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https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022/feb/06/a-locals-guide-to-grenoble-france-spectacular-night-skiing-and-great-nightlife | Travel | 2022-02-06T07:00:19.000Z | John Brunton | A local’s guide to Grenoble, France: spectacular night skiing and great nightlife | FoodThere may not be a significant gastronomic tradition here, but certain foods should not be missed. Buy local cheeses saint-marcellin and bleu du vercors-sassenage at Les Alpages, run by master fromager Bernard Mure-Ravaud. Grenoble is famous for walnuts – made into oil, liqueur, pastries – and local producers can be found at Le Montagnard in the covered food market, Halles Sainte-Claire. There is only one Michelin-starred restaurant in town: chef Stéphane Froidevaux offers an affordable brasserie menu at lunchtime and fine dining in the evening at his sumptuous villa, Le Fantin Latour. But young chefs working with organic, seasonal products are emerging at contemporary bistronomique addresses such as Le Rousseau.
Inspiration
Musée de Grenoble. Photograph: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy
I often go on my own to the landmark Musée de Grenoble: it’s one of France’s finest art museums, opened in 1798. Its outstanding collection includes masterpieces such as Le Boeuf Écorché by Soutine and Matisse’s Intérieur aux Aubergines. There are also works by Flemish grand masters and local painter Henri Fantin-Latour. Ten minutes’ walk from the centre, Musée Dauphinois, dedicated to our region, was created by André Malraux in an old convent. It has my favourite view over the city, and was an inspiration for me to try to do the same with our HQ, the Sainte-Cécile convent.
Neighbourhood
The Quartier des Antiquaires is one of Grenoble’s oldest neighbourhoods, right in the historic centre. Our publishing house and the offices of Fondation Glénat are right here in the 17th-century Couvent Sainte-Cécile. I bought and renovated this former Bernadine convent 10 years ago, when the neighbourhood was run down, and we’ve brought the Antiquaires back to life. The foundation hosts concerts, exhibitions and permanently displays a large collection of Rembrandt engravings. Visitors wandering the narrow streets will discover not just antique shops, galleries, fashion and design stores, but an artisan chocolate maker, Le Caraque Chocolatier, a wine shop, Le Zinc, stocking 1,000 wines, and my favourite bistro for hearty local cuisine, Café de France.
Green space
Grenoble is a pioneering ecological city, with a Green party mayor and is this year’s European Green Capital. We have very few green spaces in the city – though the Grenoblois will tell you green spaces are all around us, beginning six miles away, in the three surrounding massifs: Vercors, Chartreuse and Belledonne. Take the cable car above the city centre to the towering Bastille fort to see this natural panorama. In winter, the Chamrousse ski station is 30 minutes’ drive away, offering spectacular night skiing high above Grenoble. Back in town, I have a soft spot for our tiny Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden with a quaint natural history museum.
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Nightlife
This is a university city, and nightlife begins with early evening happy hours. Certain streets and squares are packed out till the early hours. Expect pubs rather than old-fashioned bistros because what is popular here is craft beer, with dozens of microbreweries, whose ales are apparently superior quality because of the quality of the water. Shady Place de Berulle boasts Shakesbeer, the Belgian bar Brugs, and one of our many Irish pubs. Brasserie Neptune makes small-batch beers, so the menu changes every month. The municipal theatre has a dynamic arts programme, and more alternative performances take place in La Belle Électrique, in the old industrial quarter of Bouchayer-Viallet.
Stay
The comfortable Grand Hôtel (doubles from €90) is right in the centre, with reasonably priced rooms. It’s where I put up visiting authors.
Jacques Glénat has always kept the headquarters of his French publishing empire, Editions Glénat, in his native Grenoble. He has also set up a cultural institute, Fondation Glénat, in the city | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/21/moonlight-film-tarell-alvin-mccraney-interview | Film | 2016-10-21T10:30:04.000Z | Benjamin Lee | Moonlight's Tarell Alvin McCraney: 'I never had a coming out moment' | It’s been a year dominated by a much-needed conversation about diversity within popular culture. Despite what straight white Brobusters might have to counter, the importance of representation on screen has led to a greater awareness of the stories Hollywood hasn’t been telling.
Moonlight review – devastating drama is vital portrait of black gay masculinity in America
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No film justifies the need for such variety quite so convincingly as Moonlight, a soulful drama from director Barry Jenkins about the life of a black gay man growing up in Miami, told in three heartbreaking chapters. Tipped as an Oscar favorite, it’s breaking thrilling new ground yet away from the glamorous red carpet premieres it’s received at Telluride, Toronto, New York and London festivals, the true story at its core is something far removed. Based on the autobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue from award-winning playwright Tarell Alvin McCraney, it tells of a boy struggling with an addict mother and a school rife with homophobia.
Given the long journey that your story has taken from the stage to screen, how much do you still recognize from your own experiences?
The original script was different in form, in terms of the three chapters were told simultaneously so in that way it was different. However there’s a lot in it that is the same. Barry worked really hard to preserve some of the original voice and I think what he also did is work hard at putting a lot of space between it. It feels ultimately personal, even the parts that I didn’t write feel personal because I feel like they are connected to the same story, the same struggle, the same questions. It doesn’t feel foreign at all, in fact sometimes it feels too close.
Was it a difficult experience finally watching the film?
The first time, no. I think I was just so excited to see something that looked exactly like memories to me. Then the glee of that wore off – and I did remember feeling very depressed and very heartbroken about a lot of it. Mostly because these are not things that I have found the answers to and understand how they work. I actually ended up feeling that these are still looming questions in my life, questions about my own identity and my own self-worth that I’m still trying to figure out. Then seeing the film again, I was like shit, these are still here and they’re not going anywhere.
Ashton Sanders in Moonlight. Photograph: David Bornfriend/AP
It is about the big issues like identity and homophobia but also, I don’t know if I’ll ever be done trying to suss out the trauma of growing up with an addictive parent. I don’t know if that will ever go away but I wish like hell that it would. It is difficult to watch and re-engage with but ultimately necessary because it’s brought to bear some very serious questions for me. Also, even in my career, why aren’t I telling more intimate stories? I feel like I tell intimate stories in plays but why am I not telling stories like this that lay me bare. Not exploitative but just getting at the sort of hard truths of things.
There are so many important LGBT stories that have been straight-washed on the big screen. Even though many of the themes are universal, how reticent were you to hand the project over to a straight writer/director?
‘It’s impossible to be vulnerable’: how Moonlight reflects being a black gay man in the US
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Barry had tremendous respect for what the piece was. He never came in trying to turn it into something else. In fact, he dug his heels in about certain things that were not going to go away. There was no reticence with Barry. He also didn’t ask any of the actors if they were GLBT-identifying, he just cast them. We were telling a coming of age story that was dealing with queer identity and nobody tried to sideswipe that. It’s happened in other instances but not here. We knew that there were not going to be any white characters in it. There were no white characters in the original script. It’s just very difficult for you to see white people in Liberty City (the area shown in the film). They knew that and they were more than cool with it. My reticence was more about how much to say and how much is necessary in order to make the story as authentic as possible.
The film’s had universal acclaim, but there have been some negative comments about the film being an offense to black masculinity by commenters on YouTube and I know Barry was trolled a bit on Twitter about it. Why do you think this very specific type of homophobia is still such a problem?
First of all, I know that there’s homophobia that is essentially misogyny masked as homophobia in all of American culture no matter how much we try and pretend there is not. That anti-feminism is rampant and I think when it comes to someone’s notion of what a black man should be like, it again is tying back into this understanding and it’s people who feel like there is a way to be masculine and that masculinity means a kind of superiority which is just misogyny. So I think that’s endemic in all parts of American society and it just comes out in different ways. I don’t think it’s particular to black culture. It may show itself differently but it’s all part of the same thread.
As well as regulating your behavior as a gay man, do you also feel like you have to be careful of your behavior as a black man in America? That you need to perform in different situations to survive?
My gayness doesn’t give me any pass. I’ve still had the police pull me out of a car, put guns to my head, lock me in handcuffs and leave me face down in the pouring rain for no reason. Until they go into my back pocket and see some sort of white privilege in there, which is probably a university card or something and then they’re like “oh maybe we’ve got the wrong person”. There’s no gay card that gets you off the hook. People suggest that there is but I know, with empirical evidence, that there isn’t.
Trevante Rhodes in Moonlight. Photograph: David Bornfriend/AP
In the film, we see a moment when Chiron’s guard comes down and he seems more comfortable with his sexuality. Was there something similar for you when you came out?
It’s interesting because I never had a coming out moment. Especially because, like in the film, people were telling me I was gay from the off. There was never a moment when I had to sit everybody down and have a conversation. There were these small moments when I would be with my boyfriend and have to explain to my brother that this is my boyfriend, he’s not my friend or my partner but he’s my boyfriend. My brother was like “oh cool” and we moved on. There was a moment when I was being intimate with women and intimate with men and something happened where I realized I wanted to be more than just intimate, I want to be in a relationship and who I want to be in a relationship with is men. That’s what being gay is to me. So then I was like OK that’s cool and I understand why they’re calling me gay.
You were also coming to terms with your sexuality at a time when there was a dearth of gay people in the media, especially gay black men. Do you think that kids coming out now will have a different experience because they can identify more easily with characters and figures within popular culture?
Black films matter – how African American cinema fought back against Hollywood
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I think so but I often don’t like to put the burden of total representation within art. Art is there to reflect. The problem is that we’re not being totally representational within life. Like you said, when I grew up there was a dearth of gay people in the media but there were gay people within my neighborhood. There were transgender people within my neighborhood. The way in which the community interacted with these people was so peripheral and marginalizing that I didn’t get a chance to know how they could be integrated into the world around us. That’s on us as a community and us as people. It’s important for us to be representational as people in communities and not get this xenophobic idea of living in this homogenized world.
Even within those representations we see, there is still often a more “acceptable” definition of what a gay man is seen as by society, in terms of either masculinity or femininity.
That’s equally problematic on both sides. Often in America we get accused of only showing the masculine, normalized heteronormative gay and then there are people who are feminine, male or female, because gender has nothing to do with masculinity or femininity, and we marginalize them so much that people only see that life for themselves. There are feminine straight men and there are masculine straight women. In terms of allowing ourselves to be more fluid in our day-to-day lives, we can’t just rely on universality within art to happen. That’s crazy. Although that doesn’t give us a pass. We have to be thinking about it because we have the ability to make the world we want.
Moonlight is out now in New York and Los Angeles with a UK release to be announced. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/08/italy-approves-law-arrest-children-as-young-as-14 | World news | 2023-09-08T15:09:49.000Z | Angela Giuffrida | Italy approves law making it easier to arrest children as young as 14 | The Italian government has approved a law that will make it easier to arrest and imprison children as young as 14 as part of its crackdown on juvenile crime after a series of high-profile cases involving teen gangs.
Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, said “juvenile crime is spreading like wildfire” after her cabinet approved the law, which also stipulates imprisonment of up to two years for the parents of school truants.
The law has been named after Caviano, a socially deprived, crime-ridden suburb of Naples where Meloni, who leads the far-right Brothers of Italy, travelled last week after the alleged repeated gang-rape of two girls. During the visit, Meloni promised to increase security and rehabilitate the neighbourhood.
In a rare press conference on Thursday, she said her government was “putting itself out there” to tackle an issue she said was neglected by previous administrations. “It is not an easy challenge,” she said.
The law means that children as young as 14 can be arrested on the spot, for example if they are caught carrying weapons or drugs.
Authorities will also have the power to confiscate mobile phones from juvenile criminals and ban them from frequenting specific areas.
To date, a child criminal could be kept in pre-trial detention, or under house arrest, only if the crime committed carried a sentence of nine years or more, which ruled out most crimes apart from murder. This has been reduced to six years, making it easier to impose pre-trial custody for less serious crimes.
Meloni said the law was designed to dissuade minors from crime and included measures to “reintegrate and re-educate” young criminals.
“Nobody wants to throw 12-year-olds in jail,” she said, claiming the measures were “preventative and not repressive”.
Nevertheless, Meloni promised “life imprisonment” for minors who committed murder, during a meeting on Thursday with the mother of Giovanbattista Cutolo, a 24-year-old musician who was shot dead in late August in central Naples, allegedly by a 17-year-old during a row over parking.
The law also follows the arrests last month of seven males, including one aged 17, for alleged gang-rape in Palermo, Sicily.
Matteo Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, said minors who shot guns should be “punished as adults” while renewing calls for rapists to be chemically castrated.
Meanwhile, Meloni has defended her partner, Andrea Giambruno, a TV journalist who last week provoked controversy after saying women should “avoid getting drunk” if they wanted to avoid being raped.
Meloni, who has a seven-year-old daughter with Giambruno, told reporters that his words had been misinterpreted and that while they were “hasty”, they were similar to what her mother had told her, which was to “keep your eyes peeled and head screwed on”.
She said: “Unfortunately rapists exist and we must not lower our guard.”
Although the Caviano law takes immediate effect it will need to be ratified by parliament within 60 days, otherwise it will expire.
Elly Schlein, the leader of the opposition Democratic party, said her first impression of the law was that it appeared to focus only on “repression” while “prevention is also needed”.
Meloni’s coalition government had made cracking down on crime, especially drug dealers, a priority during its election campaign last year. The government came to power in October, with its first policy being a law punishing the organisers of illegal raves. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jun/19/darren-moore-leaves-sheffield-wednesday-manager-promotion | Football | 2023-06-19T17:35:30.000Z | Guardian sport | Darren Moore leaves Sheffield Wednesday after winning promotion | Darren Moore has left his job as manager of Sheffield Wednesday three weeks after winning promotion to the Championship in the playoff final. The club said the decision was by mutual consent.
Moore led Wednesday out of League One after securing 96 points and coming from 4-0 down in the playoff semi-final against Peterborough before beating Barnsley at Wembley. He took over in March 2021 after leaving Doncaster and finished fourth in his first full season after being unable to keep Wednesday in the Championship. Moore arrived with the team second bottom, six points from safety.
“Both the chairman [Dejphon Chansiri] and myself have been determined to get this club back into the Championship,” Moore said. “I’m delighted this has been achieved and I hope the football club continues to develop and will soon fulfil the dream of mine, which was to take them back to the Premier League where they belong.”
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Moore’s backroom staff have also left. Chansiri said: “Both parties believe that now is the right time we go our separate ways. The journey of Sheffield Wednesday with Darren has been in many ways unique and always as a team. In the football industry, journeys come to an end and now is that time, which we both agree.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/oct/05/rachel-weisz-rachel-mcadams-adaptation-naomi-alderman-disobedience | Film | 2016-10-05T08:54:48.000Z | Catherine Shoard | Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams to star in adaptation of Disobedience | Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams are to star in a big screen adaptation of Naomi Alderman’s acclaimed novel Disobedience.
The book, which was published in 2006, is set in north west London and features the return to the Orthodox Jewish family home of Ronit (Weisz) following the death of her father. She then rekindles a romance with her best friend (McAdams), who is now married to her cousin.
Chilean film-maker Sebastian Lelio – whose 2013 portrait of a middle-aged woman, Gloria, won many fans – will direct.
McAdams will next be seen in Marvel’s Doctor Strange opposite Benedict Cumberbatch and Tilda Swinton, while Weisz stars in Denial, as well as featuring in The Light Between Oceans.
Both actors were involved in Terrence Malick’s 2013 drama To the Wonder, although Weisz’s scenes were cut from the final edit. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/mar/09/mardin-historic-turkish-tourist-city-syrian-quake-survivors | Global development | 2023-03-09T06:30:02.000Z | Stefanie Glinski | ‘We feel safe here’: historic Turkish tourist city opens its doors to Syrian quake survivors | The old city of Mardin is one of Turkey’s most beautiful tourist destinations. Built on a mountainside, it is almost an open-air museum, with narrow cobbled streets, historic churches and mosques, as well as quaint rooftop cafes overlooking the plains of ancient Mesopotamia.
In the town centre, souvenir shops sell handmade soap and chocolate, as well as local wine – known to the region since the early Christian settlements many centuries ago.
Since the 7.8 magnitude earthquake that devastated southeastern Turkey and northern Syria a month ago, the ancient city has also opened its doors to countless families, including many Syrian refugees who lost their homes in the disaster.
They know that Mardin, built on solid rock and located about 100 miles east of the epicentre of last month’s quake, has long been standing strong. It was left undamaged by the quake, which was followed by a second one and aftershocks.
Mardin’s limestone buildings date back as far as the 11th and 12th centuries. Photograph: Hemis/Alamy
Some of the new arrivals are living in hotels; others in Unesco-protected limestone houses with domed ceilings, nestled in the mountain.
The earthquake shook us awake. I thought we’d be buried under rubble. I was sure we would die
Ali al-Hassan
Ali and Noor al-Hassan are among them. They arrived in Mardin three weeks after the first earthquake, with their four children. Originally from Raqqa, the family left the Syrian city 11 years ago, “before it got bad”, Ali, 28, says. They had been living in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa, about an hour’s drive from Mardin, in an area that has seen significant damage.
“At 4.17am on 6 February the earthquake shook us awake,” he says. “We tried to run, but the lock of our door was stuck. I thought we’d be buried under rubble. I was sure we would die.”
According to Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management Authority (Afad), the death toll from the quakes has risen to more than 45,000, with at least 1.5 million people left homeless. Across the border in Syria, at least 5,951 people were killed.
The block of flats where Ali and his family had been living was badly damaged and has since been marked for demolition by the Turkish government. “When the shaking stopped, we rushed to pack a few things – important documents, our temporary protection cards, a few clothes – and then we ran,” Ali says.
Ali al-Hassan with his four children and two nephews at their temporary home in the historic quarter of Mardin. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski
For 10 days, the family stayed in a school building, sharing a large room with 10 other families. “It was difficult and there was no privacy, so we moved into a nearby mosque for several nights. A few days later, we came to Mardin to find a longer term solution,” says Noor, 26.
Now they are living in an ancient house, deep in the maze of winding roads on the picturesque hillside. Monthly rent is cheap, at no more than about 1,500 Turkish lira (£66). Hotel prices for the tourists who arrive daily on direct flights from Istanbul are of course much higher.
Mardin province is home to about 850,000 people, and the city’s population at about 130,000.
“Over the past month, an additional 29,000 people arrived in the province and about 1,500 of them are Syrian,” says Hülya Çelebioğlu, manager of Mokid, a local women’s association that has shifted its focus to supporting earthquake survivors.
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Mokid is helping the al-Hassans pay their rent, as well as offering psychological support and meals. Çelebioğlu estimates that about 70 newly arrived families are living in the historic quarter of Mardin.
“Many of the Syrian families ended up living in the ancient old town,” she says, adding that the city saw a similarly rapid population growth at the start of the Syrian civil war and during Islamic State’s expansion in Iraq. “Back then, many refugees fleeing home and crossing into Turkey came to Mardin – at least for a while.”
The old town of Mardin, where many earthquake survivors are staying. Photograph: Stefanie Glinski
According to the Turkish ministry of the interior, 85,575 Syrian refugees are registered under temporary protection in Greater Mardin. The city is located just 20 miles from the Syrian border and 120 miles from the Iraqi border, and Arabic, Turkish and Kurdish are all spoken. Historically, other languages spoken here have included Syriac, Armenian and Aramaic.
Turkey earthquake death toll prompts questions over building standards
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Leaving their home – and most of their belongings – in Sanliurfa hasn’t been easy for the al-Hassans, who had managed to establish a new life in Turkey after fleeing the Syrian war.
“The children keep asking whether there will be another earthquake. They are afraid, but we also see them regaining their confidence. They are playing outside; they are making friends,” Noor says.
Çelebioğlu says it is unclear how many of the families will stay in Mardin. The al-Hassans have not yet made plans. “For now we feel safe here,” says Ali. “This house is old. It has outlived us by centuries.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/17/next-apologises-to-staff-after-it-problems-cause-months-of-underpaying | Business | 2022-07-17T13:25:01.000Z | Jasper Jolly | Next apologises to staff after IT problems cause months of underpaying | The retailer Next has apologised to staff for months of salary underpayment caused by the botched implementation of a new computer system.
The FTSE 100 company has been working for months to stem issues caused by a decision to outsource its payroll functions to the US technology company Oracle. The first problems emerged in February and have affected workers paid weekly and those paid monthly.
The problems have deprived some Next staff of pay during the cost of living crisis amid rapid consumer price inflation that is denting workers’ spending power.
The retailer pays some store staff £9.36 an hour, below the Living Wage Foundation’s recommended £9.90 an hour rate outside London and £11.05 inside the capital.
Next is run by the Conservative peer Simon Wolfson. As chief executive, Lord Wolfson will receive £4.4m in pay this year, the highest level since 2015, after investors backed a 50% pay rise in May. The Church of England’s pension board has criticised “major increases in executive pay in consumer-facing companies such as Next where the workforce are not accredited as being on a living wage”.
It is not the first time this year that payroll issues have affected a large UK employer. Asda, the supermarket chain owned by the petrol station billionaires Mohsin and Zuber Issa and the private equity fund TDR Capital, has admitted that some workers lost out on as much as £500. Its external payroll provider made nearly 11,000 errors in recent months, affecting the wages of 5,500 staff.
Next declined to say how many of its 43,000 workers were affected, but a spokesman said the number had declined from the peak. A spokesperson said: “We expect to continue to make significant progress in the weeks ahead.”
Employees have been underpaid by as much as £200 a month, while some have been forced to rely on food banks or hand back holiday days to make ends meet, according to the Sunday Times, which first reported the problems.
Next usually designs its own software, but has struggled to make Oracle’s software work with its own. Instead it has been forced to assign a dedicated team to try to spot errors and pay the missing money to workers every week.
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In some cases staff also had pension contributions deducted from their pay that were then not invested in pension funds. Next said it would make sure that those problems were also rectified and any losses for workers made good.
“Over the last few months we have experienced a number of issues with our new payroll system and have been tackling them as a matter of urgency,” the spokesman said. “This is one of the very few instances where Next has outsourced critical software and we have learnt some important lessons about integrating our in-house applications with third-party platforms.
“We are acutely aware of the problems these payroll errors have caused some of our colleagues. We sincerely apologise to all those affected and assure them that we are resolving these problems as a priority.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/16/jo-cox-fatal-shooting-enhanced-security-for-mps-had-started | UK news | 2016-06-16T17:07:01.000Z | Rajeev Syal | Jo Cox attack: enhanced security for MPs | MPs were in the process of receiving “enhanced” security measures for their homes and constituency offices amid heightened fears of attacks, before the fatal shooting of the Labour MP Jo Cox.
The Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) said it had reviewed security measures and set aside additional funds for each member of parliament.
Jo Cox MP killed in West Yorkshire - how the day unfolded
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The review, which concluded in January, was prompted by concerns that MPs were vulnerable to terrorism. Ipsa sources confirmed that MPs were entitled to apply for additional security if they believed there was a threat to their safety.
MPs can apply for a standard package of measures which allow them to buy or lease security equipment such as alarm systems, shutters, CCTV and personal alarms for staff. They can also apply for a “lone worker device” which is a personal alarm system that can be carried.
If there is a specific threat relating to parliamentary activity, MPs can speak to a police commander to ask for additional enhanced safety measures.
However, there appears to be no specific security advice for MPs as they walk the streets. Cox was killed on a street in Birstall, West Yorkshire on Thursday.
According to the website W4mp, which is used by MPs’ staff, those who work in constituency offices are encouraged to develop an office code for a potentially dangerous or disruptive situation.
MPs who have been attacked while in office
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One former worker for an MP wrote on the website: “A constituency office I worked in has a code for calling the police in the event of a violent visitor – the secretary would call the caseworker in the back room [with a certain phrase].”
Security measures for MPs were updated in 2010 after the Labour MP Stephen Timms was stabbed twice in the stomach by a constituent in Beckton, east London. Roshonara Choudhry, 21, was convicted of attempted murder.
In 2000, the Liberal Democrat MP for Cheltenham, Nigel Jones, and his assistant, Andrew Pennington, 39, a local councillor, were attacked with a Samurai sword. Pennington was killed, and Jones, now Baron Jones of Cheltenham, was severely injured. Robert Ashman, then 49, was subsequently found guilty of attempted murder. He admitted to Pennington’s manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility in 2003. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/10/vested-interests-public-against-climate-science-fossil-fuel-lobby | Environment | 2019-10-10T15:00:21.000Z | Felicity Lawrence | How vested interests tried to turn the world against climate science | In 1998 a public relations consultant called Joe Walker wrote to the American Petroleum Institute (API), a trade association representing major fossil fuel companies, with a proposed solution to a big problem.
In December the previous year, the UN had adopted the Kyoto protocol, an international treaty that committed signatory countries to reducing their greenhouse gas emissions in order to avert catastrophic climate breakdown.
Reducing emissions represented a direct threat to the profits of fossil fuel companies and the API was working on an industry response.
“As promised, attached is the Global Climate Science Communications Plan that we developed during our workshop last Friday,” Walker wrote. The workshop had involved senior executives from fossil fuel companies, including the oil multinationals Exxon – later part of ExxonMobil – and Chevron, and the gas and coal utility Southern Company, and a handful of rightwing thinktanks.
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Walker outlined a vision of a comprehensive, international campaign to change public opinion on the climate crisis by casting doubt on the scientific research, presenting it as unreliable when the overwhelming majority of scientists had reached consensus.
The communications plan involved finding sympathetic scientists, identifying thinktanks to fund that would produce helpful reports, and working through supposed grassroots groups to hold debates questioning the consensus on global heating, along with a constant flow of media briefings manufacturing uncertainty.
The plan sounded much like a 1960s PR campaign devised by the tobacco industry to delay controls by questioning the science showing that smoking killed. Some of the people involved were in fact tobacco campaign veterans.
The fossil fuel industry had been making use of its lobbying group, the Global Climate Coalition, since 1989 to stress the uncertainties of climate science. But by the late 1990s companies such as BP and Shell were beginning to withdraw from it as public doubt about the problem became increasingly untenable in the face of the evidence.
“Project goal: a majority of the American public, including industry leadership, recognises that significant uncertainties exist in climate science,” the 1998 Walker API memo began. A series of strategic goals was elaborated. It said “victory will be achieved when … recognition of uncertainties becomes part of the conventional wisdom” and “those promoting the Kyoto treaty on the basis of extant science appear to be out of touch with reality”.
3:46
Why we need political action to tackle the oil, coal and gas companies - video explainer
After the memo was leaked to the New York Times, the industry said the plan was only a proposal and was never put into effect.
Climate campaigners such as Greenpeace say they believe a highly organised effort by the fossil fuel industry to question climate science, involving scientists and some thinktanks in receipt of fossil fuel industry funding, nevertheless succeeded in the following years in shifting public opinion away from urgent action.
In 2010 the American sociologists Riley Dunlap and Aaron McCright identified conservative thinktanks, along with US conservative politicians, media and fossil fuel corporations, as crucial components in a “denial machine” that emerged in the 1990s.
The activity of this machine would peak when the industry’s financial interests came under threat, most notably in the years after 2007 and the election of Barack Obama, who had pledged to regulate and cap emissions.
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Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, published the first peer-reviewed study in 2013 of who was funding what he called the climate change counter-movement that delayed action on the crisis. He found that between 2003 and 2010 more than $500m had been donated by private conservative philanthropic foundations to organisations whose output included material disputing the consensus.
Thinktanks, trade associations and front groups were a key part of the effort, he concluded, with their major funders including foundations affiliated to the fossil fuel magnates the Koch brothers, ExxonMobil, and the ultra-conservative Scaife and Bradley foundations.
Brulle also found evidence of a trend to conceal the sources of funding once campaign groups such as the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace and the Climate Disinformation Database started tracking what they called dark money to climate denial from the mid-2000s.
In the second half of that decade, Koch, Scaife, Bradley and ExxonMobil foundation funding to organisations involved in propagating doubt declined while donations to the same organisations via two anonymised vehicles, the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund, increased rapidly.
Among the thinktanks most identified with spreading doubt are the Competitive Enterprise Institute, the Marshall Institute (which folded in 2015), the Cato Institute, the Heartland Institute, the Heritage Foundation and the campaign group Americans for Prosperity.
Elsewhere the Institute of Economic Affairs and the Global Warming Policy Foundation have been prominent publishers of material questioning the consensus on climate science in the UK. These organisations fiercely dispute that any of their work constitutes organised climate change denial.
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Americans for Prosperity, which has received a very substantial part of its funding from the Kochs, helped make resistance to action on climate a feature of Tea Party rallies in the US.
The counter-movement against action wound up to fever pitch in 2009 when it looked as though Obama and the US would sign up to UN climate protocols after the Copenhagen summit due at the end of that year.
Before the summit, individual independent climate experts found themselves subject to devastating attacks. Scientists at the University of East Anglia’s prestigious Climate Research Unit had their emails hacked. The contents of the emails were circulated, with the information they contained having been extracted in a way that suggested the scientists had manipulated their data. A police investigation failed to establish who the hackers were.
The rightwing media labelled it “climategate” and several thinktanks promoted the story enthusiastically. Multiple inquiries would later exonerate the scientists but by then the damage was done; the public’s faith in climate science had been measurably dented.
Half a decade later some fossil fuel industry funding of climate contrarian science was exposed, when Greenpeace found out via freedom of information requests that a prominent academic at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Willie Soon, had attracted more than $1.2m in payments over 14 years from ExxonMobil, Southern Company, the API and a Koch foundation, to the centre for his work. Soon doubted the scientific consensus that emissions were the principal cause of global heating.
He is now an affiliate of the Heartland Institute. Soon strenuously denied that his industry funders had any influence over his conclusions and the Heartland Institute said he was not even aware of who some of the donors to the centre were, making a conflict of interest impossible.
US college students protest against the Kyoto treaty in support of George W Bush at a climate summit in Bonn in 2001. Photograph: Frank Augstein/AP
There has been a noticeable moderation of views from those previously involved in questioning the science of climate change. Several now acknowledge global heating is caused by human activity but have shifted focus to arguing that the market and technological innovation rather than government action or international treaties curbing emissions are the best ways to tackle it.
The director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s (CEI) Center for Energy and Environment, Myron Ebell, for example, told the Guardian: “CEI believes strongly that the policies being proposed by climate alarmists to deal with global warming pose much greater threats to human flourishing than do the effects of global warming. Abundant, affordable energy is a necessary condition of human wellbeing but the global energy-rationing policies being pursued, like those in the Paris climate treaty, threaten to consign billions of people around the world to energy poverty and perpetual economic stagnation.”
ExxonMobil, Chevron, Southern Company and the API all said they recognised the seriousness of the climate crisis and the need for business, governments and consumers to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The API said the industry as a whole had invested billions of dollars in zero- and low-carbon technologies. Chevron and Southern Company said they had ambitious targets to reduce their carbon footprints. ExxonMobil said its position on climate science in the past had been misrepresented, and that claims regarding what it knew and when had been debunked. None of the companies responded to questions on the communications plan and funding of organisations whose output included doubting the science.
The Koch, Scaife and Bradley Foundations Donors Trust, Donors Capital Fund and Americans for Prosperity did not respond to requests for comment.
The thinktanks said the criticisms levelled at them by climate activists and critics seriously mischaracterised their positions. They said the views they published were those of individual affiliates rather than institutional ones. They added that they respected their donors’ privacy but the source of their money did not influence their research or output, which was completely independent. The Heritage Foundation said allegations it had denied climate science were “seriously inaccurate”. It accepted “the climate is changing, the planet is warming and that humans are playing a role”. Instead it described itself as “sceptics of climate catastrophism and costly policies that will drive energy prices higher”.
The Cato Institute said it had never been in the business of “promoting climate science denial”; it did not dispute human activity’s impact on the climate, but believed it was minimal. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/24/atheists-faith-religion-uk | Opinion | 2016-05-24T11:52:30.000Z | Julian Baggini | Atheists don’t need faith, any more than we need religion | Julian Baggini | Religion is on the decline, with nearly half of us in England and Wales – and more than half in Scotland – saying we have no religion. But is faith also on the wane? Religion and faith are often treated as synonymous. But as an atheist I am frequently told that I must have faith too, since I can no more prove that God does not exist than theists can prove he does.
To see if faith is weakening we have to go beneath the apparent mathematical precision of surveys to the vaguer ideas they attempt to quantify. Even religiosity is hard to measure. Around half of us may not be “religious” but other surveys tend to show that a fifth of us at most – probably less – are prepared to call ourselves atheists. The remainder reject organised religion with its hard-to-swallow doctrines and inconvenient rules, but they retain a belief in a spiritual dimension that is more religious than it is secular.
People of no religion outnumber Christians in England and Wales – study
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If “religious” is a slippery concept, “faith” is even greasier. In some of its senses, we certainly do see plenty of faith outside organised religion. If faith is a kind of passionate conviction, for example, then look no further than the zealous breed of atheist who not only personally rejects religion, but also sees it as an offence to human rationality. Like the religious, their core belief becomes the centre of their lives, their moral compass, their blueprint for a better world.
Faith can also provide the godless with a source of salvation that is based more on hope than experience. Reason, for example, is vitally important, but mainly because, like democracy, it is only better than the alternatives. Nothing is more powerful for helping us to understand the world accurately. But when we use reason to try to move from understanding to managing and changing, experience tells us we often go horribly wrong. From central state socialism to failed “scientific” diets via the excesses of industrial agriculture, an over-abundance of faith in the power of rational planning has too often left us in a terrible mess.
The claim that non-believers have faith is most credible when applied to the meaning and value we place on life. Without religion, we live in a world that is, from an objective point of view, devoid of all purpose. Even the biological struggle for survival is a kind of cosmic accident about which the universe itself is indifferent. And yet we find value, in some sense even create it, giving a reason for living that nothing or no one else can give us.
So if faith is some kind of belief not fully warranted by reason and evidence, then, yes, the non-religious have it too. However, it would be a mistake to see this as proof of the equal importance of faith to everyone. The key factor is not whether or not we have faith of some kind, but in how central it is to how we live.
This is most evident when you probe the old canard that atheism is a faith position because you cannot prove God does not exist. This makes the mistake of assuming that everything that cannot be 100% proven is equally unproven, which is patently false. Atheists do not believe in God because they see no good evidence that such a deity exists. This falls short of full proof but it is fundamentally an evidence-based position. Many theists, however, believe that there is God while fully accepting that there is an absence of evidence for his existence. Indeed, Jesus said that those who believe without evidence have a purer faith than those, like Thomas, who demanded proof. “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed,” reports John’s Gospel.
No religion is the new religion
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Given that historically faith has been seen as a distinctively religious virtue that non-believers – ye of little of faith – lack, it is curious that so many now want to attribute faith to us heathens. I think this is a sign of a lack of confidence among many religious believers who are aware that their beliefs seem increasingly out of place in the modern, scientific world and are therefore keen to show that, in fact, we’re all in the same boat of belief. If everyone needs faith, then religious belief requires no special justification when, actually, that is precisely what it does need.
What we all need is not best described as faith. It is simply more than can be proven by logic and science. We need to believe in things that are not entirely justified by reason, but that does not require us to embrace creeds that reason tells against. The non-religious do not find meaning, purpose and value by taking a leap into the unknown and transcendental. We find it in the beauty and joy of life, and in the empathy that makes us see value in the lives of others too. These things are not facts captured by fundamental physics but nor are they religious mysteries to be taken on faith. What grounds us ethically can be found entirely on the literal ground on which we live. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/14/petina-gappahs-top-10-books-about-zimbabwe | Books | 2015-10-14T11:13:18.000Z | Petina Gappah | Petina Gappah's top 10 books about Zimbabwe | There are many more than 10 great books about Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean writers of the last decade alone, particularly Nozipo Maraire, Alexandra Fuller, Irene Sabatini, Bryony Rheam, NoViolet Bulawayo, Peter Godwin, Ignatius Mabasa, Brian Chikwava, Wonder Guchu, Christopher Mlalazi, Tendai Huchu, Memory Chirere and Togara Muzanenhamo could be part of this list, as could the American James Kilgore. The prolific triumvirate of Charles Mungoshi, Ndabezinhle Sigogo and John Eppel could each have a top 10 list of just their own work.
The fiction and non-fiction titles in this list echo my own obsession with the history of Zimbabwe, and, most particularly, its social history, a subject in which my novel The Book of Memory is steeped. I am particularly interested in the external and internal struggles reflected in these books, struggles both national and personal – whether over land ownership and national identity or the individual’s right to self-determination.
I hope that this “personal canon” provides a good introduction for those who may be new to Zimbabwe, and inspires debate among Zimbabweanists about who else I should have included.
1. Zambesia, England’s El Dorado in Africa by Edward Peter Mathers (1895)
Zimbabwe is an unusual case study in African colonialism in that it was invaded by a private company under Royal Charter. First published in 1895, this rare book provides the inside track on the Pioneer Column, the occupying force of Cecil Rhodes’s British South Africa Company. From speculation over the location of the fabled “lost mines of Ophir” to the meticulous enumeration of the many titles of Lobengula, the soon-to-be-deposed “King of the Matabele”, this Victorian delight is a wonderful resource for anyone who wants to understand the motives for and mechanics of the colonisation of Zimbabwe.
2. The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing (1950)
This bleak and unsparing novel, set on a remote farm in Southern Rhodesia in the 1940s, is propelled by three deeply unlikeable but pitiful people: Dick Turner, an inept but stubborn white farmer; his wife, the frustrated, proud Mary, and Moses, the domestic servant whose brooding presence oppresses the book and leads to its catastrophic conclusion. Lessing’s novel is a masterly study of the unnatural and constricting artifices that were necessary to maintaining Rhodesia’s “colour bar”.
3. Butterfly Burning by Yvonne Vera (1998)
Set in the Bulawayo township of Makokoba in the 1940s, this is the story of the doomed May-December love affair between Fumbatha, a construction worker, and the much younger Phephelaphi who dreams of being a nurse. A brutal event separates the couple. Vera’s prose can be elliptical – the horrors that befall the couple are described with such lyrical beauty that they are not always fully felt by the reader – but no other writer has so powerfully captured the many faces of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second-largest, and loveliest, city.
4. Pafunge (Think of It) by TK Tsodzo (1972)
Supposedly a morality tale in which the reader is meant to recoil from the unwitting incestuous relationship between Rudo Moyo and her long-lost father, Josiah Rugare, aka Joe Rug. But this Shona novel is, in reality, a joyous caper that moves between a mission school and hospital in Fort Victoria province and the seedy nightspots of the town of Gwelo. Published by the Rhodesian Literature Bureau, which was established to encourage black writers away from political writing, Pafunge riotously glories in the many sins and pleasures of city life before piously renouncing them. The character of Phainos Kamunda, a young man enamoured of made-up English jawbreakers (dananability, syllambability, gigotism) is particularly popular with Zimbabweans, who can perhaps be forgiven for seeing in him the forerunner of a certain verbose and highly excitable former minister of information.
5. Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga (1988)
“I was not sorry when my brother died,” begins the first novel to be published in English by a black Zimbabwean woman. With its echo of Camus and title from Fanon, this haunting novel is an intelligent and penetrating exploration of young Tambu’s fight for the education that will lift her out of rural poverty. It is her brother Nhamo’s death that creates the opportunity she deserves. Considered too radically feminist for conservative Zimbabwe, the novel was rejected locally and eventually published by the Women’s Press in London. It has since become a deservedly cherished novel about what it means to be a young woman in Zimbabwe’s patriarchal cultures. In addition to rooting for Tambu, the reader is not sorry at all when Nhamo dies – like the generation of Zimbabwe’s first political leaders to which he belongs, so strong is his sense of entitlement that he would have most likely used his elevated position to close off to others the very doors that had been opened for him.
