35, Oxford
Chants of Sennaar
I was introduced to this by chance, by a friend who is much more up on what’s new in gaming than I am. I’m so glad – Chants of Sennaar is one of the best games I’ve ever played. The mechanics are brilliant – you’re essentially dropped into a world where you speak none of the native language and have to make your way through various puzzles despite this. It’s very intuitive – you use hand signals in conversations, understand pictures on the walls and pick things up from the context of what’s going on around you – and the storyline just gets more intriguing the further in you go. An excellent choice if you like puzzles, good storytelling and something out of the ordinary. Sorcha, 33, Cardiff
Starfield
Impactful … Starfield. Photograph: Bethesda Game Studios
The best game I played all year was Starfield. Yes, it’s buggy, barren and, in a lot of ways, strangely generic. If you came in looking for 1,000 planets each as deep and nuanced as Skyrim was you’ll be disappointed. But I get the sense that’s kind of the point. The main character in Starfield is space, and it is all-encompassing, making itself known at all times. Punishingly unforgiving, starkly beautiful, capricious and, for me, impactful. It informs every decision you make, and to Bethesda’s credit, the choices you make feel weighty and meaningful – especially the final decision you are presented with. In that moment, you impose your will, and you’re confronted with the philosophical implications. It’s a rare game that puts you in that place. Todd McGillivray, 46, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
Super Mario Bros Wonder
It’s got to be Super Mario Bros Wonder. My wife bought me a Nintendo Switch for my birthday a while ago – my mini midlife crisis – but I don’t play much and the kids use it more often. But then Wonder came out. It’s got all the nostalgia of old-school Mario, with crazy, updated graphics. It’s amazing, creative gameplay. I love playing it with the kids, plus I sneak in a few solo rounds on WFH days. Graeme, 45, Singapore | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2009/jul/07/wireless-festival-day-two-review | Culture | 2009-07-07T22:30:01.000Z | Angus Batey | Pop review: Wireless festival (day two) | Hyde Park, London | When his Glow in the Dark tour visited London last year, Kanye West hadn't worked out how to perform his Auto-Tune singing live: but now, problem overcome, this headlining appearance draws heavily on his recent, emotionally remote music.
Within a cool, brittle stage set of jagged reflective surfaces, four semi-naked dancers form living-statue tableaux as West gets grandiloquent, aloof and introspective. It may not be a good-time party set, but it's relentlessly, furiously fascinating, and it's West's futuristic take on hip-hop that dominates the second day of the Wireless festival.
His acolyte and protege, the British singer-songwriter Mr Hudson, underlines his mentor's influence on one of the secondary tented stages. He has swapped the Beckisms of his debut for dramatic 80s-influenced pop sermons that channel West's strain of emo hip-hop while tapping into the tradition of British mavericks such as Ray Davies and Jarvis Cocker. There are even echoes of West and his eccentricities in Daniel Merriweather's breakbeat swing, Mpho's exuberant sample-based pop and Zarif's melange of effervescent arrangements and husky soul.
N-Dubz are named after their London post code and have a member who wears a hat that makes him look like a smurf, but they are much more than a 21st-century East 17. Rather than use street music styles to pep up traditional pop songs, they mesh grime, ragga, hip-hop and R&B into outrageous new shapes.
Yet, while hip-hop is being reinvented, it's the winners of a TV talent show who dig deepest into the culture's roots. Helicoptered on to the site, Diversity serve up an extended remix of the routine that beat Susan Boyle in the final of Britain's Got Talent – and which had, reportedly, secured the Dagenham dance crew a half-million pound support slot to Michael Jackson. On a day when salutes to the King of Pop are subtle (Q-Tip's red and black Thriller jacket) or gauche (Young Jeezy shouting over I Want You Back), Diversity's razor-sharp choreography, flawless (no pun intended) execution, and wide-eyed delight in their craft provide the most fitting tribute. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/oct/21/al-muhajiroun-protest-london | Opinion | 2009-10-21T13:00:01.000Z | Inayat Bunglawala | Stand tall against the extremists | Inayat Bunglawala | Back in March 2009 a small group of fewer than 20 thugs from al-Muhajiroun staged a deliberately provocative publicity stunt in Luton by demonstrating and holding up some offensive placards at a parade for soldiers returning from their tour of duty in Iraq. The event predictably resulted in outrage, made national headlines, caused massive embarrassment to UK Muslims and – as it was clearly designed to do so – worsened community relations in the UK.
Well, the bad news is that al-Muhajiroun is back. In its latest guise of Islam for the UK/Islam4UK it has announced that it is to hold a procession called "March for Sharia" on Saturday 31 October, starting at 1pm outside the Houses of Parliament, where it tells us its members will demand the abolishment of the House of Commons, then march past Downing Street, and end up at 4pm in Trafalgar Square.
Its flyers tell us that it expects thousands of British Muslims to participate in the demonstration. Past experience tells us that it will in fact struggle to get more than 100 people, if that – out of a total UK Muslim population of about 2 million – to attend.
Normally, I would simply say let them make as much noise as they want and if any individuals happen to cross the limits of the law and actually incite violence or hatred then the police deal with them. That is how free speech in a democracy works, after all – it is for the benefit of everyone, including al-Muhajiroun.
However, over the last few months matters have been getting a little bit more disturbing, with the emergence of the English Defence League (EDL) – now organising its own demonstrations, this time with an overtly anti-Muslim tone. Both al-Muhajiroun and the EDL are clearly feeding off one another and appear intent on polarising relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in this country and provoking trouble.
In recent months we have seen arson attacks on mosques in Luton, Bishops Stortford and Woolwich. Now news has emerged of yet another arson attack on a mosque, this time in Sunderland.
Making matters worse is the role played by the Daily Express and Daily Star. Both rightwing papers have happily given huge publicity to the antics of al-Muhajiroun, and just last week the Express ran a cover story with the headline "Now Muslims Demand Full Sharia Law", thereby very mischievously attributing the demands of a minuscule outfit to an entire faith group. The story improbably claimed that "up to 5000 extremists" would march in support of al-Muhajiroun's demands. Unsurprisingly, a Daily Express editorial denouncing Muslims because if you "give them an inch they will take a mile" was reproduced word for word by National Front News.
So what should be done? In recent days I have seen some emails from anxious Muslims saying that they have got to publicly put clear distance between themselves and al-Muhajiroun. Others have wondered whether they should organise a counter-demonstration on the same day at the same venue. I happen to think that is an excellent idea and have contacted the Metropolitan police to obtain permission for a counter-demo. I have no idea how many people will turn up if it goes ahead but I would hope that it won't be too difficult to surpass the numbers mustered by al-Muhajiroun.
I have also just registered the domain name for Muslims4UK.org.uk and hope to have a bare-bones website up and running by the weekend.
In the meantime, do spread the word. If you are proud of living in a multi-faith, multicultural democracy where people are free to practise their faith or not to if they so choose, and if you have been appalled at the irresponsible antics of al-Muhajiroun and the Daily Express over the years and the harm they have caused to social cohesion in the UK then please do come along.
I will be writing another article on Cif early next week to provide an update on progress. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/10/spain-general-election-polls-pedro-sanchez-psoe | World news | 2019-11-11T12:24:24.000Z | Sam Jones | Spanish election: deadlock remains as far right makes big gains | Spain’s ruling Socialist party will announce its plan to break the political deadlock “as soon as possible” after winning the country’s fourth general election in as many years but once again failing to secure a majority.
In the poll on Sunday, the far-right Vox party moved into third place as the conservative People’s party (PP) rallied and the centre-right Citizens party endured a humiliating collapse.
The Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE), led by the acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, won 120 seats, three fewer than in the inconclusive election in April.
The PP won 88 seats, followed by Vox, which more than doubled its seat count from 24 to 52.
The anti-austerity Unidas Podemos came fourth with 35 seats, followed by the pro-independence Catalan Republican Left with 13 seats. Citizens slumped to sixth place, as the 57 seats it picked up seven months ago dwindled to 10. The party’s leader, Albert Rivera, resigned on Monday.
Frustration and apathy appear to have affected turnout, with participation dropping from 75.5% in April to 69.9%.
The result suggests Spain is no closer to ending its impasse and is again bound for months of negotiations and horse-trading to try to assemble a government at a time of unprecedented political fragmentation.
On Monday morning the acting deputy prime minister, Carmen Calvo, said the PSOE was preparing to announce its proposals to break the deadlock. However, she said the PP and Citizens’ decision to work with Vox to take power in some Spanish regions over the past year had complicated matters.
“We’ll try to explore situation that will lead to a stable government,” she said. “The PP is in a complicated situation. It and Citizens are responsible for the level of support the far right has received. They haven’t shown themselves able to stand up to radicalisation. The PP will have a problem if it’s dragged along by Vox and becomes a constant obstacle in Spanish politics.”
Santiago Abascal, the Vox leader, waves to supporters on Sunday after the election results were announced. Photograph: Andrea Comas/AP
Sánchez said in his victory speech that he intended to form a progressive government and he urged his rivals and opponents not to stand in his way.
“I’d like to make a call for the rest of the political parties to act generously and responsibly to unblock the political situation in Spain,” he said on Sunday night. “The PSOE will also act generously and responsibly to unblock it.”
The PP leader, Pablo Casado, said the ball was firmly in Sánchez’s court. “We’ll see what Pedro Sánchez suggests and then we’ll fulfil our responsibility, because Spain can’t carry on being deadlocked,” he said.
Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, told jubilant supporters his anti-immigrant party would not let them down. “We have led a cultural and political change, because we have opened up all the forbidden debates and told the left that the story isn’t over yet and that they don’t have any moral superiority,” he said.
Spanish election 2019: full results
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He was swiftly congratulated by far-right European politicians including France’s Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Matteo Salvini and the Netherlands’ Geert Wilders.
Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Unidas Podemos, who has offered to help Sánchez back into office, said the repeat election had served “to reinforce the right and to give us one of the most powerful extreme right in Europe”.
Rivera, once touted as the poster boy of centrist Spanish politics, had hinted on Sunday night that he might step down following his party’s pitiful results. “I want to be honest with the Spanish people,” he said. “There’s no excuse and no way to soften the bad result we had today.”
Iñigo Errejón, a former Podemos politician who now leads the new party Más País (More Country), which won three seats, said a progressive government was a “moral obligation”. “We can’t have a third election,” he said. “This repeat election is a warning about what happens when personal interests are put before national interests.”
The election on Sunday was triggered when the PSOE failed to find viable support for a new administration after its victory in April. The Socialists were unable to reach an agreement with Unidas Podemos, while Rivera flatly refused to do anything to facilitate Sánchez’s return to office.
The poll results came against a backdrop of renewed tensions between the central government and the separatist regional government of Catalonia, as well as growing concern over the economy.
Unemployment rose by almost 100,000 last month and the European commission has revised Spain’s growth forecast down from 2.3% to 1.9% for this year, and from 1.9% to 1.5% for 2020.
In the middle of October, Spain’s supreme court jailed nine Catalan separatist leaders for sedition over their roles in the failed push for independence two years ago. The verdict provoked violent unrest in Catalonia and prompted rightwing Spanish parties to call for a tough response from Sánchez, whom they routinely accuse of being too soft on the separatists.
The re-eruption of the Catalan crisis has helped fuel the rise of Vox, which favours a radical recentralisation of Spain.
The Catalan Republican Left hailed their showing on Sunday night as proof that the independence movement had responded to the sentence in “the only way it knows” – at the ballot box. It once again narrowly beat the Catalan socialists into second place in the region.
The far-left, pro-independence Catalan Popular Unity Candidacy party picked up its first two seats in the national parliament. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jan/10/gone-girl-ending-rewrite-david-fincher | Film | 2014-01-10T08:58:00.000Z | Ben Child | Gone Girl's ending rewritten for movie adaptation | The dramatic finale to bestselling Gillian Flynn psychological thriller Gone Girl has been completely rewritten for the highly anticipated upcoming film adaptation by acclaimed director David Fincher, according to Entertainment Weekly.
Flynn has written a new third act for the movie, Fincher's follow-up to his reworking of another literary sensation, Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The suggestion is that Fincher asked for the change after realising he had held too close to the source material for the 2011 film, which was something of a box office disappointment, despite strong reviews.
Gone Girl stars Ben Affleck opposite Britain's Rosamund Pike as a couple, Nick and Amy Dunne, who quit New York for the midwest after Nick loses his job. The pair open a bar but strains emerge in the marriage, and Amy suddenly goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary with Nick finding himself the main police suspect.
"Ben was so shocked by it," Flynn said of the screenplay. "He would say, 'This is a whole new third act! She literally threw that third act out and started from scratch.'"
Nevertheless, the writer said she enjoyed pulling apart her own creation and reassembling it in a form befitting the big screen. "There was something thrilling about taking this piece of work that I'd spent about two years painstakingly putting together, with all its 8m Lego pieces, and take a hammer to it and bash it apart and reassemble it into a movie," she said.
Gone Girl is due in UK and US cinemas on 3 October. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/25/downsizing-review-matt-damon-alexander-payne | Film | 2018-01-25T15:30:19.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Downsizing review – Matt Damon micro-utopia fantasy is only a small victory | Alexander Payne departs, just a little, from his realist mode with this sci-fi satire about a revolutionary new micro-utopian method of shrinking human beings to matchbox size so they consume less, help the planet and boost their own consumer lifestyle in leisure-oriented downsized communities. It starts out quick, sharp and funny and ends as a solemn and slow-moving leviathan: a movie overwhelmed by its own ecological and human implications, jettisoning the comedy that had been so intensely enjoyable during the opening act, in favour of a tragedy-romance of homo sapiens and a world over-populated and underprepared for the coming crisis. There is a tiny bit of Swift here – or The Incredible Shrinking Man, or Ant-Man, or Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. But in each of those cases, the normal-sized “big” world is perennially reintroduced to maintain the dramatic impact of littleness. Downsizing is doing something different.
Some have been restive at its vision of developing-world communities accepting charity from a white American and found the Vietnamese character to be broad and stereotypical: Ngoc Lan Tran, played by Golden Globe nominee Hong Chau. My own opinion was split by the running time. This long film is blisteringly brilliant for the first hour or so. Then there are shark-jumping issues.
It takes place in Omaha, Payne’s creative homeland of American ordinariness and nagging discontent. Matt Damon plays Paul Safranek, an everymannish physical therapist who is reasonably happy with his life; but his wife Audrey (Kristen Wiig) is stressed at their penny-pinching ways. Then a college reunion brings them face to face with a contemporary who has “downsized” to five inches with his family and gone to live in the Leisureland community of tiny people in New Mexico. Their dollars go unimaginably further and these people live like very rich retirees while they are still young enough to enjoy it. After some agonising, Paul and Audrey think: What the hell? Let’s do it, too.
The scientific process is shown in the movie’s opening sequence, and the story of its discovery and announcement is all stunningly, eerily convincing. So is the actual preparation process that Paul and Audrey undergo. It’s an almost religious ceremony of shaving your body, removing teeth-fillings etc in a clinical white-walled facility, like preparing to join some monastic order. Or perhaps more than that: a quasi-Dignitas moment, a renunciation of this “big” world, a repudiation of pride and self-love, a surrendered acceptance that one will be more happy and more useful as a tiny person.
Hong Chau and Matt Damon in Downsizing. Photograph: AP
And yet, after a thrilling twist around 50 minutes in, Downsizing loses some of its electric charge. There are still moments of surreal comedy, as when the couple’s two wedding rings – now the size of gold hula-hoops – are delivered as “keepsakes” to their micro-mansion. But the film mostly stays in the little world, the comic disparity between that and the bigger version is lost: the little world is normalised. It is possible to forget that it is, in fact, a little world, and there are no technological or corporate problems to compromise its downsized integrity.
We stay down the rabbit hole of miniaturisation, and in some ways that is a subtly coercive effect of strangeness. Leisureland itself is no Shangri-la: the high disposable income of many of its inhabitants has created a dodgy breed of entrepreneur, such as Paul’s neighbour Dusan, played by Christoph Waltz, and his equally tricky friend Konrad, played by Udo Kier. They import cigars and booze from Serbia wholesale and make huge profits on the tiny retail portions. And there are shanty towns of exploited downsized people who have to do the cleaning and manual labour, which brings us to Chau’s sharp-voiced Vietnamese immigrant-refugee whose destiny is to intertwine with Paul’s.
Chau gives a brash yet heartfelt comic performance, but Waltz is frankly a misfire: a sneery sub-gangster approach that could have done with a firmer directorial hand. Payne famously kept Jack Nicholson within bounds for his 2002 comedy About Schmidt, but Waltz has not been so amenable. This actor was very irritated at the Toronto press conference for Downsizing, on being asked about “bad guy” roles, but the truth is that this performance is a bit of a one-note turn.
And where are we going with it all? Eventually, our heroes are to face a new kind of migration crisis, and – absurd though it is to complain about plausibility in a film like this – it strains credulity to a new level. Alexander Payne is incapable of making a bad film. This one was smaller than I’d hoped. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/06/bring-no-clothes-bloomsbury-and-the-philosophy-of-fashion-by-charlie-porter-review-style-revolution | Books | 2023-09-06T08:00:52.000Z | Kathryn Hughes | Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion by Charlie Porter review – style revolution | When Virginia Woolf invited TS Eliot down for a country weekend in 1920 she concluded with “Please bring no clothes”. This was not a suggestion that “Tom” should arrive in East Sussex naked. Such a possibility was unlikely anyway since at this point the poet was still working as a buttoned-up clerk at Lloyds Bank. Eliot was famously wedded to his three-piece suit to the point where, Woolf joked, he would have worn a four-piece one if such a thing existed. What she meant by “bring no clothes” was that at Monk’s House they did not dress for dinner, change for church (there was no church), or worry about getting their best clothes grubby in the garden. This was Bloomsbury, albeit a rural version, and the clothing conventions to which the rest of upper-middle-class society had returned after the first world war had no place there.
Fashion journalist Charlie Porter is spot-on with his suggestion that the way the circle thought about clothes was part of a wider revolt against the late-Victorian society in which its members had been raised (Woolf was born in 1882, Eliot six years later). Choosing not to wear black tie for dinner or gloves “in town” was all part of the code that also involved refusing to take up arms against the Germans, or follow the usual rules about who could sleep with whom, or adhere to inherited artistic forms – linear narrative in fiction, mimesis in painting – in favour of something more impressionistic.
Virginia Woolf swapping Edwardian corsetry for a flowing silhouette was the precondition of her sexual experimentation
According to Porter’s analysis of Bloomsbury’s style preferences, Woolf swapping the pinched-in Edwardian corsetry of her youth for of a loose, flowing silhouette was the precondition of her sexual experimentation with Vita Sackville-West. Likewise, this sartorial undoing enabled her to experiment typographically at the Hogarth Press, co-founded with husband Leonard, which published Eliot’s form-busting The Waste Land in 1923. Similarly, Duncan Grant’s near-constant nudity was of a piece with his capacity to be both a lover of men and a steady partner to Woolf’s sister Vanessa, who was officially still married to Clive Bell.
Thanks to his access to the contents of several Bloomsbury wardrobes, together with a trove of previously unseen photographs, Porter is able to provide a detailed illustration of how “Make it new” – the cry of modernists everywhere – played out on the material level. He shows us Lady Ottoline Morrell’s frocks, which are a form of Elizabethan cosplay with their puffed-up shoulders (useful for balancing out Lady O’s 6ft frame), while Vanessa Bell knocked up pyjamas out of the abstractly patterned cloth that she had originally designed for sofas.
There was another type of Bloomsbury dressing, more Eliot than Grant. The obvious figure here is EM Forster, who continued with the formal suit as a defensive armour against his yearning for male bodies. The novelist did not lose his virginity until he was 38, and even then he kept on with high-table manners. Porter includes plenty of photographs of the novelist sweating in the noonday sun while standing alongside the many lovely young men in dhotis or fezzes that he encountered on his travels. The only time Forster looked unambiguously happy was when photographed in “Indian court dress”, which resembles nothing so much as a tea gown that Vanessa Bell might have repurposed with kitchen scissors.
Less deft is Porter’s attempt to urge a clothing revolution for our own times. Suggesting we should all be a bit more Bloomsbury in order to break out of the endless churn of fast fashion misses the point that Woolf’s and Grant’s anti-fashion stance was just that – a style that had been consciously crafted and refined with a view to public performance. In doing so they were actually echoing their parents and grandparents, who had been keen exponents of the Arts and Crafts look of the 1880s (Julia Margaret Cameron, the photographer of all those droopily dressed maidens, was Virginia and Vanessa’s great-aunt). The history of dress is packed with such anti-fashion moments, and to suggest that emulating Bloomsbury’s version would somehow allow us to “forge new ways of being” seems a little naive.
Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion by Charlie Porter is published by Particular (£20). To support the Guardian and Observer order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2016/apr/25/usa-today-la-times-gannett-tribune-publishing | Media | 2016-04-25T12:16:29.000Z | Mark Sweney | USA Today owner makes $815m offer for LA Times publisher | Gannett, which owns local newspaper publisher Newsquest in the UK, has made a $12.25 (£8.44) per share offer to take over Tribune Publishing.
The all-cash offer, a 63% premium on Tribune’s closing share price on Friday, includes taking on about $390m in debt.
“We are pleased to offer Tribune stockholders a significant and compelling premium and immediate cash value for their investment,” said John Jeffry Louis, chairman of Gannett’s board of directors.
A combination with Tribune would rapidly advance Gannett’s strategy to grow the USA Today Network, the largest local to national network of journalists in the country, to include more local markets and new platforms, which we believe will benefit readers and result in significant and sustained value creation for Gannett stockholders.”
Gannett said that a combination of the companies would make for $50m in savings annually.
Tribune owns a number of key titles in major metropolitan areas such as the Baltimore Sun, Chicago Tribune, Orlando Sentinel and Hartford Courant.
In a letter to Justin Dearborn, chief executive of Tribune Publishing, Gannett’s board said that it was disappointed that the company had rejected the offer which was first made privately on 12 April.
“We are disappointed by … Tribune’s continued refusal to begin constructive discussions with us,” said Gannet’s board in a letter to Tribune published on Monday.
“We believe Gannett is uniquely willing and able to propel Tribune into the position of strength that will allow its beloved and historic publications and other assets to survive and thrive in this challenging environment. By combining, we would create a company with the financial stability and flexibility equipped to preserve journalistic integrity, high standards and excellence for years to come.”
Gannett says that it made the public bid, which is says represents “substantial value”, to make shareholders aware of the offer “given Tribune’s attempts to delay constructive engagement”.
“We are confident that Tribune’s non-management stockholders will support our proposal,” said Gannett.
Chicago-based Tribune reported a loss of $2.8m last year. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/05/collapsing-schools-crumbling-tory-quick-fixes | Opinion | 2023-09-05T05:00:22.000Z | Gaby Hinsliff | Collapsing schools are the latest sign of a crumbling country – and a lesson in Tory cost-cutting | Gaby Hinsliff | September is, for many parents, a bittersweet month. It’s the season of new beginnings and stiff shoes, of 11-year-olds drowning in ridiculously large blazers and of watching bleary-eyed as the tiniest ones toddle away from you into reception class. But this year, there’s perhaps more of an edge than usual to letting them go, thanks to a nagging fear of the roof quite literally falling in.
Thousands of children won’t be returning to their normal classrooms this week after all, after an 11th-hour alarm over the risks posed by reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (Raac), a lightweight form of concrete used in some postwar buildings now deemed at risk of collapse. While repairs are carried out, some children will be housed in prefabs or hastily repurposed school halls; others may be back to home learning. After three years of pandemic-induced disruption, what children need most is stability, but instead once again some headteachers are having to tear up plans at the last minute – while others whose schools aren’t on the danger list will be busy fielding questions from worried parents. Imagine, then, the reaction in staff rooms across the land when the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, was unwittingly caught on camera suggesting everyone else had “sat on their arses and done nothing” about crumbling classrooms, while she’d got no recognition for doing a “fucking good job”.
Crumbling concrete has also been identified in courtrooms and hospitals – including one where obese patients could be treated only on the ground floor for fear the upper floors wouldn’t take the strain, according to Labour’s Meg Hillier, the chair of the Commons public accounts committee, which is currently investigating Raac in public buildings. The metaphors about a country falling apart at the seams, and the consequences quite literally hanging over children’s heads, write themselves, reinforcing a wider national story about corners being cut and chickens squawking home to roost. What’s different about this one, however, is the trail of feathers currently being laid to Rishi Sunak’s door.
Jonathan Slater was once the most senior civil servant at the Department for Education, until he was controversially sacked as permanent secretary in 2020 after a row over lockdown exam grading for which some felt ministers should have taken more of the blame. Back in 2018 – the same year part of the concrete roof over a Kent primary school caved in, fortunately when classrooms were empty – his department commissioned research showing 300-400 schools a year might need crumbling buildings repaired. The Treasury agreed to fund repairs for only 100 a year, Slater told the BBC, in an interview broadcast just as families were getting up for the Monday school run.
But still, he hoped more money might be forthcoming: after all, the incoming prime minister, Boris Johnson, kept saying the age of austerity was over, though new free schools seemed more of a priority for government than making the old ones safe. He himself had left Whitehall by the time of Sunak’s 2021 spending review, but Slater insisted his old department put in a bid to double the repair programme to 200 schools a year – only for Rishi Sunak to halve it instead, to 50.
Sunak, it should be said, insists all this is “completely and utterly untrue” since he’d already unveiled a new school repair programme in the 2020 spending round. But the small print is clear: Sunak’s new promise was to fix 500 schools in a decade, equivalent to 50 a year. Presumably, some schools were going to have to wait. The question is who decided, amid the intense haggling of a spending round, that the risk of doing so was acceptable.
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Gillian Keegan apologises after being caught swearing on camera – video
As Slater himself acknowledges, there’s never enough cash to do everything, especially perhaps in a pandemic where the chancellor was already earmarking billions to help children catch up on lost learning in lockdown. And even in well-run governments, there will be issues serious enough to cause sleepless nights but that will still be eclipsed by something that at the time looks even more terrifying. Whitehall lives in fear of such overlooked slow-burning fuses causing what in retrospect seems an avoidable tragedy, but that doesn’t quite explain what happened here.
Alarm bells were very publicly ringing at the DfE by last year, when it named building failures as one of six key risks in its annual report, alongside lockdown learning loss. But even in his time, Slater said repairs were seen potentially as a matter of life and death: “We weren’t just saying there’s a significant risk of fatality. We were saying there’s a critical risk to life if the programme is not funded.” Thankfully, it didn’t ultimately take a child being killed for someone to act, with Keegan intervening after commissioning expert advice on several Raac-related collapses in public buildings this summer. But still, that’s far too lucky an escape for comfort.
‘I’m worried about her safety’: parents voice fears over school’s concrete
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As Keegan appeared to be hinting, perhaps it didn’t help that in the chaotic 13 months between Gavin Williamson being sacked and her taking charge, the department got through six education secretaries on the trot, some of whom were barely in office long enough to change the nameplate on their doors let alone to master every detail of their briefs. But if there was a blind spot in the Treasury on this issue, it’s arguably a longstanding one.
Last December, when the DfE raised the risk of English school buildings collapsing to “very likely”, the former education special adviser Sam Freedman tweeted that back in his day he’d had “so many arguments with the Treasury about this and they always insisted it was better value for money to put capital into roads etc”. Chancellors tend to favour infrastructure spending on which they get a return, like GDP-boosting transport projects or fast broadband, not the dreary but necessary work of patching up and making good.
Even this week, the Treasury’s first instinct was to brief that it wouldn’t provide any new funding for emergency Raac repairs this autumn, meaning the DfE will have to take the cash from other budgets. The penny-pinching goes on, even though across public services a crystal clear theme is now emerging of skimping and scrimping eventually coming back to haunt the government, sometimes only years after the event. And it’s that time lapse that is in some ways the most frightening thing.
Like the flammable cladding that led to such unspeakable tragedy when wrapped around Grenfell Tower, Raac became part of Britain’s postwar fabric because it was quicker, cheaper and more convenient than building with full-strength concrete. Decades later, it’s painfully obvious that was a false economy. The more disturbing question is how many other quick fixes, cheap compromises and questionable solutions to tight budgets have been quietly invented not just in construction but across the public realm during the past cash-strapped decade, with unseen consequences still yet to unfold for decades to come.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/30/globalisation-poverty-corruption-free-trade-liam-fox | Opinion | 2016-09-30T05:00:11.000Z | Liam Fox | Don’t blame globalisation for poverty | Liam Fox | Two hundred and forty years ago, Adam Smith published one of the most important texts ever written. The Wealth of Nations set out his vision of free trade as a pathway to opportunity and prosperity for all; and that in a true open global economy no one need lose out – we all could benefit.
Liam Fox: globalisation needs to be championed more vigorously
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Yesterday I was in Manchester speaking about why I believe his principles are as much alive and relevant today as they were in the 18th century – despite vastly different trading environments.
Liam Fox looks to WTO in hint at 'hard Brexit' stance
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We stand on the verge of an unprecedented ability to liberate global trade for the benefit of our whole planet with technological advances, such as the internet and e-commerce, dissolving the barriers of time and distance. And because of the brave and historic decision of the British people to leave the European Union, I believe the UK is in a prime position to become a world leader in free trade.
Globalisation represents an acceleration of the trend in which the world has become increasingly compressed, economically, culturally and politically. However, it is becoming increasingly misunderstood and its benefits not championed vigorously enough. While the increased economic activity that globalisation has generated has been broadly welcomed by business, politicians have often worried about how the dissolving concepts of sovereignty will affect their ability to influence events, and many have worried about the effects on the world’s most vulnerable people.
There is no doubt that our increased interdependence can make us more vulnerable to external shocks, with less ability to isolate ourselves from instability in different parts of the global economy. This should not, however, obscure the tremendous benefits that can be brought to those across the globe by a free and fair global trading environment.
According to the World Bank, in the three decades between 1981 and 2010, we witnessed the single greatest decrease in material human deprivation in history. At a time when the population of the developing world has increased by almost 60%, the number of those in extreme poverty (subsisting on less than $1.25 per day) has dropped from around 50% to around 20%.
While this number remains much too high and global poverty is, as Nelson Mandela commented in 2005, an act of man and not an act of nature, we should not be in denial about the potential benefits of globalisation. We should rather try to change the elements within it so that we can produce the biggest positive changes. We must also beware of conflating the drive to eliminate absolute poverty with arguments about relative poverty in already developed nations.
I have always believed that free trade is one of the most powerful tools we have to help those in the greatest need around the world, and that a policy of aid that is combined with punitive tariffs on goods from developing countries is counter-productive at best and downright hypocritical at worst. And as we establish our independent position post-Brexit, we will carry the standard of free and open trade as a badge of honour. Yet free trade by itself will not be enough to be the empowering and liberating tool that many of us want to see.
Research tends to suggest that while trade does indeed reduce poverty, it can only do so effectively with a number of pre-existing conditions. These are: high levels of education, developed financial sectors, and, hugely importantly, good governance and minimal corruption. In a classical Adam Smith analysis, these factors would enable an economy to reallocate resources effectively. The good news is that there are many more developing countries that satisfy the tests.
Globalisation isn't just about profits. It's about taxes too
Joseph Stiglitz
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Back in December 2000, Clare Short, Labour’s international development secretary, said that “globalisation brings with it opportunities and risks. If the poorest people and countries can be included in the global economy on more beneficial terms, it could lead to a rapid reduction in global poverty.”
Research by the World Bank suggests many African countries now meet the necessary conditions and are well placed to take advantage of a more open trading environment. The problem, however, is that while many countries have sufficiently deep financial sectors and sufficiently improved educational systems, many of the institutions and the level of governance still fall below what is required for the poor to benefit fully.
It is not therefore the concept of globalisation, nor the liberalisation of free trade, that should be the target of those who rightly want to see the elimination of the scourge of global poverty but the aims of eliminating corruption and improving governance in many of these developing countries.
Continued focus on good governance, mediated and encouraged by international aid and assistance programmes, combined with increasing attempts to see a more open and liberal trading environment, are our best hope to see grotesque levels of poverty consigned to history. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/nature-happiness-green-spaces | Guardian Sustainable Business | 2013-05-01T10:26:35.000Z | Adam Corner | When nature has a price tag: measuring the happiness factor of green spaces | If you live in an urban area, how much happier do you think you'd be if your house was in a greener part of town? The answer, according to research published last week, may surprise you.
Although it is well known that people's wellbeing is related to their proximity to green (and even water-based "blue" space), Dr Matthew White and his colleagues at the European Centre for Environment and Human Health have been able to quantify for the first time just how much difference it makes.
Strikingly, the study found that living in an urban area with more green space increased people's wellbeing by about a third of the amount that being married does.
By analysing a sample of more than 10,000 people over an 18-year period, the researchers tracked changes in reported happiness and wellbeing as people moved nearer to (and away from) areas of green space. As part of a battery of questions included in the periodic British Household Panel Survey, people recorded how satisfied or dissatisfied they were with their lives.
The researchers related this to factors that they expected would affect wellbeing. So, in addition to categorising people on the basis of how much urban green space they had access to, the study also looked at whether people were married, whether they had a job and how long their commutes were. What they didn't expect was just how important having access to a park, a playing field, or simply a garden would be.
The researchers argue that these kinds of comparisons are essential for policymakers, who must decide where to invest scarce public resources. They appear to provide the ultimate argument for protecting the natural environment: to do otherwise would detract from people's quality of life.
However, although comparisons like these are certainly likely to be welcomed by policymakers (who might see their primary role as balancing the books of public finance), there are thorny questions about the assumptions that underpin attempts to quantify the value of green space.
The growing trend towards the valuation of "ecosystem services" – literally, putting a price on nature – has attracted criticism for reducing the beauty and wonder of the natural world to a cold economic judgment. The gradual monetising of nature is viewed by many as a wrong-headed attempt to reconcile the natural world with market economics – rather than the other way around.
Critics argue that if the value of nature is derived from a cost-benefit analysis of the financial wealth it can provide, then it is a hostage to fortune. What if we no longer value the services or a forest; does it then become worthless?
At first glance, attempts to calculate the psychological benefits of green spaces would seem to be a happy compromise, as the value of nature is coupled with subjective wellbeing, not cash value. But what if in the future people derived no psychological pleasure from green spaces – would this render them without value, or is there intrinsic value in nature itself?
Proponents of ecosystem valuation argue that without a price tag, there is no way of protecting green spaces or endangered animals from destruction, and in the current political climate they are probably right. But attempts at quantifying the worth – whether in terms of money or psychological health – of nature raise deep and important questions about how we think about the challenge of sustainability.
It is a deep irony that although the term "priceless" is frequently used in the English language, it refers to material objects rather than natural resources. But while research is increasingly able to find ways of making the intangible properties of nature visible through programmes of valuation, there is a risk that nature may then become equivalent to any other commodity:to be bought, sold and traded.
It is heartening and encouraging news that, despite concerns about widespread disconnection from the natural world among city inhabitants, people's happiness seems so directly linked to green space. Being able to explain to policymakers and businesses in language they understand that nature is valuable is a critical tool to have.
But quantifying the psychological value of green space answers one important question, while raising another: have we lost the ability to recognise the intrinsic value of nature?
Adam Corner is a research associate at Cardiff University, a policy advisor to the Climate Outreach and Information Network and a trustee of the Public Interest Research Centre. His interests include the psychology of communicating climate change.
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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/sep/03/dragged-across-concrete-review-vince-vaughn-mel-gibson-zahler | Film | 2018-09-03T20:05:07.000Z | Damon Wise | Dragged Across Concrete review – glum Mel Gibson in unflinching and nasty police thriller | SCraig Zahler takes a lot of pleasure in perversity. This much was evident from Bone Tomahawk, his take-no-prisoners 2015 debut in which Patrick Wilson assembles a mismatched bunch of old west types to pursue his kidnapped bride and stumbles instead on a cabal of barbaric, cave-dwelling cannibals. For the follow-up, Brawl in Cell Block 99, Zahler upgraded to Vince Vaughn, who stars as a jailed drug dealer who is blackmailed into committing horrific acts of violence in order to be put in a maximum security prison, where he’s instructed to kill a fellow inmate.
Both films have a lot in common: notably the mashing up of disparate genres, sudden and extreme gore, and an air of gravitas bordering on the funereal. They are also rather long, clocking in at 132 minutes each. And for his third feature, Zahler really doubles down: Dragged Across Concrete – another fantastic but never really explained mood title – comes in at a mighty two hours 34 minutes, this time featuring not one star but two, seeing the returning Vaughn paired up with an even-more granite-faced-than-usual Mel Gibson.
One might expect this, then, to be Zahler’s magnum opus; and yet, somewhat counter-intuitively, it might be his simplest story yet. This time, there are three men in a tight spot, the first being ex-con Henry Johns (Tory Kittles), who returns home to find his mother on heroin and on the game, neglecting his crippled brother. The other two are police partners Brett Ridgeman (Gibson) and Anthony Lurasetti (Vaughn), who make headline news when their uncivil arrest of a drug dealer is captured on a cameraphone.
The three stories take a while to collide; when the two cops are suspended without pay, Ridgeman is hit the hardest, living in a tough neighbourhood where his teenage daughter is regularly assaulted. Ridgeman’s MS-afflicted wife wants to move, but with a drop in income, and no realistic chance of a pay rise, Ridgeman feels backed into a corner. Instead of waiting it out, he visits an old underworld connection – played by the unflappably louche Udo Kier, fast becoming a Zahler regular – who alerts him to an imminent bank robbery. Figuring that’s the easiest way to get rich in a short space of time, Ridgeman calls Lurasetti and proposes a plan to intercept the contraband. In the meantime, Henry, with no work forthcoming, has been recruited by an old friend as the getaway driver in the very same plan.
It sounds like the parts of a tense heist thriller are being laid in place, but Zahler is in no hurry to get to the job itself, and takes many digressions along the way. Some of them work – like the story of a bank teller who shouldn’t be going to work that day – and others really don’t, like an extended back and forth between Vaughn and Gibson as they prepare for their stakeout. Both, though, are a perfect example of where Zahler sees himself – what he thinks is his “thing” – and while it is certainly a matter of taste, this fusion of deadpan sincerity with wiseass, Tarantino-savvy dialogue is pretty unique to him.