6. The House of Hunger by Dambudzo Marechera (1978)
Clear-sighted ... Dambudzo Marechera. Photograph: Peter Johns/The Guardian
This superb collection (a novella and nine short stories) was a co-winner (with Neil Jordan’s Night in Tunisia) of the Guardian fiction award in 1979. With its publication, Marechera, the exceptionally gifted enfant terrible of Zimbabwean letters, seemed poised for a glittering career. He died in poverty just eight years later. Easily his most accessible work, The House of Hunger is clear-sighted, beautifully observed and far removed from the sometimes histrionic solipsism that characterised his subsequent work.
7. Harvest of Thorns by Shimmer Chinodya (1989)
The prolific Chinodya has written a number of striking books, most notably Dew in the Morning, an exploration of an idyllic rural boyhood; the sophisticated Strife, in which sins from the pre-colonial past cast shadows into the present; and the rich and varied short-story collection Can We Talk? But it is Harvest of Thorns, widely acclaimed as the best novel ever written about Zimbabwe’s independence war, that is his crowning glory. As well as being a fine novel about the pitiful waste of war, it has at its heart a touching love story and a trenchant critique of the hypocrisies of religion.
8. Kunyarara Hakusi Kutaura? (Is Silence Not Also Speech?) by Charles Mungoshi (1983)
A novelist, poet and playwright who writes equally well in Shona and English, Charles Mungoshi is Zimbabwe’s finest and most versatile writer. His life project has been to interrogate the notion of family. In this groundbreaking novel, he uses multiple voices to unfold, in a stream of consciousness, the unease caused by the return from England of the arrogant Eric Chimbimu. His poor judgment and unthinking actions ensnare him in a love triangle with his half-brother, the weak-willed Paul, and Paul’s beautiful and ambitious wife Lorna. The tensions between the three bring to boiling point the resentments that have been simmering for two generations in their polygamous family. This very modern novel takes an old language in new and unexpected directions.
9. Becoming Zimbabwe edited by Brian Raftopoulos and Alois Mlambo (2009)
This is an impeccably-researched collection of essays by the historians and political scientists Brian Raftopoulos, Alois Mlambo, Gerald Mazarire, Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Joseph Mutisi, Munyaradzi Nyakudya, Teresa Barnes and James Muzondidya. It chronicles the history of Zimbabwe from pre-colonial times to the unity sharing government of 2009. Rich in insights and incisive in its analysis, Becoming Zimbabwe is animated by the influence of the Zimbabweanist historian Terence Ranger, who died last year. He inspired this generation of historians to give both dignity and academic rigour to a history that both the Rhodesia and Zimbabwe regimes have, at one time or another, sought to distort for political reasons.
10. The Last Resort by Douglas Rogers (2010)
This warm and funny memoir is a love letter to a country in the grip of madness. Lyn and Ros Rogers are the owners of Drifters, a farm they bought after Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. Their son Douglas tells the story of how they and their motley staff seek to coexist with the Comrades who try to take over their farm while the economy crashes and spins out of control around them. This book gives the reader an understanding of why there will never be an Arab spring in Zimbabwe – we Zimbos are resilient to the nth degree. We don’t revolt, we “make a plan”. In my favourite passage in the book, a most unlikely character turns out to be the biggest pothead on Zimbabwean soil since Bob Marley and the Wailers played the independence concert. Magic.
The Book of Memory by Petina Gappah is published by Faber, priced £14.99, and is available from the Guardian bookshop for £10.49. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/14/northern-ireland-secretary-failed-comply-abortion-duty-judge-rules | UK news | 2021-10-14T12:05:03.000Z | Alexandra Topping | Northern Ireland secretary failed to comply with abortion duty, judge rules | The Northern Ireland secretary, Brandon Lewis, has failed to uphold his duties to provide full abortion services in the region, a high court judge has ruled.
The ruling will put the government in Westminster under pressure to address the situation in Northern Ireland, where women are struggling to access safe abortion services more than 18 months after the procedure was made legal in the country.
Mr Justice Colton said that between April 2020 and March 2021 the secretary of state failed to comply with his duties under section 9 of the Northern Ireland Executive Formation Act 2019 because he “failed to ensure expeditiously that the state provide women with access to high-quality abortion and post-abortion care in all public facilities in Northern Ireland”.
But he stopped short of making any order compelling Lewis to set out a timetable for the provision of the services. The judicial review was brought by a woman told to travel to England for an abortion during the pandemic lockdown on behalf of Northern Ireland’s human rights commission (NIHRC). Claims brought against the Northern Ireland Department of Health and executive were dismissed.
In a series of tweets, Lewis said he was “profoundly disappointed at the verdict”. He said the UK government was the only party in the case to have taken steps to make abortion services available in Northern Ireland, including introducing regulations in March 2020 and further steps to force action a year later, but the Northern Ireland Executive and the health department continued “to wilfully neglect the welfare and rights of women and girls in NI”.
Experts have said women are still having to use unregulated services and travel to England and Ireland, including during the pandemic.
Abortion was decriminalised in Northern Ireland in October 2019 after a Westminster vote led by the Labour MP Stella Creasy took advantage of a paralysed Stormont, despite an 11th-hour attempt by the region’s assembly to block the change. But since then Northern Ireland’s Department of Health has not commissioned or funded any services. Some trusts have attempted providing a service without funding or a commissioned framework, with some areas relying on a single clinician.
After the ruling Creasy said politicians who had “dragged their feet” in providing legal abortion had to act.
“Today thehigh court told them enough is enough. The secretary of state must now urgently set out how he intends to comply with the law, stop those who oppose it from denying provision through bureaucratic hurdles and uphold the human rights of women in Northern Ireland,” she said.
After the legal proceedings were launched this year, Lewis formally directed Stormont to commission the services before the end of March 2022, but the NIHRC says the situation has not improved.
The Western trust, which covers Derry, has not provided a service since April, with the judge noting on Thursday that women in Northern Ireland faced a postcode lottery if they were seeking an abortion.
Delivering his ruling at Belfast high court on Thursday, Colton said: “Those who are in public office, including the judiciary, must obey and apply the law. It should not be necessary for a court to mandate something by way of judicial review in circumstances where those in public office are not prepared to comply with their legal obligations because they disagree with the relevant law.”
The chief commissioner of the NIHRC, Alyson Kilpatrick, welcomed the judgment, saying it was vital to uphold the human rights of women and girls in Northern Ireland.
Kilpatrick said the UN committee on the elimination of discrimination against women report had found that the rights of women and girls in Northern Ireland were being violated, and she hoped the judgment would force the Department of Health in Northern Ireland to take action.
“While different parts of government argue about who is responsible, women and girls continue to have to travel to England to access abortion services, are forced to continue a pregnancy against their wishes or take unregulated abortion pills,” she said. “These are decisions women and girls shouldn’t need to make in 2021. This is not just about a legal argument it is affecting real people every day.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/sep/19/big-five-uk-energy-companies-turning-away-new-customers | Money | 2022-09-19T05:00:34.000Z | Anna Tims | Big five UK energy companies turning away new customers | Householders in Britain who want to sign up to a new energy company are apparently being obstructed by the largest suppliers, in potential breach of their licence obligations.
The “big five” energy companies are informing those who apply online for a tariff that they should remain with their current supplier because of the volatile energy market. According to the industry regulator, Ofgem, suppliers are obliged to accept new customers as a condition of their licence.
The issue emerged after some consumers reported being unable to find another supplier who would take them on. Some said that when they applied for a quote, a message said they should remain with their current supplier and that the company was not providing quotes.
Michael Donagy, a student and retail assistant, said he had been left in limbo after moving into a new home, unable to open an account in his name with the current supplier and unable to switch to a new provider because none would respond to online requests.
“When I filled out the web form for the current supplier, a message told me to stick to my current provider!” he said. “I’ve tried to call and it was a task just finding a phone number on the website, and I’ve spent a total of three hours on hold without getting through.”
In July, Ofgem launched a long-planned “switching programme” to make it easier and faster for customers to switch supplier. The aim is to strengthen competition in the energy sector by encouraging customers to shop around.
However, soaring energy prices have ended competitive fixed-price contracts, with the mandated Ofgem price cap usually the best tariff available. That annual figure for the typical household had been due to soar to £3,549 from 1 October, before Liz Truss announced earlier this month that it would be reduced to £2,500 for the next couple of winters.
Many price comparison websites no longer offer quotes to allow consumers to identify the best deals. However, one of the most common reasons customers choose to switch is poor customer service, according to Martyn James of the complaints website Resolver.
“Just because there aren’t any switching deals doesn’t mean people won’t want to switch,” he said. “I’ve seen some frankly jaw-dropping examples of poor service, ludicrous errors and blocking of complaints in the last month alone.”
The Guardian attempted to obtain tariffs from British Gas, E.ON, EDF, ScottishPower and Ovo Energy. All five websites stated that they were not currently providing online quotes and claimed that customers were better off remaining with their current supplier.
British Gas confirmed via web chat that it was not currently accepting new customers because Ofgem advised against switching while prices remain volatile.
EDF and ScottishPower told the Guardian they would accept new customers on a standard variable rate by telephone, an option not mentioned on their websites. However, EDF’s contacts page told customers only to use its busy phone lines in an emergency, and ScottishPower referred people back to the website due to high call volumes.
An E.ON spokesperson said: “With energy prices at a record high, it is recommended that customers stay with their existing supplier. However, customers can sign up to receive an alert as soon as we are in a position to offer competitive fixed-price tariffs for new customers, or can call us to discuss their tariff.”
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British Gas and Ovo did not respond to requests for a comment.
Ofgem denied British Gas’s claim that it had advised customers to avoid switching. “In fact, suppliers must take on new customers when approached by them,” a spokesperson said.
The regulator declined to confirm whether it was aware of suppliers blocking new customers, but said it investigated companies that it believed may have breached one or more conditions of their licences.
After the Guardian submitted evidence of its findings, it added: “We hold suppliers to account on [accepting new customers] by using all forms of intelligence shared with us.”
Some companies, such as Octopus Energy, have been allowing new customers to sign up. Although the firm also declines requests for online quotes and advises customers to stick with their existing supplier, it does in the small print provide a number for those who still require a quote. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/23/wales-england-six-nations-match-report | Sport | 2019-02-23T19:34:00.000Z | Paul Rees | Wales on course for grand slam as late tries shatter England | From the sublime to the submerged. England, imperious in the Six Nations’ first two rounds, drowned under a tidal wave of emotion as Wales launched a second-half comeback to achieve their 12th successive victory and break a record that had stood for more than a century. It was a breathless, tactical, titanic battle that turned when Dan Biggar left the home bench on the hour.
When the Northampton fly-half replaced Gareth Anscombe, Wales were 10-9 behind and had trailed for most of the match. Within six minutes they were ahead for the first time. Two years ago here it was England’s replacements who helped swing the match, but a feature of Wales’s unbeaten run since they lost in Dublin at this stage of the tournament a year ago has been the promotion of young players who have given them strength in depth.
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The experienced Biggar is not in that category but he was what Wales needed at a point in the match when lung-bursting desire and energy gave way to mental and physical fatigue. The England coach, Eddie Jones, had said in the buildup, presumably because of the landmark his opponents were looking to establish, that it was the best Wales team ever.
If he was hoping his words would ruffle the home side and prompt them to play with hearts rather than heads, the arrival of Biggar ensured otherwise. Until then Wales had played with typical endeavour and spirit, neutralising England’s kicking game and putting pressure on their half-backs, but their best hope of victory looked to be their opponents’ indiscipline, which improved when Kyle Sinckler was replaced just before the hour.
The prop, who had been singled out before the game by the Wales coach, Warren Gatland, as an emotional timebomb, had been explosive in the first half, making 16 tackles and winning the penalty at a scrum that gave England the lead after 16 minutes. Wales had had the greater possession and territory but were at times in too much of a hurry. England held them at arm’s length, running from their own half only after a turnover and kicking if nothing materialised after three or four phases, waiting for mistakes.
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England sabotaged Wales’s lineout and were a threat at the breakdown through Tom Curry, who scored their try after 25 minutes when, after Ken Owens had lost possession in his own half as Wales tried to drive a maul, he spotted his opposite number, Justin Tipuric, looking the wrong way at a ruck near Wales’s line and picked up for a soft score given the thunderous challenges that had preceded it.
England had used their big ball-carriers, Billy Vunipola, Manu Tuilagi and Courtney Lawes, to storm the gainline and make dents in defenders, but Wales held firm, forcing Ben Youngs and Owen Farrell to kick. Wales picked Gareth Davies at scrum-half for the first time this tournament and part of his brief was to put pressure on Farrell as a way of neutralising the threat of Jonny May on the wing and it largely worked.
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Wales switched wings, putting Josh Adams, with his quicker acceleration and narrower turning circle, against May rather than George North. A year ago at Twickenham, Adams, in his second Test, was exposed positionally as May scored two early tries, but here he was astute and alert, reacting quickly to one kick in the opening half when Elliot Daly would have had a run to the line.
Wales gnawed away at England’s 10-3 interval lead in the third quarter when two Anscombe penalties reduced the visitors’ lead to a point – the second after Sinckler, having just given away a penalty for obstruction, involved himself in a touchline dispute that had nothing to do with him.
And the certainty that had sustained England dissolved. They had been content to keep Wales at a distance but could not respond when they needed to be more inventive. One Tuilagi run apart, they barely mustered a threat in the second period, when their only points came from a penalty secured by the excellent Curry, who forced Hadleigh Parkes to hold on after a tackle.
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Wales were unflinching, which galvanised the crowd – but they needed someone to create a spark. Enter Biggar. He played scrum-half after a 34-phase move and a North run that took out three defenders, flicking a short pass to the second-row Cory Hill, who had the strength to break two tackles and the reach to make the line, just.
Wales were in the lead for the first time with 13 minutes to go. England needed to find a response but their chief tactic had been thwarted by Wales’s back three, led by Liam Williams, one of two who earn their livings in the Premiership, and also the first full-back with experience in the position that England had faced this season.
The other Premiership player was Adams who, with three minutes to go and Wales looking to deliver a knockout blow and leave England without a bonus point, positioned himself on the right-hand touchline, exhorting Biggar to deliver a cross-kick – which the fly-half did with such precision that Adams was able to get above Daly, gather the ball at the second attempt and, summing up his team, make the line through sheer willpower. The score ensured the end of a run of five successive championship defeats against England.
Cory Hill goes over for Wales’s first try, which swung the match in their favour. Photograph: Dan Mullan/Getty Images
Eddie Jones’s words about Wales prove to be a warning, not a wind-up
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https://www.theguardian.com/government-computing-network/2009/apr/01/gc-biometrics-private-sector | Guardian Government Computing | 2009-04-01T17:20:00.000Z | Tracey Caldwell | Private sector: checking the customer's voice | The company dealt with the issue by introducing voice biometrics to recognise customer voices and speed up the call process.
Rob Thomas, business IT manager for AHM, says: "Our research showed that the routine ID check added between 28 and 41 seconds to each call and that customers were asking us for a better, easier way of performing this important check."
In addition, the company had concerns about the security of verbal identity checks along the lines of "What is your mother's maiden name?" as this information is often known to people related to the caller.
Automated verification allowed AHM to remove the need to ask a series of identification questions and speed up the call process. "Our first question to our customers then became 'How can I help you?"," says Thomas.
AHM didn't go though a tender process for its biometrics solution as it was already familiar with supplier VeCommerce's Voice Biometric solution and had seen it working well at reference sites.
"It certainly is groundbreaking," he says. "Our understanding is that we were the largest implementation in the English speaking world, and one of the first public implementations worldwide."
To benefit from the system, members register for voice verification. Once they've done this, the next time they call, they say their membership number. They are then transferred straight through to an agent who knows who they are and that they have been verified.
AHM tested the system comprehensively before implementation. "The majority of our time was spent on 'impostor' testing and load testing," says Thomas.
Impostor testing focused on people with similar voices so AHM used identical twins, siblings who sound the same over the phone, and mimics to test the system. No impostor was accepted by the system.
The implementation process took 12 weeks, with the first seven taken up with workshops on call flow, integration with the customer database and recording all necessary prompts for the solution. This was followed by three weeks of testing before the final implementation.
Thomas describes staff as "receptive to the new technology". "We instigated a number of incentives for the contact centre which helped to motivate and engage the staff in actively enrolling customers in voice verification," he says.
AHM has seen significant time savings since implementing the solution. The difference in talk time between a caller who is verified automatically and one who is verified manually at AHM is 55 seconds.
Since the initial voice biometric implementation the insurer has introduced automated knowledge based questions to speed up the process when the voice biometric of a customer is not recognised. The system recognises that the caller is not registered and performs the ID check process automatically, using the information in the database on the caller's name, address, and date of birth.
First published in GC magazine, April 2009.
Apply for a subscription. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/03/quality-street-axes-plastic-wrappers-paper-nestle | Business | 2022-10-03T10:43:34.000Z | Sarah Butler | Quality Street axes plastic wrappers for recyclable paper | Quality Street’s multicoloured confectionery will now all be a bit more green – or that is the hope – as the foil and plastic wrappers are swapped for recyclable paper.
The change marks the first switch away from rustling, shiny plastic wrappers for the brand in 86 years since Harold Mackintosh launched the brand in 1936 – with the intention of keeping 2bn wrappers a year out of landfill.
The latest change comes after the brand’s owner, Nestlé, tried swapping the outer plastic layer for compostable cellulose in 2008 – but it found most were still tossed in the bin.
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Nine of the 11 Quality Street sweets will move to paper-based packaging, which most local authorities collect. The orange crunch and green triangle will remain in foil wrappers as, traditionally, they have not had a plastic layer.
The new paper wrappers are covered with a specially created vegetable-based coating designed to keep the sweets fresh without hindering the recycling process.
The change will take several months to complete, so this Christmas fans will find a mix of old and new wrappers in their Quality Street tubs and tins.
Nestlé, the owner of the popular Christmas treats, said it was also switching KitKat wrappers to 80% recycled plastic that could be recycled at supermarkets across the UK or put in household recycling in Ireland.
The revamp for KitKat comes 21 years after it swapped its traditional, fully recyclable, paper and foil wrap for plastic. Smarties, also owned by Nestlé, introduced recyclable paper packaging last year.
The company said it hoped the changes would eliminate 3bn pieces of packaging a year from its supply chain.
Helen Bird, at the government-backed recycling body Wrap, said consumers were most concerned about how easy it was to recycle plastic wrapping and that required good design, collection and infrastructure as well as demand for the recycled material.
She said: “Plastic wrappers are not yet collected by local authorities, but this is set to change in the coming years. In the meantime, leading supermarkets are providing 5,000 collection points for all types of plastic bags and wrappers.
“We welcome these new initiatives from Nestlé, founding members of the UK Plastics Pact, to improve the recyclability of Quality Street and using advanced recycling technology to include recycled plastic into its KitKat packaging – something we need to significantly ramp up in the UK, and across the world. We look forward to further rollout.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/sep/12/ringway-birminghams-brutiful-masterpieces-clint-eastwood-wrecking-ball | Art and design | 2022-09-12T13:54:38.000Z | Oliver Wainwright | ‘If the Ringway goes, I’m leaving’ – the fight to save Birmingham’s brutiful masterpieces | The Ringway Centre, sweeping 230 metres along Birmingham’s inner ring road in one continuous curve, is a striking monument to the heroic age of the UK’s “motorway city”. It stands like a protective wall, its four floors of offices framed by horizontal bands of abstract concrete reliefs and slender vertical fins, punctuated by a staccato rhythm of Corbusian bullhorn lamps. The taut ribbon of offices projects out over the street, sheltering a long parade of shops, and leaps over a road supported on dramatic angled columns – compared by their architect, James Roberts, to “the massive feet of a Martian monster”.
Built in 1962, as highway fever was sweeping the city, the Ringway was the ultimate expression of “carchitecture”: a building designed to be taken in at speed. It fused the American strip mall, the British high street and the brave new world of inner city ring roads into what the Birmingham Pevsner architectural guide describes as “the best piece of mid-20th century urban design in the city”. It even served as the glamorous backdrop for a Clint Eastwood photoshoot when he visited the city in 1967, posing moodily on the balcony of the hotel across the street.
The library was replaced by a load of cladding and glass tat – a piece of our heritage was lost for featureless rubbish
But come here today and you won’t see much of it. The entire building is engulfed in a bright purple shroud, installed for the recent Commonwealth Games, concealing the modernist facade behind a lurid billboard of gyrating letter Bs. It is an apt reflection of the council’s attitude to its postwar heritage: as the world’s eyes were focused on Birmingham, it chose to hide one of its most important buildings. Beneath the jazzy wrapper, the structure lies empty and condemned. Although it is locally listed, plans were unveiled in July to raze the entire complex and build three huge glass towers in its place.
“If the Ringway Centre comes down,” says Mary Keating, “I’ll have to leave Birmingham.” She is standing beneath the building’s majestic facade, where the curved concrete lamps poke through the purple vinyl veil like pleading fingers, as if urging passersby to halt the wrecking ball. “The city has been hellbent on bulldozing its postwar heritage. This is one of the last and most important buildings we’ve got left.”
‘Rare and delightful’ … Grosvenor House. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright
Keating has been battling to save the city’s brutalist architecture since 2015, when she came together with fellow retiree enthusiasts Jenny Marris and John Bell to form the Brutiful Birmingham action group. They were stirred into action by the fate of the city’s Central Library, a muscular inverted ziggurat designed by local architect John Madin, which was shamefully torn down in 2016 – despite Historic England’s repeated pleas that it should be listed.
“It has been replaced by a load of tat,” says Keating, referring to the insipid mixed-use development designed by Glenn Howells, inaccurately named Paradise. “It’s all cladding and glass. It could be anywhere in the world. The city is destroying a period of our heritage that is so particular to Birmingham, for this featureless rubbish.”
The campaigning trio have been venting their fury in the pages of the Birmingham Post over the last few years in a series of columns that are now brought together in a new book, Birmingham: The Brutiful Years, published by the Modernist Society. It is a lyrical love letter to a city that can sometimes be hard to love, walking the reader through Brum’s postwar shopping precincts, speculative office towers, university campuses, public artworks, suburban churches and such tangled motorway intersections as Spaghetti Junction. Their enthusiasm is infectious: dry architectural history this is not; passionate and illuminating advocacy for a city of bold experiments, it most certainly is.
Neglected but surviving … the sculpture created for Lloyd’s by John Poole, now in a Zara womenswear department. Photograph: Oliver Wainwright
As Keating and I pace the streets, looking up at facades and peering down at details, the city centre unfolds as a patchwork of rare intrigue. We stop to admire the concertina frontage of House of Fraser, folded like sharply scored origami, and the undulating concrete canopy above a subway, punctured with cosmic circular lenses. We find handsome book-matched green slate panels over the entrance to Pandora, and fine mosaic-work above a Wagamama, next to an expressionist bronze relief over an unmarked door.
We encounter bulbous sci-fi windows bulging on the corner above the Admiral Casino Slots Experience, as if ready for lift-off, and marvel at the chiselled zigzag balconies that rise above a Snappy Snaps, writhing with wrought-iron balustrades like the work of some Brummie Gaudí.
The last one is the extraordinary Grosvenor House on Bennett’s Hill, one of the more expressive works of Cotton, Ballard & Blow, who built much of the postwar city centre – “little if any of which is said to have improved the look of that city”, as the Spectator grumbled in 1959. Keating and her co-authors beg to differ, as does Historic England, which describes the Grade-II listed building as “a rare and delightful example of 1950s contemporary style at its most energetic … imaginative and richly detailed”. It’s a wonderful piece of flash commercial design, the whole thing crowned with a floating concrete and glass parasol.
Curved delight … a detail of the Ringway, designed by James Roberts. Photograph: David Bleeker Architectural/Alamy
While much can be enjoyed from the streets, some of the “brutiful” highlights require venturing indoors and nosing around unlikely places. One hidden treasure is to be found upstairs in the womenswear department of Zara. Behind the racks of muted autumnal clothing stands a vast earth-toned cylinder encrusted with frenzied reliefs of spirals, wheels, grids and sunbursts. It has the air of an ancient Aztec monument. Press one of the panels and you half expect it to groan open and reveal a sacrificial altar.
It is the work of local sculptor John Poole, who originally designed it as the momentous focal point of what was, at the time of its creation in 1963, the double-height banking hall of Lloyd’s. This vast mural, cast in “ciment fondu”, is all still there, protected by listing, although its lower half is sadly hidden in the Zara storeroom.
Corbusier comparisons … Mary Keating, co-author of Birmingham: The Brutiful Years.
The reason for its preservation is that it stands in the base of the Rotunda, a 25-storey cylindrical tower designed by James Roberts (he of the Ringway) in 1965. It’s one of the few buildings of the era to have been Grade II-listed, thus making it the “icon” of postwar Birmingham since the library vanished. Clad in precast concrete panels faced with white mosaic tiles, alternating with bands of aluminium windows, the tower was envisaged by Roberts as a “huge candle in the middle of Birmingham”, originally intended to have neon rings encircling each floor.
After the planned observation deck and rotating restaurant were scrapped, Roberts moved his own office into the top two floors, where he could look out at his creations, including the twin Sentinel towers of council flats that keep watch over the city wall of the Ringway. Listed in 2000, the Rotunda was converted into apartments by Urban Splash in 2008, to designs by Glenn Howells, replacing the delicate window frames and mosaic tiles with a clumsier cladding system. “I think they messed it up,” says Keating. “But at least it’s still standing.”
Sadly the same cannot be said for so much of Birmingham’s postwar heritage, which has already gone the way of the library. Madin’s fine towers for the Post and Mail and the National Westminster Bank were both demolished, in 2006 and 2015, and replaced with corpulent glass slabs, while the hungry jaws of the concrete crunchers are now nibbling their way through the brutalist Axis building, built for British Rail in the 1970s. The same sorry fate is set to afflict Corporation Square – described by the Pevsner guide as “Birmingham’s best 1960s shopping development”, and the only building in Birmingham designed by Sir Frederick Gibberd, the feted architect of Harlow New Town and Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.
The end … the demolition of the Central Library in 2016, which inspired the Brutiful Birmingham action group to form. Photograph: Nick Maslen/Alamy
The brutiful trio describe it as “a hint of Le Corbusier in Birmingham”, its low-rise facades of white Portland stone, punctured by vertical slit windows, framing a courtyard oasis. But in 2020 the council approved plans by developer Hammerson to flatten the whole thing and replace it with a mixed-use “signature gateway” development – another galumphing commercial quarter of could-be-anywhere filler by Glenn Howells.
“All this demolition makes a mockery of the city’s desire to reach zero carbon by 2030,” says Keating. “Renovation and reuse would be eminently possible in all of these cases.” She adds that it’s not just about the architecture and embodied energy, but also the embodied memories in these structures. “It’s about what these buildings mean to people on an everyday basis. People went to House of Fraser to have a nice time with their mum, or went for a night out at Snobs in the Ringway, or the Forum under the Gibberd building, which has hosted all sorts of famous bands. These places are part of people’s psyche.”
As we loop back to the Ringway, we see the Commonwealth Games slogan emblazoned across the purple hoarding: “Be bold, be Birmingham.” If only the council would take heed of their own words, the city could become a model of creative postwar conservation, and breathe new life into its brutiful past, rather than trampling it all to dust.
Birmingham: The Brutiful Years, published by the Modernist Society, is out now | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/sep/28/agrippina-royal-opera-review-joyce-didonato-intellegence-park-gerald-barry-greek-passion-opera-north | Music | 2019-09-28T10:59:05.000Z | Fiona Maddocks | The week in classical: Agrippina; The Intelligence Park; The Greek Passion – review | Current politics has nothing on the plots of Handel’s operas, in which love and power are continually enmeshed and recombined. He composed Agrippina (1709), an early masterpiece, for the Venice carnival in his mid-20s. Its humanity is as generous and wise, its music as dazzling and free-flowing, its emotional angles as sharp, as anything he wrote. The Royal Opera’s fast-moving new production by Barrie Kosky, premiered in Munich’s Bavarian State Opera in July, emphasises the work’s modernity and pertinence. It succeeds brilliantly, in most respects, but above all in its octet of singers, and in the ferocious, exciting playing of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (leader Margaret Faultless) under the baton of the Russian conductor Maxim Emelyanychev, in his ROH debut.
The star American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato sizzles and burns in the title role, on peak vocal and dramatic form with a witty array of inspired gestures, but this is an ensemble work, and she is impressively matched. The first night had hiccups, the galloping speeds from the pit causing a few hazards, but zest and intensity, together with Handel’s genius, won out. The opera is a study in deceit, with the only honest figure – Ottone, played with noble despair by the British countertenor Iestyn Davies – suffering the deepest anguish. His plea for help (“Otton, Otton, qual portentoso fulmine”), rising out of sour, dark dissonances in the orchestra, came as a sober indictment of the amorality of those around him. It was the evening’s devastating still point. The Argentinian countertenor Franco Fagioli as Agrippina’s simpering, vocally piercing and ear-pierced dolt of a son, Nerone, and the Italian bass Gianluca Buratto as her feeble, sex-pest husband, the Roman emperor Claudio, were deadly reminders that high office rarely falls to the most deserving.
Joyce DiDonato: ‘I’m trying to balance activism and joy’
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In the cool, straight lines of Rebecca Ringst’s box-within-box designs, with lighting by Joachim Klein, it’s as if the mess and anarchy of life are being willed into rebarbative order. Extravagant costumes by Klaus Bruns added texture and flamboyance. It looked elegant, but the frequent and noisy manoeuvres of the set distracted at key moments, especially during the final love duet between Ottone and Poppea (the endlessly savvy and astute Lucy Crowe). Kosky’s taste for farce ran, or overran, the full gamut in Act 3, his performers rising gamely to his demands, scrambling up and down stairs while negotiating cascades of notes or shimmying (in the case of Davies) along the tops of furniture. Agrippina, suddenly a pop queen, competes and wins – with show-stopping comedy – against a jewel-encrusted live mic. Kosky’s restless imagination has its tropes, but the rewards far outweigh the excesses. Emelyanychev’s conducting, and some terrific solo playing from OAE players, made this an enthralling first new production of the season.
Snapping at Agrippina’s heels, occupying an 18th-century world chiming scabrously with Handel’s own, Gerald Barry’s The Intelligence Park opened downstairs at the ROH Linbury theatre in the work’s first staging since its 1990 premiere. A co-production with Music Theatre Wales and the London Sinfonietta, directed and designed by Nigel Lowery and conducted with fearless precision by Jessica Cottis, this production honoured the Irish composer’s extreme nonconformity. The world is a human zoo, contained within a toy theatre. A conflict of head and heart, infatuation and a creative block provide the surreal, salty, baroque plot (libretto by Vincent Deane), which has an opera-within-an-opera and includes characters named Wattle and Daub, as well as a row of bewigged rag dolls representing Dublin society.
‘Phenomenal’: Adrian Dwyer, Stephanie Marshall, Stephen Richardson, Patrick Terry, Rhian Lois and Michel de Souza in The Intelligence Park. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
The text is impossibly dense, delivered in a declamatory, near-clockwork style, sounding uniformly metric yet changing tempo almost every bar. Hidden deep inside Barry’s musical language are nicks of melody, exploded chorales, funeral hymns and tolling bells. The impact is an aural blast, like reading Finnegans Wake as a flick book. It may not have the repertoire appeal of Barry’s The Importance of Being Earnest but I was glad, if only once, to encounter it. The London Sinfonietta’s virtuosity, and the cast’s miraculous achievements – led by Michel de Souza with Adrian Dwyer, Stephen Richardson, Rhian Lois, Stephanie Marshall, Patrick Terry and (recorded solo treble) Rafael Flutter – were, without exaggeration, phenomenal.
Opera North is the first opera company in the UK to have been awarded the status of Theatre of Sanctuary, its involvement with those seeking refuge in the Leeds locality going far beyond any normal outreach programme. Staging Martinů’s rarely seen last opera, The Greek Passion (1957), whose subject is social displacement, therefore meant more than merely striving to put on a good show. Christopher Alden’s production, conducted by Garry Walker, the company’s music director designate, is certainly that: musically outstanding, striking in its depiction of Greek village life where simultaneous events – the staging of a passion play and the arrival of refugees – unsettle the community. Little wonder the performance of this lyrical, attractive but uneven piece (in an edition reconstructed by Aleš Brézina) had particular veracity.
Charles Edwards’s designs, a bank of retractable seating with white effigies to depict the faceless refugees, provided effective, simple imagery. Chorus and soloists – including Stephen Gadd, Paul Nilon, Magdalena Molendowska and, especially, John Savournin – excelled. The opera builds towards the shepherd Manolios’s soliloquy on charity. Chosen to play Christ, quiet at first, he struggles to match human instinct to this divine task until it bursts out of him, to tragic end. The tenor Nicky Spence, singing with open-hearted eloquence, made us think anew about the meaning of compassion.
Nicky Spence (Manolios) in Opera North’s The Greek Passion. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
Star ratings (out of five)
Agrippina ★★★★
The Intelligence Park ★★★★
The Greek Passion ★★★★
Agrippina is at the Royal Opera House, London, until 11 October
The Intelligence Park is at the Linbury theatre, Royal Opera House, London, until 4 October
The Greek Passion is at Leeds Grand theatre until 19 October, then touring until 16 November | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/jan/14/team-america-world-police-review | Film | 2005-01-14T00:58:00.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Team America: World Police | The United States of America, 2005; an uncongenial time and place for liberal assholes. Mr Bush has won his second term, fair and square, and his electoral opponent, Senator - Kelly, was it? - has crawled into the dustbin of history and pulled the lid closed behind him. Rather than be labelled sore losers, an entire media class has elected not to mind about the grotesque untruth of Iraqi WMD. In political and policy circles progressives are being invited to walk with bowed head into the Versailles railway carriage to sign the instrument of surrender, and many hardly know whether to know to holler their defiant rage at the enemy, or their own team for having been so milksop as to be defeated - or are perhaps tempted to side with the conqueror.
Team America: World Police brilliantly captures this complex contemporary mood, telling you more about America than Fox News, salon.com and the New York Times combined. It is a jaw-droppingly bizarre puppet show from Trey Parker and Matt Stone, the creators of South Park, and its style is taken (though I am sorry to say without a word of thanks or acknowledgement) from Britain's cult TV show Thunderbirds.
Our heroes are an elite A-team of potty-mouthed tough-guy superheroes with strings attached and a jauntily wooden way of walking, who cruise around the globe in their fleet of helicopters and hi-tech pursuit vehicles, kicking terrorist ass. Soon they have to confront a world-threatening conspiracy, masterminded by North Korea's Kim Jong-il, manipulating the useful idiots - the puppets, if you will - on the moderate showbiz left.
Parker and Stone gleefully pull the pin from their comedy grenade, and the result is an explosion of hilarious bad taste and ambiguous political satire. Everyone is sprayed with shrapnel, from gung-ho patriots to mealy-mouthed pantywaist liberals, and a special kicking is given to Hollywood itself and its bleeding-heart aristocracy: Tim Robbins, Susan Sarandon and even, heaven forgive them, the documentary film-maker Michael Moore. The entire acting profession, in fact, is washed away in a river of bile - and the offence given to them is somehow, well, more offensive considering that the creators have used puppets rather than flesh-and-blood thesps.
You know you shouldn't laugh. You know it's wicked and wrong. You shouldn't laugh when Team America's high-minded opponents reveal themselves to be members of the liberal Film Actors Guild or "FAG". Puppets representing Alec Baldwin and Sean Penn mince around reminding everyone in whingeing voices that they have been to Iraq.
Many will wince and wrinkle their noses at this film's sheer, uncompromising immaturity. Perhaps they prefer their satire more middlebrow, more responsible, like that Manchurian Candidate remake. But Team America: World Police is criminally, deplorably funny. The giggling starts at the spectacular opening scene when TAWP take down a bevy of terrorists in Paris - though at the unfortunate expense of destroying the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe and the Louvre - and things more or less continue from there. The explicit puppet sex scene between Gary and Lady Penelope-lookalike Lisa is incredible, in every sense. And I joined the audience in its snowballing delirium at the scene when one of the guys, consumed with drunken self-loathing for having let down the team, hits rock bottom and vomits outside a bar for what seems like 20 minutes. The hi-tech magic of CGI might have expanded the realms of what is physically possible, but old fashioned puppetry has done the same with the bounds of taste. You can get away with a heck of a lot more if it's a puppet saying it.
And the Michael Moore stuff - well, I am a huge fan of his excellent film Fahrenheit 9/11 and I groan at those grumpy and defensive pundits, writing their squirrelly little Hutton reports into it. Yet Moore's ego is entertainingly punctured when he is shown as a smug liberal martyr attempting to destroy Team America's headquarters - by rigging himself up as a suicide bomber. Again, a breathtaking moment of offensiveness: a veritable chain-mail fist through the paper-screen of celebrity correctness. It wasn't that long ago that Michael Moore, in his anti-gun documentary Bowling for Columbine, was interviewing Matt Stone, and generally praising him to the skies as a fellow satirist. And this is how he is repaid? Oh dear!
But where are Team America's politics? Despite the incessant swearing and homo-erotic fellatio gags at Team America's expense, a certain type of rock-ribbed Republican could well enjoy the film a great deal: maybe of the PJ O'Rourke kind, though PJ O'Rourke was never this funny. The attacks on the Hollywood whingers outweigh the mickey-taking of all-American machismo, and it often looks like a rightwing Spitting Image. There are puppets here mocking everyone from Hans Blix to Tony Blair. But where are the puppets of George W Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice? There are none, and it appears certain figures are, if not off limits exactly, then irrelevant to the overall satirical thrust.
Silly and infantile it may be - but Team America is defiantly funny, tweaking the nose of the polite classes with its mad iconoclasm. Why can't non-puppet films be as good as this? | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/oct/02/the-devil-and-dark-water-by-stuart-turton-review | Books | 2020-10-02T06:30:15.000Z | M John Harrison | The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart Turton review – irresistible maritime mystery | The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – a curiously invigorating mix of genres described by its publishers as “Gosford Park meets Inception, by way of Agatha Christie” – won the 2018 Costa award for best first novel. Stuart Turton’s second novel is a further pick’n’mix affair involving a demon, an impossible murder and a celebrated “alchemical detective” called Samuel Pipps. A maritime mystery with fantastical overtones, it’s set on an East Indiaman during the punishing eight-month ocean journey from Batavia to Amsterdam.
It’s 1634: the Dutch East India Company, run by a shadowy cabal of capitalists known as “the Gentlemen 17”, has called back Batavia’s governor general to reward his colonial success by electing him one of them. Along with the governor on the galleon Saardam travel his wife, their daughter and his mistress. Conditions are cramped and foul. The sailors are brutal and the noble passengers untrustworthy. Something is awry in the humid gloom below decks, and it’s soon apparent that they’re afloat not just on the ocean but on the murky waters of greed and capital. What’s the secret of “The Folly”, the inexplicable quasi-scientific object the governor has brought aboard with him? Why has Samuel Pipps, acknowledged to be the most respected criminal investigator of his day, been dragged aboard in chains? How can he solve a locked-room murder that seems so impossible as to be supernatural, when he’s shut in a cell the size of a coffin himself? Is the demon “Old Tom” real, or only a Scooby Doo-style player in one of the many onboard commercial and political factions? From the governor to Pipps’s assistant Arent Hayes, to the demon itself, everyone seems related, entangled in backstory. Everyone has a motive.