Such a glum Gibson fits well into Zahler’s vision, which is probably just as well, since, in Hollywood terms, he’s still paying penance, and the film is very much about a man fallen from grace (the “dragged across concrete” could easily be Ridgeman’s ruined reputation, after years on the beat). Vaughn has the patter down pat too – and yet there’s something that seems to be missing from this all-too-promising package. Zahler has a way with action, and the set pieces are inventive and nasty, with an unflinching eye for violence. Such style and confidence is impressive. But after three movies, his increasingly morose characters’ world-weariness is becoming wearying in itself; a little more light and shade here and there would easily take this cult director to the next level. That is, if he wants to go. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/13/uk-ministers-urged-subsidise-e-bikes-tackle-health-and-climate-crises | Politics | 2022-03-13T11:44:28.000Z | Peter Walker | UK ministers urged to promote e-bikes to tackle health and climate crises | Ministers should consider subsidising e-bikes as they do electric cars, campaigners have urged, after a study found that mass use of such bikes could create more than £2bn in health benefits and cut a million tonnes of emissions annually.
While grants of up to £1,500 are available for low-emission cars, vans and motorbikes, there is no such assistance for electric-assist bikes, which help propel riders up to a maximum powered speed of 15mph when the bike is being pedalled.
According to an evidence review by academics at Westminster University, commissioned by the campaign group Bike is Best, boosting e-bike use would bring other benefits not created by electric cars, including reduced road congestion and fewer potentially dangerous particulates from tyre and brake wear.
E-bikes have become increasingly common in the UK, but sales are still well below levels seen in many other European countries, where studies have shown they are particularly popular with older riders and with women.
The study included polling that shows 67% of Britons who might be interested in buying an e-bike are put off by the price. But of these, the poll said, 53% would be likely to buy one if there was a hypothetical subsidy of £250 on a £1,000 model.
The study used the Department for Transport’s so-called propensity to cycle tool, based on detailed data about work trips and used to inform decisions on cycling schemes, to calculate that mass bike infrastructure and access to e-bikes could prompt up to 25% of commuting trips to be made by bike.
Such a switch would produce overall economic health benefits in England and Wales of £2.2bn a year, most of this coming from better health due to e-bike use, but also because of lower levels of staff absence through illness.
While e-bikes provide less of a health benefit per mile than unpowered bikes, studies have shown that users tend to end up with similar overall levels of physical activity because e-bike riders travel longer distances on average.
The latest study found that promoting e-bike use would mean a particular rise among people who live in more rural or hilly areas.
Both the £2.2bn health dividend and the estimated saving of a million tonnes a year in carbon emissions are based just on commuting, as that is the data on which the propensity to cycle tool is based. The overall savings could thus be significantly greater, the authors said. The statistics are for England and Wales only, as they are the source of the propensity to cycle data.
While fully electric cars produce no carbon emissions while in motion, the million-tonne saving was calculated from the lower power requirement to recharge an e-bike – studies have put this at 2% of what is needed for an electric car – and substantially lower emissions associated with their construction.
As well as commuting, the study notes, the development of e-cargo bikes could create even more emissions reductions through urban freight use, a significant contributor to road transport emissions. Studies have suggested e-cargo bikes could replace up to a quarter of all so-called last mile deliveries currently done using vans. Consumer models can be used to carry children and heavy shopping.
Scott Purchas, of Bike is Best, said the UK risked lagging behind other European countries on e-bike use. “The future is electric but not in the way people might think. All of the focus for subsidies has been for electric cars, but this new report demonstrates the substantial benefits of electric bikes and how essential they are for rapidly decarbonising transport, improving our health and cleaning up the air at the same time,” he said.
A Department for Transport spokesperson said the government was investing £2bn in cycling and walking, and that e-bikes for commuting were already subsidised under the tax-saving Cycle to Work scheme. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/jun/20/tom-hardy-crush-of-week | Film | 2015-06-20T05:00:07.000Z | Bim Adewunmi | Crush of the week: Tom Hardy | Can there still be anyone who hasn’t fallen a little for Tom Hardy? I finally saw Mad Max: Fury Road last week, and was struck by the perfection of his face, that mathematically and aesthetically pleasing thing – even when encased in a muzzle and not saying anything at all.
Hardy fills space in an interesting way for a leading man who is only 5ft 9in. At 37, he seems a natural shuffler, feet moving in small increments, shoulders rounded. It’s a manner he adopted to devastating effect as the titular homeless man in the hugely moving TV film Stuart: A Life Backwards, the first time I paid him proper attention. That suggestion of tender vulnerability is Hardy’s special skill (blame the sleepy eyes and baby-face features); Brando had it, and comparisons have been made. There’s a moment in Mad Max, when he offers Splendid (Rosie Huntingdon-Whiteley) a thumbs up and a weak smile, that really captures the Hardy brand, what I’m calling “tough puppy”.
But Hardy can turn it on its head, too: in Bronson, as notorious long-term prisoner Charles Bronson, he’s all beefed-up swagger, imbuing the character with more menace than wild eyes and maniacal laughter could convey. And his mumble! It would be irritating if it weren’t for all that talent.
Off-screen, Hardy’s back story offers a perfect Hollywood arc: middle-class British childhood derailed by delinquency (“What an arse I must have been to my poor parents,” he has said of his school days), and substance abuse that almost ended his career before it took off. Then: redemption, and solid work. Plus, he loves dogs. How could you not? | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/nov/03/assassins-creed-3-review | Games | 2012-11-03T00:05:47.000Z | Nick Gillett | Assassin's Creed III – review | Reading this on mobile? Click here to view
Mankind's unlikely, hoodie-wearing saviour, Desmond Miles, continues to explore his ancestral memories, this time participating in the American revolution.
That means hobnobbing with Samuel Adams, Ben Franklin and chums while defending Native American rights and bumping off Templars and redcoats. Several times the size of past instalments and with a far deeper plot, its characters are ruthless and believable, inhabiting a land in a state of lawless flux. Its countless joyous diversions from a round of Nine Men's Morris to missions in New York skyscrapers round out an epic of a game.
Ubisoft, £29.99-£39.99 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/nov/10/nearly-90-of-australians-want-government-to-step-in-on-energy-costs-poll-finds | Environment | 2022-11-09T14:00:32.000Z | Sarah Martin | Nearly 90% of Australians want government to step in on energy costs, poll finds | Australians overwhelmingly back government intervention in the energy sector to bring down prices, with a new poll finding support for limits on exports and a super profits tax on gas companies.
As the government confirms that “all options are on the table”, new polling from the Australia Institute shows that 86% of those surveyed support the government stepping in, either through export controls or a windfall profits tax, or both.
The findings from the survey of 1,001 people, undertaken last week, comes after the Treasury secretary, Steven Kennedy, also backed the need for intervention in the sector. Kennedy said the war-induced price shock required a temporary response that was not inflationary.
The Greens leader, Adam Bandt, has written to the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, calling on him to adopt the party’s proposal to use a super profits tax to pay for a freeze in electricity prices, arguing it meets “all of Dr Kennedy’s prescriptions”.
On Tuesday, Albanese said the legal advice underpinning the Greens’ proposal was “completely unclear”, but Bandt said the policy was “clearly constitutionally valid”.
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According to the Australia Institute poll, four in five Australians (80%) support imposing export controls on gas exporters if they do not meet local demand. Only 7% were opposed.
Support was strong across political lines, with 84% of Coalition voters backing export controls, 83% of Greens voters and 78% of Labor voters. It was also consistent regardless of state, with support in the four biggest states ranging from 78% in NSW to 82% in Queensland.
The poll also finds that nearly three-quarters of Australians (71%) want to see the government introduce a new windfall profits tax on gas. Just 12% were opposed to this.
Treasury backs intervention in Australian energy market to ‘quickly’ reduce prices
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A preamble put to those surveyed explained that the international price of gas was at record highs due to the war in Ukraine, and companies exporting Australian gas were making windfall profits.
It said the Australian government could be making at least $20bn from a windfall profits tax on gas.
Greens voters were most likely to support a new windfall tax (79%) compared to 72% of Coalition voters, 71% of Labor voters and 51% of One Nation voters.
One in four said they didn’t know or weren’t sure (23%).
Overall, two-thirds of Australians backed both measures, while 16% supported export controls but not a new windfall profit tax. A small number of those surveyed (6%) wanted to see a windfall profits tax on gas but not new export controls.
Matt Grudnoff, senior economist at the Australia Institute, said Australia had a “gas greed crisis”, and companies were profiting while households were struggling.
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“The gas industry has gotten away with too much for too long. It is well past time for the government to step in,” Grudnoff said.
On Wednesday, Treasury officials confirmed they were working on proposals for a variety of possible measures, including a new super profits tax on the resources sector, which is benefiting from surging profits as a result of the war in Ukraine. A working group of departmental secretaries across multiple departments is preparing options for government consideration, with the finance minister, Katy Gallagher, saying all options were on the table.
There are widespread expectations that the government will introduce a new mandatory code of conduct for the sector being developed by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, along with some kind of price trigger to increase supplies of affordable gas to the domestic market.
The looming government intervention comes after the budget forecast electricity price hikes of 56% and gas price increases of 44% over this financial year and next.
“It is having really significant impacts on manufacturers, on big business, on small business, and they are saying to us they won’t be able to keep operating,” Gallagher told the Senate economics committee.
“This is the reality, this is the real world. It is unsurprising that companies would prefer the government doesn’t get involved … but we are living in pretty extraordinary times and the government has to make decisions across the economy.”
In question time on Wednesday, shadow treasurer Angus Taylor targeted the government over cost of living increases, saying the budget would see Australian families $2000 worse off by Christmas.
The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, accused Taylor, the former energy minister, of being “more responsible than anyone else in this place for the fact that energy prices are going up”.
“There are two people in the world most responsible for what we are seeing in electricity prices, one of them sits in the Kremlin and the other sits over there,” Chalmers said about Taylor. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/02/paralympian-anne-wafula-strike-wet-herself-train-no-accessible-toilet | Society | 2017-01-02T11:42:36.000Z | Diane Taylor | Paralympian forced to wet herself on train without accessible toilet | An award-winning Paralympic athlete and disabilities campaigner says she was “completely robbed of her dignity” after a train company failed to provide an accessible toilet on a three-hour journey.
Anne Wafula Strike, 42, a British wheelchair racer who has no use of her legs, is a board member of UK Athletics, has an MBE for services to disability sport and serves as a patron of several charities supporting the rights of people with disabilities.
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The Kenyan-born athlete said she was left profoundly humiliated after being left to urinate on herself on a CrossCountry train, covering her face with her hoodie after the incident in case anyone recognised her.
Politicians must act on disability access | Letters
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“I was completely robbed of my dignity by the train company,” she said. “I would like to ask the train company when will they give me my dignity back? As a disabled person I have worked so hard over the years to build up my confidence and self-belief.
“Having access to a toilet, especially in a developed nation like the UK, is one of the most basic rights. I tried to conceal the smell of urine by spraying perfume over myself. When I finally got home after my nightmare journey, I scrubbed myself clean in the shower then flung myself on my bed and sobbed for hours.”
She added: “After thinking about it for a while I decided to go public despite the personal humiliation of doing so in the hope that it will bring about change for other people with disabilities who want to contribute to society but are prevented from doing so. Too many people with disabilities suffer in silence when this kind of thing happens because they feel too embarrassed to talk about it.
“The whole incident made me feel as if I can’t play an active role in society and should just hide behind closed doors. Being forced to sit in my own urine destroyed my self-esteem and my confidence.
“People with disabilities don’t want perfection, we just want the basics and to have our independence. But lack of access and inclusive facilities make us feel as if we are an afterthought.”
Anne Wafula Strike (right) is a patron of several charities supporting the rights of people with disabilities. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA
The incident happened when Wafula Strike was returning from a UK Athletics board meeting in Coventry on 8 December. She took a taxi from Coventry to Nuneaton station and from there boarded the 17.22pm CrossCountry train to Stansted airport, where she could catch a connecting train to her home town of Harlow. On the journey, which is usually scheduled to last two hours and 48 minutes, she needed to use the toilet but found that the accessible one was out of order.
“If the able-bodied toilet had been closer I could have tried to crawl to it but it was too far away and my wheelchair could not fit in the aisles to get to it,” she said.
A member of the train crew suggested she could get off the train when it stopped at a station, use the disabled toilet there and wait for the next train. This would have delayed her journey home but in the event there were no staff at the station to help her so she was unable to get off the train.
She tweeted the train company’s customer service team to complain and in a series of exchanges Wafula Strike became increasingly distressed.
Anne Wafula Strike (second left) in the Women’s 100m T54 final during the Visa London Disability Athletics Challenge LOCOG test event for the London 2012 Paralympic Games at the Olympic Stadium in London. Photograph: Julian Finney/Getty Images
Wafula Strike said she felt she had to speak out to expose some of the injustice faced by people living with disabilities.
“I’ll probably be remembered as that woman who wet herself on the train. I could have kept quiet but I hope that by speaking out other wheelchair users who use public transport won’t be subjected to the same experience I had.
“I may have an impairment but the barriers society puts in my path are the real handicap. The UK Athletics meeting I had just attended was so positive – all about success and medals and athletics superstars and then this happened. UK Athletics has always gone out of its way to ensure that the board meetings are held in accessible venues but other organisations need to do the same so people like me can play our part in society.”
It’s time to stop calling disabled people ‘inspirational’ Guardian
Sue Bott, deputy chief executive of Disability Rights UK, expressed concern about the incident.
“The courts are starting to take cases like this very seriously,” she said. “Not only the lack of access but also the injury to feeling that occurs. If Anne decides to take legal action we would be right behind her. No one should have to go through an experience like that. Access and inclusion need to be taken seriously. These things should not just be tick box exercises.”
A CrossCountry spokesman said: “We are extremely sorry for the circumstances of Mrs Strike’s recent journey with us, and our managing director has passed on our apologies to her along with an explanation of why it appears all our systems failed her on that day. We hope she will take up our offer and contact us in the new year so we can offer her a more pleasant experience of travelling with us.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/aug/07/michael-rosen-sticky-mcstickstick-book-about-covid-recovery-covid | Books | 2021-08-07T13:08:57.000Z | Donna Ferguson | ‘Thanks for your help, Sticky’: Michael Rosen on learning to walk again after Covid | It was the tweet that let the world know Michael Rosen was back on form and on the mend. “My wheelchair days are over. Stick now. Sticky McStick Stick,” he wrote in June last year, after having come down with Covid-19 in March and spent 48 days in intensive care.
Now, the poet and former children’s laureate has written a moving picture book about Sticky McStickstick and his battle with long Covid on an NHS rehabilitation ward last summer.
Michael Rosen’s Sticky McStickStick is out in November (Walker Books, £12.99) Photograph: Walker Books
Illustrated to great comic effect by Tony Ross, Sticky McStickstick: The Friend Who Helped Me Walk Again details Rosen’s transformation from a man who could not stand up by himself to a grandfather who proudly walks home, into the open arms of his beloved family. It is dedicated to his wife and children, and “all the doctors, nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and hospital workers who saved my life.”
The 75-year-old author of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, told the Observer: “It’s a way of opening up a conversation with children, across generations, about that cycle of illness and trying to recover.”
He hopes the book, which will be published in November, will help children, parents and grandparents struggling with long Covid and other debilitating illnesses. “One of the things we’re always saying to children is: try harder. We put in front of them great sporting successes – we’re all watching them now at the Olympics. But I think if I had to list my greatest physical achievements in life, one of them would be learning to walk again this last year. This book is a reminder that there are very, very ordinary achievements that are amazing as well.”
He found his rehabilitation experience “utterly infantilising” – so it made sense to write a children’s book about it. “Six months earlier, I was giving lectures on narratology at a university. And now, here’s somebody saying, ‘Michael, throw the balloon’ and I’m going ‘eeurgh’, and the physio is saying, ‘Come on, Michael, you can do it.’”
Pages, with drawings by Tony Ross, from Rosen’s new children’s book, Sticky McStickstick: The Friend who Helped Me Walk Again
On another occasion, he was re-learning how to get up from a bench and was told to put his hands behind himself and his nose over his toes. “Like a child, for the next few weeks, I just kept repeating to myself: hands behind, nose over toes, hands behind, nose over toes.” He adds, with horror: “I should have put that in the book, shouldn’t I?” A few hours later, he emails to say that ‘nose over toes’ has been added, last minute, to the story: “We’ve squeezed it in. It’s in!”
As Rosen starts to regain his strength, Ross’s illustrations show him zooming around the hospital in his wheelchair. “I remember a nurse saying, ‘Slow down, Michael, slow down,’” he recalls.
He is then told to start using a walking stick. “I was scared. I thought I would fall over,” he writes in the book. But soon, he grew to love his Sticky McStickstick. “He helped me walk.”
In total, Rosen spent 40 days in an induced coma, and when he came out he couldn’t even feed himself. “I sat there waiting for someone to put a spoon in my mouth. I really did feel like a one-year-old.”
Writing about his “childlike” experiences on the rehabilitation ward has helped him to come to terms with the trauma of what happened to him, he says. He has lost most of the sight in his left eye and most of the hearing in his left ear, and still gets bouts of dizziness. “You realise that you’ve changed so much, fundamentally, physically and so on. And that life has changed, for all of us. That seems to take a lot of work. You have to do a lot of mind work, thinking about your frailty and fragility.”
He has discovered he can sit in a room and just dwell on this. “I have to make an effort not to let it drag me down or prevent me from doing things.” He fears many others are in the same situation. “It does sometimes feel as if the country has experienced some kind of war. There have been no guns, bullets or bombs, but the pandemic has had a huge and profound effect on hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. It isn’t a war, but it is a trauma – personal, for many people, but also societal.”
Though he no longer needs its support, Rosen is keeping hold of Sticky McStickstick. When he sees his old friend looking at him as he walks out of the door, it is a poignant reminder of his difficult journey, “the wonderful people” who cared for him and all he has achieved. “He’s my reward.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jun/08/margaret-bondfield-theresa-may-female-mps | Opinion | 2019-06-08T05:00:52.000Z | Rachel Reeves | Like May, the first woman in cabinet faced a lonely battle in a male-dominated world | Rachel Reeves | The imminent departure of Britain’s second female prime minister reminded me of Margaret Bondfield. Unlike Theresa May, the former shop worker and union organiser is far from a household name – but she should be. Her story tells us much about the battle women fought to secure political representation and the way they were treated when they arrived in Westminster. It also tells us something about women in politics today.
Ninety years ago today Bondfield made history when she became the first female cabinet minister.
Bondfield was a trailblazer at a time when men dominated politics. She declared that she was taking on the role of minister of labour in 1929 not for herself, but for all women.
In many ways Bondfield could not be more different from May. And yet her career also ended in failure, which is why so little about her is remembered today.
Parliament is a clubby place, and if you don’t have people watching your back your fall can be as steep as your rise
I was three months old when Margaret Thatcher became prime minister and, while I never agreed with her politics, it never occurred to me that a woman could not lead our country. Today nearly a third of MPs are women. Only three women had served as MPs before Bondfield. And there were no Labour women at all for her to follow in the footsteps of. She was forging her own future.
Bondfield’s story is deeply moving. She was the 10th of 11 children, brought up in poverty in Chard in Somerset, and became a shop assistant at 14. She spoke from the heart and from experience when the spoke about grinding poverty and appalling working conditions.
Her interest in politics was triggered by the exploitation of female workers by their male masters. One evening, as she read about a shop workers’ union in a newspaper wrapped around her chip supper, she became determined to change things. She joined the union and rose through its ranks to become its assistant secretary. In 1923 she was elected to parliament.
In a sign of the male-dominated times, Bondfield’s maiden speech was described in the press as “the first intellectual speech by a woman the House had ever heard.” And very quickly Bondfield made her mark.
Ramsay MacDonald appointed Bondfield Britain’s first female cabinet minister in 1929 – something she considered part of the “great revolution” for women. But it was a period of rising unemployment, and her policies put her at loggerheads with her former union colleagues and Labour MPs. MacDonald’s austerity split the party and triggered Bondfield’s resignation in 1931 after her proposed solutions to the crisis – means-tested benefits – were flatly rejected. “How can you means-test someone who has no means?” Ellen Wilkinson, the Labour MP and leftwing darling, challenged Bondfield.
Just like May, Bondfield’s efforts to fix a seemingly intractable problem were bitterly condemned by her own party. As a lonely political figure she had few comrades to come to her aid. Last summer I spoke to Theresa May. Talking about why she wasn’t part of the traditional Westminster cliques, she said: “I didn’t do that. Some people would say, of course, that’s been one of my problems over the years; I haven’t done it in the way that the men did it.” Parliament is a clubby place, and if you don’t have people watching your back your political fall can be as steep as your rise. Bondfield’s career, like May’s, ended in accusations of betrayal.
Bondfield’s fate did not go unnoticed by a young Labour activist, Barbara Castle. When Harold Wilson offered Castle the role of minister of labour four decades later, she declared she wouldn’t be “Maggie Bondfield mark two”. Yet Castle’s own policy, “In Place of Strife”, which aimed to reduce days lost to strikes, almost did for Castle what the depression did to Bondfield’s career. Although Castle survived in the cabinet, her chance to become leader of the Labour party was gone for ever as MPs and unions condemned her approach.
Bondfield lived for much of her life with Mary Macarthur, a trade unionist and suffragist, and died in a nursing home in 1953 at the age of 80. A lonely end to a remarkable life. The former prime minister and Labour leader Clement Attlee gave the address at her funeral.
Much has improved in terms of the representation of women in Westminster and conditions for female workers. However, we still have not had a female Labour leader – a source of huge shame to my party – or a female chancellor of any political shade. Women still own less, earn less and are more likely to live in poverty.
The challenges today for women in public life are different but real. The level of abuse online, the death and rape threats and indeed the murder of a female MP would have been unthinkable for Bondfield.
Every generation has new battles to fight, and while today in parliament there is a sisterhood of cheerleaders for issues neglected by men, as Prof Mary Beard writes: “Our model of political power remains resolutely male. Only when we can shut our eyes and see a tough, eloquent and resplendent woman will we know the revolution is truly complete.”
Rachel Reeves is Labour MP for Leeds West and the author of Women of Westminster: The MPs Who Changed Politics | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2012/aug/18/payday-loans-firm-still-chasing-my-son | Money | 2012-08-18T21:59:01.000Z | Mark King | Payday loans firm still chasing my son, after I settled the bill | My student son got into trouble with a payday loan from a company called Pounds to Pocket (PTP). I offered to pay off the loan in full so he could pay me back the capital without accruing further punitive interest. He authorised me to have access to his account with them, which enabled me to make a payment by debit card on 6 July 2012 of £346.72, which left my account on 9 July. Pounds to Pocket says it has not received it and continues to pursue my son for payments. I have, as requested, provided a screengrab of my bank statement showing the payment and it says "management is investigating" but nothing happens. AR, Stockport
PTP offers loans of up to £2,000 for up to 12 months, at extremely high interest rates – a £1,000 loan incurs an APR of 277%. To put that in context, Sainsbury's Bank charges a typical APR of 14.8% on loans of £1,000-£4,999. Payday loans are one of the most expensive ways to borrow money and consumers should tread carefully when considering one.
PTP is owned by CashEuroNet UK, which also runs QuickQuid in the UK, operating out of Chicago in the US. I found its PR representative in the UK and can report that, following my intervention, your son suddenly received an email stating there was no further liability on the accounts. I'd urge your son to talk to you before approaching any other loan companies and especially payday loan firms.
You can email Mark King at [email protected] or write to Mark King, Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Please include a phone number and an address. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/dec/06/whats-the-best-hangover-cure-for-the-morning-after-an-election | Life and style | 2019-12-06T14:00:43.000Z | Coco Khan | What’s the best hangover cure for the morning after an election? | Coco Khan | Before a BNO (Big Night Out) recently, I forgot to adjust the thermostat, which sets the heating to start at 6am. This meant that soon after coming home at 2am, merry and hot from booze, I began to dehydrate, dry heat wrinkling my wine-soaked body like an expensive cured sausage, although I didn’t feel so tasty.
I have been working on my hangovers for years (tinkering, testing), trying to optimise them. I’ve tried it all – pickle juice, milk thistle – because if I can just remove the nausea and the nagging feeling that my colleagues hate me, hangovers could be wonderful. They are, as friends with children can attest, an immense privilege: lie-ins, fry-ups and binge-watching. Of course, the only true cure is abstinence, but the search has led me to discover “emotional hangovers”.
An emotional hangover is the empty, lethargic feeling you have post-BNO, but without drinking. Usually, it follows an intense experience, be it the joy of getting married, or the disappointment of a failed test. Apparently, the brain responds to heightened emotion in a similar way to booze and reels from it in the same way.
Sniping can be a useful safety valve – and fun, too
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Perhaps my hangovers haven’t been in vain, because in between festive boozing this year, there’s an election – an extremely stressful and urgent contest, the significance of which exceeds anything I’ve seen. Despite never having had the pleasure of voting in an election where my party wins, I am still unprepared for it to lose.
Next week’s result will probably leave me with a hangover of both kinds. And when I think of that morning, the reckoning, I know I won’t have a strategy to deal with it. But I have learned this tip I will share with you: that egg and chips and a bottle of Lucozade isn’t the worst place to start. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/apr/07/facebook-oculus-virtual-reality-fears-spy-on-users-pass-on-data | Technology | 2016-04-07T10:47:41.000Z | Alex Hern | Facebook's Oculus hit by fears it will spy on users and pass on data | Facebook’s VR firm, Oculus, is fighting to combat suspicions raised by its privacy policy and terms of service that it will spy on users’ activity and pass information to third parties.
The privacy policy warns about “information automatically collected about you when you use our services”, including “information about your physical movements and dimensions when you use a virtual reality headset” which may be used “to send you promotional messages and content and otherwise market to you”.
It was first highlighted by news site UploadVR, which pointed out that “an ad executive at Coke, for instance, could tell just how long you stared at the Coke bottle cleverly placed inside your favourite game as an in-game ad and use that data to better place it in the game for you next time.”
The device’s terms of service sparked fears of a different sort, with Gizmodo highlighting an apparent rights grab for content: “By submitting User Content through the Services, you grant Oculus a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual (ie lasting forever), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free and fully sub licensable (ie we can grant this right to others) right to use, copy, display, store, adapt, publicly perform and distribute such User Content in connection with the Services,” the terms state.
It adds: “You irrevocably consent to any and all acts or omissions by us or persons authorised by us that may infringe any moral right (or analogous right) in your User Content.”
The paragraph is preceded by the statement: “Unless otherwise agreed to, we do not claim any ownership rights in or to your User Content”. But the language used is much stronger than that of other publishing platforms such as Twitter. That social network also requires “a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense)”, for instance, but doesn’t maintain that the right should be “irrevocable [and] perpetual”, as Oculus does.
Oculus has since released a statement clarifying the privacy and rights issues. When it comes to user generated content, the company said “our terms of service give Oculus a license to user created content so we can enable a full suite of current and future products and services on our platform, like sharing a piece of VR content with a friend. People continue to own the rights to the content and can do whatever they like with it outside of our platform.”
Addressing the privacy concerns, the company wrote: “We want to create the absolute best VR experience for people, and to do that, we need to understand how our products are being used and we’re thinking about privacy every step of the way. The Oculus privacy policy was drafted so we could be very clear with the people who use our services about the ways we receive or collect information, and how we may use it. For example, one thing we may do is use information to improve our services and to make sure everything is working properly — such as checking device stability and addressing technical issues to improve the overall experience.
“Lastly, Facebook owns Oculus and helps run some Oculus services, such as elements of our infrastructure, but we’re not sharing information with Facebook at this time. We don’t have advertising yet and Facebook is not using Oculus data for advertising – though these are things we may consider in the future.”
But the statement didn’t please everyone, with many pointing out that it simply restates the same rights that concerned people before.
This "clarification" on Oculus collecting userdata basically amounts to "Yup. Gonna sell it" https://t.co/lqVTN5jM9W pic.twitter.com/vjHgruTjNA
— MOOMANiBE (@MOOMANiBE) April 7, 2016
Privacy issues are particularly sharp for Oculus, which battled a wave of anger when it was bought by Facebook in 2014 for $2bn (£1.4bn). The company, which had secured its initial funding from a fan-driven Kickstarter campaign, had to reassure supporters that it was still focused on creating a games-focused VR experience, and would retain independence from Facebook. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/apr/14/classics.shopping | Books | 2007-04-14T15:36:26.000Z | Jonathan Bate | Jonathan Bate on Shakespeare's popularity | In the spring of 1616, Francis Beaumont and William Shakespeare died within a few weeks of each other. Beaumont became the first dramatist to be honoured with burial in the national shrine of Westminster Abbey, beside the tombs of Geoffrey Chaucer and Edmund Spenser. Shakespeare was laid to rest in the provincial obscurity of his native Stratford-upon-Avon.
We now think of Shakespeare as a unique genius - the embodiment, indeed, of the very idea of artistic genius - but these two very different burial places are a reminder that in his own time, though widely admired, he was but one of a constellation of theatrical stars. How is it, then, that in the 18th and 19th centuries Shakespeare's fame outstripped that of all his peers? Why was he the sole dramatist of the age who would eventually have a genuinely worldwide impact? There are two answers: availability and adaptability.
In the same year that Beaumont and Shakespeare died, Ben Jonson became the first English dramatist to publish a collected edition of his own plays written for the public stage. Seven years later, Shakespeare's fellow actors John Hemings and Henry Condell followed with their magnificent Folio-sized collection of Mr William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories and Tragedies, Published according to the True Original Copies. Whereas Jonson's works got only a single reprint after his death, Shakespeare's Folio was reprinted three times before the end of the century. And through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, there was a major new edition of his Complete Works once every 20 years or so.
Shakespeare thus quickly became more available than his contemporaries - though the text in which he has been transmitted since the early 18th century has not been that of the Folio authorised by his own players. Shakespearean editors have adopted a "pick and mix" approach, printing some plays in the text of the Folio and others in the variant texts of the little quarto-sized volumes published in Shakespeare's lifetime. Astonishingly, the new RSC Complete Works, published next week, is the first since 1709 to be based primarily on the Folio, to offer an edition of the iconic book in its own right.
In his dedicatory poem to the Folio, Jonson described Shakespeare as a "star" whose "influence" would "chide or cheer" the future course of British drama. Once the Folio was available to, in the words of its editors, "the great Variety of Readers", the plays began to influence not just the theatre, but poetry more generally. The works of Milton, notably his masque Comus, were steeped in Shakespearean language. The young Milton's first published poem was a sonnet prefixed to the second edition of the Folio, in which Shakespeare was said to have built himself "a live-long Monument" in the form of his plays. Shakespeare was Milton's key precedent for the writing of Paradise Lost (1667) in blank verse rather than rhyme. Even later 17th-century poets who were committed to rhyme, such as John Dryden, acknowledged the power of his dramatic blank verse; as a homage to "the Divine Shakespeare", Dryden abandoned rhyme in All for Love (1678), his reworking of the Cleopatra story.
The London theatres were closed during the years of civil war and republican government in the middle of the 17th century, and the years after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 were characterised by a conflicting attitude towards Shakespeare. On the positive side, he was invoked for his inspirational native genius, used to support claims for English naturalness as opposed to French artifice and for the moderns against the ancients. In his sweeping Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), Dryden described Shakespeare as "the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul". He brushed off charges of Shakespeare's lack of learning with the memorable judgment that "he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature".
The learned Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, praised Shakespeare for his extraordinary ability to enter into his vast array of characters, to "express the divers and different humours, or natures, or several passions in mankind". Yet, at the same time, the courtly elite had spent their years of exile in France and come under the influence of a highly refined neoclassical theory of artistic decorum, according to which tragedy should be kept apart from comedy and high style from low, with dramatic "unity" demanding obedience to strict laws. For this reason, Dryden and his contemporaries took considerable liberties in polishing and "improving" Shakespeare's plays for performance. According to the law of poetic justice, wholly innocent characters should not be allowed to die: Nahum Tate therefore rewrote King Lear (1681) with a happy ending in which Cordelia marries Edgar. Tate also omitted the character of the Fool, on the grounds that such a figure was beneath the dignity of high tragedy.
The more formal classicism of Jonson and the courtly romances of Beaumont and Fletcher answered more readily to the Frenchified standards of the Restoration theatre. Actors, though, were demonstrating that the most rewarding roles in the repertoire were the Shakespearean ones. Thomas Betterton (1635-1710), the greatest player of the age, had enormous success as Hamlet, Sir Toby Belch, Henry VIII, Macbeth, Timon of Athens, Lear, Falstaff, Angelo in Measure for Measure and Othello (some of these in versions close to the original texts, others in heavily adapted reworkings). Playhouse scripts of individual plays found their way into print, while the Folio went through its third and fourth printings. By the end of the century, Shakespeare was well entrenched in English cultural life, but he was not yet the unique genius.
Betterton's veneration for the memory of Shakespeare was such that late in his life he travelled to Warwickshire in order to find out what he could about the dramatist's origins. He passed a store of anecdotes to the poet, playwright and eventual poet laureate Nicholas Rowe, who wrote "Some Account of the Life of Mr William Shakespeare", a biographical sketch published in 1709 in the first of the six volumes of his Works of Shakespeare, the collection that is usually regarded as the first modern edition of the plays. Rowe's biography offered a mixture of truth and myth, calculated to represent Shakespeare as a man of the people. It tells of how young Will was withdrawn from school when his father fell on hard times, how he then got into bad company and stole deer from the park of local grandee Sir Thomas Lucy. The resultant prosecution forced him to leave for London, where he became an actor and then a dramatist. Rowe's account is a symptom of how every age reinvents Shakespeare in its own image. The road from the provinces to London was a familiar one in the 18th century - Samuel Johnson and David Garrick walked it in real life, Henry Fielding's Tom Jones in fiction. Shakespeare served as exemplar of the writer who achieved success, and an unprecedented degree of financial reward, from his pen alone. The Earl of Southampton may have helped him on his way in his early years, but he was essentially a self-made man rather than a beneficiary of court and aristocratic patronage. For writers such as Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson, struggling in the transition from the age of patronage to that of Grub Street professionalism, Shakespeare offered not only a body of poetic invention and a gallery of living characters, but also an inspirational career trajectory.
If we had to identify a single decade in which the "cult of Shakespeare" took root, in which his celebrity and influence grew to outstrip that of his contemporaries once and for all, it would probably be the 1730s. There was a proliferation of cheap mass-market editions, while in the theatre the plays came to constitute about a quarter of the entire repertoire of the London stage, twice what they had been hitherto. The promotion of Shakespeare was driven by a number of forces, ranging from state censorship of new plays to a taste for the shapely legs of actresses in the cross-dressed "breeches parts" of the comedies. The plays were becoming synonymous with decency and Englishness, even as the institution of the theatre was still poised between respectability and disrepute.
David Garrick (1717-79), the actor who may justly be claimed as the father of what later came to be called "Bardolatry", arrived in London at a propitious moment. Shakespeare was growing into big business and the time was ripe for a new star to cash in on his name. As in many a good theatre story, Garrick's first break came when he stepped in as an understudy and outshone the actor who normally took the part. This was followed by a more formal debut, again of a kind that established a pattern for later generations: the revolutionary new reading of a major Shakespearean part. For Garrick, it was Richard III (for Edmund Kean in the next century, it was Shylock). After this, there was no looking back. Garrick did all the things we have come to expect of a major star: he took on the full gamut of Shakespeare, he had an affair with his leading lady (the gorgeous and talented Peg Woffington) and he managed his own acting company, supervising the scripts and directing plays while also starring in them. It was because of Garrick's extraordinary energy in all these departments that he not only gave unprecedented respectability to the profession of actor, but also effectively invented the modern theatre. The "actor-manager" tradition that he inaugurated stretched down to Laurence Olivier and beyond.
It was in the art of self-promotion that Garrick was unique. His public image was secured by William Hogarth's vibrant painting of him in the role of Richard III, confronted with his nightmares on the eve of the battle of Bosworth Field. The most frequently engraved and widely disseminated theatrical portrait of the 18th century, this iconic image simultaneously established Garrick as the quintessential tragedian and inaugurated the whole tradition of large-scale Shakespearean painting. Previously, the elevated genre of "history painting" had concentrated on biblical and classical subjects. With Hogarth's image - created in the studio, though influenced by Garrick's stage performance - Shakespearean drama joined this august company.
The climax of Garrick's career in Bardolatry was the jubilee that he organised to commemorate the bicentenary of Shakespeare's birth. The event took place in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1769, on the occasion of the opening of a new town hall, a mere five years later than the anniversary it was supposed to mark. It lasted for three days, during which scores of fashionable Londoners descended on the hitherto obscure provincial town where Shakespeare had been born. The literary tourist industry began here: local entrepreneurs did good business in the sale of Shakespearean relics, such as souvenirs supposedly cut from the wood of the great Bard's mulberry tree. Not since the marketing in medieval times of fragments of the True Cross had a single tree yielded so much wood. The jubilee programme included a grand procession of Shakespearean characters, a masked ball, a horse race and a firework display. In true English fashion, the outdoor events were washed out by torrential rain. At the climax of the festivities, Garrick performed his own poem, "An Ode upon dedicating a building and erecting a statue to Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon", set to music by the leading composer Thomas Arne. In the manner of a staged theatrical "happening", Garrick had arranged for a member of the audience (a fellow actor), dressed as a French fop, to complain - as French connoisseurs of literary taste had complained for generations - that Shakespeare was vulgar, provincial and overrated. This gave Garrick the opportunity to voice his grand defence of Shakespeare. Though the whole business was much mocked in newspaper reports, caricatures and stage farces, it generated enormous publicity for both Garrick and Shakespeare across Britain and the continent of Europe. The jubilee did more than turn Stratford-upon-Avon into a tourist attraction: it inaugurated the very idea of a summer arts festival.
In an age when orthodox religion was facing severe challenges, the cult of Shakespeare was becoming a secular faith. Thanks to the enthusiasm of poets, critics and translators such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt and John Keats in England, Goethe and the Schlegel brothers in Germany, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas in France, during the 19th-century era of Romanticism, the grammar-school boy from the edge of the forest of Arden became the supreme deity not just of poetry and drama, but of high culture itself.
From the initial reception of Venus and Adonis, his first published work, through the dedicatory material prefaced to the First Folio, Shakespeare was renowned by his contemporaries above all for his wit, his mastery of language. He lived in an age when English was undergoing a huge expansion, sucking in new words from all over Europe and beyond.
It is universally acknowledged that Shakespeare's gift of poetic invention surpassed that of any writer before or since. Sometimes, though, the art of Bardolatry has led to excessive claims: Shakespeare is sometimes said to have coined more new English words than anyone else, with the possible exception of James Joyce. This is not true. The illusion of his inventiveness in this regard was created by the tendency of the Oxford English Dictionary to cite examples from him as the first usage of a word, because of his ready availability when the dictionary was created at the end of the Victorian era. Now that there are large, digitised databases of 16th-century books, it is easy to find earlier occurrences for many supposed Shakespearean coinages. Despite this, the list of neologisms remains impressive. To give a random selection of words, Shakespeare is responsible for such verbs as puke, torture, misquote, gossip, swagger, blanket (Poor Tom's "blanket my loins" in Lear) and champion (Macbeth's "champion me to the utterance"). He seems to have invented the nouns critic, mountaineer, pageantry and eyeball, the adjectives fashionable, unreal, blood-stained, deafening, majestic and domineering, the adverbs instinctively and obsequiously in the sense of "behaving in the appropriate way to render obsequies for the dead". Many of his coinages are not new words, but old words in new contexts (such as the application of "manager" to the entertainment business, with A Midsummer Night's Dream's "manager of mirth") or new compounds or old words wrested to new grammatical usage.
Shakespeare's enduring appeal cannot, however, be said to rest solely on his linguistic virtuosity, nor on the proposition - favoured by some of today's politically minded critics - that he achieved world domination simply because of the power of the British empire in the 18th and 19th centuries. At one level, he is "not of an age, but for all time". He works with archetypal characters, core plots and perennial conflicts, as he dramatises the competing demands of the living and the dead, the old and the young, men and women, self and society, integrity and role-play, insiders and outsiders. He grasps the structural conflicts shared by all societies: religious against secular vision, country against city, birth against education, strong leadership against the people's voice, the code of honour against the energies of erotic desire. But he also addressed the conflicts of his own historical moment: the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism and feudalism to modernity, the formation of national identity, trade and immigration, the encounter with new worlds overseas, the shadow of foreign powers.
He was restricted by the customs of his age, notably when it came to the subordination of women, but at the same time he was prophetic of future ages. Despite the inferior position of most women in his society and the fact that the convention of his theatre meant that female parts were played by young men, he gives a remarkable degree of freedom and mental agility to his women. In the Victorian era, the husband and wife Bardophiles Charles and Mary Cowden Clarke suggested that "Shakespeare is the writer of all others whom the women of England should most take to their hearts; for we believe it to be mainly through his intellectual influence that their claims in the scale of society were acknowledged in England, when throughout what is denominated the civilised world, their position was not greatly elevated above that of the drudges in modern low life."
Since the 1700s, the cult of Shakespeare has been closely bound up with the idealisation of Queen Elizabeth I. Consequently, his plays have often been set beside the poetry of John Donne, the gentleman-like virtues of Philip Sidney, the global circumnavigation of Francis Drake, the colonial enterprise of Walter Raleigh and the defeat of the Spanish Armada: these, it has been said, were the fruits of England's golden age. The reality is that Queen Elizabeth inherited, and Shakespeare grew up in, a divided and vulnerable nation. The Spanish threat and the Irish problem would not go away. The queen's tactic of not marrying was a highly effective way of keeping open a range of possible alliances, but by the 1590s it had created severe anxiety about the succession to the throne. In the period when Shakespeare was writing his plays, the queen and her ministers had come to rely more and more on coercion, threat and surveillance in order to maintain authority.
Shakespeare's political beliefs are as elusive as his religion, his sexuality and just about everything else about him that matters. Precisely because he was not an apologist for any single position, it has been possible for the plays to be reinterpreted in the light of each successive age. This is where that other crucial factor, adaptability, comes into play. In the four centuries since his death, he has been made the apologist for all sorts of diametrically opposed ideologies, many of them anachronistic - we should not forget that he was writing before the time when toleration and liberal democracy became totemic values.
The political appropriation of him is true to his own practice: he, too, was a great trader in anachronism. He took the political structures of ancient Rome and mapped them on to his own time and state with fascinating effect: The Rape of Lucrece is set at the moment of transition from monarchy to republic; Coriolanus during the republican era; Julius Caesar at the pivotal moment when a crown is offered and refused but the republic collapses anyway; Antony and Cleopatra ends with the beginning of empire; and Titus Andronicus fictionalises the Roman empire in decay, approaching the time when the great city will be sacked by "barbarian" hordes from the north; King Lear and Cymbeline find echoes of the modern in the matter of ancient Britain. The history plays speak at once to the generations before Shakespeare and to his live audience. Several other plays use contemporary Italy as a mirror. Humanist learning and mercantile travel meant that the eyes of the Elizabethans were open to forms of government other than the hereditary monarchy they experienced at home. They had great admiration for Venice, regarding that island city-state as a model of anti-papal modernity and trading prowess. Venice had no monarch, but a sophisticated oligarchic system, which was observed by English travellers and absorbed by readers such as Shakespeare by way of Lewis Lewkenor's translation of Contarini's The Commonwealth and Republic of Venice (an important source for Othello
Not so long ago, it was commonplace for historians to assert that republican thought had no following in England until well into the 17th century - that the intellectual conditions which made the Cromwellian republic possible emerged only a few years before the extraordinary moment when the English chopped off their king's head. Recent scholarship has shown that this was not the case: republican discourse, if not overt republican polemic, was widespread in Shakespeare's time. So, for instance, the anti-imperial Roman historian Tacitus was read and discussed and admired as the most dispassionate of historians, whose work combined moral insight into the behaviour of political actors with an assessment of their value as governors.
The association of Shakespeare with Tacitism is especially interesting because it aligns him with the Earl of Essex. Shakespeare's patron, Southampton, was a follower of Essex, so it must have been a political gesture on Shakespeare's part to dedicate to him The Rape of Lucrece, a highly Tacitean account of the tyranny of Tarquin and the establishment of the Roman republic. Shakespeare's most explicit contemporary political allusion is a flattering allusion in one of the Henry V choruses to Essex's military expedition against the Irish. The commissioning of the performance of Richard II on the eve of the Essex rebellion suggests that the Tacitean faction still considered Shakespeare to be in effect their house dramatist in the last years of the old queen's reign. But with his usual cunning, Shakespeare somehow managed to throw off the association: Essex was executed for treason and Southampton was sent to the Tower, but the players got away with a reprimand. They claimed that they had only put on the show because they had been well paid to do so.
Shakespeare sometimes wrote in direct flattery of Queen Elizabeth, as in the epilogue to a court performance on Shrove Tuesday, 1599. And the Virgin Queen is almost certainly the immortal phoenix of the mysteriously beautiful poem that has become known as "The Phoenix and Turtle", written the same year as the Essex rebellion. But when the old queen finally died in 1603, Henry Chettle expressed surprise that Shakespeare's "honied muse" dropped "no sable tear" in her memory. Though there seems not to have been a published elegy, Shakespeare did perhaps reflect on the end of the era and the uncertain times to come in Sonnet 107, with its reference to the "eclipse" of the "mortal moon" (in classical mythology, the moon was associated with Diana the virgin huntress - and Elizabeth in turn was associated with her).
The new king, James I, immediately took Shakespeare's company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, under his direct patronage. Henceforth they would be the King's Men, and for the rest of Shakespeare's career they were favoured with far more court performances than any of their rivals. In August that year, they had to close the theatre and spend 18 days literally "waiting" in attendance at Somerset House during the visit of a special envoy from the king of Spain, while a peace treaty was being thrashed out. This moment of suspension was an important turning point in Shakespeare's work. Elizabethan Shakespeare was a war poet: the Armada and the campaigns against the Spanish in the Netherlands had overshadowed his whole career. Jacobean Shakespeare was a peace poet: of course, he still wrote battle scenes, which were always good box office, but a play such as Coriolanus is equally interested in the question of what happens to a man of action in a time of peace; a Scottish king working in harmony with the English court brings peace at the climax of Macbeth; Cymbeline ends with a peace treaty; and Antony and Cleopatra concludes with Octavius becoming Augustus and promising to fulfil his prediction that "The time of universal peace is near". James liked to see himself as a modern Augustus, at once the bringer of peace across Europe and the founder of a new empire ("Britain", in contrast to Elizabeth's "England"). Shakespeare's Jacobean plays resonate with the new king's preoccupations: in Macbeth, the Gunpowder plot, witchcraft, the lineage of Banquo, the practice of "touching" subjects to cure them of scrofula, known as the king's evil; in Lear, the need to unite Britain and the dire consequences of its division; in Cymbeline, Britain as a new Rome and the talismanic Welsh port of Milford Haven, where Henry Richmond landed at the dawn of the Tudor dynasty; in The Winter's Tale and The Tempest, royal children and dynastic liaisons.
Shakespeare endures because, with each new turn of history, a new dimension of his work opens up before us. His insights into the dynamics of royalty and power are such that, whoever is king or president or prime minister, one or more of the plays will always strike a resonance with the times. When George III went mad, King Lear was kept off the stage - it was just too close to the truth. During the cold war, Lear again became Shakespeare's most popular play, its combination of starkness and absurdity answering to the mood of the age, inspiring both the Russian Grigori Kozintsev (1969) and the English Peter Brook (1971) to make darkly brilliant film versions.
Early in 1934, when the French socialist government was close to collapse, a new translation of Coriolanus was staged at the Comédie Française in Paris. The production was perceived as an attack on democratic institutions. Rioting pro- and anti-government factions clashed in the auditorium. Shakespeare's translator, a Swiss, was branded a foreign fascist. The prime minister fired the theatre director and replaced him with the head of the security police, whose artistic credentials were somewhat questionable. What are we to conclude from this real-life drama? That Coriolanus's contempt for the rabble makes Shakespeare himself a proto-fascist? How could it then have been that, the following year, the Maly Theatre company in Stalin's Moscow staged a production of the same play which sought to demonstrate that Coriolanus was an "enemy of the people" and that Shakespeare was therefore a true socialist? Shakespeare was neither an absolutist nor a democrat, but the fact that both productions were possible is one of the major reasons why he continues to live through his work four centuries after his death.
"Shakespeare's plays," wrote Johnson in the preface to his edition of 1765, "are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolic of another; and many mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without design." Johnson's preface to Shakespeare was written in a spirit of English empiricism that did not worry itself about neoclassical rules. "There is always an appeal open from critics to nature," he says: Shakespeare's plays are great for the very reason that they mingle joy with sorrow and high with low. They may not conform to the model of the ancients, but they are true to life. The fall of the mighty is only ever part of the picture. Even Shakespeare's severest tragedies have their comedians: the Porter in Macbeth; Lear's Fool. Even his happiest comedies have their malcontents: Jaques in As You Like It; Don John in Much Ado About Nothing. We might go so far as to say that all Shakespeare's plays are tragicomedies and that is one of the principal reasons why his drama is, as Johnson also recognised, "the mirror of life".
· The RSC Shakespeare: The Complete Works, edited by Jonathan Bate and Eric Rasmussen, is published on April 19 by Macmillan (£30) | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/10/anti-strike-laws-bill-unions | UK news | 2023-01-10T10:18:02.000Z | Jamie Grierson | Ministers to unveil anti-strike laws as disputes continue to paralyse UK | Ministers are to unveil controversial new legislation designed to curb the effectiveness of strike action as industrial disputes continue to paralyse services across the UK.
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has previously said the bill will enforce a “basic” level of service from different sectors if workers choose to strike.
Shapps said there was currently a “lottery” if workers chose to strike, alleging that nurses were willing to guarantee a national level of service during strikes but ambulance unions were not. “There was a sort of regional postcode lottery. That’s the thing we want to avoid,” he told Sky News.
The legislation is likely to face a difficult passage in the House of Lords and a legal challenge by unions once it is passed – meaning minimum service levels are unlikely to be able to be enforced for many months.
The government’s own impact assessment has suggested that the legislation could lead to “an increased frequency of strikes … and more adverse effects in the long-term”.
Shapps told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that he did not see that as a risk and said the government hoped it would never have to use the new power, citing the disparity between nurses and ambulance workers and saying he hoped agreements could be made without the need for enforcement.
“This would, I hope, bring everybody to the table to provide those same minimum safety levels,” he said.
“I do think the minimum safety levels make a huge amount of sense. I hope that rather than actually using the legislation, we’ll be able to just get this safety and security in place for people. It can’t be right that the British people are exposed to that variance and service depending on where they happen to live.”
The Trades Union Congress general secretary, Paul Nowak, said the change in law would risk further strikes.
“This legislation would mean that, when workers democratically vote to strike, they can be forced to work and sacked if they don’t comply. That’s undemocratic, unworkable, and almost certainly illegal,” he said. “Let’s be clear: if passed, this bill will prolong disputes and poison industrial relations – leading to more frequent strikes.”
The introduction of the bill to parliament on Tuesday comes after crisis talks on Monday between ministers and unions failed to resolve ongoing disputes with nurses, teachers and rail workers.
1:53
Rishi Sunak's anti-strike laws may be illegal, says RMT chief – video
However, ministers have laid the ground for a U-turn on pay for NHS staff by agreeing to discuss backdating pay offers from April and one-off cost-of-living payments that were previously ruled out.
Relations are likely to be soured, however, by the introduction of the legislation on the day after the talks. Defending the proposed legislation, Shapps said the government wanted to end “forever strikes”.
He told Times Radio: “Everyone knows we want to bring these strikes, which in some cases, railways for example, seem to have turned into sort of forever strikes. We want to bring this to a close and the government is bending over backwards to do that.”
He added: “Other countries like Germany and France and elsewhere do have minimum safety levels in place and we want to make sure that we’re doing the same thing to protect the British people.
“All we’d be doing here is bringing ourselves into line with what is already practised in many other countries.”
Labour has warned that bill could allow employers to sue trade unions and sack workers. The party has said it will oppose the bill and repeal it once in government.
Shapps has played down criticism that minimum service levels legislation could lead to NHS staff being sacked. He said: “This sort of talk that somebody will be sacked is no more true than it would be under any employment contract and that’s always the case when people have to stick to the law.”
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Unions warned it could see key workers facing the sack if they exercise their right to strike, and that if it becomes law it could “poison industrial relations” and lead to more walkouts.
The health secretary, Steve Barclay, is reportedly considering backdating next year’s NHS staff pay increase, as well as making a one-off cost-of-living payment.
In a meeting with health unions, Barclay is said to have suggested that improvements in efficiency and productivity within the health service could “unlock additional funding” to lead to an increased offer for the 2023-24 pay settlement in the spring.
Those comments were criticised by Unite, one of the unions that attended the talks, saying that asking for staff to work harder for more money was insulting. But Shapps said that was not what was meant.
“There are many, many new things which have come in which could make the practice of healthcare, the running of railways and other things much more efficient,” he told Sky News.
“I think what the health secretary was saying is that let’s try and take advantage of those things, and that’s our route to being able to pay people for greater productivity.”
Sara Gorton, the head of health at the Unison trade union, said the discussion represented a “tone change” from the UK government after months of ministers refusing to budge beyond what had been recommended by the independent pay review bodies.
Unions said there was no “tangible offer” made, however, with Gorton calling for “cold hard cash” to be offered so members can be consulted over stopping strikes.
While there were positive noises about the talks in some quarters, other unions were incensed by the lack of perceived progress and it was clear the discussions were not enough to prevent the likelihood of further strikes in the health sector.
Physiotherapists also said they would be announcing industrial action dates later this week despite the talks, while the GMB union said ambulance strikes would go ahead as planned on Wednesday.
The Fire Brigades Union general secretary, Matt Wrack, said: “This is an attack on all workers – including key workers, who kept our public services going during the pandemic. It’s an attack on Britain’s Covid heroes and on all workers. We need a mass movement of resistance to this authoritarian attack.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/apr/27/wpp-to-cut-martin-sorrells-pay-in-bid-to-calm-investors | Business | 2017-04-28T10:16:04.000Z | Mark Sweney | WPP to cut Sir Martin Sorrell's pay in bid to calm investors | Sir Martin Sorrell, Britain’s best-paid chief executive, is to take a pay cut in an effort to avert a clash with investors over the scale of his remuneration. WPP will confirm on Friday that Sorrell was awarded almost £50m last year, taking the total payout to the founder of the world’s largest advertising company to more than £200m over the past five years.
The latest payout will be the last from WPP’s controversial Leap scheme, which has sparked investor revolts at the company’s annual meetings, and is to be replaced with a less generous deal that is expected to pay out under £20m annually.
However, WPP – which saw a third of shareholders oppose Sorrell’s £70m payout for 2015 at last year’s AGM, one of the biggest pay deals in UK corporate history – is set to announce that it will cut Sorrell’s maximum pay package to closer to £15m.
The company has moved to stem further potential run-ins with investors at a time of renewed scrutiny of corporate Britain since the vote for Brexit and the warning by Theresa May that she would curb boardroom excess. This year’s annual meeting, to be held in June, will include a binding vote on WPP’s pay policy over the next three years.
Can anyone be worth £70m a year, Martin Sorrell?
Read more
In December, the chair of WPP’s pay committee told MPs that Sorrell was not on a “superstar” salary but that he has been “rewarded very highly” for driving the WPP business.
Sorrell’s pay has been a flashpoint in the past. In 2012, during what became known as the shareholder spring, nearly 60% of investors rejected his annual package for the previous year.
Last year, Sorrell defended his pay package, arguing that he had put three decades of his life into building WPP from a maker of wire baskets into a £22bn global marketing business.
“I’m not a johnny-come-lately who picked a company up and turned it round [for a big payday],” he said. “If it was one five-year plan and we buggered off, fine [to criticise my pay]. Over those 31 years … I have taken a significant degree of risk. [WPP] is where my wealth is. It is long effort over a long period of time.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2017/dec/04/the-braddies-2017-peter-bradshaw-nominates-films-of-the-year | Film | 2017-12-04T09:00:06.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | The Braddies 2017: Peter Bradshaw nominates his films of the year | It is time once again for the least prestigious part of awards season: the “Braddies”, my own personal, subjective nominations for the best movies released in this calendar year. They are entirely distinct from Guardian Film’s best of the year countdown and come in the following categories: best film, best director, best actress, best supporting actress, best actor, best supporting actor, best documentary, best screenplay and best cinematographer. You are, as ever, invited to vote for the winner in the comments section, and to note what you think are unfair omissions.
Moonlight trailer: Barry Jenkins’s Oscar-tipped drama – video Guardian
Film of the year
The Florida Project (dir. Sean Baker)
The Death of Stalin (dir. Armando Iannucci)
Call Me By Your Name (dir. Luca Guadagnino)
Blade Runner 2049 (dir. Denis Villeneuve)
The Handmaiden (dir. Park Chan-wook)
Get Out (dir. Jordan Peele)
The Love Witch (dir. Anna Biller)
La La Land (dir. Damien Chazelle)
Moonlight (dir. Barry Jenkins)
I Am Not a Witch (dir. Rungano Nyoni)
Christopher Nolan on Dunkirk: ‘There are 400,000 men on this beach – how do you get them home?’ Guardian
Best Director
Christopher Nolan for Dunkirk
Luca Guadagnino for Call Me By Your Name
Darren Aronofsky for Mother!
Kelly Reichardt for Certain Women
Edgar Wright for Baby Driver
Dee Rees for Mudbound
Michael Haneke for Happy End
Cristian Mungiu for Graduation
Maren Ade for Toni Erdmann
Kathryn Bigelow for Detroit
Get Out: trailer for Jordan Peele’s comedy horror Guardian
Best Actor
Peter Simonischek for Toni Erdmann
Jason Mitchell for Mudbound
Jean-Pierre Léaud for The Death of Louis XIV
Armie Hammer for Call Me By Your Name
Timothée Chalamet for Call Me By Your Name
Simon Russell Beale for The Death of Stalin
Colin Farrell for The Killing of a Sacred Deer and The Beguiled
Daniel Kaluuya for Get Out
Makis Papadimitriou for Suntan
John Boyega for Detroit
5:51
Armando Iannucci on The Death of Stalin, Donald Trump and disappearing democracy – video interview
Best Supporting Actor
Rob Morgan for Mudbound
Willem Dafoe for The Florida Project
Mahershala Ali for Moonlight
Michael Palin for The Death of Stalin
Michael Stuhlbarg for Call Me By Your Name
Ha Jung-woo for The Handmaiden
Henry BJ Phiri for I Am Not a Witch
Daniel Craig for Logan Lucky
Fabrice Luchini for Slack Bay
Adam Sandler for The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
Hidden Figures: trailer for Nasa scientists biopic Guardian
Best Actress
Florence Pugh for Lady Macbeth
Kristen Stewart for Personal Shopper and Certain Women
Ruth Negga for Loving
Rooney Mara for A Ghost Story and Una
Sonia Braga for Aquarius
Jennifer Lawrence for Mother!
Taraji P Henson for Hidden Figures
Isabelle Huppert for Elle and Happy End
Annette Bening for Film Stars Don’t Die In Liverpool
Lois Smith for Marjorie Prime
2:13
Watch the trailer for The Florida Project – video
Best Supporting Actress
Tilda Swinton for Okja
Brookynn Prince for The Florida Project
Naomie Harris for Moonlight
Janelle Monáe for Hidden Figures
Octavia Spencer for Hidden Figures
Marion Cotillard for It’s Only the End of the World
Laura Dern for Certain Women
Michelle Williams for Certain Women
Catherine Keener for Get Out
Valeria Bruni Tedeschi for Slack Bay
‘It’s a feminist message’: Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy on Their Finest Guardian
Best Screenplay
James Ivory for Call Me By Your Name
Armando Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin for The Death of Stalin
Sally Potter for The Party
Noah Baumbach for The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
Kenneth Lonergan for Manchester By the Sea
Jordan Peele for Get Out
Harry Michell for Chubby Funny
Gaby Chiappe for Their Finest
Simon Farnaby, Paul King and Jon Croker for Paddington 2
Matt Spicer and David Branson Smith for Ingrid Goes West
Best Documentary
I Am Not Your Negro (dir. Raoul Peck)
Cameraperson (dir. Kirsten Johnson)
City of Ghosts (dir. Matthew Heineman)
Bunch of Kunst (dir. Christine Franz)
Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami (dir. Sophie Fiennes)
Destination Unknown (dir. Claire Ferguson)
Machines (dir. Rahul Jain)
Whitney: Can I Be Me (dirs. Nick Broomfield, Rudi Dolezal)
Tower (dir. Keith Maitland)
Trophy (dirs. Shaul Schwarz, Christina Clusiau)
La La Land trailer: Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone star in musical movie Guardian
Best Cinematography
Roger Deakins for Blade Runner 2049
Sayombhu Mukdeeprom for Call Me By Your Name
Laurie Rose for Free Fire
M David Mullen for The Love Witch
Chung Chung-hoon for The Handmaiden
James Laxton for Moonlight
Linus Sandgren for La La Land
Urszula Pontikos for Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool
Zach Kuperstein for The Eyes of My Mother
Bojan Bazelli for A Cure for Wellness | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/22/animals-cities-coronavirus-lockdowns-deer-raccoons | World news | 2020-03-22T11:00:04.000Z | Maanvi Singh | Emboldened wild animals venture into locked-down cities worldwide | As cities around the world mandate lockdowns, quarantines and social distancing, social media posts about animals frolicking through deserted cities have enchanted people anxiously seeking silver linings.
We must sadly report that many of these optimistic posts have turned out to be fake – there were no dolphins in Venice’s celebrated canals, or drunken elephants ambling through China’s Yunnan province.
But as the coronavirus crisis changes the rhythms of urban life, there are some early signs that animals – especially the creatures that lurk in the periphery of big cities and suburbs – are feeling emboldened to explore.
In Nara, Japan, sika deer wandered through city streets and subway stations. Raccoons were spotted on the beach in an emptied San Felipe, Panama. And turkeys have made a strong showing in Oakland, California, home of one Guardian editor.
Spotted on the playground at the elementary school next door, which has been closed for several days ... wild turkeys! That’s a first. #coronavirus #westoakland pic.twitter.com/tGA4y1l09c
— Charlotte Simmonds (@CharSimmonds) March 20, 2020
“Normally, animals live in the parts of our cities that we don’t use,” said Seth Magle, who directs the Urban Wildlife Institute at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. “It makes them an unseen presence, kind of like ghosts.”
Gangs of wild turkeys aren’t an uncommon sight in parts of the Bay Area but it seems they’ve got a bit more room to wander through neighborhoods they might not normally visit. Boars have been known to descend upon European cities – but Barcelonans on lockdown have marveled at how the wild animals romp through quiet, deserted streets.
In American cities under shelter in place orders, walks and jogs are one of the few excuses for people to go outside. “It’s going to be a really cool time to spot wildlife,” Magle said.
In San Felipe, where restaurants and bars have closed and tourist traffic is almost nonexistent, Matt Larsen has noticed some new visitors on the beach near his home. “There were three raccoons, just frolicking along right at the edge of the surf,” said Larsen, the director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. “I’ve lived here six years, and it was something I had never seen before.”
'Nature is taking back Venice': wildlife returns to tourist-free city
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The beach, which is right by the presidential palace, is usually kept clear by security guards, said Larsen, who directs the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. “But normally there are people all around; the streets are almost always crowded with foreign visitors and Panamanian tourists,” he said.
Larsen, who has been teleworking from home with his wife, was happy to see “nature maintaining itself”, he said. “It was nice to see something a little out of the ordinary.”
Quarantines could continue to affect wildlife in unexpected ways, said Paige Warren, an ecologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “I’ll be interested in whether creatures like coyotes and foxes start acting more bold in American cities,” she said. At the same time, fewer people in the streets could drive some species away, she said, especially those who subsist on whatever humans feed them – or leave behind in the trash.
That is the case in Nara Park, where the sika deer – which look like Bambi – have grown accustomed to tourists lining up year-round to feed them rice crackers. Now that the park is devoid of human visitors, the deer have begun wandering into the city looking for food. They’ve been spotted crossing city streets and walking through subway stations, snacking on potted plants.
Less tourists in Nara = less people feeding the deer in the parks 🌷🌱 Now they're venturing out into the city eating flowers and plants, per Fuji TV #coronavirus#新型コロナウイルス の影響で海外観光客の減少が続く奈良公園で、鹿せんべいをもらえなくなってしまったシカちゃん達 😢 pic.twitter.com/yUFWJ4S9sj
— Kurumi Mori (@rumireports) March 6, 2020
In Lopburi, Thailand, the absence of tourists and their tasty snacks left local monkeys brawling over what appeared to be a cup of yogurt.
But just as many urban animals have adapted to humans, they’ll find ways to adjust during the quarantine, said Warren.
Monkeys hang from cables on a street in front of Prang Sam Yod temple amid declining tourism in Lopburi, Thailand. Photograph: Soe Zeya Tun/Reuters
Magle concurred: “As they said in Jurassic Park, life tends to find a way.” Though his team in Chicago has been working from home and practicing social distancing, Magle said they were trying to find a way to set up equipment around Chicago for their annual study of urban wildlife and track how the coronavirus crisis may shift animal behavior.
The changes will probably be subtle, the researchers said. Urban foxes and coyotes might venture out of their hiding spots a bit more. Birds might roam, graze and hunt new pastures.
The narrative that wildlife populations will dramatically rebound and retake cities is fantasy – albeit one that might comfort those looking for meaning amidst the crisis. “If anything, these times may serve as a reminder that animals have always lived in our area,” Magle said. “We may not think of our cities as a part of nature, but they are.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/10/pasolini-review-monument-to-a-murdered-film-maker | Film | 2015-09-10T14:30:01.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Pasolini review – monument to a murdered film-maker | The 40th anniversary of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s murder brings us this mysterious, flawed movie from the maturing adulte terrible Abel Ferrara, dramatising scenes from the final 24 hours of Pasolini’s life. More importantly, it aspires also to recreate an endgame in his art, a kaleidoscope of ideas citing Pasolini’s modernist repudiation of conventional film-making. “Narrative art, you know, is dead,” Pasolini opines, “and we are in mourning.”
It’s an intriguing, startlingly restrained and even cerebral piece of work from Ferrara, an unimpeachably serious homage, with an assured lead performance from Willem Dafoe – who does look uncannily like Pasolini. With its mix of conversation, interviews, metatextual fantasy and stodgy revolutionary rhetoric, the film looks like a New Wave monument created in Pasolini’s honour, something that is paradoxically closer to Bertolucci’s Before the Revolution (1964). But the lightning-flash of shock and bad taste and inspirational incorrectness that animate Abel Ferrera’s best work is missing.
On 2 November 1975, the body of poet, novelist, film-maker and leftist thinker Pasolini was found on the beach at Ostia, outside Rome, savagely beaten and evidently run over by his own car, later found with his soon-to-be-arrested teenage killer at the wheel, although the conviction is disputed to this day. Was this the result of cruising, homophobic killing, political murder by fascists – or some occult mixture of the three? Actually, the movie does not gesture at any grand conspiracy on this specific point, making the case for a scenario that could easily be guessed at.
Dafoe plays Pasolini with the impassivity of a cardinal: giving measured interviews about the imminent uprising (“Hell is rising towards you”), never allowing himself to be provoked. He keeps his dark glasses on indoors, even while in the screening room, supervising the completion of his last film Salò, Or the 120 Days of Sodom – a faintly Godardian touch.
Ferrara’s film tracks Pasolini as he meets with friends, with collaborators and talks to his adored elderly mother. Later, he will pick up a young stranger whom he takes out for dinner and then for a fateful, fatal drive out to the beach. This entry-level narrative is interspersed with fictional dramatisations of some of Pasolini’s unrealised and semi-realised projects. There is the sprawling novel Petrolio, which appears to anticipate the sexual encounter that led to his death.
Riccardo Scamarcio as Ninetto Davoli and Ninetto Davoli as Epifanio
There is also the film that he intended to make after Salò – Porno-Teo-Kolossal, an orgiastic fantasia with a visionary messianic dimension whose character Epifanio is played here by Pasolini’s repertory collaborator Ninetto Davoli. Pasolini’s mother is played by Adriana Asti, from Pasolini’s own film Accattone, and she has a very moving scene in which she reacts to news of her son’s death.
Ferrara creates a palimpsest of ideas, though I found those imaginary recreations of finite dramatic interest. Maybe Porno-Teo-Kolossal was best left unmade, or remembered only as this fragment. Or maybe Ferrara should have attempted actually directing Pasolini’s unmade St Paul screenplay, now posthumously published.
Ferrara himself has some claim to be Pasolini’s heir; they are very different people and different film-makers, but they have the same authentic flair for transgression, the same subversive talent and the same vocation for danger. I can’t think of any director, apart from Ferrara, who has quite the same talent and passion for upsetting the apple cart.
Who really killed Pier Paolo Pasolini?
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But is this a meeting of minds? The beginning of the film takes us into Pasolini’s brooding novel Petrolio and at first that does offer us a nighttime vision of Rome that could be a cousin to Ferrara’s underestimated 1995 pulp masterpiece The Addiction, a story of vampires. That had bloodsuckers; this has cocksuckers. But the vision of an eternal, uneasy night is the same.
And it has a shiver of the insomniac anxiety in Ferrara’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn fiction Welcome to New York. That film did not hesitate to assign revealing monologues to his quasi-DSK figure. But Ferrara clearly does not presume to imagine personal material for the factual Pasolini in quite the same way; it results in a kind of high-minded opacity, but mixed in with the fantasy sequences the result is sometimes muddle and confusion. When Dafoe’s absent from the screen, which he is quite a lot, the energy levels descend.
At the end of his newspaper interview, Pasolini is shown suggesting to the journalist an elegant title for the piece: “We Are All in Danger”. This respectful movie ushers Pasolini to a place of safety. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/nov/08/treasury-backs-intervention-in-australian-energy-market-to-quickly-reduce-prices | Australia news | 2022-11-08T08:26:34.000Z | Sarah Martin | Treasury backs intervention in Australian energy market to ‘quickly’ reduce prices | Treasury has backed government intervention in the energy market, saying it would support a move to “quickly and directly” reduce prices to help households and businesses struggling with soaring inflation.
In a Senate estimates hearing on Tuesday, Luke Yeaman, a deputy secretary in Treasury, said that while the department would normally support staying out of the market to allow “helpful adjustment” in response to price signals, the war in Ukraine had shifted its thinking.
“In most circumstances, Treasury would support such an approach, however the circumstances of war-driven price shocks are different and outside the frame of such an approach,” Yeaman said, reading an opening statement from Treasury’s secretary, Steven Kennedy.
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“In our view, such shocks bring into scope government intervention.”
Yeaman said “unusually high prices and profits for some companies” were outside normal investment and profit cycles and had led to a redistribution of income and wealth and a disruption of markets.
“The same price increases are leading to a reduction in the real incomes of many people, with the most severely affected being lower income working households.
“The energy price increases are also significantly reducing the profits of many businesses and raising questions about their viability.”
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The statement said any measure introduced by the government needed to be temporary, regularly reviewed, and mindful of not contributing further to inflation.
“This would suggest to us, that interventions that directly address the higher domestic thermal coal and gas prices are more likely to be optimal.
“Australia is uniquely placed to pursue this type of intervention given it is a net exporter of energy.”
It also suggested that the individual policies of states and territories ought to be considered, amid speculation about a domestic gas reserve for the east coast gas market.
When pressed on what policy measures the department would support, Yeaman said a range of options were being canvassed, but suggested it wanted to see action quickly.
“Things that act quickly and directly on the price are going to be most effective in our view … in helping people to deal with the current energy price shock” Yeaman said.
The Nationals senator Matt Canavan asked whether the government would consider measures to unlock supply, saying Australia could help allies overseas with coal and gas exports.
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Sam Reinhardt, also a deputy secretary in Treasury, said there were measures in the budget that would increase the capacity in the grid and put downward pressure on the prices, but these were “years” away from coming into effect.
The government has been flagging intervention in the energy market after the budget forecast a 56% hike in electricity prices over this financial year and next, with gas prices up 44%.
It has tasked the ACCC with reviewing the code of conduct covering the gas industry, seeking recommendations for toughening the current voluntary code of conduct for the sector, with a report expected by the end of the month.
The resources minister, Madeleine King, said on Tuesday there was some urgency to the issue, responding to calls from the Australian Workers’ Union to have a price cap in place by December or face the closure of manufacturing businesses.
“I totally agree we have to think it through very quickly, and that’s what all our respective departments and the ACCC are absolutely focused on,” King told the ABC.
“It affects manufacturers, it affects industry, it affects everyday consumers wanting to heat their house in the eastern states.”
However, she said the government’s response would also need to consider the impact on trading partners such as Japan, who expected Australia to honour long-term supply contracts and remain a “reliable and trustworthy supplier of energy”.
King indicated the government was also looking to the Japanese for future investment in the critical minerals industry. She will travel to Japan next week. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/feb/19/carson-mccullers-at-100-a-century-of-american-suffering | Books | 2017-02-19T10:00:05.000Z | Rafia Zakaria | Carson McCullers at 100: a century of American suffering | “S
he found me a cheap boarding house somewhere on the west side, where there, cut off and lonely, I passed the day my first book was published,” wrote Carson McCullers in her memoir Illumination and Night Glare, describing the day her classic novel The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter was published. Then 23, McCullers and her husband Reeves McCullers were penniless, awaiting the last portion of the advance on the book so that they, both aspiring writers, could move to New York City. Reeves had gone off to work on a boat on Nantucket island and McCullers had little premonition of the literary sensation the book would become – or how completely it would transform her life.
Turmoil was in the air that fervid summer in 1940. Despite Roosevelt’s New Deal, the depredations of the Great Depression had sucked hope from America’s bones, birthed a generation that had only known want and that was sceptical of the possibility of change. In small crowds around newsstands on city corners, uncertain Americans read about the war raging in Europe, but remained unsure as to whether it was “their” problem. Everyone, it seemed, wanted change and no one seemed to know how to hasten it, direct it or evaluate it. In this last sense, and possibly many more, America then was not so different from America now.
Where truth fails, fiction flourishes. In The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, Carson McCullers, who would have turned 100 years old on Sunday, distilled all of these consternations, enabling in literature the self-reckoning that had been avoided in reality. Set in a southern mill town much like her own Columbus, Georgia, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter traces the hapless lives of five townspeople, all of whom are inexplicably drawn to a deaf-mute named John Singer. There is the young Mick Kelly, a teenage girl who dreams of making it big; Biff Bannon, the middle-class owner of a local cafe; Jake Blount, the most overtly political character and Dr Benedict Copeland, the town’s African American doctor who rails against the inequities of a racist society, but is helpless against them. As they all interact with Singer, they fail to notice his pain or that he is mourning a loss of his own: the banishment of his friend Spiros Antonapoulos to an insane asylum.
McCullers in 1959. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
It is a mad mix, but also an ingenious one. Some, like critic Nancy Rich, writing a decade after McCullers’s death in 1967, have declared it a political parable. Singer represents government and its ineffectuality, the vague dimensions of his character permitting the projections of all the rest. It’s a sad little bunch, each an iteration of the insoluble problems of that time: race, inequality, gutless conformity and the apathy of a silent and self-centred majority. Can all of this come together to make up a country, a polity? The answer seemed elusive then, as it is in the US’s riven present, but The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter posed the questions, presented the problem.
McCullers was rewarded for her ingenuity. The glamour of becoming an overnight literary phenomenon brought with it new and famous friends – among them a Swiss heiress whose face, McCullers declared, “would haunt her for the rest of her life”. Not long after the book’s publication, McCullers moved in to the famous February House: a Brooklyn brownstone that became a salon and refuge for a gaggle of literary celebrities. Parking her husband elsewhere – he had blossomed into an alcoholic – McCullers became housemates with the likes of WH Auden, Salvador Dali, Harper’s Bazaar editor George Davis and burlesque performer and author Gypsy Rose Lee. The war had not yet begun, but McCullers had arrived. Everyone wanted to know her, to talk to her, to live with her. All the magazines – Harper’s, the New Yorker, Story and scores of others who had once rejected her work – now clamoured to see what she would produce next.
Great success births great expectations and it may well have been this burden that shattered McCullers. She kept writing, but none of her ensuing works would parallel the acclaim of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. Some would be painful disappointments. Her second novel, Reflections in a Golden Eye, was set in a military base in peacetime and toyed with voyeurism and implied homosexuality. While eagerly awaited, it met the fate of many second novels and was deemed an unworthy successor of a brilliant first. McCullers’ health also failed; the afflictions of her youth, among them misdiagnosed rheumatic fever, left her susceptible to strokes that eventually paralysed her. The writer could write no more but she persevered, dictating her autobiography until, in August 1967, the last stroke killed her. She was only 50 years old.