Murder, conspiracy and gothic mayhem aside, these are only some of the mysteries we expect our crimefighting duo to solve as the Saardam flounders its way towards Holland. Pipps and Hayes are as opposite a pair of opposites as you could desire. Where the sleuth is nicknamed “the sparrow”, his bodyguard is vast and ugly, with shorn scalp, “nose punched flat” and scars from his last flogging. Where Pipps is fragile, handsome and fiercely rational, Hayes, despite his size, durability and blunt manners, turns out to be a man of surprising empathy and gentleness. Despite Pipps’s intelligence and Hayes’s experiences in the mud and blood of the eighty years’ war, neither of them seems, at the outset, entirely competent. And, constant revelation being part of Turton’s technique, neither of them, of course, is what he seems.
Turton back-narrates their relationship in little synoptic segments that suggest it has already developed across a whole series of novels, as if assuming the committed fan’s familiarity with earlier adventures even as he brings the first-time reader brusquely up to speed. The order of that relationship, he implies, is being reversed! Just for this adventure, the assistant must reluctantly become the detective! Can he apply his mentor’s methods, or must he find his own way? It’s a classic manoeuvre, used to revive interest in many a long-running crime series – one among several sly mimicries and references it would be a pity to spoil here. Nods from writer to reader acknowledge a major pleasure of contemporary entertainment: the sharing of the trope.
The Devil and the Dark Water is all about narrative pleasure. In the service of its high-speed, self-aware twists and turns, characters often talk as if they know they’re in a book, and are either nudging a forgetful reader or winking at a complicit one. They’ll undergo heavy-gauge backstory additions to fit them for a reveal or for their next set of tasks and excitements; our idea of the character as we already know them will conflict for a page or two with their new demeanour, then succumb as our sympathies tilt to accommodate. This helps the author convey the emotional charge of each scene in a quick-and-dirty fashion. Before one crazed encounter has ended (a burning leper, say, haranguing a crowd on the docks), the next (the meet-angry of the detective’s assistant and the governor’s beautiful wife) has already begun.
Events approach at dizzying speeds and recede almost immediately into the distance, decaying into the fog of battle and shipwreck. The locked room murder meets a Michael Bay movie, by way of Treasure Island; you can’t know what’s going on, if only because the author won’t let you know until he’s delivered the final surprise – and another one after that. The effect is irresistible. Turton has got his world up and running inside the first two pages; thereafter, deceptions and diversions multiply until the ultimate, outrageous reveal, at which point the dark water turns out to be rather darker than you imagined.
M John Harrison’s latest novel is The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again (Gollancz). The Devil and the Dark Water is published by Raven (£16.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/17/anglican-churches-reject-sydney-archbishops-stance-on-same-sex-marriage | World news | 2019-10-17T07:03:48.000Z | Josh Taylor | Anglican churches reject Sydney archbishop’s stance on same-sex marriage | Anglican churches around Australia have pushed back against Sydney Archbishop Glenn Davies’ suggestion to same-sex marriage supporters that they “please leave” the church.
In an address to the 51st Synod of the Diocese of Sydney, Davies said those who supported same-sex marriage should abandon the church.
“I fear for the stability of the Anglican Church of Australia. These developments have the potential to fracture our fellowship and impair our communion. I have stated this on numerous occasions at the annual National Bishops’ Conference, but sadly to little effect,” he said.
“My own view is that if people wish to change the doctrine of our church, they should start a new church or join a church 0more aligned to their views – but do not ruin the Anglican Church by abandoning the plain teaching of Scripture. Please leave us.
I’m gay, married, and not leaving my church
Joel Hollier
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“We have far too much work to do in evangelising Australia to be distracted by the constant pressure to change our doctrine in order to satisfy the lusts and pleasures of the world.”
The Sydney Anglican diocese is notoriously conservative. As well as their official opposition to same-sex marriage, they do not allow women to be ordained as priests or bishops.
Other, more progressive, sections of the church have rejected Davies’ position. In a letter to ministers on Thursday, the Southern Queensland archbishop’s commissary Reverend Jeremy Greaves said there had been “deep distress” about Davies’ comments and his views did not reflect that of the Anglican Church in Southern Queensland.
“The Anglican Church in Southern Queensland has taken a different view, expressing its desire to be a welcoming and safe church for all and together to work through admittedly complex issues on which people hold diverse views,” he said.
“All God’s children are welcome and affirmed in the Anglican Church Southern Queensland and no one is asked to leave,” he said. “We treasure the unity of the church and the reconciliation of all people and the whole creation wrought by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.
“Asking people to leave the church undermines this fundamental truth.”
He also noted the Brisbane Diocesan Synod had recently affirmed that trans and gender diverse people can attend Anglican schools.
What a different #Anglican spirit we have in #southernQld! :-) Very grateful for the continued support of my affirming diocese, and this official commitment to a truly welcoming & safe Church which works with diversity & views calls for people to leave as betraying love & Jesus pic.twitter.com/uAfmbIEBJq
— Jo Inkpin (@blessedimp) October 17, 2019
Archbishop of Perth, Kay Goldsworthy said all members of the LGBTIQ community were welcome in the Anglican Church in Perth and said it is “troubling that the welcome is not universal.”
“The Perth Diocese of the Anglican Church has long been a strong supporter of the LGBTIQ community and it is an appropriate time to reiterate and emphasise the message of a 2017 resolution of the Perth Diocese,” she said.
“It affirmed that ‘all people are made in the image of God regardless of their race, sex, economic background and political affiliation …’ and offered a heartfelt apology to, and sought forgiveness from, the LGBTIQ Community ‘whom we have hurt by words and behaviour that have not displayed the love of God’.”
She said the diocese of Perth is committed to fostering churches where compassion and grace abound.
“We desire to be places where all people will feel safe. We want to be welcoming of all people.”
In a statement, the Melbourne archbishop Philip Freier also said the church would not turn people away.
“The Anglican diocese of Melbourne welcomes all Christians and anyone else to attend Anglican services in Melbourne. Anglicans hold a wide variety of views on social issues, and that is a matter for their consciences,” he said.
The position of the Sydney Anglican diocese is not surprising, considering it donated $1m to the “no” campaign during the 2017 postal survey, but it is being seen as a push back against more progressive elements of the church.
NSW Uniting church backs school climate strike, Sydney Anglicans and Catholics decline
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In September, the Synod of the Diocese of Wangaratta in Victoria agreed to allow blessings of same-sex marriages. There was expected to be a blessing of the civil marriage of two gay priests from the area, but it was delayed after the decision was challenged to the church’s appellate tribunal.
The tribunal will consider whether the blessings go against the Anglican Church’s constitution.
The church has been grappling with the issue of same-sex marriage during the nearly two years since it became legal in Australia.
Next year the Anglican Church’s general synod will hold a conference alongside its special session where delegates can discuss issues facing the church, including same-sex relationships and marriage, and discuss ways forward.
In a book of essays published by the church’s general synod in July, some of the church’s leading figures in Australia have debated whether the church can bless same-sex unions, arguing the positions both for and against. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jul/12/rothermere-bid-daily-mail-general-trust-dmgt | Business | 2021-07-12T08:08:43.000Z | Kalyeena Makortoff | Rothermere readies £810m bid to take Daily Mail owner private | Lord Rothermere is considering taking the Daily Mail private in a deal that could value the newspaper group at £810m, a move that would end a 90-year run as a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange.
The Rothermere family has put forward a potential offer that would involve buying about 70% of the Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT) group that it does not already own. The move would give Rothermere, who is also chairman of the group, full control of DMGT and take the company off the stock exchange.
In a stock market announcement on Monday, the group said Rothermere’s Jersey-registered holding company Rothermere Continuation Ltd (RCL) was considering a bid of 251p a share, valuing the group at about £810m.
RCL already has a 30% stake in the group – which also owns the Metro and i newspaper titles – and holds all of the vote-bearing shares in DMGT’s two-tier stock structure. It means that the deal is not at risk of facing opposition if a deal is put to a shareholder vote.
However, the publisher of the Daily Mail said a potential offer was contingent on a number of factors, including a planned sale of DMGT’s insurance risk business Risk Management Solutions, and the sale of its stake in the online car retailer Cazoo, which was valued at $7bn (£5bn) after being snapped up by a special purpose acquisition company (Spac) in March.
Cazoo is aiming to list on the New York stock exchange this year, with DMGT’s 16% stake worth about £800m at its current £5bn valuation.
DMGT said it has received a “number of inquiries” for RMS, which it bought in 1998. It is also seeking assurances that the group’s pension schemes will not be affected by the takeover.
The publisher of the Daily Mail has been reorganising the business through disposals and targeted acquisitions of its own in recent years, having bought the New Scientist magazine in a £70m deal in March, as well as the i newspaper in a £49.6m deal two years ago.
The company has made £1.2bn from disposals in recent years of its stake in the property portal Zoopla, the education business Hobsons and the energy data firm Genscape.
The cash proceeds of the deals – 610p a share – would be distributed to DMGT shareholders through a special dividend. It would give RCL at least £500m, and would probably help fund any takeover offer for the what remains of the newspaper group.
DMGT’s share price closed up about 3.5% after news of the potential buyout was announced on Monday, at £10.76.
“The independent directors have indicated … they would be minded to recommend the possible offer to DMGT’s shareholders,” the company said.
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If DMGT is taken private it will leave Reach – the parent company of the Mirror, Express and Star national titles and regional publications such as the Manchester Evening News – as the only major UK newspaper group remaining as a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange.
In 2013, Rothermere, who has until 9 August to make a firm offer for the business or walk away, first signalled that he might seek to take the business private by increasing his control of the family-held voting shares to almost 90%.
The move sparked speculation that Rothermere might seek to approach the remaining shareholders to take full control of DMGT, which has been listed on the stock market since 1932. DMGT was founded by Harold Sidney Harmsworth, the first Viscount Rothermere, in 1922. He set up the Daily Mail with his brother Alfred in 1896, and subsequently launched the Daily Mirror.
Jonathan Harmsworth, 53, Harold’s great-grandson and the 4th Viscount Rothermere, has led the business through huge technological change as print newspapers have had to refocus their business models in the digital age. MailOnline, launched in 2003, has grown to be one of the world’s most popular English language news sites.
This article was amended on 14 July 2021. An earlier version incorrectly said RCL was registered in Bermuda; the company is in fact administered in Jersey. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/nov/03/olive-again-by-elizabeth-strout-review | Books | 2019-11-03T09:00:13.000Z | Hannah Beckerman | Olive, Again by Elizabeth Strout review – a moving tour de force | It’s been more than a decade since the US writer Elizabeth Strout introduced us to Olive Kitteridge, the cantankerous eponymous heroine of her 2008 novel, which won a Pulitzer prize and later transferred to the screen in an award-winning four-part HBO drama starring Frances McDormand.
Since then, Strout has written two acclaimed novels: My Name Is Lucy Barton – a recent stage version starred Laura Linney – and Anything Is Possible. She returns to Olive’s world with Olive, Again, a deeply affecting book that cements Strout’s reputation as one of the best writers of her generation.
Like its predecessor, Olive, Again is made up of interconnected stories all set in a small town in Maine. It is two years since Olive’s husband, Henry, died, and grief has not mellowed her: she is still brusque, unforgiving, formidable. But beneath the hard carapace – and this is where part of Strout’s genius lies – is compassion, empathy and vulnerability, as Olive starts to feel aware of her own mortality.
The 13 tales, told from a range of perspectives, explore Strout’s preoccupations with grief, loneliness and familial torments. In the opening story, Jack Kennison – a retired Harvard academic whom Olive befriended at the end of Olive Kitteridge – ruminates on his strained relationship with his gay daughter, the death of his wife and much else in the way of life’s regrets. Regrets – especially those concerning family – permeate the novel, not least Olive’s troubles with her son, Chris. Having not seen him for three years, she invites him and his family to stay. It doesn’t go well. In a particularly devastating scene, Olive recognises for the first time her own inadequacies as a mother: “She saw behind her closed eyes the house, and inside her was a shiver that went through her bones. The house where she had raised her son – never, ever realising that she herself had been raising a motherless child, now a long, long way from home.”
'Oh man, she's back': Elizabeth Strout on the return of Olive Kitteridge
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It’s not only the older generation’s perspective that Strout presents us with when tackling the vexed relations between parents and children. In another story, a teenage girl, Kayley, is coping with the loss of her father and her mother’s lack of interest. “This is why they say a person’s feelings hurt, because they do hurt.” She takes a cleaning job for a local elderly couple, which results in a narrative turn both shocking and entirely authentic as Kayley seeks a substitute for paternal intimacy.
But there is hope too. In the second story, Olive delivers a young woman’s baby in the back of her car: life continues. In Light, a quietly arresting story, Olive visits a local woman who has cancer. The two discuss mortality, their relationships, their frustrations. But it’s at the end of the story that Strout offers us a moment of near transcendence, as both women look out of the window in awe of the day’s closing light. Strout’s optimism supersedes the travails that beset her characters: “You could see how at the end of each day the world seemed to crack open and the extra light made its way across the stark trees and promised. It promised, that light, and what a thing that was.”
Throughout the book, disparate, disconnected people share transformative moments. In Helped, a woman terrified of being alone has a moving exchange about faith and loss with her father’s elderly lawyer. Later, as the novel approaches its conclusion, Olive finds solace in female friendship, and Strout peels back the layers of her heroine’s confidence and bravura to reveal a childhood rich in psychological complexity.
Olive, Again is a tour de force. With extraordinary economy of prose – few writers can pack so much emotion, so much detail into a single paragraph – Strout immerses us in the lives of her characters, each so authentically drawn as to be deserving of an entire novel themselves. Compassionate, masterly and profound, this is a writer at the height of her powers.
Olive Again by Elizabeth Strout is published by Viking (£14.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 020-3176 3837. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min of £1.99 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/nov/03/brexit-ruling-will-not-derail-article-50-timetable-says-no-10 | Politics | 2016-11-03T12:27:09.000Z | Rowena Mason | Brexit ruling will not derail article 50 timetable, says No 10 | Theresa May’s plan to trigger Brexit by the end of March will not be derailed by a high court ruling that parliament must vote on the decision, No 10 has insisted.
May’s official spokeswoman confirmed the government would appeal against the decision in the supreme court, while claiming there would be no delay to the process of leaving the EU.
However, the ruling that parliament has to approve the triggering of article 50 has already sparked excitement among many formerly pro-remain MPs, who see the opportunity to put the brakes on any move towards a “hard Brexit”.
It also gave further hope to the Scottish government of getting a greater say in the move towards leaving the EU.
The first minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, said her administration would “actively consider” whether to formally join the next legal battle challenging the UK government’s position that it has the right to trigger article 50 based on the referendum result alone.
Nicola Sturgeon: UK government lacks ‘coherent position’ on Brexit – video Guardian
The ruling prompted anger among many of those who campaigned to leave, with at least two Conservative backbenchers saying it increased the chances of May calling an early election.
No 10 attempted to play down the significance of the ruling, insisting that the plan for Brexit was on track.
“The prime minister is clear and determined that this government will deliver on the decision of the British people and take us out of the EU. We are determined to continue with our plan, preparing for negotiations, and sticking to the timetable we set out,” it said.
“We have no intention of letting this decision derail our timetable for triggering article 50.”
High court says parliament must vote on triggering article 50 - as it happened
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Government lawyers had argued that prerogative powers were a legitimate way to give effect “to the will of the people” who voted by a clear majority to leave the European Union in the June referendum.
But the lord chief justice declared: “The government does not have power under the crown’s prerogative to give notice pursuant to article 50 for the UK to withdraw from the European Union.”
May’s spokeswoman said the prime minister was working from Downing Street as usual and would not be making any public statement on Thursday about the government’s defeat in court.
May will send a cabinet minister to the House of Commons on Monday to make a statement about the ruling, but she will not be in attendance herself because she is proceeding with a trade trip to India.
High court Brexit ruling: what does it all mean?
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The ruling will give hope to many MPs who have been campaigning for greater parliamentary scrutiny over Brexit and for May to reveal the broad principles of her negotiating strategy.
Nicky Morgan, the former education secretary, said she believed colleagues on all sides of the Commons would vote in favour of triggering article 50 but said “democracy has been asserted”.
“I am also very confident in colleagues in parliament, we are very aware of how people voted, 17 million of them, to leave the EU, and I expect parliament will approve triggering of the article 50 process,” she said. “It’s a question of law.”
The Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, said: “This ruling underlines the need for the government to bring its negotiating terms to parliament without delay. Labour respects the decision of the British people to leave the European Union. But there must be transparency and accountability to parliament on the terms of Brexit.”
Owen Smith, the former Labour leadership challenger, went even further by indicating he would use the opportunity for a parliamentary vote on Brexit to push for another referendum on the terms of any deal.
Victorious Gina Miller reacts to article 50 ruling: ‘this case was about process, not politics’ – video Guardian
“Labour should amend the article 50 bill to give the British people the final say on the real terms of Brexit. Or I will seek that from backbenches,” he said. “Government must now spell out a vision of post-Brexit Britain before article 50 is triggered by MPs. Brexit means Brexit is not good enough.”
The ruling was met with dismay by pro-Brexit MPs, with Ukip’s Douglas Carswell suggesting there needed to be reform of judicial appointments.
Ukip’s leader, Nigel Farage, also said he was angered at the decision. “I worry that a betrayal may be near at hand,” he said. “I now fear that every attempt will be made to block or delay the triggering of article 50. If this is so, they have no idea of the level of public anger they will provoke.”
Dominic Raab, the former minister and Tory MP, said any attempt to stall the triggering of Brexit could increase the chances of an early general election.
“If we get to the stage where effectively [some MPs] are not willing to allow this negotiation to even begin, I think there must be an increased chance that we must go to the country again. I think that would be a mistake and I don’t think those trying to break the verdict of the referendum would be rewarded,” he said.
Nadine Dorries, a Conservative backbencher, said people should expect May to “negotiate terms, call a general election, make article 50 a manifesto promise, return with a massive majority and vote”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/jul/05/tv-tonight-nora-from-queens-is-back-still-dissatisfied-and-still-a-delight | Television & radio | 2023-07-05T05:20:24.000Z | Hollie Richardson | TV tonight: Nora from Queens is back, still dissatisfied and still a delight | Awkwafina Is Nora from Queens
10pm, BBC Three
The always-a-delight actor returns with a third series of her zippy sitcom in which she plays directionless and dissatisfied millennial Nora. In the opening double bill, after turning 31, Nora is growing more frustrated with her situation and starts therapy. Cue her wickedly funny grandmother (Lori Tan Chinn) scolding her: “Chinese people don’t believe in therapy!” Hollie Richardson
Florence Nightingale: Nursing Pioneer
8pm, BBC Four
The most celebrated nurse in British history gets the feature-length documentary treatment: Lucy Worsley narrates this fascinating exploration of everything from Florence Nightingale’s service in the Crimean war to the gender implications of her work and the way it was spun politically. Plus, her innovations around sanitation and hygiene. Phil Harrison
The Great British Sewing Bee
9pm, BBC One
En route to the quarter-finals, we’re revisiting the 90s – “a time when memorising phone numbers was a thing and houses cost a pound”. And when cargo pants stalked the Earth. In the pattern challenge, we meet them again: bellows pockets, “complex zips” and all. Next: celebrity-themed fancy dress outfits and supermodel dresses. Ali Catterall
Joanna Lumley visits the world’s greatest spice destinations. Photograph: ITV
Joanna Lumley’s Spice Trail Adventure
9pm, ITV1
Only Lumley could describe a toilet in a ship cabin that has a bucket and a pipe to wash your bottom with as “enchanting”. Anyway, she starts her voyage around the world’s greatest spice-trading countries with an 11-hour crossing to remote Indonesian islands in search of nutmeg. It’s a lovely, informative four-part series. HR
Body on the Beach: What Happened to Annie?
9pm, BBC Three
Scottish journalist Hazel Martin takes up the case of Annie Börjesson, a 30-year-old Swedish woman whose body was found on Prestwick beach nearly 20 years ago. Börjesson’s family have never accepted the verdict of suicide, and as Martin’s sensitive but sharp reporting kicks in, she raises questions including why the young woman’s body was bruised and her hair cut off. Hannah Verdier
The Change
10pm, Channel 4
Bridget Christie’s wonderfully surreal comedy about the menopause concludes with a double bill about the Eel festival – and it delivers a surprisingly beautiful and profound ending. Of course, there are still plenty of laughs, including a mention of “menopause and curry night”. HR
Film choice
Wham!, Netflix
The wildly talented director Chris Smith (whose work includes the bananas Fyre festival film and the still-weird documentary about the time Jim Carrey came to believe he was literally Andy Kaufman) turns his hand to one of the greatest, and most underappreciated, British pop groups of the 1980s. History has slowly eroded Wham! to a punchline: the hair! The naffness! The apparently superfluous nature of Andrew Ridgeley! But, through archive footage and voiceover, Smith attempts to reframe the popularity of the group as “two idiots” (in the words of George Michael) having the time of their lives. For anyone in the mood for a larky, summery nostalgia blast, Wham! will be hard to beat. Stuart Heritage
Live sport
Women’s Ashes, England v Australia, 5.30pm, Sky Sports Cricket Live coverage of the second T20 at the Oval, London. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/19/selfie-narcissism-oxford-dictionary-word | Opinion | 2013-11-19T11:09:21.000Z | Jonathan Freedland | The selfie's screaming narcissism masks an urge to connect | Jonathan Freedland | What greater testament could there be to the "me generation" than the rise and rise of the selfie? Anointed by Oxford Dictionaries' editors as the word of the year after a 17,000% increase in its usage, the selfie is surely the ultimate emblem of the age of narcissism. Like the doomed figure of ancient myth, we cannot stop gazing at our own reflection. This July, there were an estimated 90m photos on Instagram – the go-to platform for the selfie – with the hashtag #me. And that figure will be far, far higher now.
At first glance, everything about this phenomenon reeks. It is self-centred in the most literal sense. Not for nothing is the word just a breath – a mere "sh" – away from selfish.
What's more, it's selfishness of the most superficial kind. It's not just about me, me, me but how I look, look, look. It invites judgment based on appearance alone. You post a picture of yourself and wait for the verdict, your self-worth boosted by a happy spate of "likes", or destroyed by the opposite – a resounding silence. At least on Twitter, people are judgmental about each other's wit or ideas, rather than their hair.
To understand the sheer scale – the depth, if you like – of this superficiality, look no further than this Tumblr dedicated to selfies at funerals, including the image captioned: "Love my hair today. Hate why I'm dressed up #funeral".
And yet condemnation cannot be the only response to a phenomenon this widespread, which clearly delights so many tens of millions. The informality of the word "selfie" suggests something true about these instant self-portraits: that they don't take themselves or their subjects too seriously. To quote the artist Gillian Wearing: "The word 'selfie' is brilliant. It really encapsulates a time: instant, quick, funny. It sounds ironic and throwaway."
It is also true that, while the technology may be new, the instinct it satisfies is not: since the dawn of civilisation, humans have yearned to depict themselves and their faces – whether through cave paint, clay or, today, the megapixels of a smartphone.
Above all, and this might be the selfie's redeeming feature, they are not designed to be looked at solely by the subject. The selfie's usual purpose is to be transmitted by social media – with "social" being the key word. They may be focused on the self, but they also express a timeless human need to connect with others.
In that respect, the selfie is like so much else in the digital world – all about "me," but revealing a sometimes desperate urge to find an "us". | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/nov/28/south-korea-ghana-world-cup-group-h-match-report | Football | 2022-11-28T15:06:45.000Z | Nick Ames | Kudus doubles up to edge Ghana past South Korea in World Cup thriller | Ghana’s task is now clear: cast aside the spectre of Luis Suárez, bury the ghosts of Soccer City and earn a place in the knockout stage. Their future in this tournament comes down to a cup final in miniature against Uruguay and perhaps fate had decided that at the moment Group H was drawn. If they win they will progress for the first time since 2010, when La Celeste denied them a place in the semi-finals with a helping hand that reverberates through World Cup lore.
South Korea 2-3 Ghana: World Cup 2022 – as it happened
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That opportunity awaits because, against a largely excellent South Korea team, they were on top when the music stopped. This was a pulsating, thrilling game and Ghana were fortunate to win. Without Mohammed Kudus they would not have done so but the Ajax winger, who had been hotly tipped to enthral in Qatar, did not disappoint. The second of his two goals was coolly taken and rendered a whirlwind comeback from their opponents fruitless.
It meant they can now reckon with history although their manager, Otto Addo, played down any notion revenge would be a motivation when they face Suárez and company. “It was a really, really long time ago when this incident happened,” he said. “I’m a strong believer that if you don’t seek too much revenge sometimes you get more blessings.”
In truth he was already counting them. Addo was gracious enough to admit his team were “a little bit lucky” and nobody could argue. His goalkeeper, Lawrence Ati-Zigi, denied Cho Gue-sung a hat-trick in injury time and a largely dominant South Korea could point to several more near misses. Paulo Bento’s side also felt frustrated when the referee, Anthony Taylor, blew for full-time as they prepared to take a corner. Taylor was perfectly within his rights but a furious Bento disagreed, running on to the pitch and receiving a red card for his protests.
While Bento cooled off, his assistant Sérgio Costa articulated their sense of injustice. “The result is totally unfair, not even a draw would have been fair,” he said. “We clearly deserved to win so I think we can feel very proud of what we’ve done. You can count on us for the next match.” That will be against Portugal and failure to win would guarantee their exit.
On the evidence of this performance a shock is not entirely far-fetched. South Korea had attacked Ghana in waves for 24 minutes, winning seven corners and benefitting from Son Heung-min’s increased comfort wearing a mask, but fell behind out of the blue. A Jordan Ayew free-kick was defended scrappily and Mohammed Salisu, the Southampton defender, reacted to score from close range.
Cho Gue-sung heads his and South Korea’s second goal. Photograph: Lee Jin-man/AP
In hindsight the ensuing spell was decisive. Ghana turned the screw and were allowed to enjoy themselves until half-time. They doubled their lead when Kudus, timing his run cleverly, met another Jordan Ayew cross from open play and glanced past Kim Seung-gyu. Having struggled to match South Korea for pace and verve, the Black Stars were in control.
But this was several matches in one and, shortly after the hour, things had turned on their head. Cho had offered a warning with a header repelled by Ati-Zigi but went one better when converting a centre by the substitute Lee Kang-in, who had dispossessed Tariq Lamptey. Three minutes later he flung himself at a delivery from Kim Jin-su, contriving a finish of stunning hunger and power.
“We really couldn’t get the crosses under control,” Addo said. At that point only one side seemed likely to win. When Kudus, sweeping a low first-time shot into the bottom corner after Iñaki Williams had air-kicked Gideon Mensah’s cutback, quickly restored the lead it was not the first time analysis had been confounded.
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“On and off the pitch he’s an extraordinary guy, a great character,” Addo said of Kudus. “He’s fast and intelligent. He has to work more defensively but he’s on the right track to be a great player.”
Ati-Zigi saved a Lee free-kick and watched as Salisu cleared off the line from Kim Jin-su, but Ghana rode out another storm. “We gave our souls on the pitch,” said Costa, and South Korea appeared desolate at the end. Son was among those seemingly in tears; feet were gazed at and faces covered upon walking off but it would be as well to remember another showing of this standard could bring greater reward.
“It’s a normal reaction from someone who did all they could to win,” Costa said. It is Ghana, though, who can see the path to redemption they have craved. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/jan/11/menswear-steals-the-show-golden-globes-red-carpet | Fashion | 2023-01-11T10:54:07.000Z | Morwenna Ferrier | Menswear steals the show on a grey Golden Globes red carpet | It didn’t help that the red carpet was, in fact, grey. And that, like much of the UK, it was raining in Beverly Hills. And that the starriest of stars – Zendaya, Timothée Chalamet, Rihanna – who we’ve come to bank on for kickstarting awards season with their reliably frou frou glamour, didn’t actually make it.
And it really didn’t help that the best looks were black, although the Triangle of Sadness star Dolly de Leon, wearing an extraordinary gown in buttery soft black leather by the designer Norman René Devera; Hacks’ Megan Stalter, giving Angelina Jolie’s leg flashing a run for its money in Versace, and Natasha Lyonne in clingy Givenchy, patent platforms and a copper bob, looked anything but dull.
Dolly de Leon attends 2023 Golden Globe awards in a design by Norman René Devera. Photograph: Amy Sussman/Getty Images
But this year, as is often the case these days, it was down to the men to shake things up.
Call it the Chalamet effect but gone were the penguin suits, and gone even were the ties. The influencer Josh Richards may be best known among generation Z but from here on, he’ll also be known as the guy who swapped his shirt for a see-through mesh top.
Historically, what men wear on a red carpet was always relegated to background chitchat, certainly among the melee of princess gowns and big hair. Then in 2019, Chalamet wore a Louis Vuitton harness to the Golden Globes and Billy Porter wore a Christian Siriano ballgown to the Oscars, and the menswear landscape changed for ever, reflecting the dwindling divide between it and womenswear. At least, on the red carpet.
Donald Glover elevates pandemic-wear to new red carpet-winning heights. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
It was Donald Glover who won the proverbial red carpet, though. Wearing a black jacket with peaked shoulders over a pair of cream silk pyjamas by Saint Laurent that pooled over his shoes, the effect was elevated pandemic-wear, practical – the pyjamas had pockets, which at the very least gives you a nice way to pose – but comfortable, old meets new.
Andrew Garfield goes for orange at the Golden Globes. Photograph: Amy Sussman/Getty Images
See also Andrew Garfield, in a burnt orange linen suit, pretending it wasn’t January; Tyler James Williams in a washed-out cropped Matador-style suit by the streetwear brand Amiri; Seth Rogen in a peachy Dior tuxedo; Hacks’ Mark Indelicato in a buttercream brocade 1930s-style suit and The Banshees of Inisherin’s Barry Keoghan in pastel blue Louis Vuitton , gift wrapped at the neck with a little handkerchief. Porter even wore another Siriano ballgown, this time in Pantone’s 2023 colour of the year, Viva Magenta.
Social media has always played a hand too, with the most successful looks becoming memes. 2023’s Instagram moment came in the form of opera gloves. Worn by Nicole Byer in Siriano, Lyonne in Givenchy and Ayo Edebiri they were an old-school flourish – it’s impossible to see a pair and not think of Audrey Hepburn – modernised by the sprinkling of fancy diamond rings worn on top.
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Ayo Edebiri was among a baffling number wearing opera gloves to the awards. Photograph: David Fisher/REX/Shutterstock
In some cases, they made for a baffling addition (some even came attached to the gowns themselves), although given the number of viruses in circulation and yet no one wore masks, probably a sensible one too.
It’s perhaps telling that the most arresting look of the night was in fact neither suit nor gown, but a mashup of the two – accessorised by a single blue tear painted on their left cheek – as worn by House of the Dragon’s Emma D’Arcy. Blink and you’d miss the skirt worn underneath. “I was going for a ‘child prodigy at the big piano recital’ sort of look, except we added a single tear to the make-up, so I guess the recital went really badly,” the actor said of their Acne Studios “suit” before the ceremony. “I’m wearing a skirt and trousers, because nothing says ‘non-binary’ like wearing trousers and a skirt simultaneously.”
Emma D’Arcy wore neither suit nor gown, but a mashup of the two. Photograph: Amy Sussman/Getty Images
What people wore on red carpets has never been what they actually wanted to wear. A star’s dress choice was mostly engineered in collusion with the marketing power of big brands who paid for the privilege, with some stylists becoming as famous as the people they dress.
When MeToo happened – and when we realised the red carpet was as much about objectification as who was dating who – we expected a reset. But Hollywood’s fashion industrial complex will probably never shake off its murky past. Nor will people stop wearing Dolce & Gabbana despite its history of racism and homophobia. An economy unto itself, thousands of dollars passes hands at these events. And they probably will forever more. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2008/nov/28/paris-markets-shopping-trips-france | Travel | 2008-11-28T12:56:36.000Z | John Brunton | The best Paris markets | Paris is a city that has a market for everybody. Every neighbourhood
has its own food market, bargain-hunters can choose between the world's biggest flea market, chic antiques or junky bric-a-brac, while there are also more quirky marchés dedicated to textiles, flowers and birds. Out of the dozens to choose from, here are some of our favourites.
Marché de Montreuil
Photograph: John Brunton
Montreuil is a bargain-hunter's dream, as long as you're prepared to rummage through tons of tat before stumbling across a brilliant find. Not the place for discovering priceless ancient relics, but rather vintage Yves Saint-Laurent stilettos, collectable Pastis water jugs, and huge piles of second-hand clothes that start from as little as 50 cents a piece. The best day to visit is Monday, as there are far less crowds and prices drop considerably.
· Avenue de la Porte de Montreuil, 75012. Open Saturday, Sunday and Monday
Marché Richard Lenoir
Selling wine at Marché Richard Lenoir in Paris. Photograph: John Brunton
Every Parisian neighbourhood has its own "marché volant" - a flying
market - where hundreds of food stalls magically appear on a street for one or two mornings each week. The details of every single one are listed on this website, but the most acclaimed marché volant is definitely the Sunday market at boulevard Richard Lenoir. Beginning beneath the famous monument at the Place de la Bastille, two long alleyways of tempting French gourmet products stretch for almost a kilometre. There are street entertainers and musicians, and stalls to hunt down include an irresistible wine seller, Eduard Mace, specialising in rare vintages, and Jacky Lorenzo, Paris's most famous fishmonger.
· Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, 75011. Open Thursday and Sunday mornings
Marché Biologique Raspail
Photograph: John Brunton
For the perfect slice of bourgeois life on the ever-fashionable Rive
Gauche, just head for the favourite Sunday morning rendezvous at
Paris's first organic market on the Boulevard Raspail. People come here to be seen as much as to shop, and the prices are as upscale as the clientele. You'll find an American baker who sells English muffins, a bio vigneron whose wine is called Chateau Coccinelle, Ladybird Castle, hand-knitted scarves and gloves, homeopathic health remedies, but also some incredible organic cheeses and not very politically-correct foie gras.
· Boulevard Raspail, 75006. Open Sunday morning
Marché les Enfants Rouges
Photograph: John Brunton
Hidden away in a quiet part of the fashionable Marais quartier, most
people walk straight past the discreet entrance of Les Enfants Rouges, not realising that it is the oldest covered market in Paris, founded way back in 1628 and named after a hospice for orphans who wore a red uniform. What is different today about Les Enfant Rouges compared to other markets - and why it is such a favourite among Parisian BoBo's (Bourgeois Bohemians) - is the big number of stalls where you can actually eat, much like in Barcelona's Boqueria market. There is a traditional bistrot, L'Estaminet, but also fusion Japanese cuisine, spicy African dishes, couscous and organic soups.
· Rue de Bretagne, 75003. Closed Monday
Marché Rue Dejean
Photograph: John Brunton
Although the grandiose white cupola of the Sacre-Coeur basilica towers over the neighbourhood, the rue Dejean market could be a million miles away from the picture-postcard world of Montmartre. This is Paris's unofficial African market, a bustling bazaar of deadly chilly peppers, exotic fruits, pungent spices. Many of the shoppers wear colourful traditional dress, and are just as interested in the illegal street traders selling false Louis Vuitton and Gucci bags as their weekly shopping. There are some excellent boutiques stacked with inexpensive African textiles, and why not have lunch at one of the traditional Senegalese or Ivory Coast restaurants
· Rue Dejean, 75018. Mornings only, closed Monday
Marché Saint-Pierre
Photograph: John Brunton
Created more than 60 years ago, the Marché Saint-Pierre is a paradise for anyone interested in textiles, a place where you're equally likely to find a famous fashion designer looking for inspiration alongside a house owner searching for new curtains, a bride choosing fabrics, or a family out shopping for material to be run up into clothes. The biggest and most well-known store is Dreyfus, which runs over five floors and insists on calling itself the Marché Saint-Pierre, but in reality, there are a dozen adjacent bazaars, particularly Reine and Moline, where the choice of velvets, silk, cotton and linen is just as varied.
· Rue Charles Nodier, 75018. Closed Sunday; marchesaintpierre.com
Marché aux Fleurs et aux Oiseaux
Photograph: John Brunton
Operating for over two centuries, this is one of the last Parisian
markets dedicated to flowers and birds. Situated on the Île de la Cité in the middle of the Seine, this is a haven of peace between the crowds of tourists that flock to nearby Notre Dame cathedral and the Conciergerie. Unlike any other Parisian marché, the flower market is open every day of the week. By contrast, it is only on Sundays that the bird traders arrive, setting up cages with everything from doves and budgies to exotic parrots and macaws.
· Place Louis-Lepine, 75004. Open all day, every day | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/06/ennio-morricone-review---film-score-maestro-lifes-work | Music | 2015-02-06T01:50:47.000Z | Steve Rose | Ennio Morricone review - film score maestro presents his life’s work | There’s a palpable sense of occasion to the Italian composer’s London concert, largely due to the fact it might never have happened at all. Morricone had to cancel his scheduled world tour last year owing to a back injury, and there were many who feared that, at the age of 86, he might have finally hung up his baton for good. So when he ambles up to the rostrum in black suit and black polo-neck, he’s very much received like a hero. And with a 100-strong orchestra and a 75-person choir assembled on stage, he’s clearly not planning on going out quietly.
But there’s still a sense that this is a farewell performance. The title of the concerts is My Life in Music, and this is very much our lives in music, too. So much of modern cinema has been accompanied by Morricone’s scores (people generally lose count around the 400 mark), and so wide has his influence spread, that this feels like a collective nostalgia trip through the past half-century, even for people who haven’t been alive that long.
Film music is often open to the accusation that it achieves more power than it deserves simply by that alchemical association with images, but Morricone is one of the few composers whose music stands up in isolation. More than that, it’s regularly eclipsed the films it was designed for. It’s unlikely many audience members have ever seen obscure Italian sci-fi H2S, for example, or Quemada, Gillo Pontecorvo’s Marlon Brando slave epic, but it makes no difference: Morricone’s tunes have a way of channelling directly to the emotions.
Ennio Morricone received a hero’s welcome from the audience. Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Of course, we get the greatest hits too: the spaghetti westerns, The Mission, Cinema Paradiso, the keening violins of Chi Mai (a chart hit back in 1981). The programme is arranged by genre rather than in strictly chronological order. There’s a welcome detour into 1960s Italian pop and giallo for a spell, with funky basslines and sophisticated easy listening. There’s a bracing spell of political thriller scores, too – all martial drumming and muted brass and spiky paranoid staccato rhythms. But then this breaks into his achingly tender theme from Casualties of War.
What’s striking is how much of Morricone’s best work straddles the line between the old world and the new. Just as he worked comfortably on both sides of the Atlantic, so his music mixes European and American musical sensibilities such as classical, folk, religious music, jazz and avant-garde. No wonder it fits perfectly with immigrant epics such as Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time In America or Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900, or even Roland Joffé’s The Mission. Not to mention spaghetti westerns, where Morricone’s celebrated scores threw European avant-garde vocals into a wild west soundscape with improbable success.