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The glib and ruthless pronouncements of her lost literary genius were likely not an easy burden to bear. The pages of McCullers’ unfinished memoir are laden with accounts of her associations with celebrities (including Marilyn Monroe) – a small antidote, perhaps, to the torment of being labelled a one-hit wonder. The sharp girl who had cast such an unforgiving eye on the world around her became a woman imprisoned by her own initial success and her inability to replicate it. The transformation from an outsider who cast her acid gaze on ordinary America and squeezed from it caustic truths, to a member of New York’s literati, came at too dear a price. McCullers, who had so adeptly captured the desolation of her moment and constructed from a grim reality a distinctly American political parable, was left a famous author but a lesser writer. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2007/oct/18/adifferentkindofclassic | Books | 2007-10-18T13:09:11.000Z | Joseph Ridgwell | A different kind of classic | Founded in 1992 by Kevin Williamson the Scottish literary magazine Rebel Inc would go on to become one of the most successful underground publications ever: at its height, it was able to sell out nightclubs for readings. Due in most part to the extraordinary success of Irvine Welsh's era-defining bestseller, Trainspotting, the magazine would eventually be taken under the wing of local Edinburgh publishers Canongate, and in time would publish some extremely interesting, innovative titles. Rebel Inc's first book, Children of Albion Rovers, published in 1996, composed of six novellas from Edinburgh writers including Welsh, Alan Warner and Laura Hird.
Once the short-lived literary craze for all things Scottish began to decline, Kevin Williamson's next decisive move was to found Rebel Inc Classics, a ground-breaking imprint which introduced readers to many of the forgotten titles of classic literature that had influenced the writing of contemporary Rebel Inc authors, and would eventually go on to influence many of today's cutting edge authors.
Rebel Inc's battle cry of "Fuck the mainstream!" was continued and extended by rejecting the traditional perception of what constitutes a classic, and exploding the academic myth that classic literature must be praised and admired by both general readers and academics over a period of several generations. This innovative and highly entertaining series would inspire a new generation of British writers, most of a similar age, with similar artistic tastes, and with a similar philosophy on life.
Rebel Inc Classics featured a wide range of books, some of which were out of print or very difficult to get: Snowblind by Robert Sabbag, an informative insight on the cocaine trade in the 70s, for example, and nearly everything by Richard Brautigan. The series also included overlooked works by brilliant authors, and long forgotten classics such as John Fante's LA masterpiece Ask the Dust, and the enigmatic Emmet Grogan autobiography, Ringolevio. There were also reissues of work by Charles Bukowski, Nelson Algren, Jack London, Knut Hamsun, Jim Dodge, and Alexander Trocchi amongst others.
But it's only now that the full extent of the Rebel Inc Classic imprint's influence is being fully realised. Maybe things go in cycles. Rebel Inc sprouted at the end of the Thatcher era; now, at the end of the culturally barren Blair era, a new generation of writers has emerged on the underground literary scene, hailing various Rebel Inc titles as being major influences on their writing.
And as time goes by I'm sure Kevin Williamson will get the recognition he deserves for making these wonderful books available to the general public. I for one am indebted to a man who enabled me to enjoy some of the world's brilliant, but more obscure authors at an affordable price, and giving me literature that made me see the world in a different but wholly more illuminating light. So cheers, Kevin, wherever you are. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/19/hustings-labour-leader-jess-phillips | Opinion | 2020-01-19T18:11:00.000Z | Jess Phillips | Hustings are a bad way to decide who would make a good Labour leader | Jess Phillips | Isaid at the beginning of this process that I would tell the truth. I said that I was the bold choice and only bold could beat Boris Johnson, and I meant it. And then I did something I didn’t think I would do, and I stopped being bold. I didn’t lie, but I certainly stopped being real. I really believe that authentic, big-hearted, funny, kind and different politics is the only way to beat Johnson. So I am going to practise it.
So now for the honesty.
I hated the first hustings on Saturday. Genuinely the most inspiring moment was the sound of a baby crying in the audience. That was Baby Alfie, whose mother I knocked doors with while he was still safe in the womb. She knocked doors in the rain, in a seat we lost, while she was nine months pregnant and in possible slow labour.
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The hustings was awful. I was awful because I was trying to hit a million different lines and messages in 40 seconds. Some were my lines, some were other people’s, and it fell flat.
It was not all my failing. The format of the hustings is terrible. To answer any question in 40 seconds is ridiculous. If it were possible to sum up, for example, an economic plan or an industrial strategy in 40 seconds, one wonders why they are actually hundreds of pages long. What a ridiculous farce.
“How will you unify the party?” is an example of a question we will be asked in every hustings. Everyone is going to give the same bloody answer: “I’ll build a broad team, I’ll end factionalism, I’ll make sure all are welcome … blah blah blah.” The truth is it is going to be a long hard slog of carrot and stick. This is no criticism of the other candidates – I did it, too. The real truth is you have to inspire change. You have to lead people to it, they have to believe in your intentions and want to go along with you.
I have absolutely no idea what kind of test of leadership it is for five people to stand on a stage and deliver frankly dull pre-rehearsed lines, some that have clearly been focus-grouped to death. How does it show how you will lead a team, inspire people to action or reach out into the country? It doesn’t. It proves some people can practise lines.
What galls me the most is the triangulation, the lines planned to reach different parts of the membership of the Labour party, all while talking about the end of factionalism. This is fundamentally dishonest. I get that repetition is an important part of political marketing but I am not sure I can take six weeks of it.
Ready for some more honesty? The likelihood that anyone but Keir Starmer or Rebecca Long-Bailey is going to win is, well, pretty low. Shock horror! What I am meant to say is, “Anything is possible, the campaign is long.” I get it. I am not blind. The likelihood of someone like me, who speaks like I do and says the things I say, ever being elected to be a party leader is slim. So I tried to do what was required, to learn lines, appear statesmanlike (as if!) and say the things I am meant to say. Turns out I cannot do it, because when I try it looks fake.
Also, I don’t think it is what leadership actually looks like. Leadership to me is deeds not words.
Leadership is the woman in my constituency who was sick of the dangerous parking around her school and so every morning put on a yellow tabard and patrolled the street, moving people on. Week in week out she did this until there was a rota of parents, neighbours and friends all helping her.
Leadership is those brave whistleblowers who have never given up in the face of pushback to expose the sexual exploitation of vulnerable kids in Rochdale and Rotherham. It is the Hillsborough families who took their grief, pain and the slights against their people and kept on going until others were inspired to follow. None of these people have lines; they have heart and grit and they inspire.
That isn’t the political leadership people look for, but it should be. What would show actual bloody leadership would be if the prime minister said: I will not rest until the plague of violent crime on our streets has disappeared. Not only changing policy and pulling levers of government to do it, like police numbers, youth service investment and changes to the criminal justice system, but also by inspiring and empowering communities. People love a grafter. People love to see someone giving something a go. They would love it in a political leader, too.
I might not look the most like a prime minister in this race. I cannot win that war so I am going to stop fighting it. I am going to do the thing that made tens of thousands of people ask me to run to be the leader. I am going to say what I think. I probably won’t win, but I am guessing that I might just inspire others to give it a go, too. I believe that the only way to beat a compulsive liar, who thinks only of himself but has the gift of the gab, is to be brutally honest, give a real toss about the people in our country and also have the gift of the gab. I could be wrong, but I would rather give this way a go than ever deliver a line in 40 seconds again.
Jess Phillips is Labour MP for Birmingham Yardley | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2016/aug/04/innings-limit-toronto-aaron-sanchez-bullpen | Sport | 2016-08-04T10:00:17.000Z | David Lengel | Toronto's Aaron Sanchez reignites inning limit debate | Let’s start with the obvious: nobody – not renowned surgeon Dr James Andrews, not agent Scott Boras, not Washington Nationals and New York Mets general managers Mike Rizzo and Sandy Alderson, not Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz – knows the right path when it comes to protecting young arms.
When young Nats hurler Stephen Strasburg was controversially shut down in September of 2012 and New York ace Matt Harvey blew through his innings limit last season, both were coming off Tommy John elbow surgery: Aaron Sanchez, the Toronto Blue Jays’ 24-year-old ace at the center of the latest innings debate has not, further muddying the issue.
Jays GM Ross Atkins, who along with their CEO and President Mark Shapiro have been deliberating a decision to yank the former reliever from the starting rotation possibly sooner rather than later, is smart enough to realize that he doesn’t know what’s right either.
“There’s not data either way,” Ross told TSN radio in Toronto on Tuesday.
With all the unknowns flying around Toronto, here’s what we do know: Sanchez is the centerpiece of what is arguably the best starting rotation in the American League. He’s gone 17 starts without a loss, the longest active stretch in MLB, while compiling a 2.71 ERA during a season in which he’s become a legitimate Cy Young candidate. Sanchez is also efficient, averaging 14.9 pitches per inning, good enough for sixth in MLB.
Why imwould Atkins consider removing Sanchez from the rotation? At 139.1 innings thrown this season, Sanchez has already eclipsed his 2014 high mark of 133.1 innings, which were thrown between the Blue Jays and their minor league affiliates. In a division where home-grown pitching stars are a rarity, the Jays are highly motivated to keep Sanchez healthy for the long term.
In addition to theoretically protecting Sanchez’s prized right arm, the move would also set up what could be a formidable 1-2-3 bullpen punch along with set-up man Jason Grilli and closer Roberto Osuna. It could help a relief core that ranks 11th in ERA, but that theory also presumes Sanchez has no issues moving back to relief work.
Replacing Sanchez in the rotation would be the inconsistent Francisco Liriano, acquired at the non-waiver trade deadline, with journeyman Scott Feldman waiting in the wings if that didn’t work out.
“We feel like transitioning him [Sanchez] to a relief role would be the best thing for us being in Game 7 of the World Series,” said Atkins on a conference call following the deal for Liriano.
Interesting thought, especially when you consider the dogfight Toronto are in to even make the playoffs, let alone the World Series. When Strasburg left the rotation in 2012 the Nats had a 6.5 game NL East lead in early September.
Meanwhile, the fact that one knows what’s right and wrong for Sanchez’s health in the long run isn’t keeping those in Toronto and beyond from taking sides.
On Wednesday, Toronto’s SportsNet590 radio’s Andrew Walker said “it’s insane to throw him 240 innings! [that number would be reached only if Sanchez finished the season and the Jays enjoyed an extended playoff run]. Categorically insane!”
Smoltz, who pitched both as a starter and then in the bullpen, told Toronto’s The Fan radio on Wednesday that he doesn’t like the way Toronto are handling the situation.
“Going to the bullpen and you’re not the closer has a lot more of an effect on your arm and body than people think because you don’t have a defined role. It’s not like they go in the seventh inning of every game we’re gonna get him up and get him in. When you’re a top-line starter, which I think [Sanchez] is, you got to make sure that that becomes the DNA of this player.”
Jays starting catcher Russell Martin has seen most of Sanchez’ innings up close.
“I don’t like it,” Martin said on Sportsnet’s Tim & Sid show. “You got a guy who is cruising, showing no signs of fatigue ... How many stressful innings has he had? I don’t think he’s had too many, you know? His innings are pretty clean ... if the guy is completely healthy and putting up quality start after quality start, I don’t even know why it’s a discussion right now. That’s just my opinion. I’m not the one pulling the strings.
Martin wants to win and presumably, so do his team-mates, so such a move could potentially stir the clubhouse negatively at exactly the wrong time.
Throw out all of the unknowns in the health issue and you’re left with a pure baseball decision. Removing a Cy Young candidate makes little to no sense, and risks derailing all the momentum the rejuvenated franchise is carrying. Canada’s team are poised to break through the 3 million mark in attendance for the first time since 1993 and are among the favorites to reach the playoffs and potentially win their third World Series title. They should be all in for today, not tomorrow.
Video of the week
On Sunday, Cincinnati Reds hurler Homer Bailey completed his long journey back from Tommy John surgery, pitching well in his first big league game since April of 2015. But he was still rusty: with runners on the corners in the sixth, San Diego’s Wil Myers took off for home after Bailey turned his back following a walk, crossing the plate easily to steal a run. Bryan Price came out to discuss the play with the umpire, but had no recourse after learning that his pitcher was asleep at the wheel.
Cue the lulluby...
Quote of the Week
To those upset with first version of Puig story: I’m with you. I take great pride in accuracy. It infuriates me that a key detail was wrong.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) August 2, 2016
That’s Ken Rosenthal apologizing for his Yasiel Puig story that said that the Dodgers outfielder had “stormed off” after learning he wouldn’t be on the team plane to Denver. When Rosenthal learned that Puig wasn’t at the ballpark, and thus could not have “stormed off” the writer showed true class in admitting the mistake, and also added that “the information came from sources, but that’s not an excuse. It’s my job to check everything thoroughly.”
Puig, who was replaced by the incoming Josh Reddick and sent down to the minors by LA, was sympathetic.
@ken_rosenthal don't worry bro, we all make mistakes #puigyourfriend #seeyousoon
— Yasiel Puig (@YasielPuig) August 2, 2016
Who’s closer to victory: Donald Trump or the Cubs?
Well, the New York Post published some little-known photos of the Trumpster’s wife Melania this week, and, depending on your disposition in life, that could be considered either a win or a loss. However, the flap with Humayun Khan must be a black mark form wherever you’re standing. When you weigh it all up, Le Grande Orange has been playing from behind all week.
Meanwhile, the Cubs enjoyed a walk-off win on Sunday against the Mariners thanks to pitcher Jon Lester, who can’t throw to first base but can lay down one heck of a bunt. While in the very same game, pitcher Travis Wood made a fabulous catch up against the ivy in left field. And all that came before Chicago swept the Marlins: Cubs get the edge this time around.
How did the kids piss off Goose Gossage this week?
By Miami’s Derek Dietrich stripping off his uniform top after snapping an 0-20 slump with a pinch-hit walk-off triple to defeat the Cardinals on Sunday, that’s how.
Goose would go gonzo if he saw this.
Meanwhile, Goose continued to stick to his AR-15’s concerning the way baseball is heading. While addressing young players in Maine over the weekend, Gossage told the kids:
“I said my peace about bat flips and keeping the game in check. Nobody’s passing the torch to teach these kids how to act. They make so much money, they’ve got a bunch of coaches that have never been in the big leagues that just tiptoe around these guys. I was taught how to act. You act like a professional. I’ve said my peace. The game, in my opinion, is going to hell.”
Actually, based on Dietrich’s physique, it looks like the game is going to the gym.
Nine thoughts in order
1) Has there ever been a Subway Series with less sizzle than the 2016 edition of Mets v Yankees? One New York radio host said it best: this series is more like a wake. The Mets are sinking fast under the weight of incredible injury issues, and the Yankees are finally in full rebuilding mode after dealing Aroldis Chapman, Andrew Miller, Ivan Nova and Carlos Beltran. All the Yanks have now is bringing up the kids and deciding whether or not the Yanks keep Alex Rodriguez around long enough to hit his 700th home run or just release him, the latter of which is being reportedly being seriously considered.
Meanwhile, the Mets, who are clinging to National League wild card hopes, acquired Jay Bruce from the Reds, in a move that also sets up what could be one of the worst outfield defense of all-time: Yoenis Cespedes (now on the disabled list) in left field, Curtis Granderson in center and Bruce in right. If Braves fans used to pray for rain after Spahn and Sain, Mets fans better better start praying for strikeouts and ground balls on every pitch. Perhaps John McEnroe can help with that?
Give that man a contract!
2) Can the Colorado Rockies make the playoffs? It’s not beyond reasonable doubt, even without Trevor Story, who may be lost for the season after suffering ligament damage in his left thumb. The Rox, who held on to their key components at the non-waiver trade deadline, are 14-5 since the break. Most of this Rockies run has come on the road where their pitching has been far superior. In Colorado, where the staff almost always suffocates in Denver’s thin air, they’re rock bottom in team ERA rankings with a 5.98 mark. Incredibly, on the road, the Rox have given up 98 fewer runs, posting an ERA of 3.62: that’s third in the NL, in front of the Chicago Cubs, Los Angeles Dodgers, St Louis Cardinals and San Francisco Giants. Tyler Chatwood is 6-0 with a 1.30 ERA in nine away starts, and 4-6 with a 5.69 ERA in 10 home starts, which is ridiculous. Naturally, their biggest obstacle to reaching the season is their own stadium, where unfortunately they have 32 games remaining against 26 on the road.
3) Wednesday was D-Day for baseball and softball, in addition to sports climbing, skateboarding, surfing and karate: all endeavors being considered for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. All five made the cut, but don’t think for a minute that MLB will halt their season to send players: their brass are fully committed to making the World Baseball Classic the crown jewel of international play. Still, that doesn’t mean it isn’t good for the sport or the players.
Last time baseball was an Olympic sport (08) these guys won bronze. Strasburg,Fowler, Cahill, Arrieta. #mlb #Wbsc pic.twitter.com/ZLzpfQDGkU
— John Blundell (@JBMLBPR) August 3, 2016
4) Here’s a downer courtesy of the official Instagram of Skeeter Duffy, Matt Duffy’s large cat:
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Duffy, who was sent to the Giants as part of a deal to for hurler Matt Moore, was the cat’s meow in San Francisco last season, playing the hot corner in place of the departed Pablo Sandoval. Duffy broke out, positing an unexpected .762 OPS, but hasn’t been able to match that Giant spark in 2016. Now he and Skeete, who has over 15,000 folloers on Instagram, are presumably shopping for Iams and catnip after a long transcontinental flight to Tampa, a true blow to felines in the Bay Area.
UPDATE: it’s too hot for Skeeter in Tampa, so he’s staying with Duffy’s parents.
5) Here’s a record you want no part of: the Los Angeles Dodgers, currently in second place in the NL West while leading the wild card race, have put 22 players on the disabled list this season, that after starting 2016 with 10 players on the DL. Only the 2015 New York Mets can match these sort of injury numbers, and on the bright side for LA’s fans, many of whom are in a nasty mood with Clayton Kershaw not eligible to pitch until late August, New York won the NL East.
6) Just days after putting together one of the best, if not the best bullpen in baseball, the Indians’ rotation received a blow with Danny Salazar hitting the DL with elbow inflammation. Cleveland’s righty hurler endured his shortest start to the season while getting pasted by the Twins on Monday and had what was supposed to be a precautionary MRI on Tuesday. Salazar had given up 21 runs over his last five starts after allowing just 23 runs over his first 15 starts of the season. Cleveland are trying to win their first World Series title since 1948 and are four games up on the Tigers in the AL West.
7) On the heels of the Tribe are the red hot Detroit Tigers, who have won eight straight games while getting healthy at just the right time. With a payroll of roughly $200m, the team weren’t prepared to make meaningful additions at the trade deadline, but they are getting reinforcements in the form of the activations of Jordan Zimmerman and JD Martinez from the disabled list. After being left for dead by most experts picking the Royals to repeat as AL Central champs this season, the Tigers have been hanging around thanks to a high-powered offense driven by Miguel Cabrera, Ian Kinsler and JD and Victor Martinez . Now their pitching staff are coming around with their second half ERA dropping by 1.33 to 3.14. With tough series against the Mets, Mariners, Red Sox and Rangers coming up, the next few weeks will show us how real Detroit are.
8) Joey Votto is having an interesting time with fans lately.
On Monday Joey Votto mixed it up with a guy in a Reds jersey while chasing a foul ball into the stands.
It took some innings, but Joey Votto & a @Reds fan sorted everything out.
Full Story: https://t.co/iCNjYJulXz pic.twitter.com/bwznPWocJB
— Cut4 (@Cut4) August 3, 2016
Votto apologized, but the mea culpa comes just days after he chastised a young fan who asked for his batting gloves in San Francisco.
Kid asks for Joey's batting gloves. Votto replies "You're sitting in the front row, you're elite. This isn't a 'Make A Wish' situation"... 😂
— Melanie Nichols (@kiasuchick) July 27, 2016
I’m all for messing with fans as long as it’s kept light, but the Make-A-Wish Foundation crack is totally unnecessary.
9) And finally, on Tuesday, umpire Bob Davidson confronted a fan at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
A fan was ejected from the game by home plate umpire Bob Davidson pic.twitter.com/k7gwhG9K2l
— Philly Influencer (@PHL_Influencer) August 3, 2016
Davidson has a reputation for confrontation, but it seems the veteran ump got it right this time, speaking to the fan about homophobic heckling before security asked the offender to leave.
“People cheered me, said Davidson. “which is unusual in this town for me” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/26/america-midterms-democrats-socialism-bernie-sanders | US news | 2018-10-26T05:00:06.000Z | Adam Gabbatt | Lean left: is America ready for a wave of Bernie Sanders-inspired socialists? | In the midst of these bitterly contested, hyper-partisan midterm elections, one of the most interesting subplots is how the left-leaning, Bernie Sanders-inspired Democrats will fare – and what that could mean for the future of US politics.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s congressional victory in New York in June was a high-water mark for the left. Backed by Sanders and the Democratic Socialists of America, Ocasio-Cortez crushed the Democratic insider Joe Crowley in what some heralded as a socialist dawn.
But since then some of the other Democratic candidates running on progressive platforms have faltered, falling to more traditional centrists. Which raises the question: is the US ready for a wave of democratic socialism?
The GOP is betting that it isn’t. Republicans are attempting to tie the Democratic party as a whole to progressives like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez. They believe swing voters can be intimidated by talk of socialism – a move most recently demonstrated on Tuesday when the White House published a 72-page dossier warning of “the opportunity costs of socialism”.
Scaremongering and misrepresentation aside – the document links Sanders and the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren to Karl Marx, Lenin and Mao Zedong – the publication at the very least shows the level that leftwing ideas have permeated American discourse since the 2016 election.
The socialists are coming! White House sounds alarm at rise of the left
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And despite Sanders’ ultimate failure to win the nomination, and the mixed fortunes of democratic socialists since, organizers on the left insist they are at the start of something big – even if that something takes time to materialize.
“One parallel could be when Barry Goldwater lost in 1964,” said Waleed Shahid, a director at Justice Democrats, a progressive organization that works to elect candidates like Ocasio-Cortez. Goldwater, a Republican, won just six states in the 1964 presidential election but his opposition to government intervention – including opposing the 1964 Civil Rights Act – arguably laid groundwork for the future of the GOP.
Shahid said: “There was a whole generation of conservative activists, organizers, intellectuals who felt emboldened to kind of plant the seeds of a movement, and that movement ultimately 16 years later led to Ronald Reagan.
“And I feel like when Bernie Sanders loss in 2016 is similar to that where I think that just ushered in a whole new generation of candidates, organizers, intellectuals who feel emboldened now.”
Shahid said Ocasio-Cortez plus candidates like Andrew Gillum, running for governor of Florida, and Ben Jealous, running for governor of Maryland, have been able to run for national office because of Sanders’ presidential campaign.
Organizers are hopeful of successes in the short term but they are also looking beyond. Activists are confident they can achieve that Goldwateresque long-term impact.
Maria Svart, the national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, said: “We’re building the socialist wing of a broader movement that is really pushing this country and will definitely be pushing Congress, but at the same time we are an organization that wants to build at the grassroots for the long term.
The Democratic party used to think that the way to win elections was through appealing to moderate white suburbanites
Waleed Shahid
“So we’re building the pipeline of people that will run for office. On November 7 we’re already going to be thinking about who’s going to be running in 2019 and 2020 for local office.”
Like Shahid, Svart sees hope in what conservatives have been able to achieve with a similar approach.
She said: “I grew up in the 80s when the evangelical wing of the state built the grassroots army – and they now control the supreme court.”
The DSA saw a membership spike in the year following Sanders’ run for president and Trump’s election. By the end of 2017 it had more than 32,000 dues-paying supporters nationwide. Shahid believes many people had “given up on electoral politics” until Sanders came along – which he says explains why movements like Occupy Wall Street sprang up outside traditional political avenues.
Sanders showed people that a democratic socialist can break through at a national level, Shahid said. “And now you need a new generation of leaders who want to actively engage in politics.”
Progressive candidates had mixed success in this summer’s Democratic primaries. In June NPR reported that only two of the six candidates backed by Sanders for the US House won their primaries – and one was an incumbent. But there are signs their policies are having an impact.
Since Sanders’ run for president, his ideas have entered the mainstream, most visibly in the increased support in the Democratic party for single-payer healthcare. The “Medicare for All” plan Sanders released in 2017 now has the support of a third of Senate Democrats, including 2020 frontrunners like Kamala Harris, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker.
In July this year at least 70 Democratic members of Congress formed the Medicare for All caucus in the House, while National Nurses United, a trade union that represents more than 180,000 nurses, surveyed all Democratic candidates running for the House in 2018 and found that 52% of those running support a Sanders-style plan.
Bernie Sanders’ ‘Medicare for All’ plan has found favor among many Democrats. Photograph: Meg Kinnard/AP
A number of polls have found that a majority of voters – including Republicans – support some form of universal healthcare. On Tuesday a survey by Hill.TV and HarrisX found 70% of Americans support “providing Medicare to every American”, with 52% of Republicans in favor, numbers which were almost identical to a Reuters/Ipsos poll from August.
Shahid said: “Most of the candidates who are thought to be running [for president] in 2020 are tacking very closely to Sanders’ platform.
“[Sanders’ success] has had an enormous effect on the Democratic party. The Democratic party used to think up until basically 2016 that the way to win elections was through appealing to moderate white suburbanites, usually upper middle class. The whole political calculation for many Democrats has changed to: ‘How do we activate young people? How do we activate people of color how do we activate people of all backgrounds?’”
But for all the excitement among those on the left, some believe it is too soon for a full-scale embrace of progressive ideas. Republicans have already adjusted their message during this midterm elections season to seize on some of the more left-leaning messaging from candidates – that White House dossier being just the latest example.
Bill Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, a political thinktank, said: “If Democrats become the party of ‘Abolish Ice’, ‘Medicare for All’, and ‘Impeach Kavanaugh and Trump’, they would expose themselves to attack when the focus otherwise would be on the errors and excesses of the president and congressional Republicans.”
Booker and the like would be unlikely to consider themselves socialists, but if they do cling to at least some elements that marked Sanders’ presidential run, then their actions speak louder than their stated political positions.
In any case for Shahid, the White House is not the most important goal. He believes it is less important to have a democratic-socialist president than it is to have people well placed further down the political spectrum, effecting change from below.
Judge orders Georgia to stop tossing absentee ballots in rebuke to GOP candidate
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He said: “Electing people like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might be more important for the left than for the left to engage in worrying about who’s the best candidate for 2020.”
Svart said the DSA was as interested in furthering leftwing ideas outside elected politics as inside the Democratic party.
She said: “Leaning the Democratic party to the left is not really our goal. Some of our members feel that way, [but] some of our members don’t want to really do that much for the Democratic party.
“We are enthusiastic about the fact that there is this strike wave which we haven’t seen in years.
Teachers in Arizona, West Virginia and Oklahoma went on strike earlier this year seeking better pay, and teachers’ unions are also weighing strikes in California, Colorado and Illinois. In June workers at UPS won a pay rise after threatening to strike, in August inmates staged a nationwide prison labor strike, while in September thousands of service industry workers walked out in seven states, demanding the right to unionize.
Whether or not the midterms result in a lurching of the Democratic party, it is clear that for those progressive activists working to change politics in the US, even if – in the case of Barry Goldwater – that hope comes from an unlikely source. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/sep/04/the-hundred-foot-journey-review-helen-mirren | Film | 2014-09-04T20:50:00.000Z | Michael Hann | The Hundred-Foot Journey review – curry-joint drama dishes up the cliches | An Indian restaurateur and his family flee communal violence in Mumbai ("some election or other," the voice-over glibly informs us), and pitch up in southern France, where they open a gaudy curry joint opposite the local Michelin-starred swank house. Om Puri is the patriarch who finds himself at war with Helen Mirren, playing the outraged owner of the posh place, while Manish Dayal – the son with the golden fingers and tastebuds – and Charlotte Le Bon's eyes meet across the wild cèpes. You can guess the rest. Will the Indian family's zest for life melt Mirren's glacial heart? Will their spices change her view of food? Will Franglais – "I wish to make a complaint, officialement!" – be spoken? Cliche piles on cliche, but it's good-natured, undemanding fun. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/13/glitch-season-two-review-flounders-between-necrophiliac-soap-opera-and-boring-zombie-show | Television & radio | 2017-09-13T05:30:24.000Z | Luke Buckmaster | Glitch season two review – flounders between necrophiliac soap opera and boring zombie show | Has there ever been a depiction of necrophilia sweeter, more wistful, more emotionally nuanced than Patrick Brammall and Emma Booth’s steamy affair in the first season of Glitch?
That might not have been the intention of ABC TV’S genre-ish, soap opera-ish, The Returned-esque paranormal drama – but it’s hard to deny the result: a lovely, melancholic show about (or at the very least involving) romancing the dead.
Or should that be “undead”? Things are a little ... complicated, even if moments from the first season felt like a small-town version of Love My Way directed by George Romero. When I say “affair”, I am actually referring to a couple – Kate (Booth) and fair dinkum cop James (Brammall) – who were married. And when I say “were” I am referring to when I said “dead”, in that Kate’s death (from breast cancer) presumably nullified the marriage.
Glitch: Australian paranormal TV series struggles to bring its undead to life
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And when I say “necrophilia” – well, Kate rose from the grave with six other similarly mud-covered and glassy-eyed locals in Glitch’s very first episode. She spectacularly defied the natural order of things only to discover James married again, to her former best friend Sarah (Emily Barclay). At the start of season two, Sarah has just given birth to her and James’ first child; as they say, these are tangled webs we weave.
The audience is not all that much wiser as to why any of the characters returned from the great hereafter in the first place, meaning the first season spent approximately six hours introducing considerable mystery and resolving very little. We do know for sure that if this motley bunch (including a bible-bashing wife and mother, a former town mayor, and a first world war hero) venture too far from the cemetery, they bleed from their eyes then die (again).
From the start the series producers and creators (including Tony Ayres and Louise Fox) discouraged use of the Z word, preferring spiffier, more ABC-worthy parlance such as “the risen” and “resurrection drama”. So the “zombie” situation, not that they would admit there was one, felt a little like “just don’t mention the war” – the big, grisly, undead elephant in the room.
Fair enough, I guess, given both seasons are nothing if not tonally rich affairs: sumptuous Australian gothic elegantly directed by Emma Freeman, light years from the grubby thrills of midnight movies. The mood is almost unceasingly melancholic, with a finely modulated air, as if even exterior scenes were controlled with a high-tech air-con. The stylistic focus prefers closeups of roses and flowers (rising to life in the opening credits scene) to gore, violence or resurrected citizens groaning for brains.
The big problem was – and is – twofold: 1) the plot took a very long time to go nowhere definitive, and 2) as this Guardian review correctly observed, the characters tend to be drop-dead boring. Most of us gave a lot of goodwill to the first season, partly because it was technically and tonally so well executed. But these characters are the kind of people you’d want to shake to life, if they hadn’t already re-emerged from their graves.
Elishia (Genevieve O’Reilly) in the second season of Glitch. Photograph: ABC
Season one ended (spoiler alert) with a last-minute twist: the doctor helping out the group of undead, Elishia McKeller (Genevieve O’Reilly), was/is dead herself. The writers (Louise Fox, Kris Mrksa and Giula Sandler) had ample room to flesh Elishia out, giving her more presence and a compelling history – which would have likely imbued the twist with greater impact.
Instead her character comes across as half-developed. The writers were more interested in the love triangle between James, Kate and Sarah, with lines such as “I never stopped loving you”, and the aforementioned sweet, wistful, emotionally nuanced necrophilia. In the second season Kate has a new beau, Owen (Luke Arnold) – and a new, mad scientist-esque doctor (Pernilla August) emerges to further reduce Elishia’s screen time.
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The new episodes have trouble deciding what to focus on. The pursuit of teenager Kirstie (Hannah Monson) to find the man who murdered her shows promise but is developed half-heartedly. And, bizarrely, of all the things they could explore, the writers follow the potty-mouthed Paddy (Ned Dennehy) as he ... instigates a real-estate dispute.
Glitch has a knack for answering questions nobody asked and delaying big ones everybody wants closure on.
The key cast addition in season two (this review encompasses all six episodes) is Rob Collins as Phil. After he dies in an oil rig explosion, Phil comes back stomping around like an angel of death, giving unfortunate recipients the long kiss goodnight – a little like Javier Bardem from No Country for Old Men but with a supernatural element.
Phil (Rob Collins) comes back stomping around like an angel of death. Photograph: ABC
Phil also comes across as a bit of deus ex machina, triggering confrontations to force dramas to come to a head, much as the police officer Vic (Andrew McFarlane) did in the first season. It feels as though Phil stumbled out of the Cleverman universe Collins also stars in; he even speaks in Cleverman-isms. Asked what his purpose is, Phil responds: “What I’m here to do. Cut the head off the snake.”
Collins’ performance is fine, but again: an uninteresting character. This is despite the strong suggestion that every mention of him – and this applies to many other characters too – ought to be preluded by the word “mysterious”.
It is much easier to introduce a mystery than to satisfyingly resolve one. Despite admirable acting and production values, season two flounders – with not enough dramatic credibility to provide interesting soap opera, and not enough twists and turns to make compelling genre.
Glitch returns to the ABC at 8.30pm on Thursday | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2012/oct/09/this-house-review-cottesloe | Stage | 2012-10-09T22:01:01.000Z | Michael Billington | This House – review | Having written plays about the Suez crisis and Thatcher's childhood, James Graham now turns his attention to the Labour government's precarious ability to survive a hung parliament and a wafer-thin majority from 1974 to 1979. This is a play about the daily process of politics rather than big ideas, but it recreates, with startling vividness, the madness of life in the Westminster village during five action-filled years.
The audience sits on replica Commons benches but Graham's focus is not on the debates but on the wheeling and dealing that goes on in the offices of Labour and Tory whips. In February 1974, after Heath has been ousted, Labour forms a minority government and we see Bob Mellish and his fellow whips offering sweeteners to the Liberals, the Scot Nats and the Northern Irish in order to stay in power. But, although Labour ends up with a slender majority of three after the October 1974 election, things get rougher and tougher. The party changes leader in mid-stream, the Tories cancel all pairing agreements after alleged cheating, fighting breaks out in the Commons, the sick and dying are wheeled in to vote. This, incredibly, is British democracy in action.
For all that, Graham's play adds up to an implicit endorsement of the system: when Humphrey Atkins, the Tory chief whip, reminds his new opposite number, Michael Cocks, that the gap between government and opposition benches is exactly the width of two drawn swords, it sounds like a recommendation of adversarial politics. Identifying MPs by their constituencies, Graham also suggests that, in the days before expenses scandals, they honourably performed an unglamorous task. Above all, the play unlocks a whole era and reminds those alive in the 1970s of the volatility of the period's politics: Michael Heseltine swings the mace in the Commons, a Labour MP carefully stages his own disappearance, another is ready to bring down the government when the chancellor proposes over £1bn worth of spending cuts.
That is a rare excursion into policy. Mostly the play is about pragmatic survival and my only complaint is that Graham gives the impression that dodgy parliamentary arithmetic virtually crippled the business of government. It's perfectly true that Labour had to go cap in hand to the IMF in 1976 during a sterling crisis. But the late 1970s wasn't all bad news: inflation and unemployment fell, progressive legislation, such as the Sex Discrimination Act, was passed, and it was widely assumed that if James Callaghan had called an election in 1978, Labour could still have won.
But Jeremy Herrin's production recaptures, with abundant theatricality, accompanying music and choreographed movement, the mayhem of Westminster politics. And, in a large cast, Philip Glenister, Vincent Franklin and Andrew Frame as working-class Labour whips, Julian Wadham, Charles Edwards and Ed Hughes as their smooth-suited Tory equivalents and Christopher Godwin and Rupert Vansittart amongst the role-swapping ensemble are outstanding. It may be a bit of an anoraks' night out but, as a relic of the period, I had a thoroughly good time.
Until 1 December. Box Office: 020 7452 3000 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/01/jeremy-corbyn-labour-liverpool-leadership-police-close-roads-crowds | Politics | 2016-08-01T22:20:44.000Z | Frances Perraudin | Thousands turn out in Liverpool city centre for Jeremy Corbyn rally | Jeremy Corbyn has described the challenge to his leadership of the Labour party as a “massive opportunity to reach out to people all across the country”, speaking to a crowd of about 5,000 people at a campaign rally in Liverpool.
Police had to close roads surrounding St George’s Plateau in the centre of the city when the event, which was organised with only two days notice, attracted large crowds. Carrying banners reading “Scousers for Corbyn” and “We chose Jez”, the Labour leader’s supporters clambered on statues and railings to catch a glimpse of him as he spoke.
Labour & Liverpool with Ewen MacAskill
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“I don’t see this leadership contest as a distraction,” said Corbyn. “I see it as a massive opportunity to reach out to people all across this country and have the strength and confidence [to stand up to] those who tell us that nothing we’re trying to do is possible, that what we have to do is compromise with the Tory philosophy and free market ideas and all will be well.”
Corbyn told the audience that it was the biggest crowd he had had yet at one of his campaign rallies. “This is a campaign about, on one level, the leadership of the Labour party, but it’s also a campaign about how we do politics in our society. Is it to be a politics of an elite […] or is it to be a politics of people expressing their views, their hopes, their aspirations for this generation and the next generation?”
In a wide-ranging speech, touching on mental health services, workers’ rights and homelessness, the Labour leader paid tribute to all those who supported the Hillsborough families and “braved the abuse, the nastiness, the horror of what the Murdoch press can do”.
“A year ago, I’m sad to say, our party abstained on the welfare reform bill,” said Corbyn. “No more are we going to go down that road, no more is that going to be the politics of our party. Our party wants a society that works for all, that reduces inequality, that provides opportunity and hope for the next generation. That is what we’re about.”
People cheer and applaud Corbyn during his speech in St George’s Square. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty Images
The rally came on the same day that the Communication Workers Union (CWU) formally endorsed Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party, his third union endorsement after Aslef and Ucatt. Welcoming the announcement, Corbyn said he was committed to reaching out beyond the party and rejected the idea that he existed in a “remote bubble of adulation”.
Strengthening workers’ rights should be Labour’s priority
Jeremy Corbyn
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Taking questions after a speech in which he was introduced as “the next Labour party leader and the next prime minister of this country”, Corbyn emphasised the importance of interacting with people who did not automatically think like him.
“I make sure that I spend usually three days a week travelling around the country campaigning, supporting local parties, meeting people in factories, other workplaces, universities, schools, hospitals, all those places,” Corbyn said.
“If you’re going to be effective in politics you’ve got to listen to people, some of whom may not agree with you, some of whom may have criticisms, some of whom may have constructive suggestions for you. The idea that I live in some kind of remote bubble of adulation is nonsense.”
Corbyn’s speech came as Owen Smith launched his manifesto for fairness at work, which he said would give working people “a voice, strengthening collective bargaining, tackling exploitation and delivering greater equality”. “These measures are part of my plan to take Britain from the shameful position of having some of the worst workplace protections in Europe, to having workers’ rights that are the envy of the world,” he said.
Smith pledged to repeal the Trade Union Act 2016 immediately upon taking office and to outlaw exclusively foreign recruitment. The plans also include a commitment to restore full collective bargaining powers and end pay freezes in the public sector, as well as the modernisation of union balloting, such as permitting e-balloting in order to increase participation.
“At the core of my radical vision for Labour’s future is a commitment to making tackling inequality the focus of everything our party does,” said Smith. “This simply can’t be achieved without fairness in the workplace and to make this a reality we need nothing short of a revolution in workers’ rights. Delivering that requires more than just rhetoric, it needs a credible plan.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2012/may/04/fabiano-caruana-italian-team-championships | Sport | 2012-05-04T22:03:01.000Z | Leonard Barden | Leonard Barden on Chess | Fabiano Caruana and Gawain Jones, two recent heroes of this column, have been in action once more this week, in the Italian team championships at Arvier in the Aosta Valley. Caruana again showed his remarkable stamina as he continued his style of grinding out points in long endgames, as in the puzzle diagram below. However, it seemed at the end of the event that he had stretched his reserves too far, when a final round defeat dropped him to No9 in the daily world rankings.
Caruana actually played board two on his team for the early rounds due to a cameo appearance by Hikaru Nakamura, his US rival in the world top 10. Nakamura won his first game, settled for two brief draws, including one against Jones, then tweeted "A good warmup for the US championship! Now off to France and Mont Blanc for some fun".
To aid his ceaseless quest to reach the absolute world top, Caruana receives a salary from the Italian Chess Federation and that leads to a contrasting statistic. Chess, along with bridge, has sports status in Italy, where the national federation gets an annual grant of around €750,000 (£610,000) from the Italian Olympic Committee, although apart from Caruana the country's chess masters are very much bit players in world events.
England, meantime, for more than a decade fielded the No2 team after the old Soviet Union and even now have three grandmasters in the world top 50 but the English Chess Federation's modest annual grant of £45,000 has been terminated by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport as part of government cuts.
An expert v grandmaster game from the Italian teams: White emerges well from the opening and could keep his edge by 16 g5 Nfd7 17 c5! Instead GM fear sets in with the passive 16 h3? and the routine 19 fxe4? (19 Rac1 may still hold). The GM then takes over, and 21...Nexc4! is a crushing shot. The dust will clear after 22 Nc6 Bxa1 23 Bxc4 Rc8 leaving Black at least two pawns up.
G Caprio v K Georgiev
1 e4 c5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 cxd4 4 Nxd4 Nf6 5 Nc3 a6 6 Be2 g6 7 g4 h6 8 Be3 Nbd7 9 Qd2 b5 10 a4 bxa4 11 f3 Bg7 12 Nxa4 Bb7 13 c4 Rb8 14 0-0 Ne5 15 b4 h5 16 h3? hxg4 17 hxg4 e6? 18 Bg5 Bxe4 19 fxe4? Nxe4 20 Bxd8 Nxd2 21 Rfd1 Nexc4! 0-1
3252 1...Kg1! 2 Nxe3 Bf4! 3 Nf1 Kg2! when White is in zugzwang (compulsion to make a losing move) and drops the knight. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2023/oct/17/whats-the-best-apple-to-cook-with-kitvhen-aide | Food | 2023-10-17T13:00:13.000Z | Anna Berrill | What’s the best apple to cook with? | Kitchen aide | What are the best apples to cook with?
Rachel, Kent
There are more than 2,500 varieties of apples grown in the UK, not that you’d know it from the handful available in supermarkets. For this reason, Jane Scotter of biodynamic farm Fern Verrow in Herefordshire says it’s “more about where you buy your apples from”. Going to a farmer’s market, she explains, “where they know the attributes of each apple, is the best way to find out more”.
Of course, that isn’t viable for everyone, so let’s get some pointers from Julius Roberts, author of The Farm Table: “We all know there are cookers and eaters, but while you have to cook the former, because they are so sharp, you can still cook with eating apples.” Resist the urge to get “too bogged down” with varieties, though: “You want to get more into the texture and flavours instead.” This will come through experimentation, so Roberts advises grabbing a selection and “just playing around”.
That said, there is one apple you can rely on for eating and cooking, says Scotter: step forward the russet. “It has such good flavour and consistency, and won’t fall apart if you’re making tarte tatin,” she says, because it often comes down to structural integrity. “If you use a cooking apple in gravy, it will completely dissolve and thicken the mix, but you don’t want your apple pie to be like baby food.” Russets will work in salads, too, though you could also deploy a Blenheim Orange, so long as it’s picked from mid-October onwards, says David Josephs of Panzer’s in north London. “The sugar levels will have increased by then, plus there’s the additional benefit that, when cut, the flesh doesn’t go brown quickly.”
When heat is involved, however, there is nothing quite like a bramley, says Scotter. “It is the cooking apple, with amazing flavour, which you sweeten to taste, and a texture that can go quite snowy,” she says. The other reason bramleys “reign supreme”, Josephs adds, is that they’re so reliable, maintaining “high acidity levels all year round”. Reverend Wilks is another “beautiful cooking apple with superb tartness,” Scotter adds, although her favourite to cook whole is the Pitmaston Pineapple, a “fairytale-shaped apple with broad shoulders and a nice little waist”. Skye Gyngell, at her restaurant Spring (which Scotter supplies), bakes these little beauties “like toffee apples” and serves with ice-cream.
Sometimes, though, two apples are better than one, and Roberts’ turnovers are a good example of this. “You want the texture to hold, but you also want it to have that nice mushiness,” he says, and Roberts achieves that sweet spot through a combo of cookers and eaters. “Once I’ve cooked my bramley apples down, I’ll fold through cut-up eating apples, so you get bits of apple in a lovely, appley sauce.” Crumbles could be a mix of bramleys and coxes, but this tactic also applies to savoury scenarios. “I love apples with meat,” Roberts says, in particular, pork belly, which he roasts on top of the fruit, alongside onions, garlic, thyme and white wine. “I always use bramleys for sharp body and some sweet ones, which almost melt and absorb all of those fatty pork juices to make an incredible, readymade apple sauce.” Now that’s something to take a bite out of.
Got a culinary dilemma? Email [email protected] | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/dec/02/keir-starmer-praises-margaret-thatcher-for-bringing-meaningful-change-to-uk | Politics | 2023-12-02T23:10:29.000Z | Hayden Vernon | Keir Starmer praises Margaret Thatcher for bringing ‘meaningful change’ to UK | Keir Starmer has praised Margaret Thatcher for effecting “meaningful change” in Britain in an article directly appealing to Conservative voters to switch to Labour.
Writing in the Sunday Telegraph, the Labour leader said Thatcher had “set loose our natural entrepreneurialism” during her time as prime minister.
“Across Britain, there are people who feel disillusioned, frustrated, angry, worried. Many of them have always voted Conservative but feel that their party has left them,” he said. “I understand that. I saw that with my own party and acted to fix it. But I also understand that many will still be uncertain about Labour. I ask them to take a look at us again.”
In the article, Starmer pointed to Labour prime ministers of the past – Tony Blair and Clement Attleee – as well as Thatcher, as examples of how politicians can effect meaningful change.
Starmer accuses Sunak of ‘retreating’ from climate leadership at Cop28
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Starmer said it was “in this sense of public service” that he had overseen a dramatic change in the Labour party – cutting its ties with former leader Jeremy Corbyn and removing the whip.
“The course of shock therapy we gave our party had one purpose: to ensure that we were once again rooted in the priorities, the concerns and the dreams of ordinary British people. To put country before party,” he said.
Starmer claimed his party was “moving back towards voters” while “the Tory party has been steadily drifting away”.
His praise of Thatcher – a divisive figure in British politics – is likely to raise eyebrows on the left of the Labour party.
Elsewhere in the article, Starmer criticised the government’s handling of Brexit, arguing it had wasted economic opportunities made possible by the split from the EU.
“They have squandered economic opportunities and failed to realise the possibilities of Brexit. They will bequeath public finances more akin to a minefield than a solid foundation,” he wrote.
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The Labour leader touted the party’s “iron-clad fiscal rules” in an effort to portray Labour as trustworthy on the economy.
“There will be many on my own side who will feel frustrated by the difficult choices we will have to make,” he added. “This is non-negotiable: every penny must be accounted for. The public finances must be fixed so we can get Britain growing and make people feel better off.”
On migration, Starmer said: “This is a government that was elected on a promise that immigration would ‘come down’ and the British people would ‘always be in control’. For immigration to then triple is more than just yet another failure – it is a betrayal of their promises.”
This article was amended on 3 December 2023. An earlier version incorrectly said Jeremy Corbyn was expelled from the Labour party, rather than having had the whip removed. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/jun/02/popandrock.shopping10 | Music | 2006-06-02T00:31:31.000Z | John Burgess | CD: Booka Shade, Movements | Booka Shade were ubiquitous across clubs last summer; with singles Mandarine Girl and Body Language they achieved the unique position Mylo occupied initially. Their hooky, avant electro appealed to fans across the board of electronic music. Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier's pop nous comes from their background as producers and remixers of countless euro hits (including Aqua's Barbie Girl). Since 2001 they have helmed the productions for their ultra hip Berlin label Get Physical. Both Body Language and Mandarine Girl appear in reworked forms and the rest of Movements sounds like a summation of modern dance music, ranging from the vintage teutonic trance of In White Rooms to the New York disco of Night Falls. Darko even recalls Boards of Canada at their most melodious and the duo only really comes unstuck when mixing vague politics and DJ Shadow-lite trip-hop on Hallelujah USA. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2016/oct/17/scrapping-archeology-classics-a-levels-barbaric-tony-robinson | Education | 2016-10-17T21:36:00.000Z | Sally Weale | Scrapping of archaeology and classics A-levels criticised as 'barbaric act' | Sir Tony Robinson, who fronted the hit television show Time Team, has condemned the recent scrapping of archaeology A-level as “a barbaric act”. Almost 6,000 people have signed a petition calling for the subject to be saved, and Robinson has voiced his support for the campaign.
His intervention comes a week after a similar howl of protest at news that the last examination board to offer history of art A-level is to drop the subject from 2018. And it doesn’t end there – classical civilisation is also for the chop, according to examination board AQA.
The exam board explained its decision on archaeology, saying: “Our number one priority is making sure every student gets the result they deserve – and unfortunately the number of very specialist options we have to offer in this subject’s exams creates too many risks on that front. That’s why we’ve taken the difficult decision not to continue our work creating a new AS and A-level.”
Goodbye art history A-level, you served the elite well
Jonathan Jones
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Robinson, who describes himself as “a slightly informed layman rather than an authority” after witnessing hundreds of Time Team excavations, described his shock at first hearing that the art history A-level had been scrapped. “I thought, blimey, surely they can’t be doing that to art history?”
Then Robinson heard that archaeology was going, and soon after that classical civilisation. “It feels like the Visigoths at the gates of Rome,” he told the Guardian, “All these incredibly valuable and important subjects are being cast into the fire.”
He said it appeared to be a purely economic decision on the part of AQA. “They are minority A-levels and AQA gets paid per student. Full stop. I can see no other justification whatsoever.” This summer just under 1000 students sat AS and A-level archaeology.
An AQA spokesperson denied that the decision was financial and pointed out that the exam board continued to offer a very wide range of smaller-entry subjects. According to AQA, the problem stems from the small number of students split across a wide range of optional topics on offer as part of the syllabus, which makes it hard to compare students’ performance to set appropriate grade boundaries.
Mathew Morris, the archaeologist who uncovered Richard III’s skeleton in a council car park in Leicester and has travelled the world telling his extraordinary story ever since, echoed Robinson’s concerns. He didn’t study archaeology at A-level, but would have, had it been on offer. “It’s a real shame that it’s being scrapped. I would have loved to have done A-level archaeology if it had been an option.”
Sir Tony Robinson: ‘All these incredibly valuable and important subjects are being cast into the fire’. Photograph: Rex/Paul Cooper
A petition has been launched to try to get the decision overturned which has already collected almost 6,000 signatures. Dr Daniel Boatright, subject leader for archaeology at Worcester Sixth Form College, who is leading the campaign said: “Specialist A-levels like archaeology are vital tools in sparking students’ interest in learning and in preparing vital skills for use when they go onto university courses.
“AQA is extremely naïve if it believes UK students will benefit from a curriculum of only the major subjects. What we will be most sorry to lose is a subject capable of bringing out talents and potential in students that might have been left undiscovered.”
The Chartered Institute of Archaeology (CIfA) said the decision was “extremely damaging” for the sector. Chief executive Pete Hinton said: “The A-level in archaeology is an important route into the archaeological profession … this should be seen as a serious affront to those who believe that the study of past cultures can bring both positive benefits in terms of cultural understanding, as well as practical transferable skills for students.”
Robinson believes there remains a strong academic justification for keeping archaeology on the syllabus. “To take away the chance for children to study archaeology at A-level seems to me to be a barbaric act.”
And from an economic perspective the argument may be even more compelling, he said. As the A-level vanishes amid a growing enthusiasm for Stem and EBacc subjects, in the real world a new generation of archaeologists is needed to work on large infrastructure projects like the HS2 high-speed railway line.
Before any major project can get under way a full archaeological survey is required and there have been growing warnings from within the construction sector that HS2 as well as housing and fracking could face delays because of a lack of trained archaeologists.
“We don’t have the archaeologists on the ground to do that at the moment,” said Robinson. “As archaeologists get older and retire, like our Time Team archaeologists, there are less and less archaeologists around to do that.”
Robinson, who also made his name as servant and sidekick Baldrick in the comedy series Blackadder, said axing the A-level would mean fewer students going on to study it at university. “Very quickly archaeology departments will find themselves under threat.
Archaeology A-level is now ancient history | Letters
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“It’s something that really needs to be reconsidered,” he said. “How could you remove such a tranche of valuable subjects from our A-levels? The removal of all that knowledge is awful.
“You need imagination to understand why it’s so important to the future of our country. I tend to think that politicians of all parties don’t have that kind of imagination.”
He said visitors came to Britain largely because of its culture and heritage. “If people are not aware of the heritage in the ground, they will ruin it and spoil it – just as they did before Time Team came along and started banging the drum. Unless you’ve got a key number of people around who are banging that drum the heritage will suffer.”
Jamie Williams, who is currently studying A-level archaeology, said: “Archaeology is something I always had a hidden passion for, unable to express it through the subjects we had at both primary and secondary school. It wasn’t until Worcester sixth form college, where I took up A-level archaeology, that I discovered what I truly wanted to do.
“I look forward to every lesson and now understand the importance of archaeologists in our society. If this course was to be removed, there would be no chance for people such as myself to pursue the things they enjoy or have the chance to experience a subject as unique as archaeology.”
Dr Mike Heyworth, director of the Council for British Archaeology, added: “This is disastrous news for archaeology. Another vital route into the study of the subject is being removed, just at a time when we were looking to expand our support for the revised A-Level and its link with apprenticeships to provide an alternative route into an archaeological career.”
Robinson remains optimistic the decision could be overturned. “I don’t think it’s too late in the day. I think if we get enough people together they could reinstate archaeology – and all of those other disciplines. I think this could be a Radio 6 music moment,” he said, referring to plans to kill off the now hugely successful music station in 2010.
“It was a minority radio station till people were aware of the threat it was under. Suddenly people thought, ‘God, that’s really important.’” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/15/coalitions-religious-discrimination-bill-condemned-by-state-and-territory-commissions | World news | 2019-10-15T05:06:51.000Z | Paul Karp | Coalition's religious discrimination bill condemned by state and territory commissions | State and territory anti-discrimination commissions have revolted against the Coalition’s religious discrimination bill, warning it privileges religion over other rights and will cause “significant disruption” by overriding state laws.
The Australian Council of Human Rights Authorities has accused the commonwealth of an “extraordinary incursion” into the states’ domain of healthcare by giving medical practitioners a right to refuse treatment and an “unprecedented step” of giving religious bodies standing to sue for discrimination.
The joint submission echoes human rights and LGBTI groups’ concerns the bill will license religious statements that breach other discrimination laws and employers’ concerns it will prevent them setting codes of conduct around religious speech.
The attorney general, Christian Porter, is working on amendments to the exposure draft before introducing it to parliament but has so far suggested only amendments to address concerns of religious aged care providers without making “massive or substantial” changes to the rest of the bill.
Religious discrimination bill will not override laws to ban gay conversion therapy, Porter claims
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The state and territory bodies – which administer discrimination law and hear complaints based in state law – submitted that the bill “establishes religious belief as a protected attribute that will displace other rights and/or well established policy positions”.
The bill protects expression of religious speech by stating that it does not constitute discrimination under commonwealth, state or territory anti-discrimination law.
The anti-discrimination bodies noted the clause “explicitly rolls back protections afforded to Tasmanians”, because the ban on conduct that “offends, insults or humiliates” people based on protected attributes will no longer apply to religious speech.
They noted the clause “raises the real possibility that state tribunals will not have the jurisdiction to decide matters where [it] is used as a defence as tribunals cannot decide a federal question of law”.
“The test of vilification, harassment, maliciousness etc, is very high and unlikely to provide any practical protection for those that may be the subject matter of such statements.”
They warned the bill would cause “significant disruption and unintended consequences” for businesses and others who have sought to be compliant with local rules.
They argued the bill “privileges a health practitioner’s religious belief above patient rights”, undermining the states’ policies on conscientious objectors, which is likely to harm LGBTI and remote and regional patients.
The Australian Council of Human Rights Authorities agreed with the object of protecting religious people against discrimination but proposed referring “some of the novel features … [that] give rise to significant legal complexity” to the Australian Law Reform Commission.
In addition to co-signing the joint submission, Anti-Discrimination New South Wales noted that “ethno-religious” groups are already protected by its anti-discrimination laws.
It said it was “concerned” the bill does not strike the right balance between freedom of religion and other rights and is “very concerned” about features including the override of state law.
Religious discrimination bill could protect workplace bullies, critics warn
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Anti-Discrimination New South Wales cited former NT News journalist Alison Bevege’s successful complaint against controversial Islamic group Hizb ut-Tahrir, warning it may not have been able to rule gender segregation in lectures breached sex discrimination laws if the group had invoked the cloak of religion in the federal law.
It also warned the medical conscientious objector clauses would “make it much harder for a wide range of patients, including LGBTIQ+ people, women and people with a disability” to access services including hormone therapies, sterilisation, abortion or contraception.
A NSW government spokesman said it was still considering the bill but “consistency between state and commonwealth legislation is desirable”.
The Victorian government has warned the bill may override its attempts to ban gay conversion therapy, a claim dismissed by Porter, despite the fact the bill contains a discretion for the attorney to add to the laws that are overridden by the bill’s protection of religious statements. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/08/data-reveals-significant-drop-in-proportion-of-specialist-appointments-funded-by-medicare | Australia news | 2023-06-07T15:00:41.000Z | Melissa Davey | New data reveals growing gap between specialist fees and Medicare coverage | The level of Medicare coverage for specialist medical appointments has fallen steadily and significantly over the past two decades and is well below that of GP visits, data shows, prompting calls for reform from patient advocates.
Medicare data published on Thursday by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) reveals that the proportion of subsidised fees varies widely depending on the type of appointment.
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GP visits and pathology services had the highest subsidy rates in 2022, with 89% and 95% of all fees subsidised by Medicare for those services respectively. The coverage for GP visits has fallen slightly from about 92% in the year 2000.
Budget incentives for Australian GPs unlikely to increase available bulk-billing appointments, experts say
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Anaesthetics and obstetrics appointments had the lowest level of subsidies in 2022, with about 40% of all provider fees covered for both of those specialties. The gap must be covered by patients either through out-of-pocket fees, private health insurance, workers’ compensation or a combination.
For other specialist appointments about 58% of fees were covered by Medicare in 2022 – down from 79% in 2000 – while 49% of fees for operations were subsidised.
About 78% of allied health fees were subsided by Medicare and a similar proportion for optometry, while 87% of diagnostic imaging fees were subsidised (allied health includes a range of health services, such as physiotherapy, psychology and occupational therapy).
The data also shows that people living in more remote areas tend to use less Medicare-funded services.
On average, people living in very remote areas used 8.5 services each in 2022, with a subsidy rate of 85%. People in major cities used 18.3 services each at a subsidy rate of 76.4%.
Charles Maskell-Knight, a health policy expert, said the average subsidy rate “masks a lot of variation” by type of speciality and service.
“The overall average is dragged down by in-hospital services such as operations and anaesthetics, where private health insurance rebates will make up some of the gap,” he said.
He said the biggest policy concern should be specialist attendances. “The chart of subsidy rate over time shows a steady and sustained decline ever since Medicare began,” he said.
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“While there has been a lot of policy work and money put into solving the problem of access to GP services, access to specialists is just as problematic. There are often long waits to a first appointment, and this data shows substantial uninsurable gaps.”
Dr Elizabeth Deveny, the chief executive of the Consumers Health Forum (CHF), said the data only captures those using health services and that many people can’t afford healthcare at all, or may not have access to services if they are in rural and remote areas.
“Consumers often call out the high cost of specialist care in particular, and the other area that gets called out a lot is allied health,” she said.
“People say the out-of-pocket costs are so high that they can’t use these services even though they need them, or that those services aren’t available, and the consequence is often people need to rely more on acute services. So they end up in hospital or their quality of life is really significantly impacted because they can’t keep themselves well.”
Deveny said about half of Australians had a chronic disease, such as diabetes, and they needed a range of health professionals and services to support them. But there is a lack of information about the services on offer and how to access them, including for carers, she said.
Revealed: the areas where Australians are struggling to access free GP care
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“The report that came out of the Strengthening Medicare taskforce highlighted the need for funding for multidisciplinary care, and that money has come out in the budget which is terrific,” she said.
“But I think more can be done. We can be doing more work on improving the health literacy of Australians, including by funding and improving our focus on preventive health measures and health promotion so that people have the information they need to keep themselves as well as they possibly can be.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2019/feb/12/how-we-made-cypress-hill-insane-in-the-brain-muggs-sen-dog | Culture | 2019-02-12T06:00:29.000Z | Dave Simpson | How we made Cypress Hill's Insane in the Brain | Lawrence ‘DJ Muggs’ Muggerud, turntables, samples
I came up with the beat in my apartment in Queens, New York. At first, it was slower, but the stone-age drum machine we had could only go up or down in increments of six BPM. So when B-Real started rapping on it, I had to speed it up from 96 to 102. It went from being a slow groove to a club banger.
The format of the song is similar to Jump Around by House of Pain. I came up with the beat for Jump Around right after Cypress Hill’s first album. But B-Real, our rapper, didn’t want to go back into the studio so quickly. I offered it to Ice Cube but he passed, so I gave it to House of Pain – and it became huge. I wanted to do more with that sort of sound, so I packed Insane in the Brain with hooks.
I assembled the track in my apartment, putting the horns together with the bassline. There’s one sound people think is a neighing horse, but it was a horn. I read that I’m supposed to have sampled James Brown and Sly Stone, but that’s way off. It took about a day to do the beat, three hours to write the lyrics, then about an hour to record it. There was a lot of weed smoked but we were pretty prepared. When the vibe’s right, the shit’s right. We’d just go in and attack.
I knew it was going be a big record but I never imagined how big. I was a millionaire at 21. A lot of motherfuckers don’t survive that shit. Today, it’s got over 90m YouTube hits. If YouTube had been here in 1993, we’d have a billion by now. The song’s become iconic and seems to have struck a chord. I guess everybody goes crazy at some time in their life.
Senen ‘Sen Dog’ Reyes, vocals
I went to a hip-hop nightclub in downtown Los Angeles. B-Real had this blue Cadillac Seville, a really-nice-looking car. When I arrived, he was sat in it in the parking lot writing something. He went: “Check this out – ‘Insane in the membrane …’” I didn’t think much more of it, but felt it was pretty cool that a song was being born in a Cadillac.
Insane in the Brain derives from gang talk in LA. Back then, the Crips and the Bloods – who I ran with – were at war. You could have a shootout with the police or anyone. So if you walked up to somebody and said, “I’m crazy insane, got no brain,” you’d better be ready to prove that shit. That lingo was reserved for the hardest homies.
The song itself is about rival rappers who had dissed us. Chubb Rock did a whole song dissing B-Real, so I told B-Real, “Cook his ass real good,” which he did. I did my lyrics in New York when we recorded. It was winter and we had our bomber jackets on to keep us warm. I can’t remember everything because a lot of it was under the influence of mushrooms and marijuana, but my second verse is about Kid Frost.
Cypress Hill with DJ Muggs (second right). Photograph: Robert Knight Archive/Redferns
Before anybody had a record deal, we were real tight with him. Then when he got a deal things changed. We went overnight from being friends to not. The fact that I was dating his sister didn’t make it any better. So when he said some bad things about us, I popped back at him with the line: “Fat boy on a diet, don’t try it / I’ll jack yo’ ass like a looter in a riot.” I’m not much of a diss rap kind of guy, but at the time it was appropriate because a lot of people we knew were caught up in it.
Most of the enemies I had in the industry I’m cool with now, but back then we were young guys full of attitude and ego. Insane in the Brain was a life-changing moment. When the song came out, the whole world knew us. When we’d been in our teens, smoking weed outside my mom’s house, we had all these crazy dreams about being the Grateful Dead of hip-hop. And that’s exactly what happened.
Cypress Hill’s latest album, Elephants on Acid, is on BMG. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jan/27/buzzfeed-bbc-tennis-match-fixing-allegations | Sport | 2016-01-27T14:51:51.000Z | Sean Ingle | Tennis match-fixing allegations leave questions to be answered | Sean Ingle | Ten days have passed since BuzzFeed and the BBC detonated a 9,000-word report alleging “widespread” match-fixing “in the upper echelons” of men’s tennis, and the suspicions and insinuations continue to linger like a stink bomb.
During the Australian Open Lleyton Hewitt, one of the game’s most tenacious and admired scrappers, was forced to deny he was a secret cheat after the final moments of his 19-year singles’ career. The Dutch player Robin Hasse was accused of corruption on Twitter based on no evidence. And a mixed doubles match on Sunday was also called into question by the bookmakers Pinnacle although others disputed whether there were suspicious betting patterns. Meanwhile the public is left wondering just who – or what – it can believe. As the ATP chairman Chris Kermode put it when an independent review into tennis’s anti-corruption practices was announced in Australia: “We are in a toxic environment for sport at the moment.”
Toxic and, in Hewitt’s case, dangerously indiscriminate. The former Wimbledon and US Open champion was not named by BuzzFeed, nor its reporting partner, the BBC, in a list of 15 players it had found “who regularly lost matches in which heavily lopsided betting appeared to substantially shift the odds – a red flag for possible match-fixing”. This claim was based on BuzzFeed’s own data analysis of changes to bookmakers’ odds in 27,000 ATP matches since 2009. However, its decision to make its data available to the public, albeit with the player names replaced by 64 digit codes, allowed tennis experts to decipher Hewitt as one of the men it was talking about.
Prosecuting tennis players for alleged match-fixing ‘would be complex’
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Suddenly Hewitt found himself facing trial by algorithm. “I know my name’s been thrown into it,” he admitted. “I don’t think anyone here would think I’ve done anything corrupt or match-fixing. It’s just absurd. I think anyone throwing my name out there makes the whole thing an absolute farce.” Tellingly, no one else is pointing the finger. Ian Dorward, a professional tennis gambler who previously worked on the other side of the fence for a bookmaker, analysed eight of Hewitt’s allegedly suspicious matches and found no evidence of wrongdoing.
As Dorward put it: “As much as I appreciate BuzzFeed releasing their data, they must have known that it would be possible to identify the players from it.”
Other betting experts contacted by the Guardian agreed. As one put it: “Hewitt’s inclusion instinctively made no sense at all, as he didn’t fit the profile. He was far too wealthy, wasn’t a name that had ever been linked to fixing, and had far too much to lose in terms of reputation.” And yet here he was, being forced to defend it. It was an avoidable mistake too. Anyone with a passing interest in tennis would have known that Hewitt was particularly difficult for bookmakers to price up during the latter stages of his career. He often didn’t play for long periods. He suffered repeated injuries.
Lleyton Hewitt walks off after his Australian Open defeat to David Ferrer. Hewitt later felt moved to defend himself at the post-game press conference, saying: ‘I think anyone throwing my name out there makes the whole thing an absolute farce.’ Photograph: Tracey Nearmy/EPA
And, towards the end, only a few places – Australia and the US Open in particular – brought out his very best. Clued-up professional gamblers knew this. So they backed against the Australian when appropriate, often changing the betting odds.
Does this mean all of the BBC-BuzzFeed report should be questioned? No. Much of it tallies with what people within the game have said for years. It was right to warn that the Tennis Integrity Unit, set up in 2008, is not catching enough cheats – although whether that is due to it having just five staff, or institutional timidity for fear of being sued, is disputed.
It was also correct to warn that tennis has a problem with match-fixing. As a former tennis trader at a major global bookmaker told the Guardian: “Tennis is probably the dirtiest sport I worked on that didn’t involve Chinese or Filipino markets. We always had to be really careful. We were always saying: ‘Don’t be run over.’ If something feels fishy, take the market down and protect yourself. That’s how it works.”
This particular firm had a list of players who they were highly suspicious of. And they were more wary when two players from the same country faced each other. But he was emphatic that, at the top level, the sport had got cleaner.
One professional gambler the Guardian spoke to, on condition of anonymity, also reeled off a list of suspicious players and matches, with evidence of strange betting patterns. But he said that after the infamous Nikolay Davydenko versus Martin Vassallo Argüello encounter in 2007, which Betfair refused to pay out on because the price movements were so strange, the resulting publicity led to less of it happening on the main ATP tour. Tennis’s governing bodies investigated the match but found no evidence of rule-breaking by either player.
“There was a resurgence of this sort of massed, blatant fixing in 2010, notably at the two Russian events, but that was like a last hurrah and a lot of the fixers have now retired,” he said. “It’s much, much rarer now, at least on the main tour – the fixers now focus on Challenger events.
“As a general summary, fixing is drastically less common on the main tour than it was five years ago, and it in turn was less common than five years before that, he added. “The fixers haven’t gone away though, they’ve moved down to Challengers. I’d hesitate to credit the tennis authorities with that at all – on fixing as well as doping they are almost universally useless – it seems to be more the result of changes in the gambling markets.”
When the Wimbledon chairman and head of the sport’s integrity board Phillip Brook was asked about the BBC/BuzzFeed investigation on Wednesday he replied: “I was disappointed in the programme. I don’t think we felt it revealed anything new.”
That doesn’t mean players on the main ATP Tour aren’t match-fixing, of course. Often you hear the same names over again. One reasonably well-known star crops up repeatedly. But when BuzzFeed claims, in its opening salvo, that it has “secret files exposing evidence of widespread match-fixing by players at the upper levels of world tennis” some believe it is adding too much topspin to the story.
The website alleges that a core group of 16 players who have been ranked in the top 50 over the past decade were repeatedly reported to authorities over suspicious betting patterns in their matches, including “winners of singles and doubles titles at grand slams”. That latter claim deserves closer scrutiny, given the list of men’s grand slam winners is not a long one. The BBC’s report only refers to “winners of grand slams” which might indicate a subtle difference.
The view of Richard Ings, the executive vice-president of rules and competitions at the ATP from 2001 and 2005, is worth noting. As Ings, who set up tennis’s first anti-corruption programme, told the Guardian: “In professional tennis, unusual betting patterns happen regularly. But a match with a suspicious betting pattern is not indicative of match-fixing. More investigation must take place, including phone records, transactions and betting accounts to ID how many – if any – were breaches of rules.”
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That point is vital. BuzzFeed’s algorithm is a reasonable first filter, generating a list of players and matches to investigate in further detail, but to suggest that it should equate to a red-flag against someone’s name is hugely simplistic. Other indicators are also required. As the tennis analyst and professional trader Dan Weston told the Guardian it was “easy” for anyone with a knowledge of betting markets to spot match-fixing, because there are usually at least two of three key ingredients.
Unusual pre-match odds movement, usually in the last hour or two before a match, because that’s when large bookmakers such as Pinnacle increase the sums that can be wagered and it takes more to move the market.
Dubious activity either in-play, or on side markets. Weston rattled off instances when a player was a set and at least a break down yet was still heavily favoured by the betting markets to win. He also cited several cases where a player who started the match as favourite was an underdog to win the first set – a clear red flag.
A fixed match often has a much higher than usual amount of money matched on betting exchanges such as Betfair or at major global bookies such as Pinnacle. BuzzFeed stands firmly by its reporting, which it says is based on “more than 20 gambling industry officials, international police detectives and sports integrity experts” who told it that tennis was failing to confront a serious problem with match-fixing. But when it comes to its algorithm it is clear that solely assessing pre-match odds was not enough.
As Scott Ferguson, formerly the head of education at Betfair and now a respected betting industry spokesman, put it:“BuzzFeed was a bit irresponsible. They had an important piece of the pie, but not all of it.”
When Ferguson worked for Betfair from 2002 to 2008, its integrity unit spent most of its time monitoring three things: racing, credit cards and tennis. “Betfair were sick to death with nothing being done about corruption in tennis,” he says.
“Things have improved at the top level, but there is more of it going on in the Challengers and Futures level” – which is where those ranked outside the top 70 or 80 mostly play.
That is where everyone says the majority of the match-fixing takes place now. There are far more Challenger matches than on the main tour, which means more opportunities for the fixers. There is far less prize money, which means players may be easier to bribe. And, unlike a decade ago, most bookmakers offer prices on lower ranks of the tennis ladder.
The review into the Tennis Integrity Unit, announced on Wednesday, is “aimed at further safeguarding the integrity of the game,” a joint statement read from the ATP, WTA, ITF and heads of all four grand slams, but others are asking what else should be done.
Independent review of tennis anti-corruption group announced. Guardian
There have been suggestions, from Andy Murray and others, that tennis should reconsider its relationship with betting companies. But as Ferguson argues: “Does having a betting partner really affect how players behave? For years Queen’s was sponsored by Stella Artois – were players getting smashed as a result?”
A more sensible option would be to dramatically strengthen the fight against corruption. And that goes beyond beefing up the TIU, which has only five staff to investigate corruption in a global sport, and into ensuring security around minor tournaments, where it is often easy for unscrupulous types to talk and try to influence players.
Others would also like to see a permanent external body to review its Integrity Unit’s interpretation of the evidence. In doping cases, the World Anti-Doping Agency is able to oversee a dispute between an athlete and a federation and if necessary, present it to another panel.
In tennis it has always been in-house. There is no appeal or review. And there is no independent external board. Which is far from ideal.
And despite most experts insisting tennis is much cleaner now than previously – the early noughties were described as “the wild west” by one analyst – it is clear that tennis should do more. As Ings points out: “Other sports such as football and athletics have promised us previously that everything is under control, just like tennis has, but that trust has been misplaced.
“The tennis authorities need to explain, with much greater clarity, how the sport will be protected from corruption.”
And, despite their latest announcement, those words can’t come soon enough.
This article was amended on 28 January 2016. An earlier version said incorrectly that Scott Ferguson worked at Betfair between 2004 and 2006. He worked at Betfair between 2002 and 2008, and was head of education from 2005 to 2008. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/21/inherent-vice-joaquin-phoenix-new-york-film-festival | Film | 2014-07-21T11:37:56.000Z | Henry Barnes | Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice to premiere at New York film festival | Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice will have its official world premiere at the New York film festival. Based on the book by Thomas Pynchon and starring Joaquin Phoenix as a pot-smoking PI in 70s California, Anderson's seventh feature will screen on 4 October at the festival's centrepiece gala.
Inherent Vice joins David Fincher's murder mystery Gone Girl in New York, showing off the event's muscle in the scrap between festivals to lay claim to the world premieres of likely Oscar contenders. In recent years the festival has hosted the first showing of Ang Lee's Life of Pi, Spike Jonze's Her and Paul Greengrass's Captain Phillips, all of which went on to win Oscars.
The New York launch of the two high-profile films suggests a knock-on effect from the Toronto film festival's decision to stop films screened at the overlapping Telluride and Venice film festivals from playing during its opening weekend. Starting this year Toronto will not play any films that have had previous public screenings in its first few days.
By launching in New York, Anderson and Fincher retain the opportunity to screen their film at Telluride a month earlier. The Colorado festival is a strong springboard for launching an Oscar winner. It played host to the first screenings of Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave, which won the best-picture Oscar in March this year. Anderson's previous film, The Master, which also starred Phoenix, launched at the Venice film festival in 2012. Despite multiple nominations, it failed to win an Oscar.
Inherent Vice is the story of drug-addled Larry "Doc" Sportello, a private detective who gets pulled into a murder investigation after taking on a case from an ex-girlfriend. Anderson's cast also includes Josh Brolin, Benicio del Toro, Reese Witherspoon and Owen Wilson. Pynchon's book, which mixes real-life elements (such as the arrest and trial of the Manson Family) into the fiction, was adapted by Anderson.
The 52nd New York film festival runs from 26 September to 12 October.
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We predict how Venice, Toronto and Telluride will split the 2014 world premieres | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/may/16/bling-ring-cannes-2013-review | Film | 2013-05-16T11:11:00.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | The Bling Ring – Cannes first look review | Sofia Coppola is a director who has perplexed and annoyed many with her indulgent portraits of poor little rich-and-famous girls. Personally, I couldn't sit still for her last film, Somewhere, which featured Elle Fanning as the adored and adorable teen daughter of a famous actor dad. Her movies have been in danger of becoming gritless oysters of non-satire, lenient insider studies, offering celluloid hugs to the cossetted comfortable.
But her new film, the opening gala to the Un Certain Regard section of Cannes, is an interesting surprise. There is something in her unjudging approach that is unexpectedly appropriate – and effective. It lets her get up close and personal to the story and characters, which conventional irony (from a director like Larry Clark or a writer like Bret Easton Ellis) wouldn't get near. And it lets you experience the creepiness for yourself, helped by the cool, clear "reportage" cinematography of the late Harris Savides, in his final movie.
The film is based on a very contemporary true-life phenomenon: the so-called "Bling Ring", a gang of teen burglars from wealthy homes in Hollywood who were obsessed with celebs. By using the web, Google Maps, and checking celebrities' Facebook updates and Twitter feeds (and fanatically updating their own in parallel), they could figure out which of them were out of town and where they lived, and knew instinctively which ones were stupid enough to leave their houses without proper security. This basically meant Paris Hilton, whose place was hit many times.