The undisputed highlight of the evening is The Ecstasy of Gold, from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, which approaches like a distant stampede before its galloping rhythms soar up into a full-on choral and orchestral bombardment. Over it all, soprano Susanna Rigacci’s voice vaults through the octaves like a human theremin, and the crowd are blasted back into their seats by the sheer spine-tingling power of it. It’s such an awe-inspiring experience, the audience don’t let him go home until they’ve had it again. Morricone is called back for three encores, to shouts of “maestro!”, before he eventually he gathers together his papers and departs with a humble, almost papal, bow. He hasn’t said a word to the audience all evening and he hasn’t needed to. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/mar/24/teachers-ofsted-inspections-schools-children | Opinion | 2023-03-24T08:57:40.000Z | Rebecca Leek | Teachers and pupils live in fear of Ofsted’s punitive inspections. It needs reforming now | Rebecca Leek | Ofsted is younger than me. And yet, for those of us who have been in education for a couple of decades, the inspection regime is part of the furniture. Its presence permeates school classrooms, offices, staffrooms and corridors. The idea of it not being around seems unimaginable – but now calls for its reform are becoming hard to ignore.
In the wake of the death of Ruth Perry, a headteacher who took her own life while waiting for the publication of a damaging Ofsted report, the floodgates have opened. Teachers across the country are speaking out about the impact of inconsistent processes, unpredictable inspectors and the strain of waiting weeks, months and years for an inspection to be announced.
As executive director of the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association, I hear these voices all the time. At a recent meeting I listened to heads share their experiences. One, a head of two schools, was able to tell the group how different the two experiences had been. I asked, “Is there anything you wish you had done to prepare better?” His reply was no: it was impossible to predict what happened during the last inspection and he knows the next one will be different again. He also told us that the process – and especially the waiting game – had done nothing to help the school.
How the death of Ruth Perry has reignited Ofsted inspections row
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Like many things in schools, the inspection system has a language and a rulebook of its own. There are different timeframes depending on which category a school is currently in. For example, if the school was labelled “requires improvement” overall at its last inspection, Ofsted claims it will revisit within 30 months (as opposed to four years for a “good” or “outstanding” school). It often doesn’t.
Ofsted judges schools on four key areas (or five, depending on the type of school), which include: quality of education; behaviour and attitudes; personal development; and leadership and management. Under the current system, a school that is marked “good” in four out of five areas can still receive a headline judgment of “inadequate” – as happened at Perry’s school – and this is the word displayed everywhere, including on estate agents’ search engines.
There has been anger against the backlash, too, from those who see Ofsted as a saving grace in a school system that has failed their child. I have worked with children with special educational needs and disabilities and I have worked with their parents, who often feel they are battling for better provision. They see Ofsted as essential in safeguarding their children’s education. But teachers are not afraid of professional dialogue and scrutiny, and we’re certainly not calling for “mass deregulation”, as I saw suggested on Facebook this week. School leaders are proud creatures and they really care. School improvement and changing things for the better, day in and day out, is their bread and butter.
There are countless ways the inspection programme could change for the better, as well. One improvement would be separating out what is currently called “quality of education” from areas that are more befitting of an annual audit approach. For example, a school’s recruitment procedures can be checked relatively swiftly. Was there an advert for a role, did it mention safeguarding, are there interview notes on file, is there a complete career history, were references sought? This should not be left for years on end.
The current framework handles the different sizes and phases of schools (infants, juniors, etc) very poorly. The “deep dive” model in current inspections is where an inspector will pick a subject to scrutinise with the teacher who leads it. That might work well in a large secondary school, where heads of departments are well-placed to talk through their subjects. But there are schools here in Suffolk, and across the country, where there are three classrooms and three teachers. The headteacher might be one of them.
Should Ofsted behave like swooping hawks? How can schools thrive in a climate of fear?
Gaby Hinsliff
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This approach leaves a class of 25 children without their teacher for a number of hours on the day of the inspection. There is no slack in a small primary school.
But if you really want to find the hottest outrage at the current model, I suggest you make friends with the early years sector. I have heard countless anecdotes about inspectors sharing with early years leads that they have never taught in early years education – and they “don’t know much about it”. This precious zone of a school, where the most magical phase of child development happens, should be given the expert attention it deserves. Instead, early years specialists are hit with questions such as, “Why is that child not sitting at a desk?”, when the child is playing intently with small objects under a table, and is three years old. Ofsted must do better.
Finally, headteachers’ names do not need to be on inspection reports. Our job is to share responsibility and create a healthy networked model whereby everyone is committed to improving the school. Quality Care Commission inspections of GP surgeries do not carry a doctor’s name, and it’s the same with inspections of hospitals. As Perry’s sister, Julia Waters, said, calling for a review of the entire inspections system: “We do not for an instant recognise Ofsted’s ‘inadequate’ judgment as a true reflection of Ruth’s exemplary leadership or of the wonderful school she led selflessly for 12 years.”
As the week has progressed and the voices calling for reform have become louder, Ofsted has managed to make one, dismissive statement in five days. Stopping school inspections would be “against children’s best interests”, said its chief inspector, Amanda Spielman on Friday. It appears there is little interest in reform. At what point will the inspectorate recognise that it requires improvement?
Rebecca Leek has been a senco, headteacher, CEO and school governor. She is currently the executive director of the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association
In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email [email protected] or [email protected]. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/feb/20/brit-awards-black-politics-dave-stormzy-kanye-west-tyler-the-creator | Music | 2020-02-20T15:24:32.000Z | Chanté Joseph | The Brit awards have become a platform for black politics – and brilliance | The Brits are no stranger to protest or political statement: the 1996 ceremony contained both, with Jarvis Cocker driven to moon Michael Jackson over his sanctimonious environmental-awareness hit Earth Song. In 2014, David Bowie pleaded with a pre-referendum Scotland to remain part of the UK. Katy Perry made giant skeleton effigies of Donald Trump and Theresa May dance on stage in 2017; a year later, a drunk Damon Albarn railed against Brexit.
But there is something about a new wave of emboldened black British artists taking centre stage and delivering an unambiguously political message that feels far more historic and impactful: not pleas for unity or cartoonish satire, nor traditional rock-star rebellion, but explicit condemnations of Britain’s ongoing history of racism, delivered into the heart of primetime TV.
When Dave performed a new, extended version of his song Black at this week’s Brits, he declared Boris Johnson “a real racist”, demanded justice for the Windrush generation and reparations for Britain’s history of slavery and colonialism, and indicted the media’s treatment of Meghan Markle. He lambasted the government’s failure to properly rehouse victims of the Grenfell tragedy – echoing Stormzy’s condemnation of Theresa May over the issue at last year’s ceremony. To the surprise of everyone who thought Lewis Capaldi would make a clean sweep of his four nominations, Dave pipped the Scot to the night’s top prize, best British album, for his complex debut Psychodrama. He used his speech to tell kids growing up in south London that they’re no different from him, legitimising their experiences and dreams.
Dave attacked Boris Johnson in his Brit awards performance saying: ‘Our prime minister’s a real racist’
We are a long way from the #BritsSoWhite backlash of 2016, a hashtag coined in response to an entirely white cohort of British nominees – just as grime was reaching its commercial peak. The controversy forced the hand of the Brits: a year later, it diversified its voting body and appointed a specialist committee comprising leading BAME figures from music and media to advise on its new voting members and possible live performances. (This year’s voting committee comprised 24.4% BAME voters and 49% women.)
While institutional change happened slowly, black artists – often asked to provide entertainment at events that failed to garland their work – got creative with how they used these spaces to make statements. At the 2015 Brits – where not a single black British artist won an award – Kanye West invited grime legends including Skepta, Stormzy and Krept & Konan decked in black hoodies to mosh with flamethrowers as he performed All Day. The performance racked up more than 150 complaints to Ofcom for West’s use of the N-word – and viewing figures rose by 1.2m after reaching a historic low the previous year.
Stormzy’s performance was an emphatic assertion of the depth and breath of global black creativity
In 2017, Skepta performed Shutdown on the show, and included the on-record sample of a middle-class female voice complaining about West’s performance two years earlier: “A bunch of young men all dressed in black dancing extremely aggressively on stage – it made me feel so intimidated, and it’s just not what I expect to see on primetime TV.” The next year’s awards saw Kendrick Lamar dressed in a black diamante-studded hoodie rapping atop a transparent box, inside which rapper Rich the Kid smashed up a Lamborghini: a head-tilting performance art piece that confused viewers and critics alike.
The performances from this week’s Brits continued the previous trends of black artists using their moments in the limelight to clap back at their exclusion. Most notable was Tyler, the Creator accepting his award for international male solo artist, when he took a swipe at Theresa May for his five-year ban for supposedly promoting terror and hatred in his lyrics – while white artists with similar lyrical focus, such as Eminem, were not banned. Softer than his Grenfell rap in 2018, but no less political in its way, was Stormzy’s performance at this year’s Brits: an emphatic assertion of the depth and breath of global black creativity. It drew in British grime, American gospel and African pop (with Nigerian guest star Burna Boy), climaxing in a euphoric performance of Rainfall surrounded by tens of people of colour that seemed to say: we’re here to stay.
Now that black British artists are finally getting credit for their creativity, success and vast cultural influence, and being given the space to represent the breadth of their vision, they’re refusing to let white fans and industry gatekeepers enjoy and consume black art without having to reckon with the struggle and history of oppression that underpin it. Black artists don’t have the privilege of being apolitical.
Kanye West: All Day (live at the 2015 Brit awards) – video
These moments are special and affirming for black Brits – but it’s also necessary to question the Brits and ITV’s intentions. As people switch off from awards ceremonies and viewing figures dwindle, is ITV relying on the white outrage caused by such explicit displays of black defiance to remain relevant? In their genuine desire to represent and speak out, are artists compromised as marketing ploys? Are white execs patting themselves on the back for showcasing black artistry, then leaving them to navigate the onslaught of abuse from social media, politicians such as Priti Patel and the press? How ITV and the Brits react to the aftermath of these performances is just as important as providing the platform in the first place.
Politics and powerful performances at the 2020 Brits – but no shock winners
Alexis Petridis
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Once upon a time, a black artist protesting Britain’s racist leadership on national TV might have been blacklisted. But the unimpeachable cultural power commanded by today’s leading acts has allowed many of them to remain independent, rather than reliant on major labels with the power to sideline them if they step out of line. Information is now freely shared between a generation of fed-up young people with social media at their fingertips, who know how to wield their voices and consumer power in the face of injustice.
It represents a significant shift in power – not to mention musical iconography. The accepted forms of rebellion and public displays of angst at the industry’s awards ceremonies have typically been reserved for stereotypical white rock stars: getting drunk, stoking beef, acting out. Not only are black artists winning prizes and dominating the news with their powerful cultural statements, they’re redefining what it looks like to be a rock star, giving rebellion true purpose. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/28/the-biggest-corporate-profits-of-all-time-apple-gazprom-exxonmobil-shell | Business | 2015-01-28T13:55:26.000Z | Nick Fletcher | The biggest corporate profits of all time | AppleHow much? $18.04bn
When reported? 27 January 2015
Why? Bumper sales of iPhone 6 and growing demand from China
Gazprom
How much? $16.24bn
When? 30 August 2011
Why? Increased gas sales both inside and outside the country and higher commodity prices.
ExxonMobil
How much? $15.9bn
When? 26 July 2012
Why? Rising oil prices and profits from disposals
Royal Dutch Shell
How much? $15.68bn
When? 30 June 2008
Why? Benefits from oil hitting a record high of $147 a barrel
Apple
How much? $13.10bn
When? 27 January 2014
Why? Record quarterly sales of iPhones and iPads | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/feb/04/niamh-cusack-actor-portrait-artist | Culture | 2014-02-04T18:00:00.000Z | Laura Barnett | Niamh Cusack, actor – portrait of the artist | What got you started?
One was seeing Warren Mitchell in Death of a Salesman when I was 18. I thought it was the most amazing piece of acting. The other was seeing my sister Sorcha (1) in Brian Friel's version of Three Sisters when I was 23. I'd trained as a musician, but I saw that and thought: "Well, now I know how to play Irina (2)." A few years later, I did.
Most of your family is involved in showbusiness. Do you think the desire to act really can run in the blood?
I don't know whether there's a gene, but you can certainly inherit an ease with the whole nature of life in theatre – a life which is constantly changing, and requires a desire for adventure and playfulness. I tried hard not go into acting, but when I finally got on stage, it felt like the most natural place for me.
Do you suffer for your art?
I deal with nerves, and I'm an insomniac while I'm working on a play. But I get much more from it than I sacrifice. I've had the opportunity to live so many different lives: to play characters who are cleverer, more articulate and more epic than I am. That's a bit of a luxury.
Which of your roles has been most challenging?
Siobhan in Curious Incident (3): there was a lot to it. But I find every role a challenge. The best bit, really, is getting a part. Then, as soon as you start working on it, you see all the things that are difficult.
What's the greatest threat to theatre today?
That not enough young people will be introduced to it. Ticket prices are so high: a lot of theatres are addressing that, but I do worry that it means young people aren't being put in touch with the experience of live theatre.
What advice would you give to a young actor?
Watch as many plays as you can and say yes to work. Worrying about the direction you want to go in is a bit of a fantasy. The universe will give you opportunities. Generally, it's better to say: "I'm going to go with this."
Is there an art form you don't relate to?
I'm not great on very, very modern art. The cube in an empty room doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
What's the worst thing anyone ever said about you?
I find interviews that describe me as "very nice" quite hard to take. It sounds like damning with faint praise.
What work of art would you most like to own?
A painting by Jack B Yeats (4): either a muddy grey picture of Connemara, or The Liffey Swim, because it reminds me of Dublin.
Complete this sentence: At heart, I'm just a frustrated …
Tap-dancer.
What would work as the soundtrack to your life?
A Brahms clarinet quintet. They're so full of passion and highs and lows.
How would you like to be remembered?
Decent wife (5), decent mum, decent friend.
In short
Born: Dublin, 1959
Career: Best known for long stint in the TV series Heartbeat. Has also worked extensively at the RSC and the National, starring in Romeo and Juliet and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.
Low point: "Doing a play called The Tutor at the Old Vic a long time ago. I was floundering."
High point: "Doing Three Sisters with my sisters, father and husband."
Footnotes
(1) Cusack was born into what is commonly referred to as a "theatrical dynasty". Her late father Cyril was an actor, as are her sisters Sinéad, Sorcha and Catherine. Her brother-in-law is Jeremy Irons, her nephew Sam Irons.
(2) The youngest of the three sisters in Chekhov's 1901 play.
(3) The kindly teacher of the central character, Christopher Boone. Cusack was the first person to play the part, in the National's award-winning production, based on Mark Haddon's novel.
(4) Brother of the more famous William Butler Yeats.
(5) Cusack is married to fellow actor Finbar Lynch. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/nov/14/west-north-korea-stories-hunger-covid | Opinion | 2022-11-14T11:00:38.000Z | Tania Branigan | It’s too easy for the west to see North Korea as a WTF curiosity. We need to do better | Tania Branigan | Until January 2020, the joint security area of the Korean demilitarised zone (DMZ) was the one place on the peninsula where forces from North and South Korea stood face to face – a spot where Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump even met and shook hands. The US and South Korean troops stationed there have a lonelier watch now. On the North’s side, weeds poke out from the gravel and sprout between the steps of its Panmungak Hall, set just behind the demarcation line. Occasionally, soldiers venture out on to the terrace that runs along its first floor – but only clad in full hazmat suits. On an autumnal morning, the sole sign of life is a distant face peering through binoculars from the second floor. This wearer is in full protective gear too, though stationed safely behind glass. Since the emergence of Covid-19, the few windows into the country have slammed shut.
The victims are the North Korean people, now more isolated than ever. It’s also bad news for the rest of us, our ability to understand a totalitarian country with an ever-expanding nuclear programme even further reduced. Pyongyang’s recent flurry of missile tests, and the likelihood of a seventh nuclear test, have rightly commanded headlines. There is also, less happily, an insatiable appetite for tales of the country’s absurdities or lurid excesses, real or imagined. We’ve been told that Kim Jong-un had his ex-girlfriend killed by firing squad (she later appeared on television), that his uncle was not just executed but fed to dogs (a claim that originated as satire), and that state media insisted until recently that his grandfather had mastered teleportation. These stories feed on the west’s gullibility and desire for sensation and the regime’s well-documented cruelty, bombastic propaganda and genuine oddity – but also on Pyongyang’s obsessive secrecy: when so little can be seen, anything seems possible.
It turns out that even a hermit kingdom can judge itself insufficiently reclusive. The inner workings of Kim’s regime, like those of his father and grandfather, have always been shrouded in mystery. The totalitarian system imposes tight controls on borders, communications and culture. Foreigners working in or visiting the country have their movements tightly controlled. But in some ways, the North has gradually became more porous, thanks to citizens who traded with China or worked there illicitly, and to North Koreans glimpsing the US and South Korea via smuggled foreign movies and TV shows.
Then came Covid. The North was among the first countries to close its borders, and warned that anyone attempting to cross the buffer zones it created would be “unconditionally shot”. Its troops reportedly killed a South Korean official on a boat near the maritime border and incinerated his body, possibly after he tried to defect. The terror of the virus is real: its health system is in tatters. But the virus has also been an opportunity for authoritarian leaders to impose measures that further increase their control. Nowhere has that been clearer than the North: “Covid has given a lot to Kim Jong-un,” says the elite defector Tae Yong-ho.
Pyongyang has turned down offers of aid, blocked almost all official and unofficial trade and severely restricted domestic travel – with devastating impact: it has long been unable to meet basic needs, leaving citizens to scrape a living through trade and the informal economy. One expert on the North’s economy warns that food availability has probably fallen below basic human needs and, on one metric, is at its worst since the deadly famine of the 1990s. In December 2020, it also introduced a law attacking foreign influence that made distributing or watching foreign media punishable by long prison terms, and encouraging others to view punishable by the death penalty – intensifying previous campaigns.
Even before the pandemic, the regime had halted and then reversed very limited economic changes that incentivised individuals, fearing they were reducing its control. The failure of the unprecedented bilateral talks with the US, and of the South’s attempts to thaw relations, left Pyongyang more suspicious of the west than ever, and more closely tied to Russia and especially China, which is propping it up with deliveries of food, fuel and fertiliser.
Covid has exacerbated these shifts. Due to the harsh restrictions, NGOs shut down and all western diplomats left the country: only eight embassies are functioning at all, around a third of the previous total, and with much-reduced staff. Experts say state media is less revealing than ever, and fewer publications can be read from overseas now. A once steady stream of defectors is said to have plummeted from 1,000 in 2019 to 195 in the first nine months of 2020, with perhaps 19 arriving in the South in the first half of this year. The shutting down of smuggling networks has reduced the flow of information out, as well as in. The result: “Our knowledge of North Korea is the worst for 35 years,” says Andrei Lankov, a leading expert on the country.
While some call for the South to attempt to penetrate the North’s barriers to information – for instance, resuming propaganda broadcasts along the border – such measures would risk destabilising relations for probably minimal return. At best, it might enlighten some North Korean troops; it would not improve outsiders’ knowledge of the country. Continuing to offer it vaccines and other supplies, despite its snubs, and to petition for the return of diplomats and other foreign workers, would be a wiser choice – albeit one requiring considerable patience.
Last year, we were told that North Korea had banned the population from wearing leather trench coats like Kim’s. This January, reports that the country claims burritos as its own invention circulated widely. Meanwhile, the increased hunger and isolation of North Koreans has been largely overlooked. It is long past time to treat the country not as a WTF-inducing curiosity and a heavily armed security nightmare but as a place in which 25 million people live, in dire economic straits, subject to what the UN has described as “unparalleled” human rights abuses by their own leadership, and now under tightened control. Standing at the DMZ, looking into North Korea, it is clear that it has shut the world out even more decisively. But how hard did we try to see it in the first place?
Tania Branigan is a Guardian leader writer; she spent seven years as the Guardian’s China correspondent
Red Memory by Tania Branigan (Guardian Faber, £20). To support The Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/may/03/andreya-triana-giants-review-gold-lullaby-matt-hales | Music | 2015-05-03T07:00:00.000Z | Corinne Jones | Andreya Triana: Giants review – Amy Winehouse without the sass… | For her second album, smoky-voiced Londoner Andreya Triana moves away from the smouldering soul of her Bonobo-produced debut, Lost Where I Belong (2010) into the pop-soul arena. It’s a distinctly British sound: the clapping, bells and backing vocals of Gold and Lullaby hint at producer Matt Hales’s influence (he’s also worked with Lianne La Havas and Paloma Faith) and Triana’s strong, understated vocals recall the husky tones of Amy Winehouse, although without the sass. While enjoyable, Giants doesn’t take the genre to new heights; it’s easy-listening music with a sprinkling of bouncy, singalong tracks. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/oct/13/player-racism-online-gaming | Games | 2010-10-13T21:00:00.000Z | Naomi Alderman | The player: racism in online gaming | Naomi Alderman | Of all the imaginary problems around gaming – no, playing games won't make you more stupid or less empathetic – there's one genuine issue that goes underdiscussed: racism in online multiplayer games.
A 2003 piece of games journalism, titled Bow, Nigger, describes a racist battle the author – playing a character called Always Black – experienced. And things haven't improved. "Online gaming is completely full of racist comments about black and Hispanic people. You'll find it in any online gaming with chat," Yoz Grahame, programmer and technologist, told me. "But then, nice people don't tend to be very loud, so the idiots seem louder by comparison."
Games producer Kim Plowright has also witnessed ethnic tensions in World of Warcraft: "A Serbian guy was standing in the middle of [game city] Orgrimmar venting about how Serbs are the Balkan master race." And actuary Matt Phillips told me he'd even encountered racism in online poker.
It's possible to protect yourself, says social media consultant Laura E Hall: "With games such as World of Warcraft, you can be in a guild with good people, or choose servers and [chat] channels with the same." But it's disturbing that we've taken the same old hatreds into our new fantasy worlds.
Games don't cause racism. But the real-time chat makes nasty comments hard to moderate, and easy to spread. Bullies, as my mum always told me, are cowards. Sadly, the same anonymity that enables dissidents in police states to blog or a gay teenager in the midwest to find friends also gives cowards the cover to vent their ugly views in public. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/dec/09/adele-black-star-hello-video-police-brutality-xavier-dolan-tristan-wilds | Music | 2016-12-09T15:50:27.000Z | Guardian music | Adele cast black star in Hello video to address 'police brutality' | Xavier Dolan has spoken about the inspiration behind Adele’s video for Hello, explaining that casting The Wire’s Tristan Wilds was a deliberate attempt to address “police brutality” in the US.
In an interview with Vulture, the French-Canadian film-maker said that while it was his idea to cast Wilds, Adele had specified that the love interest in the video should not be played by a white actor.
“It was her desire that we wouldn’t cast a caucasian male in this, which I thought was great,” he explained to Vulture. “She called me and said, ‘This is what I think we should do,’ and if my memory serves me right … I’m going to be honest, it’s tragic not to be able to remember what exact conflict was on the news at that moment, because there are so many incidents of police brutality.”
Unsure which death she was responding to, he said: “She called me right after one of those incidents of police brutality, and I wish I could remember the name. I wish it wouldn’t be as hard to remember because there wouldn’t be so many different instances of those incidents. They’re disgusting.”
Dolan went on to say that this casting decision “was not opportunistic”. He added: “She was just like, ‘I’m concerned with the reality of the tensions between authorities and the black community, and I want to send a message out there.’ I thought it was beautiful. I wish it was my idea, but it wasn’t.”
The video for Hello has been viewed on YouTube more than a billion times since its release in 2015.
Last year, a Guardian study showed that young black American men were five times more likely than white men of the same age to be killed by police officers, with the final tally of deaths in 2015 at the hands of law enforcement officers reaching 1,146. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/24/ocado-redesign-zoom-logo-z-russian-forces-ukraine | Business | 2022-03-24T17:13:52.000Z | Sarah Butler | Ocado to redesign Zoom logo after it draws ‘Zwastika’ comparisons | Ocado is redesigning a new logo for its fast-track Zoom service less than a week after it was launched, after drawing comparisons to the Russian battle symbol used on tanks and other military vehicles in Ukraine.
The online grocer unveiled the logo, featuring a white swishy Z on a pink circle background, last Friday. But on Thursday, the company said it was having a rethink after its design quickly drew comparisons with the “Zwastika”.
One campaign group flagged the logo on Twitter alongside a Ukraine flag. It tweeted: “What a time to launch a rebrand using a white ‘Z’.” Another observer said it was “not a great time for Z brands”.
Emily M Austen, the founder and chief executive of of the PR agency Emerge, told The Grocer trade journal, which first reported the logo change: “It’s not usually the longest page in a brand briefing document but ‘avoidance of invasion based logo likeness’ is usually a given.”
A tank with a Z insignia in Donetsk, Ukraine. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Ocado said on Thursday: “In light of current circumstances we are making a small change to an icon ahead of our upcoming Zoom by Ocado rebrand.”
A spokesperson added: “Our thoughts are with the Ukrainian people and everyone impacted by Russia’s invasion of their country. The human tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, and the refugee crisis along its borders, has shocked the world.
“As an organisation, we have contributed £150,000 to the DEC Ukraine crisis appeal to help provide food, first aid, shelter, medicine, clothes and other aid to those most in need.”
The issue is the latest embarrassment for Ocado after the company drew criticism for its association with Marks & Spencer, its joint-venture partner on grocery deliveries in the UK, whose 48-store franchisee in Russia continues to operate despite the British brand suspending shipments.
Most western brands are distancing themselves from Moscow by closing stores and halting manufacturing, although change is more difficult for those with franchise partners.
The latest move came from the Marlboro cigarettes manufacturer, Philip Morris International, which said on Thursday that it was working on options to exit the Russian market as it had become too complex to do business there.
The company, which booked about 6% of its total revenues from Russia last year, said it had discontinued the sale of several cigarette products and cancelled all product launches this year. The company has also scaled down manufacturing in the country but said its 3,200 employees in Russia would continue to be paid. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/may/01/florida-six-week-abortion-ban-takes-effect | US news | 2024-05-01T20:52:40.000Z | Carter Sherman | Kamala Harris invokes ‘fight for our freedom’ as Florida six-week abortion ban takes effect | A six-week abortion ban went into effect on Wednesday in Florida, cutting off access to the procedure before many people know they are pregnant and leveling the south-eastern United States’ last stronghold for abortion rights.
The ban went into force weeks after Florida’s state supreme court issued a decision clearing the way for it to take effect. Strict bans now blanket all of the American deep south, increasing the strain on the country’s remaining clinics. The closest clinic for most Floridians past six weeks of pregnancy is now several states away in North Carolina, which outlaws abortion after 12 weeks of pregnancy.
In a speech in Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday, the vice-president, Kamala Harris, lamented that “as of this morning, 4 million women in this state woke up with fewer reproductive freedoms than they had last night.
“This is a fight for freedom – the fundamental freedom to make decisions about one’s own body and not have their government tell them what they’re supposed to do.”
Harris, who has become the Biden campaign’s foremost messenger on abortion, continued: “Starting this morning, women in Florida became subject to an abortion ban so extreme it applies before many women even know they are pregnant. Which, by the way, tells us the extremists who wrote this ban either don’t know how a woman’s body works or they simply don’t care.”
Florida abortion providers brace for six-week ban: ‘Where are these 80,000 patients gonna go?’
Read more
Last year, Florida abortion providers performed more than 84,000 abortions, state data found – including more than 9,000 for out-of-state patients, according to the Guttmacher Institute, which tracks abortion restrictions. Roughly 60 % of Florida abortions occur after six weeks of pregnancy.
On Tuesday, the last day before the ban took effect, an abortion clinic in Gainesville, Florida, was trying to squeeze in as many patients as possible. The clinic had added hours throughout April, but the rush was compounded by the fact that, in addition to the impending ban, Florida requires people to have an in-person consultation at an abortion clinic at least 24 hours before they get the procedure or take abortion pills. A patient could have arrived on Tuesday exactly six weeks into her pregnancy, but have been too late to get an abortion given that the ban came into effect on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, the female team of staffers at the clinic, Bread and Roses Women’s Health Center, had to explain these complex regulations to bewildered callers and patients over and over again, as the phones rang off the hook for hours.
Before the six-week ban, Kristin, director of Bread and Roses, said that the clinic rarely saw people before they hit six weeks of pregnancy.
“Most people don’t know they’re pregnant until at least six weeks,” Kristin said in an interview the week before the ban took effect. (Citing fears over privacy, like many other people at the clinic, Kristin asked to be identified only by her first name.) “We try to get people in as quickly as possible, but sometimes we’re one or three weeks booked out, so it’s rare that someone is in before they’re six weeks.”
Compared with 2020, there were nearly 9,000 more abortions in Florida in 2023. Out-of-state abortion patients accounted for almost 60% of that increase, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
Bread and Roses used to see 20 to 30 patients daily, but in April the clinic started to see closer to 40 patients a day, Kristin said. The clinic tends to see somewhere between three to 10 out-of-state patients every day, she said.
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“As the states fell, the more increase that we’ve been seeing from other states,” Kristin said.
Kristin declined to say where patients at her clinic are coming from, other than to say that they span the south-east.
In addition to its decision last month to let the six-week ban take effect, the Florida supreme court – which is dominated by Republican-appointed justices – greenlit a November ballot measure to enshrine abortion rights into the state constitution. If the measure passes, the six-week ban would be deemed unconstitutional and abortion would be legal until viability, roughly 24 weeks into pregnancy. Multiple staffers at Bread and Roses wore pins urging people to “vote yes” on the ballot measure.
Roughly a dozen states may have residents vote directly on abortion rights in November. Abortion rights supporters have already won ballot measures in states across the country, including in Republican bastions like Kansas and Kentucky, but in order to win in Florida, the abortion rights measure will need to garner 60% of the vote.
Regardless of its outcome, the vote is months away. In the meantime, thousands of patients could be affected by the six-week ban.
“This is going to be awful, and it’s going to impact the whole south-east,” said Dr K, a family medicine doctor who performs abortions at Bread and Roses. “I just have no idea what these patients are going to do and where they’re gonna go.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/30/dell-laptop-cat-pee-urine-smell-latitude-e6430u | Technology | 2013-10-30T11:05:19.000Z | Samuel Gibbs | Dell users get claws out over laptops that stink of cat pee | Owners of a certain model of Dell laptop have been subjected to very unpleasant “cat urine” odours emanating from their new machines.
The powerful odour is “not at all health hazard” and seems to have been caused by a “manufacturing process that has now been changed,” according to SteveB, a senior technical consultant for Dell posting on the company’s support forums.
Dell was first made aware of the issue in June 2013 when a Dell user called “three west” first posted about the smell of a new Dell Latitude E6430u saying “the machine is great, but it smells as if it was assembled near a tomcat's litter box. It is truly awful! It seems to be coming from the keyboard”.
Cleaning is not the answer
Dell first suggested cleaning the keyboard and air vents around the laptop to cure the smell, but as more and more users complained of the same stench being emitted from the laptop from different countries and regions, it soon became clear that it wasn’t users to blame but the actual laptop.
“Well .. here I am Sunday doing some work on the couch and my wife says ,"What stinks like cat pee?". I said ... I think its this laptop ... she puts her nose up to the keyboard and BAM! It really stinks,” said gambit29.
Fixed but still smelling in the home
The smell was narrowed down to an issue with manufacturing, which was apparently resolved in October, meaning that new machines running off the production line were cured of the cat-pee smell.
For all those suffering from the smell, the only solution was to return the affected laptops to Dell for a replacement, although Dell was initially worried it wouldn’t “have sufficient stock for everyone and also that any parts we are sending out do not also have the same issue”.
Unfortunately, not all of Dell’s replacement machines were free from odour as one user complained: “I just received my 5th replacement 6430u yesterday and the smell is still there ...”
Dell Latitude E6430u users are now advised to contact technical support to arrange for an exchange of any odour afflicted machines.
Dell failed to elaborate exactly what was causing the issue, but the majority of users complained that the laptop’s palm rest and keyboard seemed to be the culprit.
“If you order an E6430u now, it will not have the issue,” SteveB added.
In September, Dell’s founder Michael Dell bought back the PC manufacturer in a $24.8bn deal | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/may/10/creative-writing-courses | Education | 2011-05-10T07:00:01.000Z | Janet Murray | Can you teach creative writing? | It has featured on US higher education programmes for more than a century, but British universities took longer to be convinced by creative writing. The notion that decent writing can't actually be taught was something Malcolm Bradbury found himself up against 40 years ago, when he was setting up an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia (UEA), the first of its kind. The course is now considered by many to lead the field, and has an impressive alumni list including Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro and Anne Enright.
A new book from UEA by Andrew Cowan, novelist and director of the university's MA course, is intended to offer an insight into the UEA method. It covers how to structure short stories and novels, creating convincing characters, writing believable dialogue and even how to overcome writer's block. Giles Foden, author and professor of creative writing at the university, says the book "answers many of the criticisms levelled at the subject and, to some degree, opens up the fabled 'black box' of our teaching."
The last decade has seen a huge expansion in creative writing courses. More than 90 British universities now offer a range of postgraduate degrees, and around 10,000 short creative writing courses or classes are on offer in the UK each year.
But, 40 years on and amid all this clamour to master the art, how well do universities teach creative writing? Can anyone actually teach it at all?
Andrew Motion, author, poet and professor of creative writing at Royal Holloway, University of London
There was a time when creative writing courses were seen on a par with athletes taking steroids, as if it somehow gave them an unfair advantage. There was this idea that creative writing was something that had to take place in a garret. But aspiring dancers go to the Royal Ballet School, and actors to Rada – why should writing be any different?
Now there are many MA programmes and degree courses with a creative writing element. There is also a move to introduce creative writing into GCSE and A-level courses. But teaching is still of variable quality. It's not about teaching students to avoid making mistakes or 'bad' writing; finding out what a blind alley looks like is an important part of the process.
David Baddiel, author, comedian and broadcaster
There seems to be a real hunger to know about the writing process. The thing is, all writers approach the process differently. I know that I work very differently to someone like Roddy Doyle, for example. He plans out the plot from start to finish before he starts a novel, whereas I tend to improvise until I feel a structure emerging. So I'm not sure writing can be taught as such. Certainly, I think you can pass on your experience as a writer and this can be used to develop latent talent. I haven't done any kind of creative writing courses myself, but I have got an English degree from Cambridge University, which was a fairly classical grounding. Ultimately, I think the only way to learn is by reading other writers.
Will Self, author, columnist and broadcaster
I'm still not convinced creative writing can be taught. Perhaps you can take a mediocre novelist and make them into a slightly better one, but a course can't make someone into a good writer. Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguru both did the UEA MA, but they were both innately good anyway. Some people swear by creative writing courses. I say, go and get a job, a fairly menial one instead. Otherwise what are you going to write about? Writing is about expressing something new and exploring the form in new ways. So unless you want to churn out thrillers or misery memoirs, you can't work from a pattern book. You need to autodidact.
Fay Weldon, author and professor of creative writing at Brunel University
Four years ago, when I started teaching at Brunel, I was of the opinion that creative writing couldn't be taught. I wasn't taught how to write novels – I just wrote them. But I completely overlooked the years I spent writing copy in an advertising agency and what I learned about the nuances of language – for example, how switching the order of two words can completely change their meaning – or even just the impact of how words look on a page.
Now I believe creative writing can be taught, but only by published writers. A student with some aptitude and interest can benefit an awful lot from coaching and mentoring and sharing their work with other students.
But there are no rules; you can't say "this is how you write a short story" or "this is how you structure a novel" because something good that doesn't follow that pattern will always come along to challenge that. That said, it's difficult to turn a boring writer into an interesting one. And people who don't read a lot rarely write well.
Judy Astley, author
An MA is neat way of putting off actually writing the damn book. By time you've finished, you will be so intimidated by submersion in great and good, you may not actually want to write at all. Courses are also very concentrated on literary work – as if commercial is cheap and dirty – and sometimes taught by failed or unpublished novelists. But you go to art school to refine art techniques, so the MA could be useful for some.
MR Hall, author
I came to novel writing via 12 years of writing for the screen. While I was learning to write screenplays, I did a course with the American screenwriter and creative teacher Robert McKee. His "story" course was enormously helpful in providing basic scaffolding for my ideas. It's fashionable to dismiss this approach as formulaic, but it's like learning to compose music. You learn the principles of harmony and counterpoint before you start to write the melodies. And once the basics become instinctual, you're freed up to break the rules.
While you can learn technique, no one can create a voice for you. You either have something to say or you don't. All the decent writers I know are troubled souls: that's why they write – as lifelong therapy. But they are far from self-indulgent: a professional writer is a person with the discipline to sit at a desk for hours each day to turn the pain into well-structured words and stories designed to hold attention.
Maureen Freely, author and creative writing lecturer, Warwick University
There is a huge and growing demand for creative writing courses, but there are universities out there that simply see it as a money-making enterprise.
Good courses are taught by published writers who see it as a space to nurture and edit new writers. When I was first starting out, I had an editor who would ask me very tough questions about my work. You need that.
There are no hard and fast rules, but writing exercises can help students become more sensitive to the impact of different techniques.
Anna Davis, author and director of Curtis Brown Creative, the first literary agency to run its own creative writing courses
Publishers and agents spend a lot of time reading and assessing work, and would probably tell you that material produced on reputable creative writing courses is likely to jump to the top, or near the top, of the pile because it has already been vetted and assessed by writing tutors and refined under their guidance, but taking a creative writing course is no guarantee of publication. It is absolutely possible to be successful without this.
Curtis Brown Creative's three-month course started last week and is taught by myself and the novelist Jake Arnott. The aim is to help writers develop exciting new debuts at a time when it's not easy for first-time authors to break through.
We selected our first 15 students from a mountain of applications. In our view, you need all your students to be talented in order to really be able to achieve. We are also bringing our experience of the publishing scene and what is working in today's marketplace. I think a lot of students want this kind of practical approach, but a lot of courses focus on pretty prose and lose the bigger picture.
Andrew Cowan, author and director of the MA in creative writing (prose fiction) at the University of East Anglia
While a creative writing course can't turn someone into a writer, if you have ability and are willing to work hard, a course can help you to improve more quickly.
There has been a viral spread of creative writing courses in recent years, but teaching is not always good. You can get someone with a BA, MA and PhD in creative writing teaching on a university course with very limited experience of being published.
One criticism that is often levelled at creative writing courses is that they produce "cookie cutter" fiction. But if you look at the list of published graduates from the MA at UEA, you couldn't get a more diverse range of writers.
The Art of Writing Fiction by Andrew Cowan is published by Longman, an imprint of Pearson. The Death of Eli Gold by David Baddiel is published by Fourth Estate | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/may/01/writers-jailed-china-pen-america | World news | 2024-05-01T10:00:55.000Z | Amy Hawkins | Number of writers jailed in China exceeds 100 for first time, says report | The number of writers jailed in China has surpassed 100, with nearly half imprisoned for online expression.
The grim milestone is revealed in the 2023 Freedom to Write index, a report compiled by Pen America, published on Wednesday.