On a spree in 2009 – immortalised in a Vanity Fair article on which this film is based – they got away with millions of dollars' worth of clothes and jewellery, but the real point was fetishising the celebs. And Coppola shows that people like Lindsay Lohan are themselves guilty of theft. Once convicted, the bling ring wind up in prison with their victims: stealing and shoplifting are general symptoms of the same dysfunction and compulsive disorder, the need to be famous.
Katie Chang plays blingringleader Rebecca, while Israel Broussard plays her submissive lieutenant and platonic BF, Marc; our own Emma Watson plays fellow burglar and fashion obsessive Nicki, sister of Sam, played by Taissa Farmiga. Their mother Laurie (Leslie Mann) home schools them with chuckleheaded New Age theories, secular group prayers, and show'n'tell teaching sessions on why Angelina Jolie is a role model.
Another kind of movie – entitled, perhaps, The Sociopath Set – would have made the burglars turn on each other, and specifically curdled the relationship between Rebecca and Marc. Not here, and even the hint of betrayal in Rebecca's final departure for Las Vegas is not laboured. But there is something oddly plausible about the lack of a conventional dramatic falling-out-among-thieves. It's as if they are too stunned, too vacant, too weirded out by their success to react normally. The intonations of "Eeuw" and "I know, right?" govern their thought processes.
The movie's approach to celebrity is disorientating. The ring show up at a club where there are real-life cameo appearances from stars playing themselves – Kirsten Dunst and, yes, Paris Hilton herself. (Wouldn't they all, Paris and Kirsten included, turn round and gape at Emma Watson?) It's a bit self-conscious, but it interestingly collapses the distinction between fact and fiction; it puts you inside the unwholesome opium den of celeb-worship, and when the gang infiltrate Hilton's bizarre home, a Tutankhamun's tomb of kitsch, there is a real frisson. Did Coppola use the real thing?
The Bling Ring: Emma Watson and Sofia Coppola - video interview guardian.co.uk
The Bling Ring is a very distant, minor cousin to Robert Bresson's Pickpocket or Christopher Nolan's Following. The final notes of irony and repudiation may be laboured and obvious, but this is an intriguingly intuitive and atmospheric movie. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/jul/24/movies-about-musicians-have-the-worst-music | Film | 2014-07-24T16:00:00.000Z | Joe Queenan | Why do movies about musicians always have the worst music? | Recently, I noticed a disturbing trend in films: movies about musicians in which the musicians in the movie do not know that their music is somewhat less than electrifying. And seemingly, neither does anyone else. This first came to my attention with Inside Llewyn Davis. Early in the film, Justin Timberlake and Carey Mulligan deliver an excruciatingly cloying rendition of Five Hundred Miles. This is one of those hokey, faux-rustic ditties that made the early 1960s pure hell for high-school kids, who viewed Peter, Paul and Mary as only slightly less malignant than Ivan the Terrible, Jack the Ripper and Dracula. But nobody in the coffee house where Mulligan and Timberlake harmonise seems to notice that both the song and the singing are excruciating. The audience looks rapt.
Admittedly, Inside Llewyn Davis has certain ambiguous elements. Many, though not all, people who have seen it believe that the Coen brothers were deliberately, and quite mercilessly, ridiculing the early 60s folk scene. The Coens themselves said that they wanted to make a movie where a folk singer gets punched in the face. They got their wish. But lots of people, mostly my addled contemporaries, thought the film was completely sincere and respectful: an homage to catatonia. They even went out and bought the soundtrack, seemingly of their own volition. In the film, only F Murray Abraham, playing a hard-edged nightclub manager, seems aware that folk music, by and large, is a crime against humanity. A heinous crime. He basically tells Llewyn Davis this right to his face. The face that gets punched both at the beginning and the end of the film. Not without justification.
Likewise, Jersey Boys. Audiences are supposed to be inspired by the uplifting lives and the uplifting music of the Four Seasons, just as they were on Broadway. But if you are not a suit or a Jersey Girl or a tourist or 75 years old, the two hours at the movie house may prove baffling, perhaps even painful. That's because, in some quarters, the Four Seasons' music is regarded as the work of Satan. The Rolling Stones were invented to expunge the memory of pop combos like the Four Seasons, just as the Ramones were invented to make people forget that bands like Yes and Genesis ever existed.
Jersey Boys rewrites history. When I was a kid, there was a cultural fault line right down the middle of American society. The Stones, the Beatles, the Kinks, the Animals, James Brown, Otis Redding, the Motown record company and basically everybody were on one side, and precocious lounge lizards like the Four Seasons were on the other. To this day, songs like Walk Like a Man and Can't Take My Eyes Off You give me the willies. But in Jersey Boys, Clint Eastwood posits a hermetically sealed universe in which nobody ever tells the neo-reactionary, falsetto boy band that the Brits have arrived, and they've brought power chords with them. Everyone in the movie acts as if the music of the Four Seasons is daring and revolutionary and iconoclastic. Like the Four Seasons are the biggest breakthrough since Mozart. As George Santayana famously put it, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to see Jersey Boys.
That brings us to the exquisitely insipid Begin Again. The film stars the pathologically giggly Keira Knightley as a somewhat pathetic singer/songwriter who breaks up with her scummy singer/songwriter boyfriend (Adam Levine from Maroon 5), but then is rescued from obscurity by a hard-drinking, washed-up record producer, Brand X pater familias and all-purpose uber-loser played with consummate gusto by Mark Ruffalo. What's confusing here is that Knightley's music is supposed to be honest and authentic and unaffected, while her boyfriend's music is supposed to be phony and overproduced and crummy. But the reality is: they both suck. He sounds mopey and generic. She sings in that pouty, breathy, non-committal whine that makes Joni Mitchell sound like Aretha Franklin. Amy Winehouse, she ain't.
There is a scene at the end of Begin Again where Knightley begs her duplicitous, sell-out ex-beau to do her winsome love song in concert just the way she wrote it. And he does, in classic I Am Such a Lonely Boy style, which cheers her immensely. But then halfway through the song he cops out and switches to the cheesy, up-tempo arrangement the record company forced upon him. Keira is so disappointed. She walks out of his life, for ever. But in truth, both versions of the song are equally repellent. In fact, just about all the music in the movie is hideous except for one brief interlude when Frank Sinatra is heard singing Luck Be a Lady. It is never a good idea to have Keira Knightley and Adam Levine sing in the same movie as Frank Sinatra. No good can come of it.
When you make a movie that is not about musicians, you can use everything in the soundtrack from Eminem to Vivaldi to the Bad Seeds to ZZ Top to Miles Davis to the Red Army Choir to Edith Piaf. But when you make a movie about a particular kind of musician, you're basically stuck with that particular kind of music. And, if the music veers toward Megatronic vapidity, you are, I'm afraid, in big trouble. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/commentisfree/2016/may/09/churchill-would-have-voted-remain-eu-cameron-johnson | Politics | 2016-05-09T14:10:10.000Z | Martin Kettle | Churchill would have been a committed voter to remain in EU | Winston Churchill still stands at the centre of the modern Conservative party’s view of Britain and of itself. So it was inevitable that sooner or later the two Tory sides in the argument about Britain’s place in Europe would begin to battle it out for the ownership of Churchill’s view of Europe and as arbiters of which way he might vote in the forthcoming referendum.
On Monday, the two sides went head-to-head as David Cameron laid explicit claim to the wartime prime minister’s support for the remain camp in the cause of European peace stability. Boris Johnson insisted that Churchill wanted no part in the European Union.
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Cameron’s speech stressed that Churchill was never by choice an isolationist from Europe in either war or peace. “Churchill never wanted that,” he said at the British Museum. After the war Churchill had argued passionately for western Europe to come together.
A few hours later, Johnson – who is also, in his own solipsistic fashion, a biographer of Churchill – accused the EU of becoming ever more anti-democratic and a force for instability not security. Johnson didn’t actually mention Churchill in his speech. But he did in questions afterwards, when he said that although the European project had kept the postwar peace, Churchill had wanted Britain to play no part in it.
So which of them is right? Which way might Churchill have voted if he was still alive and was, at the age of 141, still on the electoral register?
This is, of course, an unhistorical question. Churchill died in January 1965 so he can’t know what the issue feels like in May and June 2016, more than half a century later. But there are plenty of clues in his long career that suggest where his heart might lie.
One of those is Churchill’s enthusiastic attempt, at the height of the battle for France in 1940, to create political union between Britain and France in a plan which would have made every British citizen a citizen of France and vice versa, with a single government and single armed forces. By any standards, this was a radical sharing of sovereignty that would be difficult for a Brexiteer to swallow at any time.
Cameron is also right that the postwar Churchill was not an isolationist either. He might have, but didn’t, quote from a speech to the 1948 European congress at The Hague in which, then the leader of the opposition, Churchill said this about economic and political cooperation in Europe:
It is said with truth that this involves some sacrifice or merger of national sovereignty and characteristics, but it is also possible to regard it as the gradual assumption by all nations concerned of that larger sovereignty which can also protect their diverse and distinctive customs, and their national traditions.”
There’s not much there for Nigel Farage there, either.
But Johnson is right in one respect. Although Churchill made a speech in Zurich in 1946 in which he called for the creation of a United States of Europe, he did not seem to envisage Britain being part of it. Churchill was a British imperialist. He always saw Britain at the centre of the imperial network, later the Commonwealth. And he was an Atlanticist, not least by birth (his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, was born in Brooklyn), with a profound loyalty to the notion of the Anglosphere, which continues to attract many on the isolationist right today.
Nevertheless, Churchill did not share today’s Brexiteer obsession with pushing these issues to defining choices. He said in a Tory conference speech in 1948 that Britain was part of three “majestic circles” – the empire and Commonwealth, the English-speaking world and a “united Europe”. He called these circles “co-existent” and “linked together”. A year later, speaking to the European Movement, he said also it was essential to persuade the Commonwealth that its “interests as well as ours lie in a United Europe”. Tellingly, whenever Churchill talked about Europe he almost always talked about “we” not “they”.
And he wasn’t just a romantic visionary, he was also a pragmatist. According to his solicitor general Sir John Foster, Churchill became a convert to the European convention on human rights when a woman in the Channel Islands was arrested on a charge of bestiality, for which local medieval law prescribed the mandatory punishment of being burned at the stake.
Churchill sent the Royal Navy to spring the woman from custody and drop her on the French coast. As a result of that case, it was said by one of his ministers, Churchill was a firm supporter of Europe’s overriding written code of rights and principles, which his ministers helped to draw up.
Which way would Churchill vote on 23 June? We cannot know. But everything we know about Churchill’s sense of vision and his pragmatic approach to issues of the day suggests to me that he would be a committed voter to remain. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/03/new-book-releases-october-australia-recommendations | Books | 2023-10-03T14:00:16.000Z | Alyx Gorman | ‘Ballsy’, ‘very funny’, ‘read in one sitting’: the best Australian books out in October | Edenglassie by Melissa Lucashenko
Fiction, UQP, $32.99
Lucashenko’s focus has always been on “ordinary Australians and the extraordinary lives they lead”. Here, entwining a sweeping historical love story with a tense, funny contemporary one, she pulls the country’s history out from under the rug.
The Miles Franklin winner bears unflinching witness to the violence endured by Aboriginal people past and present, and prods hard at the frequent absurdities of white Australia. But neither is mutually exclusive with the stubborn joy that spills from her writing, the way she revels in the stickiest sides of human nature. Like Mullumbimby and Too Much Lip, Edenglassie is shot through with the beauty of First Nations languages and culture, generously illuminating their power and complexity. Gripping, political, horny, moving and very, very funny. Make it into a film already. – Imogen Dewey
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
Fiction, Allen & Unwin, $32.99
Stone Yard Devotional is a deeply moving, meditative book about grief and despair, set in a monastery in a small country town. It is the narrator’s home town, and she has abandoned her city life to live there, beside the nuns and despite her atheism, in search of some kind of solace, or service, a way to live alongside all of the catastrophes – of her life and of the world – that feel too much to bear.
It is a spare and spacious novel, deeply interior, and all the more powerful for everything it leaves suggested and unsaid. – Fiona Wright
The Year I Met My Brain by Matilda Boseley
Nonfiction, Penguin, $35
Current estimates put the prevalence of ADHD at around one in 20 Australians. That means there’s a good chance you already know someone who has the disorder or is awaiting diagnosis. In her debut book, Guardian Australia’s very own Matilda Boseley takes readers on a journey into her mind (and that of many others) with the help of psychiatrists, psychologists and other experts.
In a friendly, accessible tone that makes room for emotional complexity, The Year I Met My Brain discusses the gauntlet adults recently diagnosed with ADHD are likely to run, and the lasting impacts of the ones they’ve already passed through. The book may have pretty colours and playful illustrations (both ADHD-friendly design features FYI) but it is also thoroughly researched and – particularly for those still coming to grips with what ADHD means for them – thoroughly helpful. – Alyx Gorman
Late by Michael Fitzgerald
Fiction, Transit Lounge, $32.99
This beguiling little novel by the former editor of Art Monthly imagines what could happen if Marilyn Monroe faked her death and moved to a Seidler apartment in Sydney, under the name Zelda Zonk. It is a ballsy idea and one that pays off, as Fitzgerald is a marvellous ventriloquist for Monroe, who feels instantly solid as an ageing icon.
Monroe-Zonk befriends Daniel, a young man she meets in her building, and the unlikely pair become close as they wander the harbour, exchanging ideas on art, religion and life. It is fabulously elegant writing, a lovely book to read in one sitting. – Sian Cain
Killing for Country: A Family Story by David Marr
Nonfiction, Black Inc, $39.99
“We can be proud of the things done by our families generations ago. We can also be ashamed,” writes David Marr of the discovery that his great-great-grandfather and his brother were members of the Native Police, active in the “massacre business”.
It was a discovery that sent the journalist and Guardian contributor on an “act of atonement, penance by storytelling”. It hurt to look but his family tree warranted a hard stare. So Marr bears witness to his “murdering ancestors” and undertakes a scouring and detailed investigation into the history of the Native Police, while telling the bigger, brutal history of invasion. The timing of this book is painfully exquisite and it demonstrates perfectly how little race politics have changed in Australia. – Lucy Clark
7 Days of Dinner by Adam Liaw
Recipes, Hardie Grant, $49.99
This style of cooking is exactly to my taste: it’s recipe-ish. MasterChef alumni Adam Liaw provides a list of ingredients and instructions, sure, but if you want to go off-piste with whatever’s in the pantry, he certainly encourages it.
The book is helpfully divided into themed days: meat-free Mondays, taco Tuesdays. And I have never felt so “seen” in a cookbook than in “wok Wednesdays”, where Liaw says family quantities of fried rice are actually best made not in a wok but a frypan. After I had a child I realised the necessity of quick, family friendly dinner ideas; Liaw has made my job a little easier – and a lot tastier. – Yvonne C Lam
Unfinished Woman by Robyn Davidson
Memoir, Bloomsbury Publishing, $34,99
Trekking with camels across 2,700km of Australian desert at the age of 27 was neither the beginning nor the end of Robyn Davidson’s remarkable story. More than four decades after Tracks was published, Davidson’s long-awaited memoir explores how her mother’s suicide at age 11 influenced the trajectory of her unconventional life – her intimate relationships, mental health, and sense of self and home.
“Sequential time eludes me,” Davidson writes; but memories do not, as we jump between her childhood in outback Queensland, her bohemian awakening in Brisbane, her itinerant existence in Sydney, the “catastrophe” that was her relationship with Salman Rushdie (though he remains unnamed here) and the decades of commuting to India for her wealthy politician partner. A compelling, exquisitely crafted journey into Davidson’s inner world. – Janine Israel
Gunflower by Laura Jean McKay
Fiction (short stories), Scribe, $29.99
McKay’s 2020 novel, the Arthur C Clarke award-winning The Animals in That Country, was a work of speculative fiction about a pandemic that enables communication between humans and animals. In this follow-up, consisting of 25 short stories penned over a two-decade period, the boundaries between sci-fi and realism continue to be blurred.
The collection is divided into three sections – birth, life and death. Many of the stories have dystopian overtones, from those a mere paragraph long, to another told from the perspective of beleaguered battery hens, to the wry title story set aboard an abortion ship adrift in international waters off the US coast. – JI
The Man Who Wasn’t There by Dan Box
Fiction, Ultimo Press, $36.99
True crime is a tricky beast. On the one hand, it can offer justice for survivors or the wrongly accused. On the other, it can be an exploitative, gory, insensitive quest for clicks and sales.
When crime journalist and Walkley winner Dan Box embarked upon this book about a young Indigenous man who claims he was wrongly convicted of murder in the Northern Territory, he admits he was motivated by the lure of another top journalism award. And with that admission, Box signals this is not your ordinary true crime page-turner (although the pages do turn easily). Box himself becomes a character in a complicated, self-aware story about family tragedy, an unlikely friendship, a media ecosystem that can do as much harm as good, and a justice system he comes to see as tragically flawed. – Celina Ribeiro
Home to Biloela by Priya Nadesalingam with Rebekah Holt
Nonfiction, Allen & Unwin, $34.99
The story of the Nadesalingam family – Sri Lankan asylum seekers who arrived by boat seeking protection – became a touchstone across Australia, representing the excesses of this country’s adamantine asylum policies. But to hear the five-year saga retold in all its grotesque oppression is shocking all over again: the dawn raid on a family home, the forcible removal on to planes, the steady, relentless pressure to push this family home to potential danger.
Rebekah Holt, a passionate, forensic journalist who spent years reporting this issue, has told the family’s story empathically and adroitly. And to hear Priya – the family’s most outspoken member – narrate her family’s trials from the eye of the storm is an extraordinary and vital account of a dark chapter in our nation’s history. – Ben Doherty | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/08/outsourcing-tories-coronavirus-cronyism-waste | Opinion | 2021-02-08T08:00:35.000Z | Rachel Reeves | The price of the Tories' outsourcing obsession? Cronyism and waste | Rachel Reeves | It’s been increasingly frustrating to witness the government’s reluctance to learn from its mistakes during the pandemic. One of the starkest and most easily rectified mistakes is the decision to outsource much of Britain’s Covid response.
From PPE to testing kits, the government has outsourced billions of pounds’ worth of contracts to firms connected to the Tory party, many of which lacked relevant experience. Although it reached new heights during the pandemic, this wasn’t the first time the government’s outsourcing obsession had harmful effects. The list of scandals is long: who remembers when the army had to swoop in to provide security at the 2012 Olympics that G4S failed to deliver? Or the collapse of Carillion, when workers’ pensions went down the drain while executives still received their bonuses?
With so many wasteful contracts handed out to Tory friends and donors during the Covid-19 crisis, the government’s approach to outsourcing has underlined the “one rule for them, another for us” mantra that surrounds Boris Johnson’s cabinet. But it has also shone a disturbing light on just how deeply the Tories have hollowed out our public services.
When we gathered on our doorsteps to applaud our key workers, we weren’t clapping for Serco or Deloitte, and children weren’t banging pots and pans for management consultants. Yet instead of giving key workers in our public services a pay rise, this government contracted management consultants at Deloitte who were paid up to £1,000 a day to work on test and trace, a system that still isn’t up to scratch.
It’s not just the public who should be frustrated. Qualified and experienced British businesses have been passed over by a government “chumocracy” that awarded contracts to firms with political connections (one company, run by a former neighbour of Matt Hancock, received a contract to provide Covid test kits after its owner exchanged WhatsApp messages with the health secretary).
Firm with mystery investors wins £200m of PPE contracts via 'high-priority lane'
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There are actions that can be taken right away to fix this mess. It’s time for the government to halt the emergency procurement measures that it put in place at the beginning of the pandemic, and reintroduce proper competitive tendering. During a crisis like this one, ministers must act at speed – but competitive tendering doesn’t have to be slow. It can be quick and agile, without lowering the standard of services provided or creating “VIP” lanes for companies awarded contracts that are concealed from the public.
The government should also commit to publishing all outstanding Covid contracts by the end of February. It shouldn’t be the responsibility of investigative journalists and organisations such as the Good Law Project to find out the details of Covid contracts and understand where taxpayers’ money is going. Details of these contracts should be publicly available so they can be properly scrutinised.
The current 40-day deadline for publishing the details of contracts should be returned to 30 days, and the Cabinet Office’s current Contracts Finder tool, which allows people to search for information about contracts worth more than £10,000, should be developed in the interests of transparency and public scrutiny. The government can also now look at clawing back some of the taxpayer money flushed away on contracts given to huge companies that fail to deliver.
These are some of the first steps the government could take, if it had the will to do so. But there is a longer-term problem here. Ten years of austerity and outsourcing has scarred our communities and public services. This is why I am today setting out how a Labour government would put valuing our public services at the heart of our contracting and procurement process.
To start with, a Labour government would oversee the biggest wave of insourcing in a generation. This approach would help support and develop our public services. Of course, there will always be a need for external insight and expertise, but private contractors need to be harnessed for the public good. Our local public services, from Bath to Bolton, Darlington to Dagenham, should be run for local communities – the people who use them.
Transparency will also be key. Even before the pandemic, the government spent an extraordinary £292bn on outsourcing in 2018-19. This amounted to more than a third of all public spending in a single year, and that level is rising year on year. It’s only fair that the taxpayers who are paying for these contracts can scrutinise them.
But the companies that run so many public services too often hide behind the smokescreen of “commercial sensitivity”. That’s why Labour will expand the Freedom of Information Act to apply to private companies when delivering new public service contracts.
This should be just the start. Over the past decade, we’ve watched the weakening of far too many transparency mechanisms and anti-corruption measures. The government’s anti-corruption champion has gone from being a ministerial position to a backbench one with no teeth whatsoever.
So Labour will introduce an independent commissioner on anti-corruption, and (as Joe Biden is similarly doing) an integrity and ethics commission to prevent corruption and cronyism, and once again aim to be a world leader on transparency and open governance.
By cutting the cronyism and waste that comes with outsourcing, we can rebuild the foundations of our public services and strengthen the resilience of our communities and our country. Labour believes that our public services can play a crucial role in tackling the shared social missions of our time. That is the new leadership that our country needs.
Rachel Reeves is shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and shadow minister for the Cabinet Office | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/may/14/chelsea-manchester-united-womens-fa-cup-final-match-report | Football | 2023-05-14T15:51:19.000Z | Suzanne Wrack | Chelsea claim FA Cup hat-trick after Sam Kerr sees off Manchester United | There can never be any doubting of Sam Kerr. Ever. Most players would hesitate before brazenly stating that they had “never been [to Wembley] and not won a trophy” on the eve of a FA Cup final, no matter how true. Those are words that could come back to bite and haunt, but for Kerr, the queen of visualisation, there was never any doubt that she would be lifting aloft a third successive FA Cup in front of a record crowd of 77,390 fans, or that she would be the one to step up, once again, and deliver in a season where she has been so heavily relied upon.
This is Chelsea’s stage. The Blues have appeared in six FA Cup finals including five of the eight played at Wembley. Emma Hayes’s side have played at the national stadium more than they have at Stamford Bridge. Their undefeated record against United, since the Manchester side was reformed in 2018, with only one point dropped, painted a picture of likely dominance.
Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United: Women’s FA Cup final – as it happened
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Injuries have sucked some of the life from Hayes’s side this season, with Pernille Harder and Fran Kirby’s absences keenly felt, but once again Chelsea are delivering come May, and United were next in line for the sword.
A United win, in that context, would have been unexpected. Except it also wouldn’t have been because Marc Skinner’s side have been impressive in their swagger and consistency this season. A season which targeted Champions League football but has put them in the hunt for a league and FA Cup Double.
The expected unexpected was almost delivered within 20 seconds when Leah Galton latched on to the ball that Chelsea defender Ève Périsset had attempted to knock out of her path from Ella Toone’s cross and turned in. The United fans roared but the flag was up, for Toone being offside in the buildup. It was a frustratingly late call, that punctured the early United party.
Hayes made three changes to the team that put seven past Leicester on Wednesday, with Harder dropped back to the bench as Chelsea manage her return from a lengthy spell out and Jessie Fleming and Maren Mjelde on in place of Jelena Cankovic and Jess Carter.
Meanwhile, there was just one change for United, with captain Katie Zelem back from suspension and Vilda Bøe Risa dropping out.
After a frenetic opening few minutes, where United would go close again, with Ona Batlle’s ball in turned away by Mjelde, the first half lacked bite.
Chelsea manager Emma Hayes is embraced by Millie Bright after victory in the Cup final. Photograph: Eddie Keogh/The FA/Getty Images
Perhaps the almost-goal had acted as a warning, but there was a tentativeness and stop-start nature to the first half that prompted the crowd to create some entertainment for themselves, with Mexican waves circling the pitch inside half an hour and a giant inflatable ball bounced around the bottom tier with greater enthusiasm than the ball on the pitch.
United did well to stifle the threat of Chelsea’s most potent duo this term, Kerr and Guro Reiten, with full-back Batlle doing well to contain the Norwegian forward in particular.
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Chelsea goalkeeper Ann-Katrin Berger would be called into action just past 30 minutes to paw away centre-back Millie Turner’s effort after Magda Eriksson and Maya Le Tissier fell in a tangle as they vied for a header.
Chelsea had moments too, with an advantage played allowing Lauren James to send a looping header towards the far post that Mary Earps would tip on to the post.
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Momentum shifted in Chelsea’s favour with the introduction of Harder and Sophie Ingle just shy of the hour mark. Midfielder Erin Cuthbert had sent a warning pre-Leicester when she said if she “saw Pernille Harder coming off the bench, I’d be terrified.”
She added: “It’s players like her who can be the difference-makers in games which are such fine margins.”
Chelsea’s Sam Kerr scores the winner against Manchester United. Photograph: Vince Mignott/EPA
You could be forgiven for thinking that Cuthbert had been prophesising about the impact of Harder at Wembley, because it was so immediate. Within a minute of entering the fray, a mistake from Le Tissiersaw the Australian race free on the left before sending it into the middle for Harder, but it arrived just behind the Dane, whose eventual shot was weak enough for Earps to gather.
‘Immensely proud’: the years of work behind sold-out Women’s FA Cup final
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Moments later and it would be Harder providing for Kerr, sweeping in from the right, with Earps rooted to her spot, and cutting back towards Kerr but Batlle had read the danger and nipped ahead of the forward to clear.
That the goal came from the combination of Kerr and Harder, who have not been on the pitch at the same time since Harder’s return, felt inevitable. Reiten’s searching pass was collected by Harder who delivered towards the far post for Kerr to turn in. It was slick, instinctive and scarily easy.
Chelsea are in the driving seat in the league, with a game in hand and one point behind United, and a third successive Double is on the cards. In many respects, in a season where the level has shifted up a step across the league, this one would be the most impressive. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/10/rwanda-accused-of-broad-campaign-of-repression-against-dissidents | World news | 2023-10-10T04:01:29.000Z | Michela Wrong | Rwanda accused of broad campaign of repression against dissidents | Rwandan authorities are coordinating a systematic campaign of repression at home and abroad against political activists, suspected dissidents and their family members, according to a Human Rights Watch report, raising questions about plans by the UK government to send asylum seekers there.
The US-based rights group details an alleged campaign of extraterritorial killings, kidnappings and intimidation, as well as arbitrary arrests and enforced disappearances on Rwandan soil.
The 115-page report, which covers the years since 2017, also accuses the government in Kigali of routinely abusing global judicial and police mechanisms, including the Interpol system, in its determination to return perceived enemies to Rwanda.
Published in the week that the UK supreme court hears the home secretary’s appeal against a June court ruling deeming it unlawful to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, the report represents a challenge to Suella Braverman’s claim that Rwanda is a safe destination and reliable partner.
Victoire Ingabire, a Rwandan opposition leader who spent eight years in prison on terrorism charges, said: “This report exposes the reality of the Rwandan regime. The principles of civilian government have been completely ignored in Rwanda.”
HRW calls on the UK to rescind the migration and economic development partnership that Braverman’s predecessor, Priti Patel, signed with Rwanda in 2022, in light of the “real risks” that asylum seekers would face, and to investigate threats to Rwandan residents in Britain and make future assistance to the aid-dependent African state conditional on significant change to its “repressive practices”.
A spokeswoman for the Rwandan government accused HRW of “distorting the reality of Rwanda”. A post on X, formerly known as Twitter, said: “Any balanced assessment of Rwanda’s record in advancing the rights, wellbeing and dignity of Rwandans over the past 29 years would recognise remarkable, transformational progress. Rwanda will not be deterred from this work by bad-faith actors advancing a politicised agenda.”
Rwanda, the scene of a 1994 genocide in which up to 1 million people died, is often hailed as a miracle of development. Paul Kagame, who has been president since 2000 and recently announced his intention to run for a fourth term, is regarded as one of Africa’s most proactive, if hardline, heads of state.
However, the picture that HRW paints is at odds with the former British prime minister Boris Johnson’s description of Rwanda as a place where asylum seekers could “prosper and thrive”.
Drawing on interviews with more than 150 people in the UK, Australia, the US, Canada, Belgium, France and a handful of African states, HRW said it had documented more than a dozen cases of killings, kidnappings, enforced disappearances and physical attacks targeting Rwandans abroad. The lengths to which authorities go in order to silence exiles, who are sometimes tracked using Pegasus spyware and relentlessly harassed and smeared online, are extraordinary, the report says.
It documents the deaths on foreign soil of Rwandan opposition figures such as Seif Bamporiki, a senior member of the Rwanda National Congress who was shot dead in a Cape Town township in 2021, and exiles such as Selemen Masiya, a football coach stabbed in northern Mozambique in 2022 who was merely an outspoken government critic.
Inside Rwanda, HRW details multiple cases of harassment, arbitrary detention, torture and sometimes the disappearance of relatives of suspected dissidents – tactics apparently adopted to persuade exiles to censor themselves or return home. “The targeting of relatives is a particularly vicious form of control,” the report’s authors note.
The hotelier turned human rights activist Paul Rusesabagina in court in Kigali in 2020. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
The report cites the example of Lionel Richie Nishimwe, an advocate of the Rwanda refugee community in Zambia, who caved in to pressure to return to Rwanda. Put up in a hotel, he was pressed to divulge information about fellow refugees, refused, and has since disappeared.
Noël Zihabamwe, a genocide survivor who moved to Australia, is also mentioned. When he refused to be recruited by the Rwandan high commission in Singapore, he was publicly threatened by the high commissioner. Two of his brothers who were based abroad later returned to Rwanda to buy land and were seized by police and tortured, along with a nephew. Both brothers have since disappeared.
The report’s depiction of a politicised judicial system and police force and an intelligence service committed to crushing dissent raises questions about the kind of lives asylum seekers settling there could expect to lead.
Kerry Smith, of Asylum Aid, said: “This report is another strong piece of evidence suggesting the original reasons the Foreign Office decided not to put Rwanda on the list of possible destinations for asylum seekers it drew up for the Home Office still hold good.”
HRW is critical of the UN – in particular its refugee arm, the UNHCR – and foreign governments and law enforcement agencies who it says are aware of Rwanda’s tactics but do little more than alert Rwandan exiles to the dangers they face. In 2011, the Metropolitan police warned three prominent Rwandan citizens in London that their government posed an immediate threat to their lives, but no one was arrested.
“Turning a blind eye to Rwanda’s human rights record has allowed the country to position itself as a valuable partner for peacekeeping missions in Africa and a safe haven for refugees while at the same time exporting its repression globally,” the report says.
The Home Office and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office received a summary of the report’s findings before publication and were asked for comment. Tariq Ahmad, the minister for the Middle East and Africa, said Britain’s “positive relationship with Rwanda ensures that we uphold our commitment to addressing critical global challenges. We have worked closely together on the partnership to protect vulnerable people seeking safety and opportunity; human rights are a key consideration.”
HRW also wrote to the Rwandan ministry of justice with its findings and received no reply. Rwandan authorities have previously accused government critics and rights groups of making baseless claims against the country.
A protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London in September 2022 over the government’s plan to send some asylum seekers to Rwanda. Photograph: Tom Pilgrim/PA
The readiness of Rwanda’s ruling party to reach beyond its borders to eliminate perceived enemies of the state first made headlines in 1998 when the former interior minister Seth Sendashonga was shot dead in Nairobi.
In 2020, the government organised the high-profile kidnapping of Paul Rusesabagina, a former hotelier turned human rights activist who had moved to the US. The following year Freedom House, a US-based human rights group, listed Rwanda as one of the most prolific perpetrators of what it called “transnational repression”.
Rwanda’s willingness to dispatch peacekeepers around the continent and to take in Europe’s unwanted asylum seekers has muted criticism from western governments who are worried about the spread of jihadism in Africa.
The report’s publication puts the British government in an awkward position. In 2021, British officials were outspoken in their criticism of Rwanda’s human rights failings, pressing the state to conduct independent investigations into “allegations of extrajudicial killings, deaths in custody, enforced disappearances and torture” during the UN’s universal periodic review.
But once Patel signed the asylum deal, British officials largely went silent on Rwanda’s human rights record and its well-documented support for the M23 rebel movement that was destabilising the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Rwanda has received an upfront payment of £140m to cover the costs of integrating asylum seekers. A last-minute intervention by the European court of human rights (ECHR) grounded a first flight scheduled to carry seven asylum seekers to Kigali last June.
Rishi Sunak is said to regard the Rwanda deal as a key plank of his election strategy and has indicated that if the supreme court’s five judges find in the government’s favour, he will ignore any further ECHR injunctions. If the judges find against the government, Braverman is expected to use their ruling as grounds to push for Britain to withdraw from the ECHR.
The supreme court hearing is scheduled to last three days, with a decision expected six to eight weeks later. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/04/numbers-of-homeless-much-greater-than-official-figures-political-parties-must-take-action | Society | 2015-02-04T07:01:10.000Z | Jon Sparkes | Homelessness is much worse than it appears and politicians must act | Jon Sparkes | Last Saturday, thousands of people marched on London’s City Hall demanding action to tackle the woeful lack of affordable housing in the capital. Undoubtedly there’s a lot the mayor can and should be doing. However, this isn’t just a London problem; and it’s going to need a lot more than a London solution.
Up and down the country, hundreds of thousands of people are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, faced with mounting debt, or savage cuts to housing benefit. New research, today, from Crisis and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation shows that the problem is a lot bigger than we thought – and its scale has gone largely unnoticed by the government, media or the public. The report uncovers some startling new trends that mean we can no longer rely on headline homelessness figures.
Crisis and others have raised serious concerns about the impact of benefit cuts at a time when councils are being forced to scale back services. Yet despite steady reports of worsening conditions on the ground, we’ve seen a levelling-off of headline homelessness figures. We suspected something was missing. Now we know what that is.
Drawing on a large-scale survey of councils, combined with new statistical analysis and in-depth interviews, we’ve found that councils in England are changing the way they deal with homelessness, relying increasingly on more “informal” approaches, which are recorded in separate figures, such as financial assistance and debt advice, or help to stay in a tenancy, or family mediation, or directing people to rent in the private sector rather than finding them alternative social housing. As a result, nearly two-thirds of councils think headline homelessness figures no longer reflect what’s happening locally.
When we take all this into account, we see that the number of people facing homelessness has risen sharply to 280,000 cases – up 9% in the last year and by more than a third since 2009-10. This is more than four times the official homelessness figure. Drawing on a survey of nearly half of English councils, the report shows how housing benefit cuts and sanctions, which lead to a loss of benefits, are driving up homelessness, with more than half of councils fearing worse is yet to come in the next two years.
Council officials provide stark accounts of people facing severe hardship because of sanctions: being unable to find a home on housing benefit or being forced out of their local area. Many also raise serious concerns about the future impact of the bedroom tax and cuts to local welfare assistance.
Unsurprisingly, the situation is worst in London and the south where housing pressures and overcrowding are most severe. Truly affordable homes are not being built and many councils are ill-equipped to challenge property developers, which go to great lengths to avoid being forced into providing affordable homes. We know, for example, that developers threaten to pull the plug on entire developments if they are forced to provide these much-needed homes.
This isn’t about party politics, yet we cannot escape the fact that political choices have a huge impact on homelessness. As we approach the general election, we need all the main parties to take homelessness seriously. We need decisive and immediate action to build more affordable homes; we need a commitment to review benefit sanctions and cuts to housing benefit; and we need greater funding and support for homelessness services.
Homelessness is far worse than we thought. We need our leaders to act. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/may/19/uk-abortion-services-delivery-northern-ireland | UK news | 2022-05-19T11:42:08.000Z | Rory Carroll | UK government to accelerate abortion services delivery in Northern Ireland | The UK government has announced plans to accelerate the delivery of abortion services in Northern Ireland almost three years after they were legalised in the region.
Brandon Lewis, the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, told parliament on Thursday he was introducing legislation to bypass local authorities who had delayed the rollout of services.
The new regulations will remove the need for Northern Ireland’s Department of Health to seek approval from the Stormont executive to provide services. “Women and girls are still unable to access high-quality abortion and post-abortion care in Northern Ireland. This is entirely unacceptable,” Lewis said in a written ministerial statement.
The regulations are designed to override the Stormont executive, where the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) has led resistance to abortion services, and give the secretary of state the same power as the region’s health minister to deliver the services.
The Department of Health would have no further barriers to commission and fund services and should do so without delay, said Lewis. “If the Department of Health does not commission and fund abortion services as directed, I will intervene further.”
Abortion services in Northern Ireland almost nonexistent despite legalisation
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Abortion was legalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019, bringing it into line with the rest of the UK, after a Westminster vote led by the Labour MP Stella Creasy. Access to abortion has been available since April 2020 after the legislation came into force but has been largely restricted to early medical terminations up to 10 weeks of pregnancy.
Most people in Northern Ireland supported decriminalisation, but Robin Swann, the Ulster Unionist health minister, declined to commission services, saying such a step required consensus in the five-party power-sharing executive, and the DUP was opposed. Some other parties also fear upsetting socially conservative supporters.
The UK government had told Stormont to commission services by March. The deadline came and went, prompting a clamour for action from abortion rights groups.
“This is a welcome and necessary move,” said Grainne Teggart, campaigns manager for Amnesty International UK. “Once again, action from Westminster is needed to ensure that abortion rights are realised here. Commissioned services, accessible to all who need them, are long overdue.”