With the total number of people imprisoned globally for exercising their freedom of expression estimated to be at least 339, China accounts for nearly one-third of the world’s jailed writers. There are 107 people behind bars because of their published statements in China, more than any other country on the index.
It is the first time that Pen America’s count of writers jailed in China has surpassed 100. Other databases, such as the Reporters Without Borders’ tally of journalists and media workers detained in China, passed that milestone in 2020.
The index defined “online commentator” as bloggers and people who used social media as their main platform for expression.
James Tager, the director of research at Pen America, said: “Not all people arrested for their online expression will find themselves represented here. It is certain that the true toll of all those who are punished for their expression in China is far higher than the numbers represented here, and that is not even to count those who are censored or who censor themselves for fear of formal punishment.”
People detained by the authorities for their online expression are typically arrested under suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a charge that even a senior political delegate has said is too vague and could be used arbitrarily by the police.
Among those jailed for picking quarrels is the citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who has been in prison since 2020, after she was arrested for reporting on the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic in Wuhan.
Several other writers in the Freedom to Write index were targeted for commenting on the government’s Covid policies, such as Sun Qing, who was arrested in May 2020 after posting critical statements on WeChat and X, then known as Twitter. Sun was arrested for “inciting subversion of state power”.
Writers in Xinjiang are treated particularly harshly. The region of north-west China is home to the Uyghur minority, a Muslim group who have been subjected to harsh cultural and political suppression in the past decade.
Gulnisa Imin, a Uyghur poet, is serving a 17-and-a-half-year sentence on the grounds that her poetry, the most famous of which was inspired by One Thousand and One Nights, promotes “separatism”.
In recent years, a crackdown on free expression in Hong Kong has contributed to China’s increasing count of jailed writers. In 2020, Beijing imposed a national security law on the city, which critics say has been used to suppress dissent.
Since the 2019 pro-democracy protests, the authorities have also revived the use of a colonial-era sedition law, which has been used to target government critics. Hong Kong has plummeted down the Reporters Without Borders’ press freedom index since 2019.
Tager said: “Hong Kong’s 2020 national security law and the ongoing crackdown on any dissent or disagreement in the city has triggered a devastating transformation for the city’s creative sector.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/22/they-might-have-got-more-brexit-sense-out-of-frosty-the-snowman | Politics | 2021-06-22T18:17:11.000Z | John Crace | They might have got more Brexit sense out of Frosty the Snowman | John Crace | You win some, you lose some. We’re still nowhere near finding out if the government has a coherent plan for tackling social care – only late on Monday the prime minister cancelled a meeting with Rishi Sunak and Matt Hancock due to take place on Tuesday afternoon to discuss the issue. So we can probably assume not. But we are a little better informed as to why the negotiations with the EU over the Northern Ireland protocol have started to unravel badly. And that’s because every time he speaks, the UK’s lead Brexit negotiator, David Frost, doesn’t seem to be quite as bright as he would like us all to believe.
Tuesday’s appearance before the foreign affairs select committee was a case in point. Having established his credentials as being rather more important than a minister for Europe, Lord Frost then did his best to prove why he wasn’t really up to the job. He got off to a bad start by saying that the decision not to fully accredit the EU ambassador to the UK had been “over-interpreted” and that petty point scoring had been the last thing on the government’s mind. For some reason, the EU had seen it differently and taken offence.
But it was when Labour’s Graham Stringer asked about the Northern Ireland protocol that Frost began to unravel. It had been obvious from the start the UK had only been pretending to apply EU law in Northern Ireland as a matter of political convenience and what the EU had done was to deliberately misinterpret this as if we were signing an international treaty in good faith. We had imagined that the EU would look on the protocol as mere window dressing and would take a pragmatic view of us ignoring the rules.
It should have been obvious we had no intention of sticking to the letter of the law, Frost continued. Not least because Boris Johnson was the UK prime minister and if there was one thing on which you could rely with Boris was that he never kept his promises and would seek to bend the regulations. So Frost and his negotiating team had been totally taken aback to discover that the EU were treating Johnson as a man of his word and were expecting the UK to keep to the terms of the protocol. It was all a bit bumpy right now, Frost conceded, but no one could possibly have imagined that events would pan out as they had.
The committee chair, Tom Tugendhat, no fan of either Boris or Brexit, took the increasingly unremarkable Frost up on this. This wasn’t quite true, he said, before going on to list just some of the many millions of people who had predicted the precise turn of events. There was the Northern Ireland Retail Consortium and Gavin Barwell, Theresa May’s former head of staff, for a start. After all, the whole reason the Maybot had never negotiated a similar Brexit deal to the protocol was precisely because she could see that it would undermine the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
“I didn’t mean that no one had predicted this,” Frost said, back-pedalling rather. What he had meant was that he and Boris had failed to predict it. They had needed a deal to get Brexit over the line and the Northern Ireland protocol had looked the best bet as something that both sides could comfortably ignore. He could only repeat how astonished he was that the EU had been so intransigent in their refusal to finesse the rules to the UK’s advantage.
By now it was dawning on the committee that they might have got more sense out of Frosty the Snowman. What part of his nearly 30 years working in the Foreign Office had led him to believe the EU was a nimble, fast-moving organisation that would improvise its international treaties with third party countries? And how could he have imagined it would be easy to hoodwink a leviathan that had been founded on a “take it or leave it” rule of law?
Frost now began to ad-lib, seemingly oblivious to the hopeless impression he was making. He doubled down on Brexiters having been given no warning over the complexities of Northern Ireland before suggesting that the UK had done the EU a favour by giving them a new challenge to deal with. One the 27 countries had always secretly longed for. He also maintained that life would be a great deal easier if the EU stopped making threats. He seemed to have forgotten the UK has been making threats against the EU for decades now.
Tory Andrew Rosindell – he appeared horizontal either because his Zoom camera was malfunctioning or he had given up the will to live – summed things up by observing there was no way the Northern Ireland protocol could be considered a “cracking” deal as Dominic Raab had once said. Frost was left inchoate, babbling “yeah but, no but, yeah but, no”. Something would have to give. And given the UK was constitutionally unable to keep its word it was up to the EU to take pity on us and be pragmatic. If only by granting us a sausage extension. The rest could look after itself. Or not. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/aug/12/jo-pavey-gold-european-athletics-championships-zurich | Sport | 2014-08-12T22:32:00.000Z | Sean Ingle | Jo Pavey strikes gold at 40 with mother of all victories in Zurich | As Jo Pavey kicked for a final time, away from a French athlete 16 years her junior and towards the sweet jaws of history, the crowd at Zurich’s famous Letzigrund Stadium began to stand, applaud, acknowledge. They have seen many brilliant performances at the Weltklasse meetings down the years but few, surely, have been as spirit-lifting as watching Jo Pavey, a 40-year-old mother of two from Exeter, become the oldest woman to be crowned a European champion.
Pavey, a four-time Olympian, has become used to valiant near-misses or wearing less expensive metals round her neck. Now, for the first time at a major championships, she has a taste of gold. But she had to plunge into the depths of her resolve to fend off Clémence Calvin after kicking for home before the bell.
Such was the thou-shalt-not-pass determination as Pavey clenched her teeth round the last lap that it was a minor wonder she was able to smile so quickly afterwards. But then one saw her cuddling her daughter, Emily, born 11 months ago, and her four-year-old son Jacob – the steely grit now replaced with a silky tenderness – and it all made sense.
“I can’t believe it,” said Pavey. “I tried to do a controlled last lap because I didn’t want to blow up on the home straight. I didn’t know how close the other girls were, so I thought, ‘Just give it all you’ve got and you can’t regret anything.’”
Pavey’s back-story loses nothing in its retelling: she was still breastfeeding in April, has not attended any training camps and was forced to do her speed work on a track in Yeovil, an hour’s drive away, because her local one is being resurfaced. Only 11 days ago she was fighting it out with some of the finest Kenyan athletes to take bronze in the 5,000m at the Commonwealth Games.
She believes that motherhood has given her perspective, rather than provided any physical advantages but it has certainly had an effect. “People say, ‘Does having a baby make you stronger?’ but I think the disadvantages outweigh it,” said Pavey. “I got really unfit when I was pregnant and had to come back.
“But I feel so happy in my personal life. Before my first child it concerned me that I hadn’t had a child. Now I’m fortunate to have two children, my running can just be what it is now.”
In the early stages Pavey was up with the pace, mindful of keeping out of danger. But with no one pushing on, she was content to sit until three laps to go when an eruption of speed turned a pack of 15 into five. But she was always in control, tracking the leaders before striking to win in 32min 22.39sec, more than a second clear of Calvin.
“I’m definitely still enjoying it,” said Pavey, who turns 41 next month. “And I’m fortunate that my running gives us more time together as a family rather than less.”
In the first round of the men’s 100m James Dasaolu suggested that he is fit and means business by winning his heat in 10.22sec despite easing down after 40m. But Dasaolu faces stern competition from two Frenchmen – the reigning champion Christophe Lemaître, who won his heat in 10.16, and the favourite Jimmy Vicaut, who coasted through in 10.06 and claimed afterwards that he was in shape to run sub 9.9sec.
Dwain Chambers, who first ran in Zurich in 1997 as a 19-year-old when he defeated Carl Lewis, hopes also to be in the reckoning after winning his heat. “I’m not one to dwell too much on how fast a track is but you do really notice the difference,”he said.
“And the rivalry that’s always been secretly between us and the French has sparked an enthusiasm to go out and compete really well.”
Another British victor, this time in the opening skirmishes of the women’s 400m, was the reigning world champion, Christine Ohuruogu, who ran a season’s-best 51.40sec. Not that Ohuruogu is getting carried away. “There’s nothing really to be pleased about,” she said. “It’s a first-round race. The semi-finals are the one I’m worried about, not this.”
But there were a few bum notes for British athletes on the opening day. Laura Muir, who was expected to be in the medal mix in the women’s 1500m, admitted she was “below par” after failing to make the final. Andrew Osagie and Michael Rimmer also failed to get out of their 800m heats after surprisingly underwhelming performances. “This year has been the worst year I’ve ever had,” Osagie said. “On the track and off the track it’s been horrible.
“This is just another string to my awful season of a bow.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jan/25/unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-tv-review-ellie-kemper-titus-burgess | Television & radio | 2019-01-25T13:00:37.000Z | Lucy Mangan | Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt review – weird, messy and funny to the very end | And now the end is near, and so we face the final curtain … The last ever episodes of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt have dropped, bringing to a close Tina Fey and Robert Carlock’s tale of a 30-year-old Indiana woman building a new life in New York after she is released from the bunker in which a self-styled reverend kept her and three others imprisoned for 15 years. It should never have worked. That it did, and brilliantly so, is a testament to the writers. For four seasons, they wove straight and surreal plotlines, pure nonsense and just enough emotional truth to bind it all together, while maintaining a gag rate so high that you could be three rewatchings into an episode before you were sure you’d got all the jokes you missed laughing first time round.
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And it is testament to the properly weird and wonderful talents of the actors they assembled for it. Ellie Kemper, with her boundless energy and gift for portraying happiness without it “writing white”, as Kimmy; Titus Burgess as gay (“Everybody’s gay, Kimmy, it’s the 90s”), chronically lazy (“But I already did something today!”), pathologically fearful (“I once saw him give his wallet to his own shadow”), aspiring actor Titus Andromedon, with his gift for … well, everything; Carol Kane as their violent landlady Lillian; and the magnificent Jane Krakowski as perennially self-centred divorcee-turned-agent Jacqueline White.
Add a slew of bit parts unerringly pitched and played by the likes of Martin Short (Doctor Franff), Maya Rudolph (Dionne Warwick, who ultimately remained uneaten by Titus as they drifted across the open sea after a shipwreck) and Amy Sedaris as desperate socialite Mimi Kanasis (“I smell a man!”) and every episode was a selection box of delights.
That said – if it had to end (and it probably did; none of the characters had much room for growth without losing the naivety that kept the whole thing afloat), these last half dozen episodes would not have been the way I’d have chosen.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt’s only real weakness has been occasionally concentrating its aim on timely topics, then hitting the wrong target. Its supposed takedown of the (primarily) racial oversensitivity of millennial snowflakes during the season two strand about Titus’s past life as a geisha didn’t work – it read as the lashing out of two older, privileged creators against previous mild criticism – but it was at least a small part embedded in a larger, endlessly impressive and rewarding whole.
Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski) and Mimi (Amy Sedaris). Photograph: Eric Liebowitz/Netflix
In the final half-season, the show reins in the surrealism and doesn’t stuff each scene so full to bursting with beautiful side-jokes. It goes in harder on the timely stuff instead. Jacqueline discovers that millennials are into older women because #MeToo and #Time’sUp has got them running scared from women their own age while “we know how to take a compliment”. Titus is torn between testifying about his sexual harassment by Mr Frumpus when news of the puppet’s proclivities becomes public, going to the Tonys as a Victim Guest of a star, and taking advantage of the opportunities that arise if he stays silent.
None of it’s wrongheaded enough to make you shout at the screen, but it’s a mess. It feels as though the creators haven’t understood enough about the mood and issues they’re tackling to run – if that was their intention – accurately counter to them.
But the jokes still come fast and funny. The double-length Sliding Doors episode is a treat. There are callbacks to a million highlights of earlier seasons to reward devotees, and the return of men’s rights activist Fran Dodd (Bobby Moynihan), possibly the show’s greatest supporting character. And – no spoilers, but – Kimmy gets an ending she deserves. Because that female is strong as hell. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/sep/23/borthwick-finds-another-dimension-in-englands-triple-fly-half-threats | Sport | 2023-09-23T20:17:32.000Z | Gerard Meagher | Borthwick finds ‘another dimension’ in England’s triple fly-half threats | Steve Borthwick has said he considers England’s triple fly-half threat of Owen Farrell, Marcus Smith and George Ford as an option for future use in their World Cup campaign, saying that having them all on the pitch together “brought another dimension” in the thumping 11-try win over Chile.
Smith shone on his first start at full-back, scoring two tries, while Farrell slotted seamlessly back in at fly-half as England clinched their third straight win at the tournament. Ford came on for the final half an hour, in which he teed up Henry Arundell for one of his five tries, as England cut loose against the lowest ranked team in France.
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Borthwick had made 12 changes for this match and is likely to do similar for England’s next match against Samoa on 7 October but fielding Farrell, Smith and Ford together again is a possibility, according to the head coach.
“Marcus did a lot of very good things,” said Borthwick. “There was a lot of exciting talent on the pitch. This squad is packed full of talent and packed full of options and you saw that today. The starting configuration did a really good job after working through a challenging spell. To be able to change that during the game and have Owen, George and Marcus on the pitch brought another dimension and certainly gives options for the future.
“I think that playing at 15, there is a different amount of space there compared to playing at 10. The job of the players on the inside is to hold the defence to make sure there is space for the guys on the outside. I thought they did that very well. The way Marcus took those opportunities, found the space and linked with Henry in particular was a positive. I think what it shows is a lot of hard work from everybody on the training field.”
Arundell, meanwhile, equalled the record of most tries in a single game for England, becoming the first player since Josh Lewsey against Uruguay in 2003 to score five in a match and the fourth in history.
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Farrell, who scored 16 points on his first appearance in more than a month following his four-match suspension, moved to within one point of Jonny Wilkinson’s all-time record. Of Arundell’s feat, he said: “I think everybody knows what talent Henry’s got. He’s shown it before today. He’s shown it for London Irish, he showed it when he got his first touch in international rugby against Australia.
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“A big thing that Henry showed today was that he got after everything in between. He didn’t just finish tries today. He got balls back in the air, he chased hard and worked hard for the team.
Ultimately, he got his rewards off the back of that. He does what he does unbelievably well.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2020/oct/01/yorkshire-lockdown-gold-all-creatures-great-and-small-channel-5-tv-our-farm | Television & radio | 2020-10-01T05:00:03.000Z | Julian Coman | Yorkshire, Yorkshire, everywhere! How Channel 5 scored lockdown viewing gold | In The Good Companions, the 1929 novel that gave him national fame, JB Priestley begins high up on the Pennines – the “knobbly backbone of England”. Looking down on the huddled communities that make their living in a Yorkshire landscape both beautiful and bleak, the author tells us: “At first the towns only seem a blacker edge to the high moorland, but now that you are closer you see the host of tall chimneys, the rows and rows of little houses, built of blackening stone, that are like tiny sharp ridges on the hills. These windy moors, these clanging dark valleys, these factories and little stone houses, have between them bred a race that has special characteristics.”
From the literature of the Brontë sisters and Priestley to films such as Lindsay Anderson’s This Sporting Life and Ken Loach’s Kes, Yorkshire’s pastoral beauty, industrial grit and pugnacious spirit has proved fertile terrain for artists in search of contrast and drama. But few would have predicted that Channel 5, formerly the downmarket fiefdom of Richard Desmond, would become modern heirs to that tradition.
Under Desmond, the channel resurrected Big Brother, mainlined US imports and earned few points for artistic merit or originality. But in recent years, under a new American ownership, there has been an attempt to assume a warmer identity, promoting “spirited TV with an emotional heart”. The upshot has been a love affair with Yorkshire of Heathcliffian proportions, and the Royal Television Society channel of the year award for 2020.
Escapism … Nicholas Ralph as vet James Herriot in the remake of All Creatures Great and Small. Photograph: Playground Television (UK)/Channel 5
What is it about Yorkshire? Ben Frow, the channel’s controller, told this summer’s virtual Edinburgh TV festival that the region has become “part of Channel 5’s DNA”. It is certainly the key to its buoyant viewing figures. During lockdown, the humble healing powers featured in The Yorkshire Vet, a real-life version of All Creatures Great and Small, attracted more than 2m viewers per episode. Our Yorkshire Farm, which follows the lives of two hill shepherds, Amanda and Clive Owen, topped the ratings charts in August. On a summer Tuesday night, more people watched the Owens, their eight children and 1,000 sheep work one of the remotest patches of land in Britain than tuned in to admire DC Fleming’s work in Line of Duty.
The Yorkshire Steam Railway, which follows the seasonal ups and downs of a heritage line through the North York Moors, can rely on exquisite scenery to draw viewers in. And when the former deputy prime minister and Hull East MP, John Prescott, is hired to investigate the provenance and manufacture of Wensleydale cheese and Mowbray’s pork pies (Made in Yorkshire) it is time to call it as it is: God’s own country is riding high in the collective imagination.
The common thread is a fascination with ideas of vocation, nurture, place and space. Amanda Owen’s journey, leaving an urban working life in Huddersfield to pursue a lifelong ambition of becoming a shepherdess, appears to have struck a chord in the national psyche. “At this time in particular,” says Daniel Pearl, a Channel 5 commissioning editor, “viewers have been seeking out shows about the countryside and farming, about human resilience and also an escape to natural beauty. Our Yorkshire shows have these qualities in abundance. Yorkshire is a significant and extremely large county. It has a very clear identity and pride in its heritage, countryside and people and it’s graced by some of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.”
Do the locomotive … The Yorkshire Steam Railway. Photograph: Channel 5
Those qualities have made it the most obvious example of a broader focus on locality and identity, paradoxically enabled by the American owners. “Channel 5 has transformed beyond recognition in the six years under ViacomCBS,” says Pearl, “moving from a channel that relied on US imports to one that looks and feels British. We are primarily focused away from the media bubble of London and the south-east, and we want our programmes to be about, made and watched by people living right across the country.”
The lavish and acclaimed reboot this autumn of All Creatures Great and Small, one of the most popular television series of the 1970s and 80s, constitutes the most impressive statement of intent yet. The first episode drew an audience of 3.3m, Channel 5’s highest for five years, and the levels of attention, care and investment reflect a new sense of ambition.
Its popularity can in part be attributed to escapism, mingled with the simple, reassuring pleasures of nostalgia. The James Herriot books, on which the classic series was based, themselves looked back to the pre-war dales of the 30s. But the show has pulled in a younger and more affluent demographic to the channel. In periods of upheaval or transition, what we wish to escape to, or look back upon, tells us something about our present preoccupations.
Big cheese … Made in Yorkshire investigated the provenance of Wensleydale cheese in its tour of the region. Photograph: John Morrison/Alamy
Sir Colin Callender, an executive producer of All Creatures and CEO of the Playground Entertainment production company, first thought about remaking the programme during the divisions and polarisation that followed the 2016 Brexit referendum. “I felt very strongly that there was an audience hunger,” he says, “for a show that was entertaining and which would allow some respite from the febrile, complicated, ugly and messy times we live in. Themes of community and friendship and family are at the heart of the Herriot books and we thought audiences would embrace that.” When Callender pitched the idea to Channel 5, he discovered that commissioning editors there had discussed the same idea the previous week. “And that was before the Covid pandemic. Who knew then that this would be so timely?”
Sally Joynson is the chief executive of Screen Yorkshire, set up by the UK Film Council in 2002. Now an independent company championing film and TV production in the region, SY part-financed the All Creatures remake. “The impact of Channel 5 cannot be underestimated,” says Joynson. “They’ve found a sweet spot with their Yorkshire programmes. And millions of people are watching.”
She identifies the seductive combination of “nature, landscape, people, villages, self-sufficiency” as key. Whereas Priestley and Loach focused on the hard-edged rhythms of industrial Yorkshire, Channel 5 has found a middlebrow niche with a utopian vision of community in the dales and moors at a time when city living has never seemed so precarious.
“The sense of relationship to land and to place there is really striking,” says Ben Vanstone, the lead writer for All Creatures. “These people are living off the land where they grew up, there’s a sense of connectedness, which most of us don’t have these days. It goes against the grain of the modern idea that we can have anything we want from anywhere, whenever we want it. In Herriot, the world becomes very small but very, very important. And in lockdown something similar happened to all our own worlds.”
Nostalgia … the first episode of All Creatures Great and Small drew 3.3 million viewers; a black character will be introduced to the series. Photograph: Playground Television/Channel 5
Not everyone is a convert to this new pastoralism. There has been criticism of Channel 5’s “Yorkshire-heavy and white” emphasis. Frow has admitted there is work to be done: “Sometimes when I’m talking to producers,” he said at the Edinburgh festival, “they say that [Yorkshire] is very white. I say you’ve got to make the extra effort.” A later episode of the current All Creatures series will feature a new storyline centring on the experience of a black character, and Callender says that series two will feature more of the same.
The uneasy balance between authenticity and inclusivity will be a delicate one to strike. But the zeitgeist moves in mysterious ways. Under the leadership of an Argentinian football intellectual, Marcelo Bielsa, “Dirty” Leeds United have become the swashbuckling romantic heroes of the Premier League. Last week – albeit virtually – the Labour party staged its annual conference in Yorkshire for the first time since 1967, when a Huddersfield man, Harold Wilson, was leader.
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The return of All Creatures Great and Small, with its makers attempting to weave new, inclusive patterns into a narrative of close-knit community, has a fair wind behind it. According to Callender, the revival’s success shows that “we do still believe in community, we do still believe in family and we do still believe in helping each other out as neighbours, as countless instances have shown during this pandemic”.
What would Priestley make of it? The narrator of The Good Companions turns out to be looking down on the fictional town of Bruddersford – a smoky amalgam of Bradford, where the author was born, and Wilson’s Huddersfield. The “race” who live there, we learn, “use emphatic consonants and very broad vowels and always sound aggressive”. They are “afraid of nothing but mysterious codes of etiquette and any display of feeling”.
The lines convey the teasing affection of a native son. But Priestley would surely appreciate the new pre-eminence of Yorkshire’s softer, caring side, in hard times. For Channel 5, it’s been a revelation. Richard Desmond eat your heart out. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/dec/04/uk-can-stop-article-50-without-eu-approval-top-ecj-adviser-says | Politics | 2018-12-04T16:49:10.000Z | Severin Carrell | Remainers welcome ECJ expert's view that UK can abandon Brexit | Remain campaigners have hailed a European legal opinion that the UK can unilaterally abandon Brexit, saying it greatly boosts their efforts to stop the process of exiting the EU.
A senior legal adviser to the European court of justice (ECJ), Campos Sánchez-Bordona, told the court on Tuesday he believed the UK could revoke article 50 independently, without needing the permission of every other EU member state.
Sánchez-Bordona, the court’s advocate general, said it was essential that MPs knew they could stop the Brexit process if they wished, dismissing the British government’s claims that the issue was hypothetical.
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His opinion is widely expected to be upheld by the ECJ in Luxembourg within the next fortnight, following a long legal battle by a Scottish cross-party group of MSPs, MPs and MEPs, which began last December.
Chris Bryant, a Labour MP campaigning for a second EU referendum who became involved in the legal action in Luxembourg, said the advice meant “the terms of the Brexit debate have fundamentally shifted”.
Bryant said it finally killed off claims by Theresa May that the UK could choose only between her widely criticised deal or no deal at all. Backed by the Scottish Greens, Scottish National party and the Lib Dems, he said it strengthened the case for a second referendum.
“The real choice is now clear: a Brexit deal negotiated by the government, or staying in the EU. It is imperative that the final say on this is handed back to the public because only the people of the United Kingdom can sort this out,” he said.
EU law had previously been silent on whether an article 50 process – the provision of the Lisbon treaty invoked by the UK giving two years’ notice that it intended to leave the union – could be unilaterally revoked or whether it needed unanimous approval from all other member states.
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But if the European court endorses the advocate general’s views later this month, it will kickstart a fresh legal battle between UK government lawyers and remain campaigners that is expected to end in the supreme court early next year.
The European court’s opinion is expected to be considered in an emergency session by Scottish judges in Edinburgh before Christmas. If they uphold it, the UK government is almost certain to lodge urgent appeals. The government’s lawyers argue that it breaches parliamentary sovereignty for the courts to tell MPs what they can or cannot vote for.
Downing Street officials downplayed the significance of the legal opinion and insisted the question remained hypothetical, since the UK government had no plans to reverse Brexit. “The position of the government has always been that it will not be revoked. That remains the case,” a spokesman said. “You should be careful on what’s happened today. It’s an opinion from the advocate general; it’s not a final verdict of the court.”
UK government sources believe it strengthens May’s hand. One source said that if the European court’s position increased the chances that Brexit could be stopped, Tory hardliners would be under even greater pressure not to sabotage the prime minister’s deal in next week’s crucial Commons vote.
“It’s just a sideshow,” the source said. There were significant obstacles facing remain campaigners: they would need new legislation to reverse the Brexit process and to set up a referendum, and there was no guarantee that remain would win that vote.
Alyn Smith, an SNP MEP who backed the legal action, said the advocate general’s opinion confirmed its long-held view that Westminster could “stop the clock” on Brexit. “We now have a roadmap out of the Brexit shambles. A bright light has switched on above an exit sign,” he said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2023/jun/05/there-may-never-have-been-a-fight-for-survival-in-la-liga-quite-like-this | Football | 2023-06-05T13:44:46.000Z | Sid Lowe | There may never have been a fight for survival in La Liga quite like this | Sid Lowe | “L
ife hits you hard sometimes; this is one of those times,” Papa Pezzolano said when at last it was over and it was confirmed that his team was the one heading to the second division, hope eventually extinguished in the 100th minute of the final day of the longest season. “The dressing room is destroyed,” the Real Valladolid coach admitted as his voice cracked and the tears came. Across the way, that could have been meant literally; in there, the beers were open and Getafe’s players, survival secured, were climbing on tables and leaping about, crashing into each other, throwing things about, soaking and serenading the coach who had come to rescue them. “Bordalas, I love you,” could be heard through the walls.
All over Spain similar scenes were repeated – in Valladolid and Vigo, Elche, Seville and Barcelona – and everywhere there were tears. “I’m close, yeah,” Cádiz manager Sergio admitted afterwards, speaking for everyone. “I’m absolutely exhausted; I’m dead,” said Valencia coach Rubén Baraja, doing much the same. “My heart’s still going at 130 bpm; there was so much tension,” added Almería manager Rubi. When it came to Gabri Veiga, he declared “This is everything to me. I love Celta”, but actions spoke even louder: the kid whose two goals saved them and were probably his last service for the club where he grew up, sat on the bench at Balaidos and broke down, sobbing.
Getafe players after their final-day survival. Photograph: Ángel Martínez/Getty Images
It had been that kind of night. There may never have been a fight for survival like this. Six teams had gone into the final game within two points of each other and the last relegation place. Just after 11pm, five were finally liberated while Valladolid, unable to score the goal that would have saved them against Getafe, could only “go to hell” as the headline in one local paper had it. If that had always been likely – of the 243 permutations, 135 meant them going down – the way it happened wasn’t. Three teams had occupied that final relegation place on Sunday, however briefly, and with three minutes nine seconds left, Valladolid were safe; with three minutes eight seconds left, they weren’t, their fate ultimately decided not at their José Zorrilla home – although that too – but 672km away at Espanyol.
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Cádiz (41 points), Getafe (41), Valencia (41), Almería (40), Celta (40) and Valladolid (39) came into the final game with fate in their own hands. Cádiz were at Elche, Valencia were at Betis, Almería were at Espanyol, who had been relegated in the 93rd minute last weekend, Celta played Barcelona and Valladolid and Getafe faced each other. Because La Liga uses head-to-head records when teams finish level, and mini-leagues in the event of multiple-ties, all knew that if they won they would stay up.
Only it doesn’t work like that, even if it should. “Every player will say ‘ah, we have to focus only on ourselves’, but that’s bullshit,” Celta midfielder Renato Tapia admitted afterwards as the tension finally slipped away to the sound of Jorge Celedón coming through the dressing room wall. “I’m sorry, you have to know what’s happening in the other games,” he insisted. And so, sitting alongside him on the bench, Iago Aspas had his phone out, watching what was going on elsewhere. At least until half-time, when he admitted he couldn’t take any more.
What was going on was this.
After 54 seconds, Ayoze Pérez put Betis 1-0 up against Valencia. And then in 52 seconds across three grounds, everything shifted. On 9m 16s, Gonzalo Escalante scored the opening goal for Cádiz and on 9m 54s El Bilal Touré put Almería 1-0 up, those two seemingly safe against opponents that no one expected to really care. And on 10m 08s, Franck Kessié then gave Barcelona the lead, silence suddenly falling at Balaidos. Celta, who had not been in the relegation zone all season, but who had done everything they could to shoot themselves in the foot, winning just one of their previous 11, now slipped into the bottom three.
The good news was that it was brief – and never official. On the bench, staring at his phone, Aspas was practically shaking. But on 11m 23s, the goal was ruled out for the tightest of offsides. That spell in the drop-zone had lasted little over a minute, although it appeared liable to return any time. Celta were nervous, Barcelona dominant. Fifteen minutes later, Kessié missed a simple header at the far post.
Everyone was on edge. Down in Elche, where the home team were demonstrating a dignity that went beyond the call of duty, there was an equaliser – ruled out three long minutes later – and an astonishing miss. Over at Espanyol, where fans were focused on their protests, throwing beach balls on the pitch, there was an actual equaliser, scored by Javi Puado on 19 minutes. And then in the 42nd minute Celta scored, Veiga dashing through to slip calmly past Marc-André ter Stegen, running off arms wide, eyes streaming with tears, Balaidos going wild.
In Valladolid, meanwhile, nothing much was happening, which was just the way Getafe wanted it. Knowing a draw would keep them safe, they were going the full Bordalas: they had completed just 37 passes by half-time, less than a pass a minute – only they hadn’t played anything like 37 minutes.
Valladolid were the team going down still, but all they needed was a goal to change everything and they didn’t even need to get it themselves. On 48m 32s Ronaël Pierre-Gabriel, making only his second start of the season, put Espanyol ahead and Almería, unexpectedly, into the relegation zone. In Valladolid, where they were listening on radios and watching on phones – which probably beat watching what was happening on the pitch – there was a roar, celebrations at survival delivered from a distance. Which, with hindsight might not have been such a good thing – might they have played differently if they knew it really did depend on them? – and just under 10 minutes later Adri Embarba scored a belting equaliser to make it 2-2, pulling Almería back out of the bottom three and Valladolid back in again.
It still wasn’t over. Veiga got a second a little after the hour, Celta close now. Valencia got an equaliser against Betis on 70. The very next minute, Elche got the equaliser against Cádiz they had been denied earlier. Everyone was a goal away from everything changing, still staring into the abyss. The big moment came in Barcelona on 72m 44s when Luca Koleosho, a Canadian with a youth-team contract and just 44 first-team minutes, bent in a brilliant goal to give Espanyol the lead and send Almería back into the relegation zone, celebrations starting again in Valladolid. Somehow, they were going to survive. With 10 minutes to go, Ansu Fati pulled one back for Barcelona, fear taking Celta once more. All six teams still on edge.
Gabri Veiga celebrates after opening the scoring for Celta against Barcelona. Photograph: Octávio Passos/Getty Images
Almería above all. “We knew that practically nothing was happening at Zorrilla, that Barcelona were losing and that we needed a goal,” coach Rubi said. On 82m 44s Largie Ramazani tumbled in the Espanyol area. Instead of giving a penalty the referee ran over and pulled out a yellow card for a dive, but he was called to the VAR, heading to the screen on 83m 55s, and heading away again to point to the spot on 84m 28s. The whole season hung on this, one shot for survival. Embarba had the ball in his hands, but Ramazani wanted it. There were discussions, words exchanged with opponents, a card taken out, time going by, tension rising. Embarba took a few steps back and waited, the world on his shoulders. One of Almería’s coaching staff couldn’t watch – they don’t have a good record from penalties – headed down the tunnel and hid. Eventually on 86m 52s, Embarba took a couple of steps to his left, started to run and scored.
In the crowd at Espanyol, the camera caught Lucia, the wife of Almería midfielder Gonzalo Melero, unable to take any more, tears coming. In the crowd at Valladolid, a man buried his head in his scarf, crying. They had been safe for 23 minutes; now they had less than half that to get there again. On 89m 27s Gonzalo Plata almost did, dashing inside and sending a wonderful shot bending just past the post. Centimetres more and they would have been safe. Six minutes were added; barely one was actually played. Jawad El Yamiq headed over Plata’s cross on 95m 38s. Goalkeeper Jordi Masip went up for a free-kick that was played short and wasted. A corner was won on 97m 12s, but they were not given the chance to take it, the whistle going.
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It was over. Well, it was here. A goal in Barcelona, where Rubi was raising a finger, signalling a single minute left, would still rescue them, Espanyol their unexpected saviours. And so they waited, watching their destiny decided elsewhere, or hoping it would be, someone else doing for them what they could not do for themselves, until the clock at Espanyol read 99m 19s and it ended 3-3. Almería were safe. So were Getafe, Celta, Valencia and Cádiz. Valladolid were down again, a year after coming up. What was missing, Masip was asked. “A goal,” he said. Some 70% of possession had not brought a shot on target; 38 weeks had brought just 33 goals. A change of coach, Pacheta sacked for Pezzolano, had brought no change.
Almería’s players celebrate. Photograph: Álex Caparrós/Getty Images
For everyone else, the final day had brought relief. Exhausted, empty now, desperate for it to end, they had needed it. “When I came on my guts were up here,” Celta’s Tapia said, signalling to his throat. He had been taken to hospital in the week, feeling dizzy and sick, blood pressure low. Now he just felt happy. “This is magical: when we scored some of the lads laughed, some cried too. It was a rollercoaster of emotions,” he said. “That ending was a heart attack,” said Getafe striker Jamie Mata, heading off to open a beer. In the other dressing room, there was just quiet. It was over. “There is no consolation,” Masip said.
Pos Team P GD Pts
1 Barcelona 38 50 88
2 Real Madrid 38 39 78
3 Atletico Madrid 38 37 77
4 Real Sociedad 38 16 71
5 Villarreal 38 19 64
6 Real Betis 38 5 60
7 Osasuna 38 -5 53
8 Athletic Bilbao 38 4 51
9 Mallorca 38 -6 50
10 Girona 38 3 49
11 Rayo Vallecano 38 -8 49
12 Sevilla 38 -7 49
13 Celta Vigo 38 -10 43
14 Cadiz 38 -23 42
15 Getafe 38 -11 42
16 Valencia 38 -3 42
17 Almeria 38 -16 41
18 Valladolid 38 -30 40
19 Espanyol 38 -17 37
20 Elche 38 -37 25 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/24/like-barbie-there-are-many-rishis-which-is-the-real-one-is-beyond-even-allies-grasp | Opinion | 2024-03-24T09:30:45.000Z | Isabel Hardman | Like Barbie, there are many Rishis. Which is the real Sunak is beyond even his supporters’ grasp | Isabel Hardman | When Rishi Sunak told his MPs to unite behind him last week, many were left scratching their heads. Both the subject and object of the sentence baffled them. How was it possible for Conservative MPs to wean themselves off their addiction to psychodrama after eight straight years of it? And what, precisely, were they supposed to unite behind?
Sunak told the 1922 Committee of Conservative backbenchers last Wednesday that the majority of MPs in the room “are determined to fight: to stand up for our values, our vision and our record”. But even his allies admit privately to being confused about what they are supposed to say about any of those three things. Which Rishi Sunak are they supposed to be backing? There are almost as many versions of the prime minister as there are Barbie dolls. Initially, he was Not-Truss Rishi: the antidote to the near-fatal poisoning of the party by the Liz Truss premiership. Like a Barbie doll with specific cultural references, like the 1980s Barbie and the Rockers Barbie, who carried a cassette of her own tunes that children today would struggle to play, let alone understand, this version was a very particular solution to a very particular problem and Sunak is now much closer to the election than he is to the madness of September 2022.
Part of the not-Truss pitch was that Sunak is a technocrat, and his pragmatism and rationality are something a good number of Tory MPs continue to value. “What Rishi basically stands for,” says a minister and Sunak ally, “is a return to normal Conservative politics. He’s pragmatic, sensible and moderate. That’s the sort of Tory government voters want, but they don’t appear to be warming to it yet.” The problem is also that those three qualities have been absent from Conservative politics for so long that they now wind up a similarly sizeable number of Tory MPs. One minister says: “Ultimately, it’s about uniting behind a bright, moral leader who works better on spreadsheets and in detail than in slogans … But I do just wonder if politics is broken right now and if you can govern sensibly in insensible times.”
What isn’t helping is a sense that the Downing Street operation is not functioning properly. “There is absolutely no excuse for the way they handled the Frank Hester stuff,” complains one mildly Rishi-sceptic MP. “Or the Lee Anderson stuff.” One minister complains that the No 10 comms operation would have far more time to handle these kinds of crises well, and perhaps even to communicate some of the things the party has achieved, if backbenchers weren’t taking up a disproportionate amount of time and energy with their own damaging behaviour. Given how long the Tory party has been in a self-destructive mood, though, this is rather like building your house below the tide line and complaining daily when it floods.
'No one thinks he has a bad bone in his body, but prime ministers probably need to have a few bad bones in them'
Sunak backer
So, then, what about Rishi the change candidate, who made a brief appearance in the autumn as he pledged to end a 30-year consensus before appointing one of the key figures from those three decades – David Cameron – as his foreign secretary? That version of the prime minister has come back again in the form of an ambition to end what he is now trying to brand as the “double taxation” of national insurance. This pledge is really popular among his backers, with many of them mentioning it as his strongest point and a key example of his vision. What does wind up even quite mellow Tory MPs, though, is Patrician Rishi, the version of the prime minister who bans smoking and relies on Labour votes to do it. This is a very personal mission of Sunak, but it is not really in keeping with the overall Conservative brand, and the sort of Rishi that will have a limited production run.
Then again, there is Democracy Rishi, who comes with his own counter-extremism strategy that turns out to have annoyed half of the cabinet and a good few backbenchers, too. This is a classic example of a product that was brought to market too soon: Sunak saw the opportunity offered by the election of George Galloway in Rochdale and seized on it, without working out what he personally wanted to do.
Perhaps it’s the Isaac Levido creation that wants to use basic Australian-style attack campaigning to reduce the polling deficit. At its most basic, this strategy manifests itself in extremely weird social media graphics that look like they’ve been created by a 22-year-old who describes themselves as a “firebrand libertarian” at parties. There was the recent graphic that said: “Are you a terrorist in need of legal advice? Better call Keir.” It is extraordinary that a party ostensibly committed to preserving institutions should think it is at all acceptable to suggest the justice system would be better served if both parties didn’t have access to the best legal representation possible so that a verdict can be considered safe and trustworthy. Mind you, some of Sunak’s own attempts haven’t gone much better: he also regularly jokes about Keir Starmer invoicing Hizb ut-Tahrir. His recent “joke” about Starmer not being able to define what a woman is when Brianna Ghey’s mother was visiting parliament had all the sensitivity of a rhinoceros. The basic problem with that version of Sunak is that it’s just not him: most Tory MPs describe him as “decent and trustworthy” – even to a fault. One of his backers says: “No one thinks he has a bad bone in his body, but I think prime ministers probably need to have a few bad bones in them.”
Barbies famously struggle with anatomical accuracy, while the lack of bad bones in Rishi dolls means that there is, in the words of one of his colleagues, “a vacuum created by the absence of compelling leadership”. Tory MPs who don’t like the prime minister are perfectly happy to fill that vacuum themselves with their own plots and dramas, and that’s the image projected to the public because journalists find it significantly easier to write about plots than they do about vacuums. MPs who were present at the 1922 Committee meeting last Wednesday were privately impressed with his message to the party that, if they try to hurt him, then they really end up hurting their colleagues, not least because the local elections are just around the corner. There is cabinet frustration with the MPs who seem to have given up and who are trying their best to hurt Sunak. One minister says: “If these colleagues have given up hope, then they should step down and someone else can actually fight their seat for the party. The way they are behaving is like someone who complains they are a bit overweight while eating cream buns and not going to the gym.”
‘This isn’t a game of 4D chess’: Tories braced for bruising local elections
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The retort from other ministers and backbench plotters is that Sunak himself is a major reason the party is sliding in the polls because he simply does not offer a coherent vision of himself to Tory MPs, let alone the public. Even MPs who wish him well have complained to his team repeatedly that they do not know what the prime minister stands for, and that when they go out on the doorstep to meet voters, they have no idea which Rishi they are supposed to be selling. Whenever I ask a Tory MP what the prime minister stands for, the response runs thus: “Oh, don’t ask me that. Oh, ah. Um. Well, he’s very pragmatic.”
There won’t be many of Sunak’s colleagues in parliament this week. One of the reasons the government was content to delay the final stages of the safety of Rwanda (asylum and immigration) bill until after the Easter recess is that it means the whip can be relaxed for the final few sitting days this week. If MPs are on a one-line whip, then they may not come into Westminster at all and the hope is that, instead of buzzing around like angry bees inside parliament, they’ll go back to their constituencies and meet some normal people who help them to calm down. Tory MPs who were out campaigning last week say that voters aren’t angry with them and are in a reasonably friendly mood, suggesting that the current dire polling figures won’t stay this bad for long. Perhaps after Easter they will return in a better mood and feel ready to unite behind their leader. But that really depends on whether Sunak has united the different versions of himself first.
Isabel Hardman is assistant editor of the Spectator | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/02/hitting-streets-raymond-queneau-review | Books | 2013-07-30T10:25:32.000Z | Nicholas Lezard | Hitting the Streets by Raymond Queneau – review | You have to love an Oulipian. These were, or are, the writers who, as Queneau himself put it, are rats who build the labyrinths they try to escape from. You know, writing entire novels without the letter E, or telling the same very banal story (about a young man in a silly hat getting jostled on the bus and then being seen in a park a couple of hours later; really, it is banal) in 99 different ways, many of them absurd (and very funny). That latter wheeze, Exercises in Style, was Queneau's; and he co-founded the movement – whose name is short for "Ouvroir de littérature potentielle", or "potential literature workshop" – when he asked a mathematician for help in composing his work Cent mille milliards de poèmes. This involved each line of 10 different sonnets being printed on its own strip of paper, so that one hundred million million poems, give or take a million or so, can be constructed by the reader.
No such japes in this volume of poems, though – just an enormous number of headaches for the translator. But it is fun for the reader. In one of his poems, just four lines long, Queneau sets a number of traps, punning on, to take one example, different meanings of "fils" (son, or wires, take your pick), and ends with the challenge: "allez me traduire ça en anglais!" Which Rachel Galvin, naturally enough, renders as "go translate that into French for me!"
It's the spirit you have to get into above all here, and Galvin knows it. As she points out in her excellent introduction, Queneau's most famous work (and the one that released him from half a century of financial anxieties), Zazie dans le métro, begins with the word "Doukipudonktan". Fancy a stab at that? She also coins, in an attempt to translate the portmanteau word "fientaisie", the fantastic word "whimsicrap", which I have a feeling is going to come in very handy for us all.
So it is as well that this book comes with the French, too. Queneau was one of those writers who knew pretty much everything there was to know about literature, but he also loved word games, and the language of the streets. These combined to produce this book, which contains about 150 poems, almost every one of which is a love letter to Paris. Though maybe "love letter" isn't the right phrase to describe "Un beau siècle" ("One Fine century"), which goes "Conneries des années 1900 / Connerie de la belle époque" ("stupidity of the 1900s..." etc) all the way through to the year 2000, even though the book itself dates from 1967. ("Conneries" is rather stronger than "stupidity", but we don't have a word for it.)
But the thing I most want to impress upon you is that just about every single one of these poems is a delight – the kind you want to show to people. There is a very impish, almost mischievous sense of humour at work here; you get the impression that Queneau would have been a delight to meet and get to know. I'm thinking of "There was a Waterloo Passage / it's been demolished / it's just that we're patriots in Paris", or "Advice for Tourists", which lists, as attractions near the Boulevard Sébastopol, the Acropolis, Whitechapel, the Kremlin, the Pentagon … I could go on and on.)
Galvin quotes another Oulipian as saying "since Baudelaire, poetry has explicitly loved the big city", and Hitting the Streets is an extension of that project – especially as incarnated by the work of Apollinaire, who also made extremely witty and readable poetry out of avant-garde forms. Paris seems particularly suited to this kind of project; and Queneau is particularly good at it. The city becomes anthropomorphised, or at least given a vibrant and inimitable character; even its flies are, if that is the word, celebrated ("The flies of today / are no longer the flies of yore / they are less cheerful"). You might balk at the idea of paying nearly thirteen quid for 197 pages of poems, and French poems at that, but I promise you you'll love this. Especially if you love Paris.
This article was amended on 5 August 2013 to correct misspellings in "Cent mille milliards de poèmes" and "Doukipudonktan" | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/18/cypress-hills-b-real-to-open-up-medical-marijuana-dispensary | Music | 2015-02-18T10:37:41.000Z | Tim Jonze | Cypress Hill's B Real to open up medical marijuana dispensary | Cypress Hill’s B Real has revealed details of a medical marijuana dispensary he is opening up in California. The rapper won the right to open a dispensary in Orange County after being selected by lottery, along with five others, from a list of 630 applicants.
Talking to Billboard, B Real claimed that his musical background put him in a “unique position” to make the dispensary a success. He said: “I definitely want it to be eye candy, eye-popping, eye-catching, an experience. We want it to be a place where you can come get quality meds responsibly and all that stuff, but we want it to be an experience as well.”
He added that he was open to the idea of live performances there, saying: “I think mini concerts in there would be good, have some artists that are legalization-friendly, like for instance Snoop Dogg [and] 2 Chainz.”
B Real has certainly been putting the work in. Recently, he took third prize for “best sativa flower” in the Cannabis Cup in San Bernardino, California.
The rapper also had some musical updates. He has teamed up with Snoop Dogg, A$AP Ferg and more to put out a free mixtape under his Dr Greenthumb guise: The Prescription. He also talked about the forthcoming Cypress Hill album, their first since 2010’s Rise Up. He said: “It’s almost done, it’ll probably be out late summer or towards August,” adding that he expects the group to tour it after release. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/may/02/call-of-duty-advanced-warfare-gamers-guide | Games | 2014-05-02T14:33:02.000Z | Keith Stuart | Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare – a non-gamer's guide | Announced this week to a frenzy of games media coverage, the latest title in the Call of Duty series is hitting stores in November. But if you don't play games – and have children who do – what should you make of this 100m-selling franchise? What's it about and is it completely, horribly violent?
Here are a few pointers for those who are going to be asked to buy Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, but aren't sure what it is they'll be bringing home.
What is Call of Duty?
Call of Duty is a series of "first-person shooter" (or FPS) video games – so called because the action is portrayed from the perspective of the player. The series began in 2003, and the first three titles were set during the second world war. However, the fourth instalment, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, moved the narrative to a near-future setting and began to explore themes of global terrorism and armed revolution.
The games have sold more than 100m copies so far and there is a new title every year. However, they don't all feature the same scenarios and characters: Activision has introduced different sub-strands of the main series, produced by different development studios. Alongside the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare series, there is also Call of Duty: Black Ops, which is set during the Cold War. Last year saw Call of Duty: Ghosts, set in a post-apocalyptic future.
Every game in the series features a single-player "Campaign" mode, which is a story split into a series of missions. There is also a multiplayer mode in which groups of participants meet online to compete in various types of competitive matches.
What does Advance Warfare add?
Not much is known about the latest title, but the game's publisher, Activision, is likely to update the teaser site soon. It seems the game is set in the near-future where a powerful private military contractor has decided to use its army against the US Government. In the trailer, soldiers are depicted wearing armoured exoskeletons, fighting alongside robotic vehicles and drones.
The lead anatgonist is being played by actor Kevin Spacey who has lent his voice and visual likeness to the game. Here is the official trailer:
When is the latest title coming out?
The next game, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, is out on 4 November and is expected to release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC. Versions for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 are also likely. It will cost around £50, although you may find it cheaper online or in supermarkets which heavily discount the price of major game releases.
Will it have an 18 age certificate?
The last title in the series, Call of Duty: Ghosts, has a PEGI 16+ certificate, but previous titles carried an 18+ rating. PEGI is the European age rating system for Europe, it took over games certification from the BBFC a number of years ago. Every game released in Europe must carry a PEGI rating, and each rating comes with information about the content you are likely to see in a game. You can visit the PEGI website to find out more about the ratings system, or search for individual games – the site will tell you the sorts of things you can expect to see, including violent and sexual content.
How violent will it be?
This is a shooter, so there will be almost constant gunfire – and injuries from gunfire – which are realistically depicted. Like most modern action games, Call of Duty titles also features "cinematic" sequences – non-interactive scenes which work like short animated movies – showing vital plot points and moving the story along. These often include graphic violence. Previous Call of Duty titles have shown torture sequences, others have shown characters being stabbed in the neck, or shot from close range. Call of Duty is certainly not alone in this respect – other shooters like Battlefield and Killzone feature similar scenes. Essentially, anything you'll see in an adult-rated action movie you will see in adult-rated action games.
Why does my 14-year-old son like it so much?
Like all first-person shooter games, Call of Duty titles are built around very fast-paced action and highly choreographed armed combat. In a sense they combine the cinematic visuals and excitement of a Hollywood action film with our seemingly innate interest in role-playing violence and violent encounter. Call of Duty is really a digital extension of playground games like "cowboys and indians" or "cops and robbers" – they provide a safe space in which participants can explore violence and aggression. The games also allow players to "rank-up", unlocking new weapons and items as they get better, so there is a motivation to keep playing and keep improving. This "feedback loop" of action and reward is a staple element of video game design.
Should I be concerned about young children playing 18-certificate games?
Many parents make the mistake of thinking that age certificates on games are just a guide and that all games are suitable for children. This is not the case; just like movies, modern games depict scenes that are intended for adults only. When your child asks for a game, look at the box on Amazon or in the shop. If it has an 18 certificate it will contain graphic violence, drug use or sexual content – just like an 18 certificate film.
How do I stop my teenager playing an 18-rated game?
There's obviously a lot of pressure on teenagers to do the things their friends are doing, and Call of Duty has a huge fanbase in this age group. Of course, if your child isn't earning their own money, you can limit their exposure to 18-certificate games by not buying them (although they can always play at a friend's house – or if they have a PC, illegally download a pirated copy of the game).
All modern game consoles, smartphones and Windows PCs also come with parental controls which allow you to block your children from playing age-restricted titles. "There are lots of elements you can control," says Andy Robertson, a freelance family gaming expert. "It's not just about being Draconian over what children can play, it's about controlling who they can talk to online, when they spend money, if they can watch videos and how long they play. It's a good idea to sit down as a family and have a conversation about setting up the controls, deciding on the limits together; if kids are given a say in the process they'll feel more involved and it's not just about Mum and Dad stopping them playing."
When you buy a new machine it is advisable to set yourself up as the main account and to configure parental controls for all other users. The set-up process can be complicated, but Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony all have information on parental controls on their websites. It's also worth checking out the AskAboutGames website, a resource for parents interested in, or concerned about, games. This has a section which explains how the parental control systems work on most major platforms.
Are games like Call of Duty antisocial?
Not necessarily. The popular image is of teenagers sitting alone in their bedrooms playing for hours, and although that no doubt happens, most first-person shooters encourage players to meet up online and play together. It's possible to set-up teams and compete in leagues against other sides from all over the world, and players often use online games as a social venue, chatting to each other on headphone mics while playing. Indeed, games like Call of Duty have provided a social lifeline to isolated youngsters.
Are the games actually any good?
That is the source of much debate among gamers. The titles have usually reviewed reasonably well, with the first two Call of Duty: Modern Warfare titles scoring highest – I would argue the first Modern Warfare is a genuine classic, which introduced key new features to the genre. However, the reviews aggregation site Metacritic has shown that critical opinion is turning against the series – Call of Duty: Ghosts has a Metacritic score average of around 70%, which is pretty poor for a major release.
There's no doubt the titles have mass appeal – the series has sold well over 100m copies worldwide, and the latest instalments usually all reach the 20m sales mark. The games are enjoyable in the same way as a Michael Bay movie; easy to get into, slick and compelling.
However, there are plenty of players who despise the series – who feel that it rigidly adheres to a recipe that never changes and is out of date. Others despair at the online community, which seems to be dominated by teenage boys, who often shout abuse at each other during games. However, this is the same with many multiplayer shooters, and can be avoided if you chose to play only against close friends on a private server.
Call of Duty is very much seen as a mainstream franchise – the popcorn movie of the gaming world. Some players are happy with that, some aren't.
Call of Duty: Ghosts – review
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 – review
Does Call of Duty teach my child anything?
Well, the first three titles in the series featured genuine WW2 weapons, military divisions and battles, and were, to some extent, historically accurate. The games included combat on various fronts throughout Europe and provided information on military tactics, geography and the different roles of various military forces. The Modern Warfare titles have been influenced by global terrorism and ultra-nationalist movements, but are no more or less accurate than most big budget action movies. The Black Ops series is interesting in its analysis of the Cold War, Vietnam and the Kennedy assassination.
The newest titles are all reasonably accurate in their depiction of current military hardware – although much of this has come through the controversial licensing of real-life weapons. They often use current affairs to form the under-pinning of their stories. Indeed, the games' developers have often sought to highlight the authenticity of their narratives, sometimes with short online documentaries. For Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which is about a rogue private military contractor, Activision has commissioned a mini-documentary about real-life PMCs.
But let's be honest, this is not a piece of educational software.
Are there any decent female characters in it?
There have been no playable female characters in the series until Call of Duty: Ghosts. This has been a major criticism, not just of Call of Duty, but of the shooter genre in general. Others have highlighted the negative depiction of middle eastern, Asian and eastern European characters.
Has there been any research into the effect of games on teenage brains?
There have been hundreds of studies into the effects of video game violence on children and teenagers. Many of these show a short-term rise in aggressive behaviour after playing for extended periods, but so far no major study has shown significant long-term links between playing violent games and participating in real-life violence. It would be very hard to prove such a link as so many other psychological, social and emotional factors play a role in violent crimes.
The US gaming site Kotaku has a handy collection of video game violence studies with a brief guide to their conclusions.
Should I limit the number of hours my child plays each day?
It is advisable to limit the time your teenage child spends playing games – if only because gaming can get in the way of other activities like school work – and sleeping. Moving the games console from the bedroom into the living room or another communal area of the house is an effective way to monitor the time your children spend playing. This will also allow you to see and experience the games for yourself. In fact, it's a good idea to spend half an hour playing the latest game that your children are interested in – preferably with them.
"Parents don't often appreciate that kids actually want to talk to them about games - particular younger children," says Robertson. "On our FamilyGamerTV YouTube channel, I post a lot of 'Let's Play' videos where I play with my kids, and loads of the comments are along the lines of, 'I wish my parents would play with me like this'. It's heartbreaking in a way."
What is the link between violent video games and aggression?
Claims that 'video games lead to violence' lead to violence | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jul/22/room-of-my-own-fay-weldon | Life and style | 2012-07-21T23:05:22.000Z | Alice Fisher | Room of my own: Fay Weldon | Fay Weldon moved into her current house about 10 years ago. "Once we'd chopped down 17 Leylandii, we found a really nice house," she recalls. It had belonged to her mother-in-law, but Weldon had no trouble making herself at home. "This desk is my territory. I bought it in the Harrods sale in 1980 – it was very cheap. If you take this around with you, you need to have a large room to put it in. That's all you need to establish yourself somewhere; a big desk and a bed."
At the moment the big desk is piled with books written in or about the 1900s as she's working on a sequel to her new historical novel Habits of the House. "The period's always been with me. Not only did I write Upstairs, Downstairs, but I used to read Mrs Beeton as a child and my grandmother would often talk about that time. And it's much easier to write about the past these days, because the present moves so fast."
The paintings on her walls are by friends – Robert Sawyer and Clifford Rowan – it's hard to separate the artists from their work. "What they've created is often better than the person, rather than the other way round," she says.
Her study contains a lot of vegetation. The lemon mint from the garden is "one of those plants that looks completely dead and then revives; a bit like writing a novel". The New Zealand apples are "terribly pretty, yellow-veined" and the bananas are there so she needn't break from writing to get anything to eat.
Her "forest-like" Abutilon has grown from a tiny cutting given to her by her Norwegian publisher and now soaks up radiation from her computer. In the winter, the Abutilon shakes in the draught from the windows. "The house is listed so you can't do much to it," says Weldon. "A lot of weather comes in, so I have to retreat to the basement, which hasn't been painted since 1900." She must feel quite at home there.
Habits of the House by Fay Weldon is published by Head of Zeus (£14.99 hardback/£7.99 ebook) | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/01/the-conjuring-review | Film | 2013-08-01T20:30:00.000Z | Henry Barnes | The Conjuring – review | Henry Barnes and Catherine Shoard review The Conjuring guardian.co.uk
The craft – if not the art – of a great horror flick skitters around Saw creator James Wan's new popcorn-spiller. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga play Ed and Lorraine Warren, the real-life paranormal investigators who in the early 1970s helped the Perron family (led here by Ron Livingston and Lili Taylor) rid their Rhode Island pad of a demon, before clearing up at Amityville. The beast roves the house, as bashful about its hell-raising as Wan is about reeling off genre tropes: slamming doors, stopping clocks and smashing family photos.
The Conjuring was a huge hit in the US, perhaps because it plays to sceptics and believers alike; there's never any question that what we're seeing might be absurd or imaginary. The Warrens – religious folk concerned for their victims' souls (their church attendance is patchy) – are presented as dedicated professionals, rather than kooks, weirdos or (whisper it) hucksters. But the 70s setting, paired with the cheapish visual effects, helps the thing scramble along like a fleshed-out episode of Scooby Doo. Wan's shocks are predictable but – yikes! – are they scary. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jul/29/oil-gas-company-profits-fuel-prices-shell-exxon-chevron | Business | 2022-07-29T15:44:54.000Z | Dominic Rushe | Oil company profits boom as Americans reel from high fuel prices | The US’s biggest oil companies pumped out record profits over the last few months as Americans struggled to pay for gasoline, food and other basic necessities.
On Friday, ExxonMobil reported an unprecedented $17.85bn (£14.77bn) profit for the second quarter, nearly four times as much as the same period a year ago, and Chevron made a record $11.62bn (£9.61bn). The sky-high profits were announced one day after the UK’s Shell shattered its own profit record.
With such eye-watering profits, Shell should invest more in low-carbon transition
Nils Pratley
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Soaring energy prices have rattled consumers and become a political flashpoint. “We’re going to make sure everybody knows Exxon’s profits,” Joe Biden said in June. “Exxon made more money than God this year.”
The record profits came after similarly outsized gains in the first quarter when the largest oil companies made close to $100bn in profits.
High energy prices are one of the leading factors driving inflation to a four-decade high in the US. Gas prices have fallen slightly in recent weeks but are now averaging $4.25 a gallon across the US, more than $1 a gallon higher than a year ago.
Consumers are facing high fuel prices not just at the pump. Soaring energy prices are being baked into delivery costs, which is driving up the cost of everything from apples to toilet paper.
One reason gasoline prices have been so high is that fewer refineries are operating in the US than before the pandemic, so there is a limit to how much gasoline can be produced.
Biden has called for the companies to increase production and refining capacities in an attempt to bring down prices. On Friday Exxon said it was expanding refinery and production in Texas and New Mexico.
Exxon, based in Irving, Texas, increased its oil and gas production as crude prices hovered above $100 a barrel. Revenue at Exxon soared to $115.68bn, up from $67.74bn during the same quarter last year.
Natural gas and liquefied natural gas (LNG) prices are also elevated due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and ensuing sanctions against Russia, a large supplier of natural gas. Many European nations have been scrambling for alternatives to Russian natural gas, and have been competing for boatloads of LNG, driving up prices for natural gas globally and in the US.
In addition to oil company executives, shareholders also reaped the benefits of high energy prices during the quarter. Since the start of 2022, Exxon and Chevron shares have risen close to 46% and 26%, respectively.
Exxon’s CEO, Darren Woods, attributed the company’s success to its investments in oil and gas fields in Guyana and the Permian Basin, as well as its investments in liquefied natural gas, which has been in high demand globally.
“We’re also helping meet increased demand by expanding our refining capacity by about 250,000 barrels per day in the first quarter of 2023 – representing the industry’s largest single capacity addition in the US since 2012,” Woods said in a prepared statement.
Chevron’s chief executive officer, Mike Wirth, sought to tamp down criticism that the company was profiteering at the expense of consumers.
“We more than doubled investment compared to last year to grow both traditional and new energy business lines,” Wirth said in the statement. “Chevron is increasing energy supplies to help meet the challenges facing global markets,” he said.
Exxon and Chevron’s bumper profits were announced a day after Shell posted record earnings of $11.4bn (nearly £10bn) for the three-month period from April to June.
Frances O’Grady, the general secretary of Britain’s Trades Union Congress, called the “eye-watering profits” “an insult to the millions of working people struggling to get by because of soaring energy bills.
“Working people are facing the longest and harshest wage squeeze in modern history. It’s time working people got their fair share of the wealth they create, starting with real action to bring bills down,” said O’Grady.
Associated Press contributed to this story | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/02/manchester-arena-attack-families-accuse-mi5-of-devastating-failure | UK news | 2023-03-02T18:50:48.000Z | Josh Halliday | Manchester Arena attack: families accuse MI5 of ‘devastating’ failure | The families of victims of the Manchester Arena attack accused MI5 of a “devastating” failure after an official inquiry found the agency missed a “significant opportunity” to stop the deadliest terror plot in Britain since the 7 July 2005 attacks in London.
A public inquiry led by Sir John Saunders concluded that there was a “realistic possibility” that the bomber could have been thwarted if the security services had acted more decisively on intelligence.
Andrew Roussos, whose eight-year-old daughter Saffie-Rose Roussos was one of the 22 people killed in the blast, blamed MI5 for a “cataclysmic failure” and said the spy agency was “not fit to keep us safe and therefore not fit for purpose”.
How family and Libya conflict radicalised Manchester Arena bomber
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In the long-anticipated final report of the inquiry, Saunders said it was “quite impossible” to say definitively whether any different action would have prevented the blast but that there was a “significant missed opportunity to take action that might have prevented the attack”.
0:42
MI5 missed opportunity to prevent Manchester Arena bombing, inquiry finds – video
The conclusion triggered a rare public apology from MI5’s director general, Ken McCallum, who said it was of “deep regret” that the agency did not obtain sufficient intelligence to stop the “terrible tragedy”.
He added: “Gathering covert intelligence is difficult – but had we managed to seize the slim chance we had, those impacted might not have experienced such appalling loss and trauma. I am profoundly sorry that MI5 did not prevent the attack.”
But the apology was rejected by Roussos, whose daughter was the youngest victim of the attack. He said it was “insulting” for MI5 to say there was only a “slim chance” of stopping the attack, adding: “He [McCallum] had loads of chances, transparent chances. I can’t accept an apology for losing my daughter.”
The 226-page report, which came two-and-a-half years after the inquiry began, found that:
Salman Abedi’s return from Libya four days before the blast would have been taken “extremely seriously” by MI5 had key pieces of intelligence been taken more seriously in the months before the blast.
The spy agency could have found Abedi’s homemade device, stored in a car in Manchester, if an investigation was begun at this stage. The attack “might have been prevented” if MI5 had found the vehicle.
MI5 failed to share two significant pieces of intelligence with counter-terrorism police in the run-up to the blast, amid what Saunders described as a “communication breakdown” between the agencies.
Abedi’s family holds “significant responsibility” for his extremist beliefs but he should have been referred to the anti-radicalisation scheme, Prevent, up to two years before the attack.
Twenty-two people died and hundreds more were injured when Abedi detonated a suicide bomb at the end of an Ariana Grande concert on 22 May 2017.
The “significant missed opportunity” identified by Saunders concerned the handling of two pieces of intelligence by MI5 in the months before the attack.
The report does not describe the nature of these two pieces of intelligence. However, it rejects a previous claim by the Security Service that they related to “non-terrorist criminality” by Abedi.
Saunders said that on occasion MI5’s “corporate position” did not reflect how its officers viewed this material and instead was more of a “retrospective justification for the actions taken or not taken”.
Caroline Curry, whose 19-year-old son Liam Curry was killed in the bombing alongside his girlfriend Chloe Rutherford, 17, hit out at public bodies for failing to quickly acknowledge their failures during the inquiry, saying: “Shame on you all.”
In an emotional statement delivered near Manchester Hall, where families of the victims had gathered to read the report, Curry added: “Forgiveness will never be an option for such evil intentions and those that played any part in the murder of our children will never, ever get forgiveness.
“From top to bottom, MI5 to the associates of the attacker, we will always believe that you all played a part in the murder of our children.”
Unlike previous investigations, the public inquiry heard evidence from the MI5 officers who analysed the information and who testified that together they were of “potential national security concern”.
MI5 witnesses told the inquiry that if the first piece of intelligence had been received today it would have prompted “low-level investigative inquiries, in conjunction with the police”.
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Saunders said there was a “material possibility” that this would have led to MI5 uncovering Abedi’s plans.
One MI5 officer, Witness C, believed the second piece of intelligence could be of “pressing national security concern” but failed to raise the alarm promptly, the report found.
It said the agent should have raised concerns to colleagues “straight away” and written a report on the same day but did not do so.
Saunders said this delay “led to the missing of an opportunity to take a potentially important investigative action”.
This was significant, Saunders said, because the intelligence gave rise to the “real possibility of obtaining information that might have led to actions which prevented the attack”.
The retired high court judge said more decisive action would have led MI5 to take “extremely seriously” Abedi’s return from Libya, where he had been fighting alongside Islamists, four days before the attack.
He said it could also have led investigators to the Nissan Micra where he had stored his homemade explosives and, had they found the vehicle, “the attack might have been prevented”.
Much of the evidence from MI5 and counter-terror police was heard in secret due to national security concerns.
In a statement at Manchester Hall, Saunders said he realised this meant that his public findings – which did not include the most sensitive intelligence – would leave the families of the victims “wanting to know more”. He added: “All I can say is that I have done my best to reveal what I can.”
Nicola Brook, a solicitor from Broudie Jackson Canter who represents five victims’ families, said it was “disappointing that the families will never know the full truth of what happened”.
Richard Scorer, a solicitor at the law firm Slater and Gordon, who represented 11 of the families, described the failures as “devastating and unacceptable”.
The public inquiry, which began in September 2020, previously concluded that Abedi should have been identified as a security threat on the night of the attack, and that at least two victims could have survived had they not faced an “interminable” wait for treatment by the emergency services. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/jun/19/this-much-i-know-ted-danson | Life and style | 2011-06-18T23:03:02.000Z | Suzanne Goldenberg | This much I know: Ted Danson | For someone who has spent 25 years as an ocean activist, I am not really a waterman. I am not a sailor. I am not a fisherman. It is so bizarre.
I first saw the ocean as a kid. We would drive from Arizona in the summer and arrive as the sun was starting to come down over the hill near Laguna in southern California. We would always sing a song and it was a big joyous family moment when we came over the hill.
Here I am, 63 and worried about still being relevant in the world. I want to hang out with younger people and that's exactly the part I get to play in Bored to Death [the HBO comedy starring Jason Schwartzman]. It's pretty much ideal for someone at my stage of life.
My most annoying habit is complaining about my aches and pains. It's the new ones that I haven't identified yet that make me nervous. According to my wife, I complain way too much. I may be a borderline hypochondriac or you could say I am fascinated by the body – at least by mine.
You should always carry string according to my archaeologist father, because then you could at least make a trap to catch animals to survive. According to my grandmother, it was clean underwear.
My proudest achievement is my four children, my family. Though I don't know if it is "my" achievement.
My earliest memory is from when I was two or three. I was misbehaving in some way. Our neighbour, a doctor, was walking up to visit and my father said: "If you don't start behaving, I am going to have the doctor give you a shot." He meant it as a silly thing, but it is one of the snapshots that lives in my brain.
I swore I was going to badmouth Curb Your Enthusiasm this year. Larry David informed my wife and I that we weren't going to be in this upcoming season while staying free in our guest house for a month. I was going to go tell everyone it was passé and he was over the hill, but I've seen some episodes and they're really great.
I thought I might die while I was campaigning for Hillary Clinton. I was in a very small aeroplane with Mary [Steenburgen, his wife] in the middle of a violent storm in the Midwest. It wasn't like I thought for sure we were going to die, but I had no guarantees we wouldn't.
I officiated at my step-daughter Lily's wedding this summer. It was so sweet the morning before, practising the vows. I'm pretty sure I cried.
I get revenge by nice-ing people to death. I shame them into liking me. If someone pisses me off I either disappear them from my life or force them to like me.
To be successful, you have to be willing to be successful. You have to believe in the law of attraction – that you create your own life.
Ted Danson's book Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do To Save Them (Roedale press, £22.99) is out now. For information about the Oceana charity, go to na.oceana.org | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/apr/29/liberal-democrats-plan-take-berkhamsted-local-elections | Politics | 2023-04-29T05:00:28.000Z | Heather Stewart | Cost of living, Brexit, sewage: how the Lib Dems plan to take Berkhamsted | Voters in the Hertfordshire town of Berkhamsted have been sending Victoria Collins, the Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate, videos of sewage. Out knocking on doors before local council elections in May, she claims the state of local waterways is an issue causing former Conservatives to move their vote.
“A lot of people are just horrified, because they’re really proud of the local countryside,” she says. “We’re talking to lifelong Tories who are saying, ‘now might be the time to change’.”
With its half-timbered houses, smart coffee shops and reams of coronation bunting, Berkhamsted feels like true blue Tory territory. But the Lib Dems hope to make gains on 4 May. The party’s leader, Ed Davey, even launched his local election campaign there, on a tractor.
Daisy Cooper, the MP for nearby St Albans, who won her seat from the Conservatives in 2019, says the issue of raw sewage being dumped into rivers “sums up in a very obvious visceral and visual way, the state of the country; that’s how bad it’s got, that they feel they can do this with impunity”.
The local Dacorum district council has 31 Conservative councillors and 19 Lib Dems. With all the seats up for grabs, the Lib Dems believe they could even take control – and then use it as a stepping stone to the general election, echoing their success in nearby Chesham and Amersham in 2021.
“It’s all of it,” says Laila Walker, who stops Collins and Cooper in the street to offer her support – and express frustration at the state of the country. “The NHS obviously is just desperate. But – cost of living – there’s not one thing, there are so many things.”
Victoria Collins and Daisy Cooper speak to Mary Beard on her doorstep in Berkhamsted. Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian
“There’s so much to do,” agrees Mary Beard, a former teacher who is now a carer for her husband, as she stands at her front door in a well-kept conservation area near the town centre.
She highlights the expansion of free school meals as a policy she would like to see implemented more widely. “I’ve worked with some very poor children, and it’s difficult. At least then you know they have one good meal a day,” she says. “I understand a number of them don’t have breakfast or anything like that.”
Paula Surridge, an elections expert from the thinktank UK in a Changing Europe, says the Lib Dems are right to target “blue wall” areas like this. “They’re the right sort of places for them, and they’re there as a home for a lot of more liberal Conservative-leaning voters, who didn’t vote Lib Dem in 2019 because they didn’t want to let [Jeremy] Corbyn in by the back door.”
But she cautions against expectations of sweeping gains on 4 May. This batch of council seats was last contested in 2019 when MPs were waging a debilitating war over Brexit. Back then, the Lib Dems gained more than 700 seats, while the two main parties, under Theresa May and Corbyn, both slumped to just 23% of the vote.
“I would expect them to make a few gains; but I think both the Conservative losses and the Lib Dem gains are being a bit over-egged,” she predicts.
On Berkhamsted High Street, disillusionment with the government is easy to find – but it’s not necessarily matched by enthusiasm for the alternatives.
Jenny Hackett says that she will not vote Conservative again. Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian
“I think they’re bloody hopeless, to be honest,” says Jenny Hackett, emerging from a dance class in the bunting-decked civic centre. Asked if she voted for the Conservatives, she concedes: “I’m ashamed to say I did.”
“I will not vote Conservative again,” she says, but adds: “I don’t think Labour would do any better”.
Like other voters the Guardian met in Berkhamsted, Hackett prefers Rishi Sunak to his predecessors – but sees him as out of touch. “They’re so wealthy, they haven’t got a clue, have they? He’s a billionaire. But I do think he’s the best of what they’ve got.”
Shelley Stoddart, fresh from browsing an estate agent’s window, says she’s “a bit disenchanted” with all politicians, and has split her vote in the local elections between the Conservatives, Lib Dems and Greens. At a general election, though, she says: “I would always vote Conservative. I think they’re all as bad as one another.”
Mike Smith, a pensioner who worked for Kodak before it went bankrupt in 2012, says he has been waiting for two back operations for a year.
A Conservative voter in 2019, he says of the government: “There’s a lot more they could do: there’s quite a few things they need to address. It’s not just the cost of living, it’s a number of other things as well. Government spend, efficiency, the NHS: all of those things.”
Boris Johnson “sold us down the river” over Brexit, he says. “The battle bus made people vote for something that wasn’t really there in the first place, as far as Brexit was concerned.”
Mike Smith will be voting for the Conservatives at next week’s local elections. Photograph: Anna Gordon/The Guardian
Nevertheless, he’ll vote Conservative a next week’s local elections – and is considering doing the same at the general election. “Will I? I don’t know. I don’t think there’s anybody better, to be honest. The Lib Dems, OK fine they’ve won Chesham. Here, it’s pretty much Conservative. If they don’t get their act together, I don’t know – there’s nobody else.”
Boundary changes mean Lib Dem candidate Collins expects to contest a new parliamentary seat, Harpenden and Berkhamsted, in 2024. It is unclear as yet who she will be facing, as the sitting Tory MPs, Gagan Mohindra and Bim Afolami, have been selected for other redrawn local constituencies.
Keir Starmer and the Labour party, meanwhile, barely seem to get a mention among voters here in the Chilterns, and despite tribal loyalties, are unlikely to mind the Lib Dems taking seats like these off the Tories. So perhaps it should be no surprise that the party’s candidate for the Berkhamsted Castle ward, where Collins and Cooper are canvassing, is not out leafleting the neighbours, but at home, tinkering with his car.
“I’m a paper candidate, so I’ll panic if I win,” he grins. Introduced to Collins, who hopes to be his next MP, he says, “it’s great to see you out: lovely,” adding that when it comes to next year’s general election, “I think we’ve got one objective.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/aug/01/les-murray-a-cult-figure-who-practically-sung-for-joy-doing-a-job-he-loved | Football | 2017-07-31T18:00:02.000Z | Paul Connolly | Les Murray: a cult figure who practically sang for joy doing a job he loved | Paul Connolly | At some point, though it’s hard to say exactly when, the late Les Murray became a cult figure in the Australian sporting landscape. This happened long before he slipped into his silver fox years, those more recent times in which he began to ration his onscreen appearances while the relatively younger brigade, like Craig Foster, took up his work and the central tenets of his ideology. It even happened before 1995 when Melbourne band TISM released their ARIA-award winning album Machiavelli and the Four Seasons, which featured the track, What Nationality is Les Murray?
Les Murray, SBS football commentator, dies aged 71
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If the exact year Murray’s cult status came into being is hard to pin down, the reason isn’t. He could – and, more to the point, would – curl his tongue around a “foreign” name as well as Lionel Messi can curl one around a defensive wall. When Murray said something like “Roberto Baggio” it sounded, at least to the ears of a generation of white-bread eating Anglo-Australians, like a precursor to foreplay – the exotically-European kind featured on those late-night SBS movies.
Perhaps, at times, Murray was more enthusiastic in his pronunciation than he needed to be but we knew why. Murray had an appealing, raised-eyebrow sense of humour, for one thing, but I think he sometimes rolled an extra R or two because, quite simply, he was practically singing for joy. Such was his love of the game and his joy to have a job he loved. It’s easy to be beguiled by and swept up in someone else’s passion, and Murray swept so many of us up in his.
Murray, like his mother station, the national broadcaster SBS (or Soccer Bloody Soccer, as it became known), was unapologetically “other”. However, as it turned out, it was an otherness that embraced and drew in the prevailing culture. “Phoodball,” he told us, was “the world game”, and we needed to see it and be part of it. If we didn’t we were missing out. Along with his long-time soul mate and colleague, Johnny Warren, Murray made it his mission – on shows like On the Ball and The World Game – to bring football to the masses. People who, for the most part, were actively dismissive of the game. As Warren noted in his 2002 biography, Anglo-Australians were inclined to circle their wagons and pin back their ears. Never mind the game’s British origins; football, they sneered, was the game of “sheilas, wogs and poofters”.
Since Murray first arrived on our screens in a short-lived Channel Ten weekly football show (a gig he got after changing his name from László Ürge and sending in an audition tape from England on which he’d recorded himself commentating a First Division game between Chelsea and Nottingham Forest) he saw Australia’s football landscape change markedly. For one thing – though it will forever remain a loaded word to some; the equivalent of a challenge, if not a threat – the word “soccer” began slipping from usage.