Ruairi Rowan, director of advocacy and policy for Informing Choices NI, said interim services were “precarious” and that they denied timely access to counselling and funding. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/careers/2019/jun/26/can-coding-clubs-diversify-the-tech-sector | Guardian Careers | 2019-06-26T08:36:44.000Z | Jessica Bateman | Can coding clubs diversify the tech sector? | After Mona Azami came to the UK from Iran in 2010, she spent five years without the right to work, then a further three struggling to find a job. “I was a graphic designer before, but I found it very hard in the UK,” she says. “I didn’t know British culture or British brands, and my English wasn’t so good.”
Initially she pursued low-skilled roles, but then a conversation with a friend alerted her to Code Your Future, a free coding school for refugees. “I went online and applied that evening,” she says. Today, she is working as a website designer for Dixons Carphone.
Code Your Future is one of a new batch of free or low-cost coding clubs around the world outside of traditional education establishments, with the aim of equipping excluded communities with tech skills. The long-term goal is not just to provide employment opportunities, but to diversify the notoriously white and male-dominated tech industry.
The organisation was founded in London and initially ran coding courses for refugees, although it now caters to anyone from a disadvantaged background. It has also just launched its programme in Italy. Azami says that, as well as teaching her to code, the course gave her CV and interview advice.
One of the biggest organisations of this kind is Code Club International, which supports more than 13,000 free coding clubs for nine- to 13-year-olds worldwide, including ones in Syria, Bangladesh, Kenya and Ukraine. “We want to put a code club in every community in the world, and teach children not just to be consumers of technology but creators too,” says Maria Quevedo, managing director at the Raspberry Pi Foundation, which runs the project.
Volunteers have access to a full range of projects and courses for free, and don’t need to know how to code themselves in order to teach. Quevedo says one of the organisation’s target areas has been women, and they achieved 40% female attendance worldwide through having “gender-neutral projects” and a focus on creativity.
At Code Club, 40% of students are girls – but we could still do more
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However, some believe that education can only go so far in fixing the industry’s diversity issue. One of the biggest barriers to gender equality in the industry is the lack of retention of women, suggesting that big structural changes are also required. “Education is just a tiny sliver of the problems we have,” says Anisah Osman Britton, founder of 23 Code Street, which provides coding courses for women in the UK and India. “We need to change the entire industry culture.”
Cost can also be a prohibitive factor in some cases. 23 Code Street provides prayer and mother’s rooms, and has around 25% Muslim women students, but Osman Britton says the £1,500 the company charges for the course may be too much for some. “We have some sponsored places and we also have a payment plan option in place. This is the best solution we’ve come up with so far,” she says.
Others in the industry would like to see more engagement from the government on the issue. “There is a real skills gap in tech and lots of people are recruited from outside the UK,” says Code Your Future co-founder Kash Karimi. “Yet, the government’s strategy, if you go to any job centre, seems to be to direct people to low-skill jobs.”
Nasreen AbdulJaleel’s tech career has taken her around the world. Photograph: Spencer Davis/Guardian
‘Tech careers give you so much flexibility’: a day in the life of a tech director
Working in tech gives you the chance to work from wherever you are, says Expedia’s senior director of tech, Nasreen Abdul Jaleel
I’ve always loved physics and mathematics – I grew up watching a lot of science documentaries and found them fascinating, and my family were very supportive of my interests. I studied computer science at university, which was where I learnt how to code. I like the speed with which you can achieve something, and I find it creative in the same way I find science creative – it uses what we know about the laws of the world to solve problems. Computers are critical for solving the problems currently facing our world.
My working day starts at 9.30am after I drop my son off at daycare. I oversee two parts of the Expedia platform – one is related to our data analytics, which receives 1.8m messages a minute. The other is to do with delivering fast visual experiences to our customers. For this, we are currently building a platform that will allow customers to go through the Expedia shopping experience in a uniform way, whatever they are buying and whatever device they’re using. There are people working on it all across the globe, from Australia to Seattle. The total number goes into the hundreds, but everyone works in small teams. Many use the “Spotify squad” model of working, which is all about having clear objectives and allowing people to independently solve problems.
We use Slack to communicate, which lets us work effectively across different time zones. You can have a long conversation on there going on for days, and it’s actually richer than talking face-to-face because you can dive in to comments that otherwise might get skipped over.
Right now, I’m overseeing 10 people in San Francisco, Seattle, London and India, who are ensuring the components for check-in and check-out dates work in all languages and date systems. Some work from offices and some from home. Tech careers give you so much flexibility – I once had a developer on my team who lived in a trailer and was travelling around the US. We wouldn’t ever know exactly where he was, but it didn’t matter. These are truly amazing jobs from a quality-of- life perspective.
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Every day we all post what we’re doing today, what we’re going to do tomorrow, and any blockers. This helps us stay connected, and is also very flexible. When a team accomplishes something, they record a mini video so everyone knows what’s happened and can have a global celebration. I oversee small teams of developers, ensuring what they’re doing has a roadmap and that their priorities are in line with the business’s priorities.
We make sure we work normal days, so I’ll finish around six and always take a lunch break. There’s no one clocking me in or out as long as I deliver, and I can work from home whenever I need to. That environment of trust also creates a greater sense of accountability.
My career has taken me around the world. I relocated from Seattle to London, and I recently opened an office for Expedia in Jordan with a 50:50 gender split team. Expedia employees also get the opportunity to volunteer overseas, and we get great deals from the site. The company is focused on achieving equal gender balance, which is something I see as part of my life’s work – I’ve left jobs before because they weren’t interested in this problem.
I see it increases the creativity because there are more voices. People also feel more relaxed and are able to speak more freely about their lives, such as revealing they have caring responsibilities at home.
Download our women in engineering supplement (pdf) | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jan/17/know-your-sht-review-a-cheery-odyssey-into-other-peoples-poo | Television & radio | 2023-01-17T21:00:26.000Z | Rebecca Nicholson | Know Your Sh!t review – a cheery odyssey into other people’s poo | British television is going down the pan. Literally, in the case of Know Your Sh!t (Channel 4), a likable new pop-science odyssey exploring the hot-right-now subject of gut health and what we can all do to improve our gut microbiomes. Don’t be put off by the title, even though it has been softened by a P!nk-style quirk of punctuation. This show makes a point about how needlessly squeamish Britons can be about this subject matter, and what that could mean for people who might otherwise be helped to better health by confronting their poo.
This will not put you off your dinner, they promise, and it’s true that there is no Gillian McKeith-style use of a lollipop stick to prod around in whatever the subject has left in a tub. It’s also true that there is a lot of poo and fart chat, in the required level of detail for a semi-medical programme, so it does rather depend on when you had your dinner, and what it was. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend watching Know Your Sh!t with a tray on your knee.
Identical twins Lisa and Alana MacFarlane host this cheerful combo of Embarrassing Bodies and You Are What You Eat, arriving in a powder-pink VW Beetle, and announcing that they are setting up a clinic for excrement-related issues, called Poo HQ. This is also mostly pink, and I am troubled to find that the colour scheme is almost identical to my living room. At Poo HQ, they meet people with gut health problems and queries, who do interviews from a snazzy bathroom while sitting on the loo, fully clothed, before a team of experts, including the nutritionist Sophie Medlin and gastroenterologist Dr Rabia Topan.
For the most part, it’s genuinely fascinating stuff. Prof Tim Spector, now well-known for his books on eating and nutrition as well as the Zoe health study, explains why gut health is such an exciting field. The science is only just starting to catch up with what scientists have long suspected about how much the health of our gut is connected to the rest of our body and mind. Later in the series, Lisa and Alana will get tested by him to see what they can learn about themselves and their own microbiomes.
Inside Poo HQ. Photograph: Monkey Kingdom
But this first episode is about regular folk trying to work out why they don’t poo very often (model Emerald), why they poo too often (the fabulous 69-year-old Jan), and why milk can mess you up (gym instructor Marcus). While I sometimes wonder if TV shows promising medical attention are a depressing sign of a system that is failing those who need it, it is undeniably cheering to see people addressing problems they have ignored for years. Jan’s story, in particular, is wonderful. After suffering from incontinence and limiting her life in all sorts of ways, she ends the episode able to wear white trousers. Her life story is moving and her get-up-and-go is just lovely. I didn’t expect to find such warmth in a programme about poo, but here we are.
The show is self-aware enough to know that you can’t say things such as: “What brings you to Poo HQ today?” with an entirely straight face, and parts come across like outtakes from an early 00s Radiohead album. “We are more microbe than we are human,” apparently; it sounds like a lyric that would fit right in on side A of Fecal Microbiota Transplantation. Actually, FMT is the curious field of giving one person’s so-called perfect poo – that is, from someone known as a “super-pooper” whose quality gut microbiome is in the top 1% of the population – to someone else, freeze-dried, in a capsule, winningly referred to here as a “crapsule”. Again, it may not put you off your dinner, but I wouldn’t want to watch that part while having chocolate ice-cream.
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There is a lot of terminology to digest here, from “transit time”, which can be measured by eating a dyed muffin and seeing how long it takes for your poo to turn blue, to “optimal toileting position”, which explains why so many people struggle to do what they need to do. I am a sucker for breezy medical telly, which takes a conversational approach and has a personable light touch. Next week, we’re promised a man who used to find his farts funny, but solemnly declares that he doesn’t think they’re funny any more. I can’t wait to see what Poo HQ makes of him. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/02/it-has-been-difficult-classical-musicians-on-their-covid-delivery-jobs | World news | 2021-03-02T06:00:40.000Z | Kevin Rawlinson | It has been difficult': classical musicians on their Covid delivery jobs | The arts have been one of the industries hardest hit by the pandemic, with many livelihoods largely destroyed the moment the prime minister advised people to stay away from venues in mid-March last year. The scale of the problem was underlined when it emerged at the weekend that Richard Harrington, an actor known for roles in Poldark, Hinterland and the Crown, had got a job as a takeaway delivery driver after being left unemployed. He is far from alone. Here, several successful concert musicians describe how they have taken on similar work to make ends meet and take care of their mental health.
Rachel Allen
The classically trained trombonist was preparing to play in a production of West Side Story when the announcement to avoid venues came. “I went from having quite a busy schedule and being quite positive about things to having nothing, with no backup,” Allen said.
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She kept some teaching work, but the amount she was earning was both sufficient to render her ineligible for universal credit and insufficient to actually live on, meaning she had to take shifts with the delivery firm Yodel.
Allen, who comes from a working-class background, stressed that the issue was not the nature of the work she is now doing, saying that she has done similar jobs in the past and respects how hard delivery drivers work. What has upset her, she said, was knowing what she had had to go through to become a musician in the first place, only to see it taken away by something beyond her control.
“I have been trying to marry the idea of someone who studied for X amount of years and gone to a conservatoire to try to hone my skills and do all of the things that were necessary to become a professional … to then have to do something for however long that isn’t totally fulfilling and isn’t what I’ve trained for.”
Catherine Martin
Catherine Martin, a violinist, has been doing delivery shifts at weekends Photograph: Andy Staples
The violinist described the poignant moment when she was sent to deliver Waitrose groceries to an address near London’s Wigmore Hall, a venue she had graced as a professional violinist only months earlier. “You take it for granted what you do. It has been difficult, but I’ve tried to find positives.”
She said she was not aware when she decided to stop working as a professional musician – a career she has had for 25 years – that a grant would be introduced for self-employed people. Even if she was, Martin said, she would not have been able to take the money and do nothing.
“I actually found that, without concerts in my diary, I totally lost my motivation. I got quite depressed and I really realised I needed to do something.” On top of the weekend delivery work, she said, she also took on volunteer work at her local Oxfam shop while it was able to open.
Despite a distinguished career that has taken her all over Europe, she was quite pessimistic about returning to music. “Concerts and festivals are organised years in advance. So, usually at this point in the year, I’d have a pretty firm idea of what I’m doing for the rest of the year, and some things into next year … But these things are not coming in.
“At the moment, I’m not looking at the end of the pandemic and then we’ll all start doing concerts again because the concerts already have all been cancelled.”
Martin said many people have assumed that life will return to normal soon. “But, for us in the arts, it’s a different story.”
Jake Bagby
Jake Bagby, a french horn player, has been delivering for Sainsbury’s
The orchestral musician, who has played French horn with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and London Symphony Orchestra, started delivering groceries for Sainsbury’s in November 2020.
“It’s been interesting, obviously, going into this job as the Christmas peak started to hit,” he said. “Now, this side of Christmas, because of the new lockdown, we’re even busier.”
He said the public had been “really lovely and really thankful” for people who had taken up delivery jobs during the pandemic. “There was a lady I visited last week in her 80s who has cancer and is going through treatment. Her family can’t visit her because it’s not allowed. I was stood at her door, socially distanced, obviously, and chatted away to her for a while.
“That was lovely, and you could tell that meant quite a lot to her just have another human to speak to.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jan/08/avatar-mercedes-benz-car | Film | 2020-01-08T11:47:49.000Z | Stuart Heritage | Part dinosaur, part Mars bar … it's the Avatar-inspired Mercedes-Benz! | Avatar superfans have had it rough this last decade. With the sequels to the 2009 movie delayed time and time again, they’ve had vanishingly few opportunities to demonstrate their devotion to the world of Pandora. Sure, there’s an Avatar-themed park in Florida, featuring a boat ride and a food stand called Pongu Pongu, but otherwise pickings are slim. The Fox Movies online store only has seven items of official Avatar merchandise for sale and one of those – the Avatar napkin set – is sold out.
So thank Eywa for Mercedes-Benz. For reasons you could never hope to understand, Mercedes recently unveiled the Vision AVTR, a concept car that has been directly inspired by the decade-old film. As part of the company’s Ambition 2039 initiative, which aims to make Mercedes “the most loved sustainable modern luxury automotive brand in the market”, the Vision AVTR was designed to show what driving will be like in the distant future.
Which you already know, because we’ll have had 30 years of driverless cars before the sea rises and the land is lost and whatever brittle scraps of humanity remain will be forced to drift around the planet on handmade rafts drinking their own urine like Kevin Costner in Waterworld. But Mercedes has a different idea. Mercedes apparently thinks that we’ll not only remain alive, but we’ll also be desperate to drive cars that look like a Mars Bar you’ve been carrying around in your back pocket all day.
One with nature … Avatar. Photograph: WETA/AP
Maybe I’m doing the car an injustice. Let’s hear what Mercedes’ Steffen Köhl had to say about the car: “There is a universe of shapes and creatures from the film’s universe that provoked us when we thought about the vehicle’s design. The spiral repeating lines from the Na’vi reflect the illumination of the multifunctional control element in the centre console that allows human and machine to merge.”
The centre console of the Vision AVTR seems to be the most important part of the car. Remember how in Avatar the blue people had to plug their hair into animals and each other if they wanted to go anywhere or experience sexual joy? The centre console is the car’s equivalent to that.
But there’s more. Köhl added: “The 33 bionic flaps on the back of the vehicle are reminiscent of scales from the dinosaur-like creatures from the film, and they move and breathe and live.”
But whatever you think of the car – which will almost certainly be “urgh” – you have to admit it’s a canny way to ramp up publicity for next year’s Avatar sequel. After all, Avatar was a film with a strong ecological message about how capitalism’s destruction of the environment caused unknowable physical and spiritual pain to those who lived in it. And Mercedes-Benz makes cars, which are one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gas emissions. That works, right…? No? Well, look, it’s either this or napkins. And the napkins are all sold out. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/careers/2016/feb/15/by-the-book-six-ways-to-break-into-publishing | Guardian Careers | 2016-02-15T07:00:03.000Z | Charlotte Seager | By the book: six ways to break into publishing | Be personal when applying for work experience
If you’re looking to get experience in the industry, start by applying to publishers directly. “I recommend approaching smaller independent publishers too. They tend to receive fewer requests and the work experience process tends to be less informal,” says Harriet Birkinshaw, senior commissioning editor at Nobrow.
Literary agencies are also a great place to learn about the publishing business, adds Claire Palmer, an editor for HarperCollins. “Whatever you do, make sure that you’ve done your homework on the places you’re applying to – for example if you know that non-fiction is your overriding passion, don’t apply to work somewhere that only deals in fiction.”
Richard Arcus, commissioning editor at Quercus Books, agrees that personalisation will help your request stand out. “There will be a number of equally passionate and intelligent people writing to those publishers at the same time, trying to get experience. So the less generic, and more tailored your approach, the more attractive this will be to publishers. For example, if you’re contacting the editor of a book that inspired you or really captured your imagination, then really sing about that in your message and show them that you’re contacting them for a specific reason.”
Is an English literature degree necessary?
The short answer is no, but a degree in any subject will help your applications. “Degrees are often useful – though Penguin Random House have dropped this as a requirement for their entry-level jobs – however degrees in English are not more sought after than any other,” says Edward Milford, development director of the Independent Publishers Guild.
Zara Markland, chair of the Society of Young Publishers, agrees that while a degree can make you a more appealing candidate to publishers, it needn’t be in literature. “Study the subject you want to learn more about, not the one you think you might need. I personally have never found any advantage to having an English degree. Instead, some dedication to publishing and your confidence and determination towards that would definitely put you in good stead.”
Many copywriting and proofreading roles are now freelance
“Publishers use both freelance and in-house copy-editors a lot, so if you’re interested in this work it’s worth checking the job-boards and also being on LinkedIn – publishers often look there,” says Spencer Williams, senior product manager at Pearson.
If you’re starting out as a freelance proofreader, consider joining the Society of Freelance Editors and Proofreaders and look into proofreading training courses that both they and the Publishing Training Centre run, adds Milford.
Be open-minded to other areas of publishing
Editorial is the most sought after area of publishing to work in, but working in other departments can be equally fulfilling. “Always be open-minded to the other areas of publishing,” says Birkinshaw.
Don’t forget that rights, sales, design, marketing, and audio all play huge roles in the publication of books, says Martha Ashby, commercial fiction editor at HarperCollins. “Find an author you love and research their team – who designs their books, who does their PR, who is their agent. And, without sounding creepy, do some online stalking and then politely send some enquiries out to different areas of publishing.”
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Be passionate and persistent
Publishing can be a competitive industry to break into, and “with publishing, persistence often wins”, says Birkinshaw. “If you’ve still not heard anything within a few months, I would recommend reapplying for work experience as often it’s a question of timing. As you are still at university, I recommend becoming involved in anything that might relate to publishing such as the student newspaper. This will always look good on your CV.”
Alice Bartosinski, editor at Egmont Publishing, agrees that persistence is key to getting ahead in publishing. “If you are really passionate about a certain area of the publishing industry, you will get there in the end. If you have the right attitude and a natural aptitude for the area you’re trying to get into, just keep going. Try lots of different routes. So you need persistence, passion and dedication.”
Can publishers also be authors?
“One of the questions I get most when I talk about my job outside publishing circles is: ‘You must be a writer too, then?’ I am definitely not, but it is true that a lot of people do both in the industry,” says Ashby. “It’s hard to weigh up the benefits – you will certainly make some excellent contacts in publishing, but if you’re only getting into publishing to get a book deal you will find it incredibly hard work. This is not a nine-to-five job so you might want to think about how you would balance your writing with work.”
Milford adds that planning to write your own book may not be looked on favourably by potential employers. “Many people think of publishing as being about writing – I prefer to think of it as being about reading. An employer will want to know that you can see things from the readers’ point of view and may see a wish to write as something of a distraction.”
Looking for a job? Browse Guardian Jobs or sign up to Guardian Careers for the latest job vacancies and career advice | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/15/oscars-star-wars-the-force-awakens-scott-feinberg | Film | 2015-12-15T14:50:46.000Z | Ben Child | Hollywood awards expert predicts Oscars success for The Force Awakens | Star Wars: The Force Awakens – initial verdicts suggest 'overwhelming experience'
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Hollywood’s top awards season expert has predicted that Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be garlanded with a best picture Oscar nomination next month, making it the first film in the long-running space saga to achieve the feat since 1977’s Star Wars.
Scott Feinberg of the Hollywood Reporter said JJ Abrams’ movie had been buoyed by a rapturous reception at its world premiere in Los Angeles on Monday night, and after viewing the film for himself described it as turning out “as well as anyone could have hoped”. He also suggested Abrams could be in line for a nomination in the even-more-competitive best director category, which rewards just five nominees to the best picture prize’s ten.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens world premiere kicks off in Los Angeles Guardian
The last Star Wars movie to gain major awards season recognition was 1977’s Star Wars, which won seven Oscars – largely in technical categories and for John Williams’ sweeping score – and was nominated for best picture, best director, best supporting actor (Alec Guinness) and best original screenplay for George Lucas’ script.
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“Admittedly, the first Star Wars and the new one appeal in very different ways,” wrote Feinberg. “The first was special because it was so unlike anything that had preceded it, while the current film is special because it evokes the original. But I think The Force Awakens could resonate with the Academy, too, seeing how much that organisation loves an ambitious, well-made mega-hit (see: Titanic’s best picture win and Avatar’s best picture nom), and keeping in mind that there now can be five to 10 best picture nominees, rather than just five, as was the case in 1977.”
Star Wars sequel The Empire Strikes Back, which many acolytes now consider to be the saga’s best instalment, won only in two technical categories and picked up nominations for best score and art direction at the 1981 Oscars. The final film in the original trilogy, 1983’s Return of the Jedi, got just a single win for special achievement in visual effects, but picked up nominations for score, art direction, sound and effects.
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The much-maligned prequel trilogy picked up just five nominations, all in technical categories. However, all three movies found “success” via the Razzie awards, with wins in the worst supporting actor category for Ahmed Best as bumbling CGI alien Jar Jar Binks, and Hayden Christensen for his portrayal of moody Jedi Anakin Skywalker in both 2002’s Attack of the Clones and 2005’s Revenge of the Sith.
The 2016 Oscars are already looking like something of a banner year for genre movies, which Oscars body the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences usually makes a habit of roundly ignoring. Sci-fi action reboot Mad Max: Fury Road is also tipped to get a best picture nod after early awards season garlands from the National Board of Review, Golden Globes and Critics Choice awards.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens’ chances of Oscars success will come into clearer focus tomorrow morning, when critics publish their first full reviews of Abrams’ movie following press screenings tonight on both sides of the Atlantic. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/nov/03/sunday-with-paula-radcliffe-whats-better-than-a-rose-on-the-beach | Life and style | 2019-11-03T06:45:08.000Z | Michael Segalov | Sunday with Paula Radcliffe: ‘What’s better than a chilled rosé on the beach?’ | Is Sunday a day of rest? Rarely. Sunday is marathon day. As a kid I’d be racing at the track; as a professional it’s the day I’d compete. Now I’m often at events as an ambassador or to commentate – last Sunday in Chicago, I was up at 5am.
What about days off? I stay in bed as along as possible, or until my nine-year-old decides I’ve had enough sleep. Sunday breakfast is pancakes, we make them together, and then I’ll head out for a run. That’s when I have space to think.
How do you relax? We live in Monaco, so on the beach with kayaks in the summer. Antibes is beautiful and not too far away. When it’s colder we might head to the mountains and ski, or I’ll stay at home with my daughter, who loves to bake.
Do you ever have the day to yourself? Never happens, and I’d be lost. I suppose I’d potter in the garden and do jobs around the house, then sprawl on the sofa and open my book. Right now that’s James Patterson’s 19th Christmas. It’s easy reading, and I like the suspense.
The best Sunday lunch? At home with friends. I’m not one for traditional Sunday roasts – my cooking is quick and healthy: salmon, salads and stir fries. The rule is nothing that takes longer than half an hour.
Do you drink? Yes, though that’s not limited to Sundays. There are so many French vineyards on our doorstep – and what’s better than a chilled rosé on the beach?
A special Sunday? Marathons, again. I set both of my world records on Sunday, but I’ll never forget the London race day in 1985. I was waiting to cheer my dad on at the side of the road, aged 11, when Ingrid Kristiansen – in the middle of breaking her world record – came running past. It was inspirational to witness, such a special moment.
Paula Radcliffe is fronting Asda Pharmacy’s campaign to encourage the flu jab | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/25/self-managed-abortions-avoid-bans | World news | 2024-03-25T15:00:08.000Z | Carter Sherman | ‘Tip of the iceberg’: US self-managed abortions soar post-Roe, study shows | In the six months after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, roughly 26,000 more Americans used pills to induce their own at-home abortions than would have done so if Roe had not fallen, according to a new study.
Published on Monday in Jama, one of the leading peer-reviewed medical journals in the United States, the study comes ahead of a key Tuesday hearing at the US supreme court at which the justices will hear oral arguments in a case that could determine the future of a major abortion pill, mifepristone.
Pills are used in 63% of all abortions within the US healthcare system, and the study suggests they are being used by even more people than previously known in order to evade abortion restrictions that now blanket much of the US.
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Analyzing data from abortion pill suppliers who operate outside of the US healthcare system, the study provides a rare window into the growing practice known as “self-managed abortion”. Although definitions of self-managed abortion can vary, the practice generally refers to abortions that take place outside the formal healthcare system, without the aid of a US-based clinician.
The June 2022 decision in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe and unleashed a wave of near-total abortion bans across much of the US south and midwest, led to an explosion of interest in self-managed abortion, the study found.
“Where an abortion ban is in place, it’s very common for large numbers of people to look outside the formal healthcare setting to meet their needs,” said Dr Abigail Aiken, the lead author on the study and an associate professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin. “What was once considered a very sort of marginal practice now seems mainstream.”
The supreme court will consider arguments to roll back recent measures taken by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to dramatically expand access to mifepristone, such as erasing requirements for people to pick up the pill in person. Those changes paved the way for US providers to start offering telehealth abortions within the formal healthcare system, including to people who live in states with abortion bans; a recent analysis found that telehealth abortions now account for 16% of all abortions.
However, regardless of what the court does, its actions will not affect the thriving market for self-managed abortion, because suppliers tend to source their pills from overseas pharmacies based in countries such as India.
“There’s not a way for the government to really police that system very effectively,” said Elisa Wells, another author on the paper and the co-director of Plan C, which runs an online database of organizations that offer abortion pills. “It’s unlikely to have much impact at all, except to maybe drive up the demand for those services.”
Wells also believes that, should the supreme court try to curtail access to mifepristone, the resulting outrage will strengthen abortion pill suppliers. “Every time there’s an egregious court decision, that fuels activists and providers for finding new routes of access to help people access pills in the United States,” she said.
Medical experts widely agree that it is physically safe to self-manage an abortion early on in pregnancy, and the World Health Organization even offers a protocol for doing so. It is also technically legal to end your own pregnancy in almost every state, including in the 16 states that have enacted near-total abortion bans. (Nevada has a law that explicitly criminalizes self-managed abortion later on in pregnancy.) Abortion bans generally target abortion providers, not patients.
However, experts have long warned that, if a prosecutor wants to punish someone for a self-managed abortion, they will find a statute that is elastic enough to use. Even before the fall of Roe, people had faced criminal consequences over alleged self-managed abortions. Between 2000 and 2020, 61 people were criminally investigated or arrested on suspicion of ending their own pregnancies or helping someone else do so, an October 2023 report found.
The study released on Monday examined the provision of pills from three different kinds of providers: community networks, which are groups of volunteers who usually offer pills free of charge; telemedicine organizations that provide pills with the aid of clinicians who are based outside the United States; and online vendors, which are straightforward businesses that simply sell pills.
The study’s authors obtained data directly from most of these sources, although the authors also used statistical modeling to estimate how many pills may be provided from other sources that did not supply data to researchers. Including those estimates, researchers reported that these suppliers provided almost 40,000 pills in the six months following the demise of Roe. Had Roe not fallen, the researchers estimated that they would have provided closer to 10,000 pills.
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In the six months after Roe, suppliers provided almost 6,000 pills for self-managed abortions each month, the study found. That’s a monthly increase of more than 300% compared with before the fall of Roe. More than half of all these pills were provided by community networks.
Using past studies as well as providers’ own estimates of how often their pills were used, researchers also calculated how many more self-managed abortions took place after Roe compared with how many would have taken place had the landmark ruling survived. Ultimately, they estimated that 26,055 more self-managed abortions took place than if Roe had not fallen.
The landscape of self-managed abortion has probably changed dramatically even since the end of the period captured in the study, which ended in December 2022, Aiken and Wells said. More and more vendors have entered the marketplace, driving down the cost of pills. Community networks are seeing increased requests this year, Wells added.
The numbers in the Monday study, she said, “are the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s happening out there”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2023/jan/14/what-connects-apocalyptic-drama-the-last-of-us-to-ted-cruz-and-gores-al-and-vidal | Culture | 2023-01-14T13:00:08.000Z | Larry Ryan | What connects apocalyptic drama The Last of Us to Ted Cruz and Gores Al and Vidal? | It’s the end of the world as we know it
The Last of Us was written for screen by Craig Mazin … Photograph: HBO
We feel fine, it seems, about frequent dystopian dramas depicting our mass demise: your Contagions, your Leftovers, a Station Eleven, The Road. Now comes The Last of Us (Monday on Sky Atlantic/Now), a series set 20 years after modern civilisation has collapsed, adapted from the landmark video game. Neil Druckmann, who developed the game for Naughty Dog, has co-created the show with screenwriter Craig Mazin.
Cruz missiles
… who roomed with Ted Cruz at university, just as Tommy Lee Jones did with Al Gore … Photograph: Dave Allocca/Starpix/Shutterstock
For a while Mazin was particularly devoted to taking Twitter potshots at Republican politician Ted Cruz, the man with the most punchable face in the US, and Mazin’s former Princeton University roommate. Another notable political/pop culture college pairing was Al Gore and Tommy Lee Jones, roommates at Harvard in the 1960s.
Love stories
… in a pairing that inspired Erich Segal’s Love Story, starring Ali MacGraw, whose marriage to Robert Evans … Photograph: Getty Images
Erich Segal, author of the novel and screenplay of the classic tearjerker Love Story, has said that the tortured preppy student played by Ryan O’Neal was partly inspired by Gore and Jones, who he knew from Harvard. Jones had his first minor role in the film, which helped launch its leads, O’Neal and doomed lover Ali MacGraw, to stardom. MacGraw was married briefly around this time to Hollywood producer and ultimate mover-and-shaker Robert Evans.
Their kid stays in the picture
… produced son Josh, whose drama Glam starred Frank Whaley, who was in Pulp Fiction with Burr Steers, who wrote Igby Goes Down … Photograph: WireImage
MacGraw and Evans’s son Josh stayed in the business, as an actor/ writer/director/producer. His 1997 arthouse drama Glam featured his mother alongside Natasha Gregson Wagner (more Hollywood royalty offspring), William McNamara and Frank Whaley. Whaley is well known for his brief appearance in the golden briefcase shootout from Pulp Fiction. Another hapless figure in that scene was Burr Steers (playing Roger AKA “Flock of Seagulls”), who later wrote and directed the enjoyably arch Igby Goes Down, starring a young Kieran Culkin (with a cameo from Steers’ uncle, Gore Vidal).
A touch of Harris
… starring Jared Harris, who was also in Craig Mazin’s Chernobyl. Photograph: Getty Images
Also in Igby Goes Down is Jared Harris. After a long time in the shadow of his illustrious father Richard, he has been on a run of late, taking in Mad Men and themasterly 2019 miniseries Chernobyl, which charted the 1986 nuclear disaster. The show was the brainchild of Craig Mazin, who returns now with The Last of Us, further staring into the apocalyptic abyss. Feeling pretty psyched.
Pairing notes
Listen Since 2011 Craig Mazin and John August have been hosting Scriptnotes, a popular podcast with insights and interviews about screenwriting. Tell don’t show, it seems.
Food In The Last of Us lore, sustenance comes from tinned food and health bars, so let’s go for some Campbell’s soup – which can also take us to Jared Harris, who played the canned-soup-loving pop visionary in the 1996 film I Shot Andy Warhol. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/mar/25/ja-rule-nft-fyre-festival-artwork | Art and design | 2021-03-25T15:31:05.000Z | Tom McCarthy | Ja Rule sells $122,000 Fyre Festival NFT artwork – with real painting thrown in | A digital ledger entry for a piece of art commemorating one of the most notorious acts of fraud in entertainment history has been sold online for six figures – and it comes with an actual painting.
The recording artist Ja Rule, whose name was prominently attached to the ill-fated Fyre Festival in 2017, sold a non-fungible token, or NFT, of a painting of the Fyre Festival logo for $122,000, he announced on Wednesday on Twitter.
Goodnight... pic.twitter.com/2xOXcjJ37L
— Ja Rule (@jarule) March 24, 2021
The sale was the latest in an accelerating market for NFTs, unique electronic identifiers that can be associated with a physical or digital artwork, a concept – or, like the stage lineup at the Fyre Festival, nothing at all.
The purchaser of the Fyre Festival token will receive an original work of art commissioned at the time for the festival that has been hanging in Ja Rule’s New Jersey home. “I just wanted that energy out,” the artist told Forbes.
The work also comes with a note from Ja Rule reading “Fuck this painting.”
But that’s not all Ja Rule is selling. He also is a part-owner of the online exchange, called Flipkick, where his painting was peddled and which is struggling for visibility in a hot emerging market.
“I heard about NFTs [first] maybe like, a couple of weeks ago,” Ja Rule told Forbes. “I wasn’t too educated on them, and I’m still learning a lot about it … I think people got a little bit tired of the regular stocks-and-bonds way of investing.”
Ja Rule cleared of wrongdoing over Fyre festival disaster
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Online NFT exchanges are also competing against traditional auction houses. An NFT by the artist Beeple sold for $69m at a Christie’s auction this month.
The Fyre Festival was marketed as a multi-day party featuring luxury accommodations and musical guests on a pristine Bahamas island. Its multi-tier marketing plan included paid posts by online influencers that made it sound like they were going. Guests paid thousands of dollars for tickets, but when they arrived at the would-be festival site only darkness and none of the promised luxury or entertainment was there.
The festival’s producer, Billy McFarland, was convicted of a $26m fraud in the affair and sentenced to six years in prison. Ja Rule was targeted by a class-action lawsuit but avoided sanction when it was determined that he did not know at the time that what he was selling did not exist as such. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/19/what-a-no-deal-brexit-could-mean-for-the-uk-in-five-charts | Politics | 2019-08-01T09:14:52.000Z | Seán Clarke | What a no-deal Brexit could mean for the UK in five charts | 1. Billions spent on preparation
The Treasury this week announced a further £2.1bn in to get the country ready; it said the money would be used to “accelerate preparations at the border, support business readiness and ensure the supply of critical medicines.”
Labour called the plan “an appalling waste of tax-payers’ cash. This government could have ruled out no deal, and spent these billions on our schools, hospitals, and people.”
In December, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, said he had “become the world’s No 1 buyer of fridges” as part of a plan to stockpile essential medicines.
2. Lorry queues at Dover may back up to Maidstone or beyond
Simulations by Imperial College and planning by Highways England have both forecast immobile freight traffic for tens of miles along the M20 caused by delays at Dover. Kent county council said last year this would lead to gridlocked and rubbish-strewn streets, unburied bodies and children unable to take exams.
3. Economic growth will take a hit of nearly 10%
The government’s own forecasts say that growth over the next 15 years without a deal will be 9.3% lower than it would otherwise have been.
4. Some major industries will be hamstrung
The example of how a crankshaft for a new Mini is made shows how car parts can cross the English Channel multiple times during the manufacturing process. Tariffs on these partial exports and imports, and delays to “just-in-time” production processes would make British factories much less appealing to carmakers.
5. UK exporters face annual tariff costs of more than £6bn
Guardian analysis showed that under WTO rules, British exports to the EU would be hit by tariffs of £6bn (roughly two-thirds of Britain’s net contributions). Imports were also likely to be affected, increasing the cost of living in the UK; and that is without taking into account recent falls in the value of the pound sterling. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/nov/01/tall-storey-north-korea-hotel-doom | World news | 2012-11-01T14:51:37.000Z | Justin McCurry | Tall storey? North Korea's infamous 'Hotel of Doom' to open shortly, maybe | It has taken decades to build, and when it finally opens next year, it will be one of the tallest hotels in the world.
But this towering pyramid-shaped structure is not in New York, Hong Kong or Dubai. Instead, it is in Pyongyang, capital of one of the most impoverished countries in the world.
The 105-storey structure has been blighted by construction delays, ridiculed by the west as ostentatious, and proved an embarrassment to the North Korean regime.
Having dominated the Pyongyang skyline for more than 20 years, the Ryugyong hotel – literally "capital of willows" – could soon be taking reservations, according to its operator.
The hotel will "partially, probably" open for business in July or August next year, Reto Wittwer, chief executive of the German international hotel operator Kempinski AG, told a forum in Seoul on Thursday.
Little is known about what will greet the first group of paying guests after they cross the threshold, however. A Chinese tour agency that was granted a peek at the interior in September released photographs of a still bare concrete lobby.
That the exterior was ever completed is an achievement in itself. Construction began in 1987 but was halted in 1992 when the North Korean regime suffered an economic crisis following the fall of the Soviet Union, leaving the structure without windows, fixtures or fittings. Building work did not resume until 2008.
Orascom Telecom, an Egyptian company which also launched a mobile phone network in North Korea in 2008, has reportedly spent $180m (£110m) on finishing the hotel's facade.
The 330-metre-tall building boasts ballrooms, offices, shops and restaurants, but it could be some time before it shakes off its ignominious history.
Reports that parts of the structure had been built with poor-quality concrete and that its lift shafts had initially not been aligned earned it such descriptions as the "Hotel of Doom" and the "worst building in the history of mankind".
The North Korean regime is hoping the hotel will boost tourism and bring in desperately needed foreign currency, as it reels from international sanctions imposed after its rocket and nuclear tests.
Wittwer, whose Kempinski firm will be the first western hospitality business permitted to operate in the country, shared the authorities' enthusiasm, describing the Ryugyong as a potential "money-printing machine if North Korea opens up". | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/feb/07/barbra-streisand-to-publish-her-first-memoir | Books | 2023-02-07T16:11:50.000Z | Lucy Knight | Barbra Streisand to publish her first memoir | Barbra Streisand will publish her first memoir later this year, her publisher has announced.
My Name is Barbra will cover the life and six-decade-long career of the 80-year-old star. Though there have been several books about her life, this will be the first time Streisand has published her own account.
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My Name is Barbra, Streisand’s own account of her life and career. Photograph: Penguin Random House
Streisand has found success as a singer, an actor, a director and a producer, and has two Oscars, five Emmys, 10 Grammys, 11 Golden Globes and a Tony award. The first film she produced herself, Yentl, made her the first woman to direct, produce, write, and star in a major motion picture, and the first woman to win a Golden Globe award for best director. She was also the first female composer to receive an Academy Award for best original song – Evergreen (Love Theme from A Star Is Born). Streisand has also been a passionate philanthropist throughout her life, creating the Streisand Foundation in 1986 to support women’s rights, voting rights, and environmental protection, among other causes.
Ben Brusey, publishing director at Century, the imprint of Penguin Random House UK that is publishing My Name is Barbra, called Streisand “the ultimate artist and icon”. Her book is “one of the greatest tales of the creative life ever told,” he added. “Streisand’s memoir reveals a voice on the page that is every bit as heartfelt, entertaining and spectacular as her greatest performances.”
My Name is Barbra will be published on 7 November 2023 in hardback, ebook and audiobook. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/dec/02/minister-asks-watchdog-to-examine-conduct-of-arcadia-group-bosses | Business | 2020-12-02T17:18:04.000Z | Sarah Butler | Green family to pay £50m into Arcadia pension scheme within 10 days | Sir Philip Green’s family is to pay a promised £50m into their fashion empire’s pension scheme within the next 10 days – almost a year earlier than scheduled – as the business secretary, Alok Sharma, called on the insolvency watchdog to investigate the handling of the failed group.
Sharma has asked the insolvency watchdog to examine whether the conduct of directors at Green’s Arcadia Group, which owns a string of high-street brands including Topshop, Dorothy Perkins and Burton, led to problems for the group’s pension fund.
Arcadia fell into administration on Monday, leaving a pension deficit estimated to be as much as £350m.
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Last year, Green’s wife, Tina, who lives in Monaco and is the ultimate owner of Arcadia, pledged to pay an extra £100m into the group’s pension scheme over three years and signed over rights to property worth £210m. The pension scheme also has a claim over a debt owed by Topshop to the main Arcadia Group.
Tina Green has so far paid £50m of the promised extra funding. On Wednesday, Arcadia said she would pay the outstanding amount within the next week to 10 days. The final instalment was not due until September 2021.
Despite the additional cash, there are concerns that the pension scheme’s funding will fall short because the pledged property assets are likely to have fallen in value. The Greens are under pressure to deal with Arcadia’s pension deficit as the group is the second major retailer linked to the family to collapse with a scheme in the red.
The department store BHS went into administration in 2016 with a £571m pension deficit only a year after Green sold it for £1 to Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt. Green eventually paid £353m to support the BHS scheme after pressure from the Pensions Regulator.
The Arcadia deficit is also controversial, as the Green family benefited from a £1.2bn dividend from the company in 2005, as well as more than £300m in interest payments on loans and rents on properties that the family owned.
Sharma called on the Insolvency Service to take a “rigorous” look at the actions of directors at Arcadia. Within three months of being appointed, administrators must provide the regulator with a report on directors’ behaviour. The agency will then consider whether there are grounds for further investigation.
In a letter to Dean Beale, chief executive of the Insolvency Service, Sharma said: “Given the significance of this case and its implications for thousands of suppliers, pensioners and employees, I would be grateful if you would review this report rigorously.
“If you decide that there are grounds for an investigation, I would ask that it looks not only at the conduct of directors immediately prior to and at insolvency, but also whether any action by directors has caused detriment to creditors or to the pension schemes.”
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Boris Johnson highlighted Sharma’s action in parliament, adding: “We will be doing everything we can to restore the high streets of this country.”
Arcadia’s pension fund is being assessed for entry to the Pension Protection Fund, the industry-backed lifeboat that pays pensioners of collapsed companies. Under the scheme, members who have not reached normal retirement age before the date their employer goes into administration could lose 10% of their benefits, even if they have already started taking the pension. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/07/kelloggs-workers-strike-offshore-jobs | Business | 2021-10-07T06:00:45.000Z | Michael Sainato | ‘Death of 1,000 cuts’: Kellogg’s workers on why they’re striking | About 1,400 Kellogg’s workers at four US plants have gone on strike after their current union contracts expired and amid accusations that the cereal giant is offshoring jobs.
The workers, represented by the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union (BCTGM), produce cereals for brands, including Rice Krispies, Fruit Loops, Frosted Flakes and Raisin Bran, at plants in Michigan, Tennessee, Nebraska and Pennsylvania.
Trevor Bidelman, president of BCTGM Local3G and a fourth-generation employee at the Kellogg’s plant in Battle Creek, Michigan, explained workers are on strike against a proposed two-tier system for current and new employees proposed by Kellogg’s. Bidelman said Kellogg’s wants to not offer pensions to new employees, remove cost of living provisions, and make changes in holiday pay and vacations.
“We’re fighting for our future,” said Bidelman. “We made it very clear from the onset of negotiations that this was not something we’ll be able to accept.”
Shortly before the strike, Kellogg’s announced plans to cut 212 jobs at the Battle Creek, Michigan, plant over the next two years, including 174 positions represented by the union. The plant currently employs about 390 workers. Kellogg’s cited plans to streamline efforts and relocate cereal production to other facilities in North America as reasons for the job cuts.
“This is after just one year ago, we were hailed as heroes, as we worked through the pandemic, seven days a week, 16 hours a day. Now apparently, we are no longer heroes. Very quickly you can go from hero to zero,” added Bidelman. “We don’t have weekends, really. We just work seven days a week, sometimes 100 to 130 days in a row. For 28 days the machines run then rest three days for cleaning. They don’t even treat us as well as they do their machinery.”
The union took issue with Kellogg’s threatening to outsource jobs from the US to Mexico if workers refuse to accept their proposals.
“The company continues to threaten to send additional jobs to Mexico if workers do not accept outrageous proposals that take away protections that workers have had for decades,” said the BCTGM president, Anthony Shelton, in a statement announcing the strikes.
In 2018, 187 workers were laid off at the Battle Creek plant, with work being shifted to Canada and other US plants. About two years earlier, over 30 workers were laid off from the plant, with work outsourced to India, according to approved Trade Adjustment Assistance petitions.
“It’s like a death of 1,000 cuts. They’re slowly eliminating jobs out of the Lancaster plant,” said Kerry Williams, who works in processing maintenance at the Lancaster, Pennsylvania, facility. “We had to work through this Covid for the last two years and they’ve just shown disrespect for the union name. They even want to remove our union logo from the cardboard cereal box.”
From October 2013 to November 2014, Kellogg’s locked out about 220 workers from their Memphis, Tennessee, plant while trying to reclassify some workers as “casual” workers to reduce wages and benefits.
The National Labor Relations Board ultimately ruled the lockout was illegal and ordered the locked-out employees to be reinstated with compensation for the wages and benefits they lost as a result of the lockout, but in 2016 a federal appeals court overturned that ruling.
Food production workers represented by BCTGM also went on strike at Frito Lay and Nabisco earlier this year, winning new union contracts a few weeks after walking off the job.
Kellogg’s reported a profit of $1.25bn in 2020. Cereal sales grew more than 8% in 2020 due to increased demand during the pandemic. The company approved a stock buyback program in February 2020 through December 2022 of $1.5bn. The CEO of Kellogg’s, Steven Cahillane, received around $11.6m in total compensation in 2020.
Kellogg’s has noted contingency plans are in place to bring in replacement workers, internally and through third parties, to avoid production disruptions.
A spokesperson for Kellogg’s said in a statement: “We are disappointed by the union’s decision to strike. Kellogg provides compensation and benefits for our US RTEC employees that are among the industry’s best. Our offer includes increases to pay and benefits for our employees, while helping us meet the challenges of the changing cereal business.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/oct/20/queensland-christian-soldiers-back-doctor-who-railed-against-abortion-and-gay-marriage-for-lnp-seat | Australia news | 2020-10-20T08:07:34.000Z | Ben Smee | Queensland 'Christian soldiers' back doctor who railed against abortion and gay marriage for LNP seat | A doctor who called homosexuality a “disordered form of behaviour” and who campaigned against legal abortion, transgender rights and gay marriage has emerged as the frontrunner for Liberal National party preselection in the safe federal seat of Groom.
Guardian Australia understands the LNP’s increasingly influential “Christian soldiers” faction has thrown its support behind David van Gend’s nomination.
LNP sources said it appeared van Gend had the numbers to win Sunday’s vote of party members in Toowoomba, which is considered a stronghold of the party’s religious right. The byelection in Groom, set for 28 November, was caused by the sudden resignation last month of the sitting member, John McVeigh.
Senior LNP officials are understood to be alarmed at the prospect of the party publicly endorsing such a controversial figure six days before the Queensland election – particularly given the “unwelcome” focus of the state campaign on conscience issues.
Guardian Australia revealed on Saturday that a conservative state frontbencher, Christian Rowan, gave an “iron clad guarantee” the party would wind back 2018 laws that decriminalised abortion.
Queensland election: LNP tries to keep anti-abortion push out of sight
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Labor has recently promised to bring voluntary assisted dying legislation to the parliament.
The opposition leader, Deb Frecklington, has been reluctant to talk about either issue, both of which are opposed by the LNP membership but overwhelmingly supported by the Queensland public.
The LNP has said publicly it needs to win progressive inner-city seats to take government in Queensland, and it is understood party officials are seriously concerned the final week of the state campaign could be dominated by accusations the party has fallen captive to zealots.
Van Gend, a practising GP who wrote a book about gay marriage called Stealing from a Child, campaigned against Queensland’s 2018 abortion laws.
In a recent article in the Spectator, van Gend attacked the Black Lives Matter movement, describing it as a “demoralising slander of our culture”, and disputed scientific evidence on global heating.
In his most recent piece, van Gend suggested transgender people suffer from “varieties of psychological disturbance”.
LNP members have told the Guardian the preselection vote also looms as a test of the authority of its new president, Cynthia Hardy, who is based in Groom.
Some party officials are understood to be backing an outsider, Bryce Camm. Sources say the former Groom MP and Queensland Resources Council chief executive, Ian Macfarlane, has thrown his support behind Toowoomba councillor Rebecca Vonhoff.
Van Gend did not return calls. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/dance-blog/2016/aug/19/edinburgh-dance-roundup-blushed-sole-rebel-tap-riverdance-linger | Stage | 2016-08-19T15:46:47.000Z | Judith Mackrell | Tapdancing fairytales and Riverdance subverted: Edinburgh dance roundup | On the shouty, competitive platform of the Edinburgh fringe, shows have to be able to sell themselves on two lines of clever copy and a winning idea. Before the reviews and the word of mouth spreads, it’s the sales pitch that counts. On paper, Blushed has one of the best – describing itself as a tap-dancing double act in which two woman wisecrack their way through an alternative world of adult fairytales.
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Blushed is the creation of Hannah Ballard and Lexi Bradburn, members of the all-female company, Sole Rebel Tap. Their inspiration is The Red Shoes, Han Christian Andersen’s fable about a young woman who is forced to dance herself to death for taking too giddy a pleasure in her new shoes. And as Ballard and Bradburn talk, tap and mime their own satiric interpretation of Andersen, they find rich seams of comedy and rudeness. There are transgressive riffs on what it would mean to really lust after shoes, the two dancers fondling, kissing, even licking their own pairs of scarlet tap shoes with lingering appreciation; they change tack into a righteous complaint about Andersen’s brutally punitive attitude towards women who are just a little bit better, more ambitious, than they ought to be.
Ballard and Bradburn are also funny and smart about other fairytale heroines and other fairytale shoes. They imagine Cinderella losing her glass slipper on a walk of shame home from the Royal Palace, having spent the night with Prince Charming and discovered he was an over-entitled Klutz with little sexual finesse. They imagine the awful disappointment of the Little Mermaid, who, having endured agonising self-mutilation for the sake of having human legs and feet (and shoes), finds that women have far less fun than mermaids.
Blushed is essentially a tap show, despite the storytelling, and its choreography is deftly folded into the verbal comedy; the women’s footwork sometimes forming a brisk, percussive counterpoint to the words, sometimes developing into extended routines ( a competitive double act for Cinderella’s ugly sisters, a hapless love duet for the Little Mermaid and her prince). A rocking soundtrack – including covers of I’ve Put a Spell on You and Little Red Corvette – ramps the energy up to reliably enjoyable levels.
While Blushed has the seed of an original and sparky idea, it needs more crafting. The script and especially the jokes require a much sharper pen – Ballard and Bradburn rely too much on ironic winking chumminess to force their laughs. A better writer would also have teased out more of the connecting themes between stories: the recurring images of shoes, wayward women and the wicked colour of red.
Childhood as EU metaphor
While Blushed could be wonderfully improved with a little more work and thought, the problem with And Now… ‚ by the Scottish dance theatre company Plan B, is that the ideas far outweigh the wit.
This is a piece about growing up, and it’s focused on four “children” ( performed by young adults) whose innocent nursery games reveal the strategies and ambitions by which they mature. The stage is lively, with a scattering of mismatched furniture against which the characters measure themselves; feeling large and powerful as they play with a dolls’ house rocking chair, dwarfed into scared insignificance by a 10ft dining chair. A lone musician – saxophonist Steve Kettley – roams between the four characters, playing live accompaniment to their dancing.
Yet as the dancers’ games of balance and tag evolve into extended dance ensembles, as each one takes the microphone to talk about how they imagine themselves as adults, none of these characters come into individual focus. The choreography is very generic, a flow of spinning, ducking, rolling moves that vary little from character to character. And the spoken monologues are bland: the girl who wants to marry a prince and the boy who wants to be rich seem merely to illustrate the point that the things we might want for ourselves when we are small might not turn out to be wise.
But during this (very) long 60-minute piece, it becomes obvious that the point of the material isn’t really to engage us with stories and quirks of its four children. Reading the programme note, it’s clear that director Frank McConnell has conceived the work primarily as a vehicle for airing issues around national identity and ambition that have been generated during the last two years of debate over Scottish independence and the EU. These questions have dominated the fringe this year, but they don’t bring any real wit or power to And Now… The metaphorical relationship between maturing children and maturing nations is too forced and theoretical. It gives too much of the material on stage the dutifully plodding air of a lesson plan.
Male desire … Lïnger. Photograph: Maria Falconer
Pushing Irish dance
There are a lot of ideas feeding into Lïnger, a duet choreographed by the former Riverdance principal Breandán de Gallaí and performed with Nick O’Connell, a dancer 16 years his junior. According to De Gallaí’s programme note, the work is a meditation on ageing, masculinity and the nature of male desire, and it comes fascinatingly couched within the paradoxical language of Irish dance – a form so tightly and brightly articulate in its percussive footwork, but ramrod-stiff in its upper body and arms.
At first, Lïnger plays with subverting the conventions of the form, as the two men, barefoot and dressed only in plain black trunks, swing their bodies freely as they dance and hunker down low on their feet. We’re acutely conscious of the difference in their bodies when they move in unison together, O’Connell lean and light, De Gallaí thickening around the waist. We’re conscious, too, of the crosscurrents of competitiveness and mutual attraction that flicker between them. As the men progress into wearing traditional waistcoats and shoes, their movements conform more closely to the familiar lines of Irish dance. The work climaxes with a startlingly virtuoso duet in which the form’s lilting jumps and tightknit footwork are concentrated into the tense, erotic embrace of tango – a dance that famously fuses ceremony with desire.
There are elements in Lïnger that appear naive: the expressive language of the two men veers from poker-faced rigidity to fierce yearning without much nuance in between. The format of the duet is sometimes muddled; the sequences of projected film, the artist who sketches the dancers as they move, do not earn their stage time. But De Gallaí is pushing and playing with his inherited language in ways I’ve never seen before in Irish dance, and in the process exposing aspects of himself and his dance career with a seriousness that feels both tender and brave.
The narcissist and the sceptic
If De Gallaí and O’Connell are battling with the long tradition of masculine repression in Irish dance, Rhiannon Faith and Maddy Morgan reveal every last emotional detail in their funny, foul-mouthed, inventive and sometimes profoundly annoying duet, Scary Shit.
Raucous hijinks … Scary Shit. Photograph: Tina Remiz
The work – which is part dance, part confessional, part surreal playtime – is based on the therapy sessions the two women have undergone in order to get over their deepest fears. Stuff about boyfriends, babies and body phobias all spills out: Faith, in silver Lurex and pink fun fur is a both diminutive disco diva and needy narcissist, deeply in thrall to the whole confessional process; Morgan in black, is far more sceptical, satirical and reserved.
Some of the material on which they touch feels disturbingly intimate: Faith’s panic storms, Morgan’s intimation that she may be unable to have children. In some of the material, the women deflect their pain into jiving dance routines, crude sexual jokes, or self-parodying routines in which Faith’s “emotional sharing” escalate into arias of melodramatic hysteria.
The quality varies wildly, however. There is lively wit in the mad, pink props that clutter the stage and in the neatly crafted dancing ( I like the solo where the secretive Morgan literally ties herself up in knots). But the cock and fanny jokes are more shrilly attention-seeking than bawdy. The piece reaches into its most interesting territory during the sections where Morgan remains most rigidly non-communicative, refusing to act out her fears on stage, or to share them with Faith.
Faith’s own subsequent embarrassment at hogging the therapeutic limelight is proportionately revealing. And while this is all scripted theatre, the uneasy, dysfunctional dynamic that develops on stage between the exhibitionist Faith and the introvert Morgan seems to breach the wall of performance into something real. Compared to the raucous hijinks and provocative confessions, this is the shit that feels most genuinely scary. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/sep/22/the-guardian-view-on-the-murdoch-handover-lachlan-inherits-a-dark-legacy | Opinion | 2023-09-22T17:40:41.000Z | Editorial | The Guardian view on the Murdoch handover: Lachlan inherits a dark legacy | Editorial | There are not many chairmanships of companies that would so fascinate writers, and television producers, that they would make four series about them. Rupert Murdoch’s long tenure at Fox and News Corp was one. For viewers of Succession, this week’s announcement that Mr Murdoch is handing control to his eldest son, Lachlan, is a real-life coda to a dynastic struggle in which they are already immersed – in fictionalised form. Lachlan’s reputation, as the most rightwing of the three siblings seen as plausible successors, is deeply dismaying, given the power he will now wield and the context in which he will wield it – above all in the United States, where Donald Trump aims to run for president next year.
The elder Murdoch’s internet ventures were not on the whole successful, and in our digital age his status has been partly eclipsed. Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, the Chinese owners of TikTok, and the boards of Google and Apple, have joined him at the top table of global media influencers. But through news and entertainment businesses including the Fox News Channel, the Wall Street Journal, the Australian, Times and Sun newspapers, and book publishing and film businesses, the 92-year-old billionaire has exerted a huge influence on politics and culture in the US, UK and Australia over many decades.
In each country, he was strongly aligned with the free-market reaction against social democracy. In the UK his newspapers swung forcefully behind Margaret Thatcher, and actively promoted an agenda combining fierce anti-leftism with support for the US, war in the Falklands, and law and order. But the tabloid culture pioneered at the Sun and the News of the World was hypocritical. These conservative newspapers built their sales on prurient and cruel intrusions into people’s lives. In 2011, the Guardian revealed the hacking of phones by reporters at the News of the World – an investigation that culminated in the jailing of its former editor, Andy Coulson.
Mr Murdoch had his most malign effects in the US. The displacement by the intensely ideological Fox News of other news sources, with their traditional aspirations to balance and objectivity, was one means by which Donald Trump gained control of the Republican party and the White House. As his retirement letter makes clear, the billionaire thinks of himself as a man of the people and enemy of elites. The less flattering truth is that the conspiratorial mindset fostered by Fox News, in cahoots with Mr Trump, created the conditions for the 6 January attack and undermined American democracy.
Mr Murdoch is widely known to have lost patience with the former US president. Now Lachlan Murdoch is likely to have more sway over next year’s election. His views on the environment will also be crucial. Under his father, the businesses did huge harm by promoting climate denial – and delaying action. This is a dark legacy.
There are bright spots: books, films, technological innovation, investment in some fine journalism at outlets from Sky News to the Sunday Times. Mr Murdoch’s passion for news in not in doubt. But his commitment to growth at any cost, his instinct to side with populists over democrats, and the record of his news outlets in promoting climate science denial, have become increasingly dangerous elements in combustible times. Lachlan Murdoch is being handed an immense responsibility. There is every reason to be alarmed. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/jul/18/us-citizens-drone-strike-deaths | World news | 2012-07-18T19:09:00.000Z | Karen McVeigh | Families of US citizens killed in drone strike file wrongful death lawsuit | The killing of three US citizens, one a 16-year-old boy, in targeted drone strikes last year were unlawful and violated their constitutional rights by not affording them due process, according to a lawsuit filed by their relatives on Wednesday.
Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who was placed on a CIA "kill list" last year, died in a targeted strike in Yemen on 30 September that also killed Samir Khan, an alleged propagandist for al-Qaida, in the Arabian Pensinsula. Al-Awlaki's teenage son, Abdulrahman, was killed in a separate strike 200 miles away in which six others died two weeks later.
The lawsuit accuses Leon Panetta, the secretary of defence, David Petraeus, the director of the CIA, and two military commanders of authorising and directing unlawful killings. President Barack Obama is not named in the lawsuit: presidents are immune from civil suits arising from their official actions.
The complaint alleges that the deaths are part of a broader programme of deliberate and premeditated killings by the United States, which rely on "vague legal standards, a closed executive process and evidence never presented to the courts".
The lawsuit has been filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Nasser al-Awlaki, the father of Anwar and grandfather of Abdulrahman, and Sarah Khan, the mother of Khan. It aims to force the Obama administration to disclose information about secret decisions behind the killing.
Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the ACLU, said: "It is about accountability. We don't want to minimise the seriousness of the allegations [against Al-Awlaki]. The question here is not whether people are guilty of crimes but whether the government is justified in killing them."
Jaffer said the government had adopted a "dangerous position" over the targeting killing programme by saying that not only do they not have to explain but do not have to acknowledge the killings.
The lawsuit argues that all three killings were unlawful because, outside of military conflict, the constitution and international law prohibit killing without due process, "except as a last resort to avert a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury".
Anonymous US government officials were quoted in news reports saying that neither Khan nor Abdulrahman were targets of the strikes that killed them.
The complaint said that if the US government were targeting others, then they failed in their obligations under constitutional and international law to protect Khan, Abdulrahman and "other bystanders".
Pardiss Kebriaei of the CCR said: "The government was quick to claim responsibility for the killing of Anwar al-Awlaki but it said nothing of the strike on the 14 October."
She said there was something "terribly wrong that a 16-year-old boy can be killed by his own government without any explanation".
In a video statement, posted on the ACLU website, Nasser al-Awlaki, said: "I want Americans to know about my grandson. He was a very nice boy he was very caring boy. I never thought that one day this boy, this nice boy, will be killed by his own government for no wrong he did certainly."
It is unclear who the US targeted in the second strike, which was 200 miles away from the strike which killed al-Awlaki. The teenager, who was born in Denver, was killed when he was eating dinner at an outdoor restaurant with his teenage cousin.
Two years ago, ACLU and CCR were unsuccessful in their attempts to involve the courts in an action by Nasser al-Awlaki to try to stop the government from killing his son. A federal judge threw out the case on the basis that Nasser al-Awlaki had no standing to file the lawsuit on behalf of his son. He also said decisions about targeted killings were a "political question" for executive branch officials and not for the courts.
US officials have defended the drone campaign in recent speeches, but the Obama administration has generally refused to openly discuss the criteria for operations.
US government officials, including Eric Holder, the attorney general, have defended targeting suspected terrorists without a trial, even if they are US citizens.
In a speech in March, Holder said: "Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qaida or associated forces.
"This is simply not accurate. 'Due process' and 'judicial process' are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process."
There have been reports that Anwar al-Awlaki was involved in the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009 and other terrorist plots, but he was never indicted or tried. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2024/feb/03/sexism-bias-top-female-pianists-classical-music | Music | 2024-02-03T15:00:20.000Z | Dalya Alberge | ‘We’re going to blame the women, not our sexism’: bias holding back top female pianists | A discordant chord over sexism in the classical music world has sounded again. The head of one of the most prestigious competitions is calling for the industry to confront an apparent bias that is holding back female pianists from pursuing concert careers, however brilliant their talent.
Fiona Sinclair, chief executive of the Leeds International Piano Competition, told the Observer that female pianists are failing to reach the top of their profession despite an equal number of men and women now training at conservatoires.
She said: “Fewer than 23% of career pianists are women, yet in the conservatoires it’s roughly 50:50. As they leave college, the men soar while the women are not getting opportunities. The more we get into actual statistics, it’s clear that something’s broken. The problem persists at the top piano level – festivals, recordings, venues – with men generally dominating everything.”
I’ve heard it said that women are not as good at music as men, they don’t practise, they can’t play big heavyweight concertos
Vick Bain, former Independent Society of Musicians president
The 2024 Leeds competition has introduced new measures, including “blind” pre-selection rounds to disguise genders and “unconscious bias training” for the jurors, who will not have a musician’s name, nationality, age or conservatoire until an advanced round.
Sinclair said they needed to take action as “only 18% of the most recent top 40 international piano competitions have been won by women”.
Recent research found that only 20% of piano recitals or concertos in the UK are given by women, and only 19% of solo or concerto recordings are made by women. Of 20 piano soloists who performed in last year’s BBC Proms, only two were women, Isata Kanneh-Mason and Yuja Wang.
The Leeds competition, which has been held every three years since 1963, has helped launch the careers of some of the world’s foremost pianists, including Radu Lupu and Murray Perahia.
But only two women have won it, Sofya Gulyak and Anna Tsybuleva. Ironically, the competition was founded by three female pianists: Fanny Waterman, Rosalyn Lyons and Marion Thorpe.
Pianist Sofya Gulyak – one of only two women to have won the Leeds International Piano Competition, ironically founded by three women in 1963.
A 2022 survey found that sexual harassment in the classical music industry was rife, with “unsafe workplaces where perpetrators face no repercussions” and where “a number of allegations of sexual assault … would be a criminal matter”.
Anna Tsybuleva, the second woman ever to win the Leeds piano competition. Photograph: Daria Sozal
Commissioned by the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM), it concluded that fear of reprisals stopped victims from making a complaint. One musician confided: “I was told, as a female musician, that I would only advance my career if I was prepared to give sexual favours.”
Vick Bain, the ISM’s former president and co-author of the report, said yesterday that her ongoing PhD research reflects that sexism and misogyny are holding back women’s musical careers.
She spoke of “either overt or unconscious bias”: “I’ve heard it said that women are not as good at music as men, not as good instrumentalists, not as obsessed and therefore they don’t practise, that women can’t play the big heavyweight concertos of Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky because they’re frail little things and can’t produce enough sound. That’s just not true. It’s always: ‘We’re going to blame the women, not our sexism.’”
Concert pianist Joanna MacGregor, who has performed at the BBC Proms, said: “Of course sexism exists in the classical music world – but it just reflects the wider world. Women in classical music have to work tremendously hard and can be judged more harshly on what they do. People comment on what they wear and what they look like, but that’s not special to classical music. It’s a complex and thorny subject that goes beyond competitions.”
Why the male domination of classical music might be coming to an end
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Pianist Alexandra Dariescu feels so strongly about sexism and misogyny in the classical music world that she is supporting a major new award for an outstanding performance of music by a female composer being introduced at this year’s Leeds competition: “Headline artists in our industry – conductors, soloists and composers – are showing a huge misrepresentation of women. Our industry is doing a lot to bring change, but it’s really not quick enough.”
David Pickard, director of the BBC Proms, said: “The classical music industry has work to do on diversity – and we’re certainly not there yet. But it’s something we’re deeply committed to. Last year, for the first time ever, the First and Last Nights were conducted by women. Our 2024 season, to be announced in April, will further demonstrate the degree to which we are championing female performers and composers.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/oct/22/women-highereducation-sheila-rowbotham-feminism | Life and style | 2008-10-21T23:01:00.000Z | Melissa Benn | Melissa Benn: Sheila Rowbotham is a most unshowy feminist icon | When Sheila Rowbotham was refused her request to stay on as a professor of gender and labour history at Manchester University earlier this year, she wasn't expecting an outcry. The university's decision could have been seen as a little mean-spirited - after all, it came not long after their employment of Martin Amis on a part-time salary of £80,000 - but Rowbotham was reaching the retirement age of 65, and it is hardly unusual to enforce a contract.
So Rowbotham was astonished when the Save Sheila campaign started spreading. Colleagues across the country wrote to the university demanding that she be kept on. Emails poured in from academics in Ireland, Spain, Italy, France, Finland, Israel, Holland, India and the US. Rowbotham's students set up a Save Sheila site on Facebook. As one colleague put it, "she is our very own icon".
Rowbotham says that the response left her "overwhelmed. I don't think I have good stamina for battling with institutions. But I was really moved by it all, particularly the backing of the students. I was interviewed on local television with some of them, and, while I looked rather ghostly, they were wonderfully fresh and alive!"
Now, with a new professorial title and funding, Rowbotham is back at Manchester, and, with hindsight, the battle to save her seems unsurprising. Rowbotham is one of Britain's most important, if unshowy, feminist thinkers, and a key figure of the second-wave. She was among the organisers of that landmark event, the first National Women's Liberation Conference, in 1970, which led to the announcement of the four still hugely relevant demands of the movement: equal pay; equal education and opportunity; 24-hour nurseries; free contraception and abortion on demand. Rowbotham says she imagined this as the start of "an entirely new kind of politics - no leaders, no ego trips, no more sectarian disputes. We were going to be concerned with working-class women's lives - not just the privileged - and it was going to be about bread and roses." The reality was "in some ways much more than we imagined, and, in some ways, very much less."
Rowbotham was born in 1943 to proud lower-middle-class Yorkshire parents, and she rebelled against her strict Anglican father at an early age, turning first to Methodism, and then to Marxism. Having won a place to study history at St Hilda's College, Oxford, she came into contact with some of the great leftwing minds of the time, including Eric Hobsbawm, E P Thompson and the economist Bob Rowthorn, with whom she had an intense love affair. In her early 20s, she spent a beatnik year in Paris, observing street politics, and narrowly escaping a brutal rape.
But it was after plunging into radical politics in the 1960s that she began to consciously experience "inward rustlings of resistance". Recalling one of her first feminist articles, Rowbotham observes in her 2000 memoir, Promise of a Dream, "I knew I must not write from received authorities but from my own observations and feelings. As the words splattered out on to the pages, it felt as if I had reached a clearing." Sexuality, trade unionism, birth control, wages, love: she brought these disparate concerns together in both her activism and writing. She still does.
According to her friend and fellow academic, Lynne Segal, "Sheila's early writing paved the way for feminist thought and scholarship in Britain". In the early 1970s Rowbotham published three key books - Hidden from History; Women, Resistance and Revolution; and Woman's Consciousness, Man's World. In 1983, Simone de Beauvoir hailed her as one of the most interesting theorists then writing.
But as feminism enlarged and divided, Rowbotham became uncomfortable. "I wasn't good at being an individual star," she says. "I just didn't enjoy it. It was a strain living up to others' ideas of what I should be like." And then there was what one male friend called her "enormous heterosexual enthusiasm", which alienated her from a sterner strain of radical feminism that attacked women's sexual relations with men.
Come the 1980s, the rise of Thatcherism and Having It All feminism rendered Rowbotham's concerns with the struggles of poor, political women searingly unfashionable. But she soldiered on. She went to Manchester in the early 1990s, and in 2000 published her totemic cultural history, A Century of Women, which investigated the lives of everyone from politicians to cleaners.
And now she is heading into the limelight again with her magisterial biography of Edward Carpenter, the 19th-century radical and gay campaigner. Rowbotham first discovered him as an idealistic student, and his work was a revelation; indeed, she was so intrigued by Carpenter and his contemporaries, that in 1997 she wrote a book about them, Socialism and the Common Life, with Jeffrey Weeks. But the charismatic Carpenter continued "to lurk about in my head", and she embarked on his biography in earnest in 2003. What interested her was that "he linked so many different causes. He was a gay man, friendly with feminist women. He was opposed to vivisection, a socialist who supported animal rights. He was interested in mysticism, wrote for the Fabians but had anarchist sympathies ... He was a visionary who was very interested in practical solutions."
Rowbotham has also been working on another major historical study. She explains that at the same time as the suffrage movement, there were many women who were also "concerned about welfare reform, active in local government - anarchist, socialist - who envisaged that it was possible to reorganise work, domestic labour and architecture. Women like Sylvia Pankhurst who took over a pub for cooperative childcare and called it The Mother's Arms, and Margaret Ashton who created a hostel for homeless women ... In their attempt to create a more social world, they remind me of women campaigning in poor countries now."
She admires the confidence of today's young feminists. "I was at a seminar with Naomi Klein and she was very impressive. She just cut through the objections of a fairly formidable group of men from the old and new left, in a way that would have been difficult for someone of my generation. And she did it without thinking." Other things have been eroded though, she says. "For instance, I would have assumed there was now an established interest in working-class women's history. But that's much less easy to write about these days ... It's not so difficult to talk about race and gender but surprisingly difficult to talk about class. It's like speaking into an empty space."
Teaching has put Sheila back in touch with a young, politicised set, and in writing the book about Carpenter, she hopes to bring this radical of another generation alive for a modern audience. "He is constantly vanishing, someone people have only half heard of. I would like people to discover him, to find the book relevant to things they're interested in now, to how people might live and how society could be."
In resurrecting Carpenter's life and politics, Rowbotham has rescued an earlier strand of the rich socialist feminist tradition of which she is also such an important part. As the furore around her Manchester appointment showed, this lady is not for vanishing.
Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love by Sheila Rowbotham is published by Verso at £24.99. To order for £22.99 with free UK p&p, call the Guardian bookshop on 0870 836 0875 or go to theguardian.com/bookshop. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/dec/24/jim-ratcliffe-manchester-united-old-trafford-the-glazers-football | Football | 2023-12-24T16:13:48.000Z | John Brewin | Will Jim Ratcliffe’s stake in Manchester United lighten damp air at Old Trafford? | John Brewin | The beginning of the end for the Glazers or a consolidation of their hold over Manchester United? It is the key question attached to Sir Jim Ratcliffe taking a £1.3bn, 25% stake in the club and its answer may take years to shake out. For now, the main issue addressed is closing off the “full sale now” demand made by fan activists during the 13 months since the Florida family commenced “a process to explore strategic alternatives”.
Was a full sale ever realistic? That depends on your faith in Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani. As the Qatari billionaire withdrew in October, more details of his thwarted plans for the club were revealed in Jim Bowen “what you could have won” fashion than had been during his courtship. Complaints of “a fanciful and outlandish valuation” featured prominently within what became an admission Ratcliffe had “won” the process.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe completes deal to buy Manchester United 25% minority stake
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What followed from sources was the suggestion that taking a minority stake was his initial step towards overall control, the final price to be determined by the success of the partnership in the coming years.
Some United fans will never forgive Ratcliffe for allying with the Glazers but again, realism comes into play. How else was a deal supposed to be struck? Ratcliffe’s reputation in the business world is of someone who gets things done, of being a determined, innovative negotiator. A minority shareholding can wield significant power, as United fans may recall from the club’s plc days two decades ago, when Ireland’s Cubic Expression consortium and the Glazers themselves made significant waves.
Ratcliffe will be no fairy godmother, limitlessly benevolent like Sheikh Mansour or Roman Abramovich, but United always washed their own face as a business until current economic tailwinds, high inflation and increased interest rates started pushing debt levels close to £1bn. What former chief executive Ed Woodward once compared to “selling diamonds” never needed state-associated ownership of the kind possibly now going out of fashion, with financial restrictions on Newcastle’s Saudi consortium far tighter than during Manchester City’s splurge and in the light of Qatari retrenchment at Paris Saint-Germain.
Ratcliffe and his Ineos team assuming sporting control suggests a form of executive power. If the Glazers are loathed for using the club as their ATM while never properly servicing the debt their late patriarch, Malcolm, laid on the club in 2005, it is United’s sporting failure that most damns their reign. That the Glazers ratified a spend of £1.5bn on players since Sir Alex Ferguson’s retirement is used as mitigation by a dwindling number of advocates but an accepted truth of their stewardship is that the club suffers sorely for a lack of direction and expertise.
Manchester United supporters want the Glazers out with the owners loathed for using the club as their ATM. Photograph: Paul Phelan/ProSports/Shutterstock
It has long been a truism that even the keenest business brains can become befuddled by the football boardroom. Mike Ashley and Lord Alan Sugar were canny operators much admired in retail but made the mistake of trying to operate their football clubs, Newcastle and Tottenham, like their other businesses. Both exited football in profit but having won few friends. Making sums add up is no route to popularity. Both went into football without experience while Ratcliffe, with respect to Ashley and Sugar, is multiple times more financially wealthy and has sporting previous – if not unimpeachable success.
Critics declare his Ineos Grenadiers cycling team is nowhere near as all-conquering as the Team Sky he rebranded, that Sir Ben Ainslie has never captured the America’s Cup under Ineos sails. The fortunes of FC Lausanne in Switzerland and Nice in France are picked over though the latter being second in Ligue 1 represents promise. There are those who mistrust the key adviser Sir Dave Brailsford’s “marginal gains” but Ineos running the sporting side while the Glazers look after the business side has faint echoes of the Glazers’ early years when Ferguson was supported by David Gill on United’s football side, and Woodward ran the commercial side. Repeating that era’s successes is the endgame, if a distant dream.
In Ratcliffe’s previous swoop for a club, Chelsea, in 2022, he circumvented the sales process of Raine, the same group operating for the Glazers, only to withdraw almost as quickly. Further suspicions of opportunism against the self-proclaimed Failsworth-born “top red”? A few Chelsea fans might now wonder how his regime could have compared to that of the Todd Boehly-led winning bid.
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From within United itself, as the bidding process continued, there has been a wounded defensiveness to criticism. Last season’s successes have been trumpeted when the team is already falling behind this season’s targets. The handling of Mason Greenwood and subsequent accusations made – and denied – against Antony have led to unwanted headlines. Richard Arnold, the chief executive who attempted a more open-door policy than his predecessor Woodward, came under heavy criticism and departed even before the new setup was officially in place.
René Meulensteen: ‘A lot of negative pressure has been created at Manchester United’
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The arrival of Ratcliffe, not someone to take a back seat and reportedly critical of operations during initial exploratory meetings, brings the future of the club’s entire executive class into question. His faith in Erik ten Hag was said to be more solid than many other United supporters’ though recent weeks may have changed that. John Murtough, a low-profile, low-energy director of football, is highly likely to be on the casualty list.
Ratcliffe’s 25% stake brings many such questions, including the makeup of divisions between the Glazer siblings – who wants to cash out, who wishes to remain? – the now onerous debt, a complicated “A” and “B” equity structure and an antiquated stadium with a leaking roof. Even a self-made man worth almost £30bn cannot cure all ills but perhaps his fresh approach can lighten Old Trafford’s damp air. The only credible alternative outcome after so many months of wrangling turned out to be the bleakness of the Glazers retaining full control. | Full |
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