Socceroos fans claim a front row seat for the World Cup match between Australia and Japan outside Customs House in Sydney in 2006. Photograph: The Sydney Morning Herald/Fairfax Media via Getty Images
More importantly, Australia found room for a new national league, an attempt, if not a seamlessly successful one, to take football in this country into a new era. Murray, like Warren, also revelled in the change of fortunes experienced by the national men’s and women’s sides, particularly the Socceroos’ drought-breaking qualification for the World Cup in 2006, the same year Murray was made a member of the Order of Australia. Murray, of course, was not responsible for all or any of this, but if all that is part of the tapestry of modern Australian football, Murray was one important thread that helped create it.
There are many who dismiss sport as mere distraction, as childish ball games. But, for Murray, football was always much more than that. Upon arriving in Australia with his family as refugees from Hungary, football was a lifeline, a connection with his past, his homeland, with all that he had left behind. He clung to it like a stricken sailor to a life buoy. In this way his experience mirrored that of so many who arrived in Australia after the Second World War, so-called New Australians who understandably sought the familiar among the unfamiliar and started so many of the ethnic clubs the modern game is built on; people for whom the game of football in Australia owes a great deal of gratitude
Years ago, Murray told me in an interview that when his family moved to Wollongong his parents tried to enrol him and his brothers in a Catholic school. But the Murray boys (well, the Ürge boys), refused to go having discovered that only rugby league was on offer. So they were enrolled in Berkeley High School instead and there, “quite by instinct,” Murray said, “I tried to convince every Australian kid in school that football was the beautiful game. I’m still doing it.”
Outside of his family and two daughters, of course, football remained Murray’s great love. But he had other passions. He cherished his morning coffee and the wide-ranging discourse at Double Bay, for instance, and he maintained an enthusiasm for singing, one that began in 1968 when he joined a rock ‘n’ roll outfit called Rubber Band. Four years after that he joined another group which became one of the busiest cover bands in Sydney and they played weddings, dances, presentation nights and even “a P&O cruise to the Far East”. It was, he said, “one of the happiest periods of my life.”
If his singing career didn’t quite take off his football career did. And for that the game in Australia, never mind the viewing public, his fans, will be forever grateful. Some sporting cult figures earn their strips simply because of a funny moustache or a penchant for settling on-field disputes with violence. Murray’s elevation to culthood was built on a foundation of achievement. And his way around a name. Vale Mr Phoodball. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/may/21/skyfall-trailer-james-bond | Film | 2012-05-21T10:10:30.000Z | Stuart Heritage | Skyfall trailer lands: James Bond channels Timmy Mallett | Reading this on mobile? Click here to view trailer
The first trailer for Skyfall, the 23rd James Bond movie, has a curious role to fulfil. On one hand, as the first Bond outing for four years, it has to meet a certain amount of expectation. Then again, since Quantum of Solace was so unapologetically woeful, the Skyfall trailer could simply consist of Daniel Craig clattering into the side of a shed again and again and it'd invariably be seen as an improvement.
Until now, the only information we've had has come in the form of promotional images (teaching us that Bond's penchant for horrible swimwear has now been augmented by a fondness for creepy leather gloves) and a poster (telling us that Bond still likes to dress up in his Sunday best to shoot people in tunnels). However, the Skyfall trailer is now with us, which means we now know more than ever about what the film holds in store.
The trailer opens with an awkward, po-faced game of Mallett's Mallet between Daniel Craig and an unidentified government psychologist behind a two-way mirror. "Country?" the psychologist asks. "England," replies Bond. Then "Gun?" "Shot." Then, as we catch our first glimpse of Bond without a top on: "Agent?" "Provocateur." For a moment, you suspect that Skyfall might in fact be a terrible James Bond/Rocky Horror cross-dressing hybrid.
But then Bond is asked "Skyfall?" and one of his eyes momentarily narrows, making him look like Thom Yorke if Thom Yorke was a nightclub bouncer. Just as the psychologist is about to smack him across the head with an oversized foam hammer, Bond gets his act together and replies: "Done."
The question of the trailer, then, is: what is Skyfall? A place? An operation? The rest of the trailer commits itself to offering clues. We cut to Shanghai, where a woman in a nice dress is gazing at the Bund. Then Bond walking into a room firing a gun. Then some coffins. Then a fiery river parade. Could Skyfall be Chinese? Before we have time to figure it out, we see Naomie Harris tenderly shaving Bond's face – perhaps because he's been crying in the shower fully dressed again, as he's done an awful lot since Daniel Craig started playing him.
A few quick impressionist shots of helicopters and men falling into water later and – because this is a trailer for a film to be released in 2012 – the dubstep kicks in. There's a tube crash. Another fall. A shot of Bond and Judi Dench peering at a hill. And then a man in silhouette – presumably Javier Bardem's villain – doing his best Joker impression as he strolls away from a fire.
The Skyfall trailer ends with Bond intoning, "Some men are coming to kill us. We're going to kill them first," before we're hit by a final barrage of explosions and gunfire and more dubstep and some Volkswagens being smashed up. And that's all there is, at least until the next trailer comes along to offer us a little more in the way of exposition.
So what is Skyfall? On the basis of this trailer, it might be Asian in origin. Or it could just as easily be Scottish. Or the name of a particularly hard-to-find Skrillrex remix. There's honestly no way of knowing at this point.
Still, at least James Bond is finally back. And, if nothing else, he can't be as bad as he was last time. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/oct/28/ronald-koeman-sacking-finally-ends-barcelona-marriage-of-convenience | Football | 2021-10-29T10:16:31.000Z | Sid Lowe | Ronald Koeman sacking finally ends Barcelona’s marriage of convenience | Sid Lowe | Rayo Vallecano scored and The Final Countdown began. The last goal Barcelona conceded under Ronald Koeman was met by Europe booming round Vallecas. “I made a mistake,” Sergio Busquets said. “I slept and they robbed my wallet. It’s my fault.”
But on Wednesday it wasn’t just him and he wasn’t the one who paid. He had been caught out, Gerard Piqué was beaten, Jordi Alba absent and Lionel Messi in Paris. Radamel Falcao scored, someone hit play, 14,297 fans joined in, scarves twirling, and Rayo were on their way to victory. Koeman was just on his way.
Barcelona had not been beaten by Rayo in 19 years and had not been this bad since in La Liga in 34, not statistically. Defeated 1-0 by the smallest club in primera, this was their fourth away game: they have won none and scored one goal. They had lost twice in three days and five times this season, slipping to ninth.
Xavi accepts offer to become Barcelona head coach after Koeman sacked
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Sitting in the tiny press room under the west end of the ground, Koeman was asked whether this might mean being sacked. “Don’t know,” he said, sounding like a man who did. If only because he has known for some time.
Everyone knew it was coming, just not necessarily now. The chronicle of a death foretold, the only thing anyone laments about Koeman’s departure is that it was late. Sitting in the directors’ box Joan Laporta, the president who considered his coach another inherited problem, had seen enough.
Barcelona left Vallecas and headed north to Barajas airport to fly home. Calls were made and by the time they landed it was done. The Dutchman had been told of the decision on board. It was exactly a year since the previous president, Josep Maria Bartomeu, had finally resigned.
The official announcement was made at 00.17 in Barcelona. The statement was short and cold and made no mention of his replacement, although conversations have started with Xavi Hernández. Koeman left the club’s training ground at 01.18, with the intention of returning to say goodbye the following afternoon. Laporta had already headed off with the director of football, Mateu Alemany, and sporting vice‑president, Rafael Yuste.
There was still a lot to be done and fast – they have two games in the next five days – but the first step had been taken. It had taken a long time and yet it had been hurried too, not planned.
Laporta was elected in March and his manifesto did not identify a manager of his own, his campaign built on one promise: to keep Messi. If the Copa del Rey win and Barcelona’s ability to get back into the title race drew them momentarily closer, the way they blew it, losing to Granada and drawing at Levante, pushed them further apart again. That loss, Laporta believed, was unacceptable and in the summer the president told his coach he was going to take a fortnight trying to find a replacement. If he could not, then Koeman could continue.
He could not. Laporta sought candidates in Germany but had neither the money nor the project to promise them and so on it went. And on, and on. Koeman was backed in the market insofar as Barcelona could do anything at all given their €1.35bn (£1.14bn) debts – Memphis Depay, Eric García and especially Luuk De Jong were players he wanted – but doubts never went away.
The summer signings Memphis Depay and Luuk de Jong were wanted by Ronald Koeman but the team continued to struggle. Photograph: Bagu Blanco/Pressinphoto
After defeat against Benfica in the Champions League, Laporta again tried to find an alternative, even briefing that a sacking was imminent, but again he failed.
Jordi Cruyff had encouraged him to be patient – not least because the club’s international director didn’t want to find himself forced to step in – yet more significant was the cost of replacing Koeman and the absence of an alternative. Now there is one. Xavi, victorious last Friday in Qatar’s Amir Cup, is available. Laporta’s initial reluctance to turn to him, a young, untested manager who had been the key figure for his electoral rival, Víctor Font, has been overcome by circumstance too.
Koeman had always known circumstance kept him here, that this was a marriage of convenience and that Laporta had little love for him. Increasingly, he had said so publicly, the conflict out in the open. “I have ears and eyes,” he had said, acutely aware he was being constantly undermined.
In a 2min 49sec statement, he had demanded backing “in word and deed”, and set again his position once more. In short, that he didn’t have much to work with.
Realism was a recurring theme, although it sounded a lot like an excuse and the pessimism didn’t help. When he asked: “What do you want us to do, play tiki tiki tiki taka?” not only was it incendiary, the answer was obvious: well, yes.
Barcelona’s president, Joan Laporta, delivering a speech last Saturday. Photograph: Alberto Estévez/EPA
All of that opened greater faultlines. “What I don’t like is a conformist attitude, a certain defeatism; that can’t be allowed at Barcelona,” Laporta said, but he would allow it, at least temporarily, because he did not have any alternative.
After defeat at Atlético, Koeman revealed the president had called him and backed him. They would move on together. An attempt was made to put up a united front. Club cameras showed them embracing at the training ground, all smiles. The tension was taken out of the press conferences.
“He deserves a margin of confidence,” Laporta said. “He’s very barcelonista.” Not: we like his work. Not: we know he will get this right. Not: we’re in this together. More: he scored at Wembley in 1992, remember?
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Watching what was happening on the pitch, that limited confidence diminished daily, the hope they could cling on a little longer, that not too much damage would be done.
Koeman was proud of his willingness to bring kids through and his long-term legacy may well be revealed in Gavi, Nico, and Pedri. But the results were poor and, despite his protestations, so were performances. His recurring insistence Barcelona had played well did not convince; it made things worse, no sign he accepted responsibility or had identified their ills. If the problem wasn’t him – and his talk of realism is quite right, Barcelona’s decline is far deeper – nor was he the solution.
“It’s incredible that we lost this,” he said in Vallecas, but it wasn’t. Not that night or the previous nights either. Barcelona had missed a penalty, but it had been their only shot on target. And when Falcao scored, the final countdown began.
Talking points
“I want our fans to see what they have never seen,” Falcao said. It ended up being about Koeman but this was about them too. “We have to enjoy this. It’s not every day you win against Barcelona,” said Rayo manager Andoni Iraola. He was right: they hadn’t beaten Barcelona in 19 years. Falcao hadn’t either. And yet Iraola was sort of wrong too: it is every day that they win in Vallecas. That’s five home games and five wins this season, something no newly-promoted team has done in 56 years.
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First Betis went top, then Sevilla did, and then Real Madrid. By the following night, the close of another wild week, Real Sociedad were back there, leading a wonderfully tight table. Atlético, Madrid, and Barcelona all dropped points. After a 2-0 victory in Vigo, where the rain fell and the football was fun, La Real are now unbeaten in 13 in all competitions and have kept seven clean sheets in 11 league games, three points clear. They’re winning in all sorts of different ways too, including resisting and somehow emerging on top, exhibiting the efficiency often assumed to be the sign of champions.
When the final whistle went, Matty Ryan took off his gloves and wrang them out, his work done. An unexpected inclusion, the Australian had made some outrageous saves to see them through the storm. “Matt rescued us from a fine [mess],” said Aritz, who scored the second of la Real’s goals. Well, the referee said he did anyway, even if it was a deflection off Mikel Merino’s header. “And I’m having it,” Aritz laughed. “There’s a long way to go but this the path,” he added, and it’s starting to sound a little bit like la Real think that competing to win the league really could be possible.
Named ‘King of the Match’ while he was wringing out his soaking wet gloves neatly summed up the game.
La Real top, interesting to see if he needs those gloves dry for Sunday night v Athletic… https://t.co/Pr9cWCOspU pic.twitter.com/ygBFk1YpHs
— Fútbol es la leche (@futboleslaleche) October 28, 2021
Speaking of goalkeepers, Espanyol’s 40-year-old Diego López was superb against Athletic, Iñaki Williams and R dot D dot T dot getting the goals in a 1-1 draw. “It was like there were three of him,” Marcelino García Toral said of López.
Granada had almost all the ball (76%), most of the shots (18) and a penalty, but somehow Getafe led 1-0. Luis Suárez sent his penalty miles over and into the second tier, the ball tracing an almost impossible vertical trajectory. It seemed the points would evade them and the fans had started singing for manager Robert Moreno to leave, but then right at the very end they got a corner, magnificent man mountain Jorge Molina heading in a 97th-minute equaliser. A former Getafe player, he somehow remembered to apologise and even said he was a little “sad” about it after. Everyone else went wild.
Jorge Molina pops up to score against his old club. Photograph: Álex Cámara/NurPhoto/Rex/Shutterstock
Alavés beat Elche, fruit of the Loum. He scored the only goal as Alavés won for the second game in a row, both against teams likely to be in the relegation battle with them (the other was Cádiz).
“You’ll say I’m mad but I thought it was a good game,” Carlo Ancelotti said after Madrid’s 0-0 draw with Osasuna – a game in which the clearest chance fell to Osasuna’s Jon Moncayola, who hit the post. Not mad, no, but it wasn’t the best game of a fun week. Villarreal came from 3-1 down to draw 3-3, Danjuma scoring in the 96th minute. Betis were sensational as they tore into Valencia. Sevilla came from behind to equalise in Mallorca and then thought they had won it with a Lucas Ocampos goal in the 95th minute – only for the VAR to take it off them again. And Levante got two penalties, the second of them in the last minute, to draw 2-2 with Atlético. “We need to improve – urgently,” said Diego Simeone.
Pos Team P GD Pts
1 Real Sociedad 11 7 24
2 Real Madrid 10 13 21
3 Sevilla 10 10 21
4 Real Betis 11 7 21
5 Rayo Vallecano 11 6 19
6 Atletico Madrid 10 5 19
7 Osasuna 11 1 19
8 Athletic Bilbao 10 4 17
9 Barcelona 10 4 15
10 Espanyol 11 0 14
11 Valencia 11 -1 13
12 Mallorca 11 -6 13
13 Villarreal 10 3 12
14 Celta Vigo 11 -4 10
15 Elche 11 -5 10
16 Alaves 10 -8 9
17 Granada 10 -6 8
18 Cadiz 11 -8 8
19 Levante 11 -9 6
20 Getafe 11 -13 3 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jun/17/socceroos-fans-manhandled-at-world-cup-qualifier | Football | 2015-06-17T05:54:58.000Z | Jack Kerr | Socceroos fans 'manhandled' at qualifier mars Kyrgyzstan experience | Jack Kerr | Young children were physically intimidated and a dozen Australians refused entry at yesterday’s World Cup qualifier match in Kyrgyzstan, an Australian supporter has told The Guardian.
Pablo Bateson is one of the organisers of the Australian football team’s travelling supporters’ group. He says what happened getting into yesterday’s match was the worst experience he has had in years of following the team around the world.
“There were really young kids - six or seven year olds with their parents - being pushed around,” he says. “The way some of the fans were manhandled by over-enthusiastic home supporters, police, security, it was very tense and it just about got out of hand.”
He says there was no provision for Australian fans to enter the ground safely, there was a stand-off style situation with the police as they tried to enter and the group was split in two.
“We were trying to convince them we have tickets, but it took an awful lot. Then when they accepted there was a right for entry, there were local fans and some other really strange people trying to prevent us from getting around the barrier and into the area the police were trying to channel us into.”
Security was heavy-handed getting into the venue, and organisation was chaotic. Some people had their bags searched repeatedly, with police continually stopping supporters as they made their way from the entrance to their seats.
Around a dozen supporters - some who had travelled from Melbourne - were refused entry on the grounds that the match was a sell-out, Bateson says. They all held valid tickets. One woman was even refused re-entry after going outside to use the stadium’s portable toilets.
The stadium’s official capacity is 18,000 but many people say the number in attendance was far greater. Home fans were seen jumping the fences to get in, and dozens of people scaled the ground’s light towers - and to quite dizzying heights - to watch the match.
Bateson says several hundred home supporters were allowed to rush into the away section during the first half, despite concerns it was about to get out of hand. “You just don’t do that,” he says. “I’ve never had that before at an away game.” The pleas of expats - done in the local language - were ignored.
Australian parents with children at the game left at half-time due to safety concerns. “You expect the unexpected ... but I think in the end it was all too much.”
David McArdle, a Scot based in Bishkek who blogs about football in Central Asia, gave up trying to get into the ground due to the dangerous conditions.
“I’ve been to Old Firm matches in Glasgow, England versus Scotland, and matches all over Europe, the Caucasus and the Balkans, but I have never felt such a dangerous and anarchic atmosphere as I did that evening.
“To quell the crowds, I saw several of the security personnel use their police batons liberally, while the ubiquitous bribing was on full display, as some police and security guards were allowing people past the barriers for as little as 100 som (1 GDP), thus exacerbating the situation significantly.
“For us, we all decided unanimously that it simply wasn’t worth it - with now thousands climbing over the porous fences into the stadium, and found refuge in a little bar across the stadium, where we ordered several cold beers and watched an otherwise impressive Kyrgyzstan performance, on - but sadly not off - the pitch.”
After the game, the Australian team manager told the travelling fans to stay in their section while the crowds dispersed, as there was “a lot of nasty stuff going on outside...it was bordering on riotous”. However, Bateson says local authorities insisted the Socceroo fans clear their bay and leave the stadium promptly.
During the evening, a large group of demonstrators protesting against the country’s leader - who was in attendance - came close to getting through or over the stadiums’ fences, but dispersed once riot police arrived at the scene. The country experienced coups in 2005 and 2010.
Bateson - who was once on a supporters’ bus that was stoned by home fans in Jordan - says there was a breakdown in command and poor communication by those in charge. He says the behaviour at the stadium was in complete contrast to the atmosphere he otherwise felt in the capital of Bishkek, and the warm gestures of support the group received on the way to the ground.
“I’m not blaming the local authorities, because (having a team as big as Australia come here) is quite a unique situation, so we have to balance it with that, (but) I just hope they learn from this for the future.”
Guardian Australia is seeking comment from local authorities. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/apr/29/england-38-33-france-womens-six-nations-player-ratings | Sport | 2023-04-29T17:30:51.000Z | Daniel Gallan | England 38-33 France: Women’s Six Nations player ratings | EnglandEllie Kildunne Swept up at the back when called upon and joined the line to create an overload in the wider channels. Her kicking game needs work. 7
Abby Dow Showed blistering pace for her try to get things going for England after a rocky start. Ran superb lines throughout and was ever-present off the shoulder. 7
Helena Rowland Wasn’t able to influence the game as she normally does at first or second receiver, she seemed lost at times. Battled with her kicking as well. 5
Tatyana Heard Now the undisputed owner of the No. 12 jersey. Ran the perfect line and the perfect moment throughout a blockbuster game. Direct and accurate, her passing was equally effective. Brilliant. 8
Claudia MacDonald Nursing an injury and was replaced on 49 minutes. Played her part in Dow’s try with the final pass. Got caught on occasion under high balls down her wing. 7
Holly Aitchison Couldn’t assert any dominance with the boot and occasionally lost her outside runners. Did the basics well enough to stitch together a few neat first-phase moves. 6
Lucy Packer It’s always a lot easier for a scrum-half when the pack is so dominant and in the first half Packer was a live wire. She deserved a try and almost got one. Understandably faded in the second half as France rallied. 7
Hannah Botterman Came up with an important steal when England were under the cosh in the early exchanges. Scrummed with authority and contributed around the park. 8
Lark Davies Struggled at times with her lineout. Made up for it with strong carries, tight defence and a try from a rumbling maul. 7
Sarah Bern Immense in the scrum. Her all-round play was noteworthy, too, as she contributed with a fine pass in Aldcroft’s try late in the first half. 7
Zoe Aldcroft A towering presence and a threat in the lineout. She showed a clean pair of heels to scamper over for a try of her own. 7
Sarah Beckett Some thumping hits, most notably on Manae Feleu, which sent a shock wave around the ground. Provided the requisite heft in that engine room. 8
Sadia Kabeya Immense on both sides of the ball, her tenacity in the tackle allowed England to gain regular front-foot ball. She made 20 tackles and carried 14 times for more than 100 metres to be player of the match, deservedly. 9
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Marlie Packer A leader by example and arguably the most valuable player in the world. Underlined her team’s dominance with a typically aggressive try forged from a bulldozing run. 8
Alex Matthews Showed great awareness to score her try off the back of a dominant scrum. A strong shift from the No 8 that showed off the depth of England’s loose forwards factory. 7
REPLACEMENTS Connie Powell (for Davies, 66) Four tackles in second-half siege 6; Mackenzie Carson (for Botterman, 49) Scrum fell apart on her watch 5, Maud Muir (for Bern, 66) Scrum faltered with her 5, Poppy Cleall (for Beckett, 56) Four strong carries and didn’t miss a tackle 7, Morwenna Talling (for Kabeya, 74) n/a, Natasha Hunt (for L Packer, 76) n/a, Amber Reed (for Heard), lacked requisite punch 6, Jess Breach (for MacDonald, 49) Mazy runs and one brilliant tackle 6
France
Émilie Boulard 6; Cyrielle Banet 7, Marine Ménager 5, Gabrielle Vernier (pictured) 8, Mélisande Llorens 6; Jessy Trémoulière 4, Pauline Bourdon 7; Yllana Brosseau 5, Agathe Sochat 6, Rose Bernadou 5, Manae Feleu 6, Audrey Forlani 6, Axelle Berthoumieu 6, Gaëlle Hermet 5, Charlotte Escudero 7
REPLACEMENTS Assia Khalfaoui (for Berthoumieu, 40) 6, Romane Ménager (for Forlani, 47) 6, Ambre Mwayembe (for Brosseau, 61) 5, Émeline Gros (for Bernadou, 67) 7, Carla Arbez (for Boulard, 70) 6, Alexandra Chambon (for Bourdon, 70) 6, Maëlle Filopon (for M Ménager, 72) 6 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/09/petra-buried-monument-discovered-jordan | World news | 2016-06-09T20:54:27.000Z | Alan Yuhas | Archaeologists discover massive Petra monument that could be 2,150 years old | Archaeologists have found a monumental structure buried under the sands of Petra, according to a new study that drew on satellite imagery to scan the ancient city.
Satellite surveys of the city revealed a massive platform, 184ft by 161ft, with an interior platform that was paved with flagstones, lined with columns on one side and with a gigantic staircase descending to the east. A smaller structure, 28ft by 28ft, topped the interior platform and opened to the staircase. Pottery found near the structure suggests the structure could be more than 2,150 years old.
“This monumental platform has no parallels at Petra or in its hinterlands at present,” the researchers wrote, noting that the structure, strangely, is near the city center but “hidden” and hard to reach.
“To my knowledge, we don’t have anything quite like this at Petra,” said Christopher Tuttle, an archaeologist who has worked at Petra for about 15 years and a co-author of the paper.
Zoomed-in UAV image of platform. Photograph: I LaBianca
“I knew something was there and other archaeologists – who have worked in Petra for the last, God knows, 100 years at least – I know at least one other had noticed something there,” he said. But the structure’s sides resembled terrace walls common to the city, he noted: “I don’t think anybody paid much attention to them.”
Tuttle collaborated on the research with Sarah Parcak, a self-described “space archaeologist” from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who used satellites to survey the site.
Parcak said that she begins surveys “quite skeptical” of what they might find – they are working on sites in northern Africa, North America, Europe and elsewhere – and that she was surprised to find the monument “turned out to be something significant”.
“Petra is a massive site, and we chose the name for our article [‘Hiding in plain sight’] precisely because, even though this is less than a kilometer south of the main city, previous surveys had missed it,” she said.
Tuttle and a team took subsequent trips to measure and examine the site from the ground. There they found scattered pottery, the oldest of which suggests the site could date back to the time of Petra’s founding. “We’re always very cautious on this,” Tuttle said, “but the oldest pottery can be dated back relatively securely to about 150BC.”
Petra was built by the Nabateans in what is now southern Jordan, while the civilization was amassing great wealth trading with its Greek and Persian contemporaries around 150BC. The city was eventually subsumed by the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman empires, but its ruins remain famous for the work of its founders, who carved spectacular facades into cliffs and canyons. It was abandoned around the seventh century, and rediscovered by Swiss explorer Johann Burckhardt in 1812.
Along with the oldest Nabatean pottery, they found fragments that had been imported from the Hellenistic cultures who traded with Petra, as well as pottery of the eras when the Roman and the Byzantine empires took the city under their guard.
Overview of the monumental platform, looking south-east. Jabal an-Nmayr is is indicated by the left-facing arrow, and the slope of ‘South Ridge’ with agricultural terracing by the down-facing arrow. Photograph: G al Faqeer
In the mountains, valleys and canyons surrounding Petra, Tuttle said, “there’s tons of small cultic shrines and platforms and these things, but nothing on this scale”. He said these sites, including a large, open plateau known as the Monastery and probably “used for various cultic displays or political activities”, are the closest parallel to the newly discovered edifice. “To be honest, we don’t know a whole lot about it.”
Those sites suggest that the structure was used for “some kind of massive display function”, he said. Unlike those other sites, however, the giant staircase does not face the city center of Petra, which Tuttle called a “fascinating” peculiarity.
“We don’t understand what the purpose [of visible shrines], because the Nabateans didn’t leave any written documents to tell us,” he said, adding: “But I find it interesting that such a monumental feature doesn’t have a visible relationship to the city.”
Nabatean shrines around Petra offer mixed clues about the ancient people’s practices. Like other Semitic cultures of the day, the Nabateans used an indirect, “aniconic” style to indirectly represent their divinities: carved blocks, stelae and niches. Sometimes there will be “an empty niche, just a carving in the wall, which the empty space itself can be representative or they would’ve had portable images”, Tuttle said.
Previous surveys of the site had missed the structure. Photograph: G al Faqeer
But because they were in near constant trade with other cultures of the Mediterranean, the Nabateans also adopted figural representations. “Nabatean gods depicted as parallels to Zeus or Hermes or Aphrodite, and those kinds of things,” he said.
The researchers published their work in the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research. They said that while they have no plans at this time to excavate the site, they hope they will have the chance to work there in the future.
Parcak said that she expects “some pretty amazing discoveries over the next year” using satellites and sophisticated new techniques in south-east Asia “and other densely forested/rainforest areas”. A surveying technology called Lidar, for instance, has uncovered sites in remote forests in Central America.
“This technology is not about what you find – but how you can think about things like settlement scale and ancient human-environment interactions more broadly,” she added. “What happens when you can truly map the near-surface buried features for an entire site? I’m excited, but we need to think about the implications of having all this technology at our fingertips so we can use it responsibly.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/11/the-martian-ridley-scotts-playful-sci-fi-runs-out-of-fuel-before-reaching-home | Film | 2015-09-11T20:42:48.000Z | Henry Barnes | The Martian review - Ridley Scott's playful sci-fi runs out of fuel before reaching home | Out from the blackness comes something we thought we might never see again: a decent Ridley Scott movie.
Matt Damon: the refugee crisis is a reason to release The Martian
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The Martian, Scott’s adaptation of the best-selling book by Andy Weir, is a knockabout space adventure. A wide-eyed tribute to human ingenuity that packs enough snark to pull itself out of the black hole of earnestness, even if its fuel runs out partway through.
Matt Damon stars as astronaut Mark Watney, left for dead on Mars after his crew are forced to flee a dust storm. Stranded with only enough food and water to last a month, he’ll have to (in his words) “science the shit” out of the situation to survive. He gets to work: burning hydrogen to produce water, rationing his remaining food stocks and growing more by terra-forming Mars with his poo. Back on earth a sharp-eyed satellite controller (Mackenzie Davis) notices Watney’s to-ing and fro-ing and alerts her superiors – A-type NASA suits played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jeff Daniels and Kristen Wiig. They’ll wrangle with the moral conundrum of whether or not to tell the rest of Watney’s crew (led by Jessica Chastain’s mission commander) that he’s still alive and risk them turning back to help him.
Weir is a space nut who once designed software to plot a successful course to the red planet and The Martian is sci-fi leaning heavy on the science. His book - self-published before it became a hit on Kindle, then stormed the best-seller charts – is research-heavy. It doesn’t spare his readers any of the cosmic nuts and bolts. All of the specialist lexicon makes it into Drew Goddard’s script, but so too does Watney’s sardonic streak, delivered in some style by Damon. He’s a tough character to pilot, this sceptical geek know-it-all, but Damon has the charm and wit to land some tricky one-liners. You try making “Fuck you, Mars” sound cool.
A galaxy of stars orbit Damon with very little to do. Ares III, Watney’s crew’s ship, is home to a pilot (Michael Peña), a navigator (Kate Mara) and a chemist (Aksel Hennie), but they’re all, despite their talents, fairly unremarkable. Back on earth Wiig’s PR specialist is sort of spiky, Ejiofor’s mission controller is a bit nice and Daniels’ NASA boss is a bit nasty. Even Watney, supposedly a symbol of hope for all humanity in the final act, is - once the quips wear off - pretty dull. Still, Scott has a lightness of touch that was absent from The Martian’s closest recent companion: Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. That theory-heavy behemoth, which also starred Chastain and Damon, makes Scott’s film feel light as air.
Nasa astronauts have read The Martian and hope to see the movie in space
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With Alien, Scott went to space and found horror. With Prometheus he came back having caught something horrible (although, interestingly, the space suits in that wonky misadventure and this new film are very similar). The Martian floats between them. It is not fantastic, in either sense, but it does show-off a sense of play. For a survival flick it’s actually pretty light on peril (you never really believe that the Jordanian desert, where the film was shot, is Mars), but it’s not short of thrills.
It’s also a giant boon for NASA. Space exploration here is nothing but noble, exciting and worthwhile. Mark Watney, urging his space rover along through the plains of the Acidala Planitia, is pursuing a new manifest destiny. A sucrose coda (added, unnecessarily, to book’s matter-of-fact finale) suggests that we’d be fools not to follow him. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/nov/23/scottish-independence-supreme-court-scottish-parliament-second-referendum-indyref2 | Politics | 2022-11-23T14:28:01.000Z | Libby Brooks | Supreme court rules against Scottish parliament holding new independence referendum | The Scottish parliament cannot hold a second independence referendum without Westminster approval, the UK supreme court has ruled, in a unanimous judgment likely to anger Scottish nationalists who say the country’s future is for Scottish voters to decide.
The first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, said immediately after the ruling: “Scottish democracy will not be denied.”
She said: “Today’s ruling blocks one route to Scotland’s voice being heard on independence – but in a democracy our voice cannot and will not be silenced.”
Sturgeon said she respected the ruling, but accused Westminster of showing “contempt” for Scotland’s democratic will.
“This ruling confirms that the notion of the UK as a voluntary partnership of nations, if it ever was a reality, is no longer a reality,” she told a news conference.
Sturgeon said her government would look to use the next general election as a “de facto referendum” on separating from the rest of the UK after more than 300 years.
Insisting that the SNP “is not abandoning the referendum route, Westminster is blocking it”, she said: “We must and we will find another democratic, lawful and constitutional means by which the Scottish people can express their will. In my view, that can only be an election.”
1:25
‘Outright democracy denial’: Nicola Sturgeon responds to supreme court ruling – video
Acknowledging the “frustration and disappointment” felt by the SNP and the wider independence supporters following the judgment, Sturgeon said this must be shortlived. “The fact is, we have work to do. The case for Scotland becoming independent is more compelling and urgent than ever.”
She said she would ask the SNP’s national executive to convene a special party conference in the new year to discuss detail of the de facto referendum plan, and in the meantime the party would launch “a major campaign in defence of Scottish democracy”.
Delivering the unequivocal judgment, the supreme court president, Lord Reed, said the Scottish parliament did not have the power to legislate for a referendum on independence because such a bill would relate to the future of the union of the UK, a matter reserved to Westminster.
Reed rejected arguments put by the SNP, which the court permitted to intervene in the proceedings, based on the Scottish parliament’s right to self-determination under international law.
He said that in the absence of an agreement between the two governments, as happened in advance of the 2014 vote, the Scottish parliament did not have the power to legislate for a referendum.
The ruling came after an unprecedented hearing at the UK’s highest court into whether Holyrood had the legal authority to legislate for a referendum on Scottish independence without Westminster granting it the required powers.
2:45
Supreme court: Scotland cannot hold new independence referendum without Westminster approval – video
Four consecutive prime ministers have refused Sturgeon’s requests to grant her a section 30 order, the section of the 1998 Scotland Act – the legislation that established the Scottish parliament – that allows Holyrood to pass laws in areas that are normally reserved to Westminster, such as the union.
The question was referred to the court by Scotland’s lord advocate, Dorothy Bain KC, at Sturgeon’s request after she confounded critics in June by announcing her preferred date for another referendum as 19 October 2023.
Bain argued that the referendum bill was within Holyrood’s powers because the vote would merely be consultative and would not have any immediate consequences. Independence would be achieved through lengthy negotiations, as happened with Brexit.
But Reed said the effects of legislation “are not restricted to legal consequences but can include its practical consequences”. The outcome of a referendum would “possess the authority … of a democratic expression of the view of the Scottish electorate” and would “either strengthen or weaken the democratic legitimacy of the union”.
Therefore, Reed said, the five judges had concluded unanimously that “it is clear the proposed bill has more than a loose or consequential connection with reserved matters”.
Sir James Eadie KC, a senior lawyer acting for the UK government, said Bain had refused to certify the draft bill as legally competent earlier this year because she “did not have the necessary degree of confidence” it was lawful. The proposed legislation was “solely and squarely about the union”, Eadie said, and thus in breach of the Scotland Act’s bar against passing legislation that dealt with the UK’s constitution.
He suggested that Scottish ministers’ attempts to seek a ruling were “premature” and “theoretical” because the referendum bill had not yet been presented to Holyrood, an argument rejected by Reed, who said the bill was within the scope of the court and further that he accepted Bain’s argument that it was in the public interest that the court should provide an authoritative ruling.
Rishi Sunak welcomed the “clear and definitive ruling” from the supreme court.
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At prime minister’s questions, he told MPs: “The people of Scotland want us to be working on fixing the major challenges that we collectively face, whether that’s the economy, supporting the NHS or indeed supporting Ukraine.
“Now is the time for politicians to work together and that’s what this government will do.”
Downing Street rejected the SNP’s claim that the next general election would be a de facto independence referendum in Scotland.
The prime minister’s press secretary, asked if she agreed with that plan, said: “I don’t think that is the position of the UK government. The supreme court’s decision today has been very clear.”
No 10 also indicated that Sunak would seek to avoid another Scottish independence referendum while he is prime minister. “I think that would be something that we would look to do,” she said. The prime minister has no imminent plans to speak to Sturgeon or to visit Scotland.
The Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, said people in Scotland wanted both Holyrood and Westminster to be “concentrating all attention and resources” on the economy and NHS, rather than independence.
A spokesperson for the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, categorically ruled out agreeing a second Scottish independence referendum after the next election to reach power. “There will be no deals going into the election, no deals coming out of the election,” he said.
Calls for Scotland’s pro-independence movement to cast aside its bitter differences and unite after the judgment were made outside the supreme court by an MP from a party that has become home to former SNP members.
Neale Hanvey, formerly an SNP MSP and sitting at Westminster for the Alba party, said the ruling was a defeat in one respect but was also a helpful clarifying point to demonstrate that “all avenues within the union had now been exhausted”.
He said: “Now we must unite as a movement. So we need to stop the elections charade of ‘one more mandate, vote again for the SNP,’ because the reality is there are people in the Conservative party who support independence, there are people in the Lib Dems who support independence, there are many members in the Labour party who support independence, and of course there is the Alba party.”
Alba was formed in March 2021 by the former Scottish first minister and SNP leader Alex Salmond, and has attracted two sitting MPs from Scotland’s governing party amid fissures in the independence movement.
“What we need is a constitutional convention where we put our differences to one side and prioritise Scotland. We have to find a way to come back together as we did in 2014 and settle on a strategy that is solely focused on delivering independence,” he said.
The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, said that while it was right for the Scottish government to seek legal clarity on the question, “there is not a majority in Scotland for a referendum or independence”.
He said: “The supreme court’s answer was clear and I thank them for their speedy work in this case. We must now focus on the problems facing our country, from rising bills to the crisis in our NHS.”
The Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, called on the SNP to “drop their referendum obsession” and respect the ruling. “The country faces enormous challenges right now. Our economy and our NHS are in crisis. We have a wave of public sector strikes – including the first teachers’ strike in almost four decades. These key issues must be everyone’s top priority.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/12/benefits-street-richard-mckerrow-channel-4 | Media | 2014-01-12T18:02:00.000Z | John Plunkett | Benefits Street boss: 'There isn't enough aftercare for people who've been on TV' | Richard McKerrow is at the centre of a storm. His television company, Love Productions, is responsible for Channel 4's documentary series Benefits Street, its biggest rating programme for more than a year (4.3 million viewers overnight, with a consolidated figure of nearly 7 million) and – only a few days in – already likely to be the most controversial of 2014.
A lightning rod for attitudes toward state welfare, the first programme polarised opinion between critics who said it demonised the poor and unemployed, and those who said it highlighted a social security system in urgent need of reform. Residents of James Turner Street in Birmingham, which features in the programme and which the broadcaster claims has one of the highest proportions of people on benefits in Britain, bore the brunt, subject to vitriolic abuse on Twitter and even death threats in the wake of last Monday's episode.
McKerrow, Love's creative director, is no stranger to controversy, having previously made Make Bradford British two years ago and Boys and Girls Alone, the 2009 series in which 10 boys and 10 girls lived without adults. Less contentiously, his company also makes The Great British Bake Off, although even that had its own Twitter storm. The backlash against Benefits Street is on a different scale, with an online petition nearing 20,000 signatures (at the time of going to press) calling on Channel 4 to axe it, and a protest being planned on Facebook for outside Love Productions' London office.
"It's not demonising the poor," McKerrow insists. "It's a very honest and true portrayal of life in Britain and people are frightened of it." The "poverty porn" label, attached by critics to the series and previous Channel 4 projects such as last year's Skint, is "offensive and absolute nonsense", he says.
"If you are telling me that shining a light on poverty in Britain is pornographic, so we shouldn't pay attention to poor people, I think that's outrageous. It's just a term being trotted out by people who want to have a bash at television. The notion that the show represents people on benefits around Britain is not accurate; we never say that. We were focusing on a particular group of characters living on a street in Birmingham."
The five-part series – it returns to Channel 4on Monday night – is the result of nearly two years' work with residents of the Winson Green area of Birmingham, including a year filming. Some participants claimed they had been duped into taking part under the pretence it was a series about community spirit.
"Absolutely not true," says McKerrow, who adds that of the eight main contributors who watched the first episode in advance, two had problems with the programme's title and aspects of their portrayal. "The vast proportion of the people were happy with what they saw. You can't put a camera in someone's face for very long if they don't want to be filmed. To a certain extent the price of covering difficult areas is that you will get a degree of people getting unsettled, that's why you have to be careful that they are consenting".
"This is the sort of heat you generate," he adds. "I don't want to say I am actively looking to be controversial because I'm not but I slightly think if you are not doing something that gets attention, then why do it?"
McKerrow says his company "passionately believes" in the welfare of its contributors, with a team of people on the ground in James Turner Street. But he believes more could be done to help people who have appeared on television, although exactly how it would be funded is unclear. "If I had [to point to] one particular weakness of what we do, I think there isn't enough funded aftercare for people who have been brave enough to be on television, whether [the funding is] from broadcasters or the government."
McKerrow founded Love Productions with his partner, Anna Beattie, a decade ago. Both former C4 executives, the couple, who have three children, met in the cutting room over the rushes of the first episode of Grand Designs. "I looked at it and said this is a piece of crap," remembers McKerrow. "She said it's not very good at the moment, but it could be brilliant. I said, I'm glad it's your problem because I'm handing it over to you."
Love Productions' credits include Tower Block of Commons in 2010, in which four MPs spent eight days and nights on a council estate, and The Baby Borrowers, the 2007 show in which teenage couples were given babies to look after while their parents watched them. Other Love shows, doing what they say on the tin, include Famous, Rich and Homeless, Young Mums' Mansion, My Life as an Animal, and Underage and Having Sex. It also made last year's Channel 4 documentary about female genital mutilation, The Cruel Cut.
"I started off in the days when you could do serious programmes and they were in peak time," recalls McKerrow. "Now you have to find different, innovative ways of making sure that serious issues stay in peak. I often get, 'you have made it noisy because you are trying to bring in an audience, you tried to entertain'. I say, 'if you are looking at me to apologise for trying to entertain you, you are talking to the wrong guy'.
"The biggest TV failures are the ideas which take you three minutes to explain, as opposed to 20 seconds. Great British Bake Off – the search for the best amateur baker in Britain. Benefits Street – a street with the most people who don't work in it."
McKerrow began his career as a print journalist for the Nation magazine in New York, working with Christopher Hitchens, Alexander Cockburn and Noam Chomsky, where his fellow interns included Ed Miliband. He is still "occasionally" in touch with the Labour leader ("I am a big fan, I think he is terrific").
Unable to secure a green card, and convinced that a TV documentary "could be worth 20 print articles", he returned to the UK to work on Yorkshire Television's First Tuesday strand before joining C4's education department. His C4 brief included Gordon Ramsay's first TV project, Boiling Point ("one of my jobs was to fill out the first swear form, 27 fucks"), Embarrassing Illnesses and Celebrity Blind Man's Bluff. Controversial programme titles, it seems, are something of a McKerrow speciality.
McKerrow wants critics to watch all five episodes of Benefits Street before giving their verdict, with tonight's instalment looking at immigration. "There are things on that street which I wish were on my street, a sense of community and level of looking out for each other," he says.
The row is a far cry from his company's most famous show, The Great British Bake Off, which will move from BBC2 to BBC1 when it returns for its fifth series after last year's final was watched by more than 8 million viewers (Love is also responsible for BBC2's The Great British Sewing Bee). McKerrow, initially at least, was less than enthusiastic about the channel-switch.
"We love making programmes for BBC2, [controller] Janice Hadlow is absolutely brilliant," he says. "Commercially, it's nice to do it for a channel where you have only got to get 2 million viewers. If it ain't broke, don't fix it, so my first instinct was – why do we have to move to 1?
"But I don't work for the BBC. [Director of television] Danny Cohen and [BBC1 controller] Charlotte Moore are under completely different pressures, and once it starts to rate at that kind of level they have got to take a view. At the heart of its success is a kind of honesty and integrity and truthfulness, and that's what we want to hold onto. Charlotte doesn't want it to change, no one wants it to change, it will be the same show, just on a different channel."
After the "horrible bile" meted out to last year's female finalists on Twitter, McKerrow said future contestants would be asked: "You saw the heat last year, there is going to be that level of attention, are you able to cope with it?"
But before then will be another BBC series, Famous, Rich and Hungry, a follow-up to Famous, Rich and Homeless. According to an appeal for participants, they will join "individuals and families to show what it's like on the front line of Britain's food crisis".
"I am sure there will be the same media storm, because my God there is a political bun fight about whether people in Britain are currently going hungry," says McKerrow. "It's tin hats on but keep fighting, keep doing it." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/feb/21/keith-pitt-and-matt-canavan-correct-errors-uncovered-in-register-of-interests | Australia news | 2020-02-21T00:42:20.000Z | Paul Karp | Keith Pitt and Matt Canavan correct errors uncovered in register of interests | The resources, water and northern Australia minister, Keith Pitt, and Nationals senator Matt Canavan will both update their register of interests over errors in relation to interests in investment properties.
Canavan will amend his register to declare two properties worth more than $1m after Guardian Australia revealed he had relied on an incorrect reading of rules that interests disclosed to previous parliaments do not need to be re-declared.
Pitt, who was elevated to the ministry in the latest reshuffle after Canavan resigned, told Guardian Australia he made an “administrative” error in failing to declare he owns a beneficial interest in, and is the director and secretary of, Branyan Investments Pty Ltd.
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The company, which he has a joint beneficial interest in with his wife, holds a mortgage to purchase an investment property in Bundaberg through the couple’s self-managed superannuation fund. The property was itself properly declared.
Earlier in February, Guardian Australia revealed Canavan had declared “nil” interests in real estate despite owning two houses in Yeppoon, Queensland and Macquarie in Canberra.
The former resources and northern Australia minister – who quit to support a bid by Barnaby Joyce to return to the Nationals leadership – had claimed he was not required to declare the interests in the 46th parliament because he had already done so in the 45th.
On Thursday, Canavan told Guardian Australia: “The advice I relied on was that, as the properties were declared in the previous parliament and had not changed, I was not required to re-declare those interests.
“Upon clarification this seems not to be the case, so I have re-declared these properties with the parliament.”
Pitt told Guardian Australia after reviewing the register in response to questions, “it became apparent some of my entries were outdated and some entity names were incorrect”.
“For instance, I named one entity Branyan Holdings when I should have stated Branyan Investments.”
In his register of interests, Pitt incorrectly declared he was a director of Branyan Holdings, but neither Branyan Holdings nor Branyan Investments appear in the section to declare beneficial interests such as family and business trusts and nominee companies.
“I have no conflict of interest, there was never an intention to mislead, these were administrative oversights,” he said.
“It is vital that entries to the register of members’ interests are correct and up-to-date. I will be updating my entry in the register as a priority.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/may/06/valerie-trierweiler-france-first-lady | World news | 2012-05-06T19:08:53.000Z | Angelique Chrisafis | Valérie Trierweiler may revolutionise role of France's first lady | If François Hollande has styled himself as Mr Normal – recently photographed buying fruit compote in a Paris supermarket and saying he would continue to do so after he's elected "if the fridge is empty" – his partner, Valérie Trierweiler, could revolutionise the unofficial role of France's first lady.
If, as she has promised, the 47-year-old journalist keeps her contract with the magazine Paris Match and continues to work, it would be the first time a president's partner has held down a regular job and salary. Her role as a journalist would make this juggling act even more tricky.
For 20 years, she covered French politics for Paris Match, and also recently hosted her own politics show on cable. During the early days of the campaign, she reconverted to the culture beat, arguing there was no conflict of interest with the arts world, although she was furious when Paris Match put her on its cover under the headline "Hollande's charming asset".
Carla Bruni, the millionaire heiress and former supermodel turned folksinger whose whirlwind marriage to Nicolas Sarkozy in office helped contribute to his record unpopularity, stepped back from her music career.
Although Sarkozy said she picked up her guitar to sing to him every night in her mansion west of Paris, where the couple preferred to live rather than the Elysée, she released only one album while French first lady which, although it sold well, was critically panned.
Trierweiler, a twice-divorced mother of three teenage boys who comes from a modest family in eastern France, said during the campaign she had to keep working to support her children, saying she does not want to be paid for by the state.
Bruni, who made more than £4m a year at the height of her supermodel fame, once posed for Vanity Fair in a haute-couture ballgown on the Elysée palace roof. But during the campaign, she tried to style herself and Sarkozy as "modest" types. She told a magazine she travelled round Paris on the metro incognito, wearing a wig.
Trierweiler has, like Hollande, styled herself as the antithesis of "bling" on the campaign trail. She says she buys clothes at the market, spends time searching for stray socks under her children's beds, and claims Hollande does the shopping and cooking and has an annoying habit of leaving cupboard doors open and never closing doors when he comes into the room. But, she argued, this habit showed he had "nothing to hide". | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/may/23/ken-loach-benefits-system-a-cruel-bureaucracy-cannes-win | Film | 2016-05-23T09:28:15.000Z | Jessica Elgot | Benefits system ‘a cruel bureaucracy’, says Ken Loach after Cannes win | Film-maker Ken Loach has called the benefits system a “cruel bureaucracy” that makes users feel inferior and desperate in an interview after winning his second Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival.
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Loach clinched the festival’s highest honour for his welfare state drama I, Daniel Blake, about a carpenter struggling with the inanities and indignities of the benefits system.
Loach, who will turn 80 next month, came out of retirement to make the movie, saying he hoped it would influence welfare policy in the same way one of his very first films, Cathy Come Home, had changed political thinking on homelessness.
“I think we have to look again at this whole cruel sanctions and benefit system, which is out to tell the poor that it’s their own fault and if they don’t have a job it’s because they are incompetent or useless,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday.
“There’s a despair and anger with people who are facing this and those trying to support them. The fact that we now accept food banks as part of our national scene, this is actually unacceptable.”
When asked by presenter Sarah Montague why he thought there was such a groundswell of public support for welfare measures such as the benefits cap, Loach said that was an opinion of “people who listen to the Today programme too much”.
“If you actually get out amongst the food banks and the people supporting people there, people who would not eat unless if it weren’t for the charity, who have to choose between heating and food, I think you’ll find there’s a great disgust and despair about that in this country now,” he said.
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Despite being a realist drama about the British welfare system, I, Daniel Blake was praised by the Cannes jury for its universally relatable story, with jury member Donald Sutherland calling it “an absolutely terrific movie that resonates in your heart and soul”.
“I think dealing with a cruel bureaucracy is something that crosses borders and people understand the frustration of being constantly trapped by call centres, by people who won’t give you the help you need and facing a bureaucracy that is out to deny you what you feel is your right, is something we all understand,” Loach said.
The recognition for the film, he said, was down to “finding a theme and a story that people can identify with and take something from and has some connection to the world that we’re living in”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/feb/05/scotland-england-six-nations-rugby-union-match-report | Sport | 2022-02-05T19:15:36.000Z | Robert Kitson | Scotland edge out England after Luke Cowan-Dickie’s blunder | The Six Nations is rarely short of dramatic finishes and from Scotland’s perspective this one will rank right up there. For the first time in 38 years the Scots have registered back-to-back championship wins over the auld enemy and the nerve-tingling climax made it all the sweeter for the home fans on a damp, cold Edinburgh evening.
As a contest it was a slow burner but the tense final twist will haunt England for a while. Finn Russell’s second penalty with eight minutes left technically applied the killer blow but ultimately it was the desperate flapping hands of Luke Cowan-Dickie which did for the visitors. Referee Ben O’Keeffe correctly ruled the England hooker, in trying to stop a Russell cross-kick from reaching the lurking Darcy Graham in the right corner, had deliberately knocked the ball out of play and the resulting penalty try and yellow card tipped the balance of the entire game.
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Having previously led 17-10, a depleted England were left to cling on with 14 men and Russell duly stuck a final dagger through their hearts. The visiting what-ifs were compounded by the decision to substitute Marcus Smith with 17 minutes left despite the fact the Harlequins fly-half had scored all of his side’s points and was looking in control of pretty much everything he surveyed.
There will also be questions asked about the thinking behind asking Joe Marler to throw into the lineout in Cowan-Dickie’s absence, with the ball failing to travel five metres and giving Scotland crucial possession. Opting to kick a penalty to the corner with two minutes left rather than inviting Elliot Daly to take a long-range shot at goal was another huge call in the circumstances, with Scotland’s Sam Skinner subsequently nicking the all-important lineout.
England also reckoned they had the edge at the closing scrums but Scotland, without playing out of their skins, did enough at crucial moments to deserve their success. Neither team, to be honest, looked like champions elect but the conditions hardly helped. Maybe one day this fixture will take place in dappled spring sunshine with only a gentle breeze lazily ruffling the flags. Dream on. While the elements had eased by kick-off, it was still damp and slippery enough to make ball handling an occasionally hazardous business.
Finn Russell kicks the winning penalty. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho/Shutterstock
England, though, will look back at their possession and territorial advantage in the first half and reflect that they should have made more of it. Having taken the lead through a 17th-minute Smith penalty, though, they trailed 10-6 at the interval with Scotland having produced the champagne moment of the half. Stuart Hogg broke thrillingly free in the outside-centre channel and fed Graham who slalomed his way superbly past Joe Marchant before finding Ben White on his elbow. The Stoke-born White, on for his first Test cap as a temporary replacement for Ali Price, cantered over for a pinch-yourself debut score and Russell’s angled conversion further compounded the damage.
If the half-time scoreline did not necessarily reflect the balance of the game, the tackle stats made interesting reading. Scotland made 87 first-half tackles to England’s 43 but missed just four, reflecting the added close-quarters steel that defence coach Steve Tandy has been adding for a while. Interestingly, too, there were only three scrums in the first 40 minutes – all of them England put-ins – which is a surprisingly low figure for a wet weather contest.
With Scotland making so few mistakes, the onus was very much on England to create a bit more themselves. Their hyper-flexible line of utility backs are all talented individual footballers but increasingly it cried out for a blast of something more dynamic. Sam Simmonds, popping up in the No 12 channel, did his best but the absence of Manu Tuilagi, as is so often the case, was conspicuous.
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Smith, in particular, could have done with the kind of foil that André Esterhuizen offers at Harlequins but he is the sort of player who is rarely quiet for long. When Scotland’s reshuffled front row were penalised for an unnecessary early engage, England suddenly had a decent platform to exploit and, with advantage being played, Ben Youngs combined expertly down the short side with his alert young fly-half to put the latter over.
If it felt odd at the time to see Smith trotting off, it made less and less sense as Scotland seized on the opportunity to wrest back the initiative. Duhan van der Merwe made one promising surge and then, with England daring to dream, came the decisive Hand of Dickie. It was hard to argue with O’Keeffe’s far-reaching conclusion, with no other defensive cover in the vicinity, even if there was no absolute guarantee that Graham would have caught Russell’s deft lob.
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Maybe on another day it would have mattered less. On this occasion, though, George Ford’s arrival did not coincide with a late surge and when push came to shove, England’s execution was not clinical enough. The influential Russell’s 72nd-minute penalty was never going to miss and the rest, from England’s perspective, was tartan torture. It is the third straight year in which Eddie Jones’s side have lost their opening tournament game and they have now won only one of their last five Calcutta Cup fixtures. Scotland, though, will not care if Italy feel the backlash in Rome on Sunday. The high road to Cardiff now awaits and this result may yet prove just the start. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/may/11/nigel-farage-withdraws-resignation-as-ukip-leader | Politics | 2015-05-11T15:33:53.000Z | Rowena Mason | Nigel Farage withdraws resignation as Ukip leader | Nigel Farage has withdrawn his resignation as leader of Ukip four days after standing down when he failed to win his target seat of South Thanet in the general election.
The party said it had refused to accept Farage’s decision to go and his recommendation that Suzanne Evans, his deputy, be appointed as a caretaker leader.
Farage had said for weeks that he would step down if he did not become an MP, arguing that it was not credible to lead the party without being in the Commons. After losing by about 2,000 votes to the Conservatives’ Craig Mackinlay, the Ukip leader said he would stick to his pledge as a man of his word.
He said he was happier than he had been for a long time and planned to have a rest by going fishing and spending time with his family. But he left the door open for a return, saying he could put his name forward when Ukip picked a new leader in September.
After a weekend off, Farage was back on the airwaves on Monday telling Good Morning Britain: “I said I would step down; I’ve stepped down … There will then be a contest in September for the leader of Ukip. I cannot say whether I will or will not stand. I have absolutely – at this moment in time – no idea.”
However, within hours of those remarks it then emerged that he would be staying on as leader after all. Ukip’s chairman, Steve Crowther, released a statement saying Farage’s resignation had been “unanimously rejected by the national executive committee members who produced overwhelmingly evidence that the Ukip membership did not want Nigel to go”.
The moment Nigel Farage stood down on Friday after failing to win the seat of South Thanet Guardian
Crowther said Ukip’s election campaign had been a success despite the party winning only one seat, that of the Tory defector Douglas Carswell in Clacton. As well as Farage’s defeat, Mark Reckless, Ukip’s second defector from the Tories, failed to retain his seat in Rochester and Strood. But the party attracted millions of votes and came second in about 150 seats, many of them in the Labour-held north of England.
“We have fought a positive campaign with a very good manifesto and despite relentless, negative attacks and an astonishing last-minute swing to the Conservatives over fear of the SNP, 4 million votes was an extraordinary achievement,” Crowther said.
“On that basis, Mr Farage withdrew his resignation and will remain leader of Ukip. In addition, the NEC recognised that the referendum campaign has already begun this week and we need our best team to fight that campaign led by Nigel. He has therefore been persuaded by the NEC to withdraw his resignation and remains leader of Ukip.”
A number of senior Ukip figures had urged Farage to stay, aware that he is a huge draw for many of the party’s voters. The party can also argue that circumstances have changed because it has not got a group of MPs in parliament from which to choose a new leader, which it was previously convinced it would have after 7 May. Carswell had ruled himself out of the running for the leadership.
Ukip will now fight for electoral reform, arguing that its voters should have greater democratic representation. Farage will also want to play a big role in the forthcoming EU referendum, arguing that the UK should leave. He has spoken about wanting to make sure the contest is held in the right circumstances and without bias towards staying in. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/dec/08/ed-miliband-george-osborne-welfare | Politics | 2012-12-09T00:50:00.000Z | Toby Helm | Ed Miliband to wage war on George Osborne over benefit cuts | Ed Miliband is to put Labour at the head of a national revolt to kill off the chancellor's latest benefit cuts as church leaders and leading charities unite in protest against the assault on welfare.
In a high-risk move that could come to define his leadership, Miliband appears ready to order his party to oppose real-term reductions in income for millions of the poorest and most vulnerable, announced in Wednesday's autumn statement, when proposals are placed before parliament next month.
A senior figure close to Miliband said: "Make no mistake, we would come down very hard on people who milk the system but we will not confuse them with the vast majority of people – most of them in work – who are really striving, trying to pay the bills and put food on the table."
Senior Labour figures stopped short of confirming that Labour would vote against the cuts in the Commons in January. But it is understood that unless fundamental changes are made to the coming welfare uprating bill, Miliband will be prepared to give the order.
One senior Labour figure said there were still tensions inside the party, with a caucus of "new Labour" figures believing it will be politically suicidal to leave the party open to charges that it sides with "scroungers" and is in denial over the need to cut the benefits bill.
The Labour leader's move to stand up against what he regards as unjust and unfair treatment of millions of people comes as 59 charities and other leading organisations say in a letter in the Observer that the cuts will plunge many more children into poverty and put at risk the principles of the welfare state.
The group, which includes Oxfam, Barnardo's, the Children's Society, the Child Poverty Action Group, Disability Rights UK and Church Action on Poverty, says Osborne's plans to break the link between benefits and prices must be stopped if the welfare "safety net" – a cornerstone of the Beveridge report 70 years ago –is to be safeguarded.
They say: "While the chancellor paints a picture of so-called 'strivers' and 'skivers', our organisations see the reality on the ground: families scraping by in low-paid work, or being bounced from insecure jobs to benefits and back again."
They add that the cuts are "punitive, unfair, and must not happen".
Osborne used Wednesday's mini-budget to announce that he would increase benefits by just 1% for each of the next three years rather than in line with inflation, a move critics say will lead to benefits being eroded as they fall behind the cost of living.
In a clear attempt to cause political problems for Labour, which until now has been careful to give broad support for cuts to the welfare bill that have proved popular with the public, Osborne said the move would be confirmed in a bill to be put to parliament next month. While Miliband will know opposing benefit cuts carries risks, his supporters believe that a broad alliance of church groups and charities, backed by Labour, could change the terms of the national debate over welfare.
In an apparent swipe at Osborne, the archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, said "populist rhetoric" was not helpful. "Talk like this actually does a great disservice to those trapped in low pay who are going out to work every day to try to provide a better life for their families," he said.
Business secretary Vince Cable, who warns in an interview in the Observer that the economy is at risk of a "triple dip" recession, also has Osborne in his sights when he says ministers should not "insult" or "demonise" people on benefits, most of whom are out of work "through no fault of their own".
A report out in the next few days from Housing Justice, which co-ordinates support work across many denominations, calls for Christians who have spare rooms to consider offering them for rent at affordable rates to those in housing need.
But Miliband and Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, condemn the cuts in Sunday newspaper articles.
Cameron and Osborne "showed they are not fit to govern because they played political games with people's livelihoods," the Labour leader wrote in the Sunday Mirror. In the Sun, Balls added: "Millions of struggling working families, striving to do the right thing, are paying the price for their failure."
Miliband believes that Osborne pushed ahead with the policy as part of a manoeuvre to embarrass Labour and insists he will not be cowed.
Rachel Reeves, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, made clear that Labour would fight the cuts. "We need to get the benefits bill down, but the way to do that is to get the economy moving," she said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/aug/06/greater-belfast-at-edinburgh-festival-review-matt-regan-traverse | Stage | 2016-08-06T10:57:30.000Z | Lyn Gardner | Greater Belfast at Edinburgh festival review – evocative tales of the city | Sometimes you have to leave the place where you were born and raised in order to find yourself – but the further away you get, the more you find that you have carried it with you. The musician and theatre-maker Matt Regan, alias Little King, hasn’t lived in Belfast for five years but he can still smell the sea and feel the salty wind on his face. He makes us think that we have felt and smelled it too. He also makes us think about what we have tried to escape, and what we take with us on the journeys we make.
Edinburgh festival planner: three shows to see today
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Belfast is in Regan’s bones as if the sleech – that oozing sludge upon which the city is built – has seeped into his body. There is nothing pretty about Regan’s evocation of his native city, but there are moments of exquisite beauty in this indefinable and utterly distinctive show that makes a mockery of all the old boundary-defining labels such as “gig”, “theatre” and “spoken word”, or indeed “pop” and “classical music”. The songs of Belfast bands the Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers are woven into a score that is beautifully played by the Cairn String Quartet.
Greater Belfast touches upon the Peace Lines, the Millies who worked in the linen factories, the Ulster museum and the T word (actually, that’s the Titanic not the Troubles). But it’s no history lesson, rather an evocation of place and meaning, the geography of the psyche and the way the future is built upon the past.
The production by Claire Willoughby is exquisitely lit in a design by Simon Hayes that sometimes blinds us and sometimes seems to be lighting the way ahead. Regan offers up a fragmentary and tender portrait of place that is delivered with a hesitancy that is as if he is thinking out loud and discovering what he really feels about his native city, and his relationship to it, in the very act of performing.
Lighting the way … Matt Regan with the Cairn String Quartet in Greater Belfast. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/The Guardian
Of course he’s not, it’s a studied conceit and one that is sometimes a little over-egged, in a production that would benefit from a more informal setting. Nonetheless it is effective in the way it suggests that when words fail, the music must take over. And there is plenty else to commend, including the impetus that sees Regan admitting that “where I come from is a bit shit” – and his yearning to nevertheless find the greater good in it. He can’t bury his past, because his own future depends upon it.
This is a love letter to Belfast in all its mucky beauty. Apparently oysters are sometimes spotted in the sleech. Regan has dived right in and come up with a little pearl.
At the Traverse, Edinburgh, to 28 August. Box office: 0131-228 1404 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/nov/19/my-premier-league-team-of-the-season-a-fantasy-lineup-drawn-from-the-chaos | Football | 2020-11-19T12:00:11.000Z | Barry Glendenning | My Premier League team of the season so far | Barry Glendenning | One of the benefits of selecting an abstract football team is that you can do so safe in the knowledge the players concerned will almost certainly never line up, face actual opposition and get hammered in a state of affairs that would go a long way towards proving just how difficult life as a manager can be.
In picking the Premier League team of the season so far, from a topsy-turvy and often chaotic campaign played behind closed doors, the main difficulties did not so much centre around who to include, but who to leave out given the ridiculous stiffness of the competition for places in almost every area.
All to play for as Premier League season finally gets to stretch its legs
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While readers are entitled to disagree with the team detailed below and many almost certainly will, sometimes in the strongest possible terms even though the whole wheeze is purely a matter of unprovable opinion, it behoves me at least to point out that as somebody with no skin in any particular Premier League club’s game, this selection was based almost entirely on the evidence of my own eyes rather than any particular allegiance, with the occasional fall-back to statistical evidence when otherwise unable to choose between two or more players for any one particular role.
It is probably also worth mentioning that even the most impartial of managers can be capable of occasional mean-spiritedness, so despite the recent canonisation of a certain Aston Villa midfielder as the patron saint of England Midfielders, he has not been afforded a berth in this squad for the churlish reason that I am Irish and justifiably concerned that, for all his virtuoso talents, if picked the player in question might decide he’d rather play for somebody else’s made-up team instead. See also: Rice, Declan.
Goalkeeper: Karl Darlow (Newcastle) While unlikely to feature prominently in the already animated “England goalkeeper at Euro 2020” conversation, Darlow is quietly and unfussily staking a claim while deputising for the injured Martin Dubravka. Newcastle’s passive approach ensures the 30-year-old is kept busy and he has produced a string of impressive, error-free performances.
Karl Darlow denies Everton a goal in the game at Newcastle this month. Photograph: Michael Regan/Reuters
Right-back: Reece James (Chelsea) At 20 he is not the finished article but given his defensive solidity and threat going forward it is no surprise he has cemented his place in Chelsea’s lineup. But for wayward finishing by the front men, his lethal crossing would have earned him more than one tick in the assist column.
Centre-back: Conor Coady (Wolves) Adaptable, authoritative and an organiser who is outstanding in his deep-lying role in the centre of Wolves’ back three, the likable Liverpudlian is second to none in the Premier League when it comes to playing long, accurate passes out of defence and is increasingly making a case that he should be an automatic starter for England.
Centre-back: Wesley Fofana (Leicester) A £32m acquisition from Saint-Étienne, the 19-year-old has been a revelation. Fast and aggressive, his astute reading of the game belies his tender years and a couple of interceptions against Wolves were key in sending his team top before this international break.
Left-back: Lucas Digne (Everton) Notwithstanding the red card and ban – reduced on appeal – he received for accidentally surfing the ankle of Kyle Walker-Peters, Digne has barely put a foot wrong. Defensively sound he has chipped in with two assists in seven games as he continues to flourish under Carlo Ancelotti.
Everton’s Lucas Digne tries to find a way past Aaron Wan-Bissaka of Manchester United. Photograph: Jon Super/Shutterstock
Defensive midfielder: Kalvin Phillips (Leeds) Leeds born and bred, this deep-lying playmaker is arguably the most important player in Marcelo Bielsa’s exciting side and it is no coincidence they struggled in his absence. A midfield enforcer who moves the ball forward at speed with unerring accuracy, his England call-up was much deserved.
Right midfield: Mohamed Salah (Liverpool) Unlikely to struggle in quarantine after testing positive for coronavirus, given how often he seems to find himself drifting into splendid isolation on Liverpool’s right. With eight goals in eight games, the apparently tireless Egyptian continues to excel in a side not yet firing on all cylinders.
Centre midfield: James Ward-Prowse (Southampton) Practically peerless over a dead ball, Ward-Prowse has chipped in with three goals and one assist to help his team scale unprecedented Premier League heights. His longstanding partnership with the tireless Oriol Romeu in the heart of Southampton’s midfield has proved stunningly effective.
Centre midfield: Ross Barkley (Aston Villa) Revitalised since his loan move from Chelsea, Barkley has taken on many of the creative responsibilities previously shouldered almost exclusively by Jack Grealish. Was instrumental in his side’s victories over Liverpool and Arsenal, and has the air about him of a player finally on top of his game.
Ross Barkley (left) celebrates after scoring for Aston Villa against Leicester. Photograph: Jon Super/AFP/Getty Images
Left midfield: Son Heung-min (Tottenham) The arrival of Lucas Moura in 2018 prompted speculation Son might have to move to get regular first-team football, but the South Korean continues to excel. Well on course to hit double figures for the fourth consecutive season, the winger has eight goals and two assists.
Striker: Harry Kane (Tottenham) Enjoying his sixth consecutive campaign as a prolific Premier League scorer, the goals show no sign of drying up for this one-season wonder. Kane has seven Premier League goals since mid-September and chipped in with one goal and a record-breaking four assists for Son in the rout of Southampton.
Substitutes: Emilio Martínez (Aston Villa), Thiago Silva (Chelsea), Tariq Lamptey (Brighton), Pierre-Emile Højbjerg (Tottenham), James Rodríguez (Everton), Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City), Dominic Calvert-Lewin (Everton). | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/10/how-to-steal-a-presidential-election-review-donald-trump | Books | 2024-02-10T07:00:38.000Z | Lloyd Green | How to Steal a Presidential Election review: Trump and the peril to come | The Trump veepstakes is under way. Senator JD Vance and Representative Elise Stefanik prostrate themselves. Both signal they would do what Mike Pence refused: upend democracy for the sake of their Caesar. The senator is a Yale Law School alum and former US marine. Stefanik is the fourth-ranking House Republican. He was once critical of the former president. She was skeptical. Not anymore.
The Truce review: deep dive on Democrats’ dynamics and divisions
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“Do I think there were problems in 2020? Yes, I do,” Vance recently told ABC. “If I had been vice-president, I would have told the states, like Pennsylvania, Georgia and so many others, that we needed to have multiple slates of electors … I think the US Congress should have fought over it from there.”
Last month, Stefanik said: “We will see if this is a legal and valid election. What we saw in 2020 was unconstitutional circumventing of the constitution, not going through state legislators when it comes to changing election law.”
From the supreme court down, the judiciary has repeatedly rejected that contention.
As the November election looms, Lawrence Lessig and Matthew Seligman offer How to Steal a Presidential Election, a granular and disturbing examination of the vulnerabilities and pressure points in the way the US selects its president. Short version: plenty can go wrong.
Lessig is a chaired professor at Harvard Law School. He views a second Trump term as calamitous. “He is a pathological liar, with clear authoritarian instincts,” Lessig writes. “His re-election would be worse than any political event in the history of America – save the decision of South Carolina to launch the civil war.”
Seligman is a fellow at the Constitutional Law Center at Stanford, focused on disputed presidential elections. He too views Trump uncharitably.
“Former president Trump and his allies attempted a legal coup in 2020 – a brazen attempt to manipulate the legal system to reverse the results of a free and fair election,” Seligman has said. “Despite all the attention on 6 January 2021 [the attack on Congress], our legal and political systems remain dangerously unprotected against a smarter and more sophisticated attempt in 2024.”
The open question is whether forewarned is forearmed. On the page, Lessig and Seligman spell out seven roads to ruin, the “inverting” of an election to force a result that thwarts voters’ expressed intentions. The authors discount the capacity of a vice-president to unilaterally overturn an election result. But they warn of the potential for havoc at state level.
As they see it, the danger of pledged but not legally bound electors being coerced to vote for Trump when the electoral college convenes is “significant”. They also hypothesize a state governor “interven[ing] to certify a slate of electors contrary to the apparent popular vote”. Another path to perdition includes making state legislatures the final judges of election results. There is also the “nuclear option”, according to the authors, which is stripping the right to vote from the voters.
“A state legislature cancels its election before election day and chooses the state’s electors directly,” as Lessig and Seligman put it, a potential outcome they call a “very significant” possibility under the US constitution.
“State legislators are free to deny their people a meaningful role in selecting our president, directly or indirectly,” they write. “Is there any legal argument that might prevent a legislature from formally taking the vote away from its people? We are skeptical.”
To say US democracy is at risk is not to indulge in hyperbole. Trump’s infamous January 2021 call to Brad Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, is a vivid reminder. “What I want to do is this. I just want to find, uh, 11,780 votes, which is one more than … we have, because we won the state.” Such words continue to haunt.
In an episode that casts a similar pall, Trump and Ronna McDaniel, the Republican National Committee (RNC) chair, urged election officials in Michigan’s Wayne county to block the release of final results.
“Do not sign it … we will get you attorneys,” McDaniel told the officials, regarding certification.
“We’ll take care of that,” Trump said.
Now, as he has for so many former enablers, Trump has taken care of McDaniel. She will shortly be gone from the RNC.
Among Trump’s supporters, discontent with democracy is no secret. During the 2016 campaign, Paul LePage, then governor of Maine, thought Trump needed to show some “authoritarian power”. In 2019, Mike Johnson, then a Louisiana congressman, declared: “By the way, the United States is not a democracy. Do you know what a democracy is? Two wolves and a sheep deciding what’s for dinner. You don’t want to be in a democracy. Majority rule: not always a good thing.”
Johnson is now House speaker. For good measure, he claims God told him “very clearly” to prepare to become “Moses”.
“The Lord said step forward,” Johnson says.
On the right, many openly muse about a second civil war.
Trump’s War on Capitalism review: a Reaganite and RFK Jr walk into a bar…
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“We’ve already had one, so we know it’s within the realm of possibility,” James Pinkerton, a veteran of the White Houses of Ronald Reagan and George HW Bush, recently wrote in the American Conservative.
“In fact, by one reckoning, the English speakers have had two other civil wars in the last four centuries, spaced out every hundred or so years. Is there some sort of deep cycle at work here? With, er, implications for our own troubled times?”
The election won’t be pleasant. In late December, 31% of Republicans believed Joe Biden’s win in 2020 was legitimate. That was eight points lower than two years before. Trump’s criminal trials loom. Through that prism, Lessig and Seligman’s work serves as dire warning and public service.
How to Steal a Presidential Election is published in the US by Yale University Press | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/global/2020/nov/06/sir-samuel-brittan-obituary-letter | Media | 2020-11-06T12:03:45.000Z | Michael Meadowcroft | Letter: Sir Samuel Brittan obituary | Your obituary of Sir Samuel Brittan gave a good picture of the many varied facets of his life but one passion that was omitted was his support for electoral reform. Typically of Sam it was not just a vague commitment to proportional representation but a preference for the single transferable vote, the mathematics of which he not only understood but expounded, calling it the “super vote”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/31/peter-dutton-pressure-stage-three-tax-cuts-liberal-national-seats-benefit | Australia news | 2024-01-30T14:00:37.000Z | Paul Karp | Dutton under pressure to back stage-three tax changes as analysis shows big benefit to Coalition electorates | The Albanese government is heaping pressure on the Dutton opposition to support its income tax changes, releasing its own analysis showing up to 89% of taxpayers in some regional and suburban Coalition electorates will be better off.
About 85% of taxpayers in Liberal and National electorates will be better off under Labor’s plan than stage three, or 3.4 million people out of a total of 4 million, according to analysis released by the office of the treasurer, Jim Chalmers.
In opposition leader Peter Dutton’s seat of Dickson, the analysis found 85% of taxpayers would be better off under Labor’s plan than the stage-three tax cuts legislated by the Coalition.
Working-class communities in Coalition-held seats the biggest winners in Labor’s stage-three tax cuts overhaul
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The prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has accused the Coalition of being “all over the shop” on the tax plan because the opposition is yet to say if it will support changes designed to help low- and middle-income earners.
The top five Coalition electorates to benefit, with 89% of taxpayers better off, are: Liberal-held Forde and Longman in Brisbane; Nationals-held Page and Cowper in northern New South Wales; and Braddon in Tasmania.
Some 88% of taxpayers are better off in the next five Coalition seats to benefit: Wright and Hinkler in Queensland; La Trobe in Victoria; and Lindsay and Lyne in NSW.
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The statistics echo findings of an analysis by the Australian National University associate professor Ben Phillips, that working-class communities in Coalition-held remote and regional electorates stand to gain the most.
The Coalition has been subtly repositioning on the tax changes, backtracking from outright opposition to suggesting that the opposition could keep low- and middle-income tax cuts and propose at the next election to fully implement stage three by abolishing the 37% tax bracket.
3:33
Anthony Albanese announces revised stage-three tax cuts – video
On Tuesday Dutton continued to prevaricate on the tax cuts, saying shadow cabinet had not reached a final position. He criticised Labor plans to give back $28bn less over 10 years than the Coalition’s legislated package.
The deputy Liberal leader, Sussan Ley, told the ABC the Coalition’s “starting point” was that “no Australian should get less than they were promised under stage three”.
The Nationals leader, David Littleproud, told Sky News that the “guiding principle” of both Coalition parties was “that we want to give as much of your tax dollar back to you as we possibly can”.
The comments suggest the Coalition will seek to amend Labor’s bill to restore cuts for high-income earners, but could opt to not to oppose cuts for those lower down the scale.
While Labor pressures the Coalition, the Greens are warning that the plan to increase tax relief for those earning less than $146,486 still excludes those on the lowest incomes, including those receiving government payments or earning below the $18,200 tax-free threshold.
The Greens have released a Parliamentary Budget Office analysis showing that in the first year just $1.8bn out of the total $23.3bn cost will go to the poorest 40% of households.
The top 20% of households will still pocket $11.7bn that year, despite Labor’s plan halving the tax cut for those earning more than $190,000 from $9,000 to $4,500.
Over a decade, people earning more than $180,000 will still receive $84bn of tax cuts, more than a quarter of the cost of the package.
Albanese has said the package “overwhelmingly benefits” and is “aimed at middle Australia”.
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“People on average incomes, which in this country is $73,000 for an individual and $130,000 for a couple, are going to get double, or more than double, the tax cuts that they were going to get,” he said on Monday.
But the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, said the “Liberal-lite tax cuts still benefit the wealthy and leave everyday people behind”.
“The numbers don’t lie … Under Labor, the top 20% get 50% of the benefit, but the bottom 20% only get 0.4%.”
The Greens senator Nick McKim said: “The [prime minister] claimed ‘no one left behind’ at the [National Press Club] but it is clear as day that the people left behind here are on jobseeker, youth allowance, part-time workers and renters.”
The stage-three tax cut changes could be a pivotal moment for Anthony Albanese – if he frames them right
Peter Lewis
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And according to a new Australia Institute poll, half of high-income earners think stage-three tax cuts should be revamped to benefit those lower down the income scale.
The poll of 1,004 voters, conducted from Tuesday to Monday, found that 58% are in favour of restructuring the stage-three tax cuts so middle- and low-income earners receive more.
The poll was in the field during the period that the new Labor plan leaked out of the cabinet and caucus and after it was announced by the prime minister at the National Press Club on Thursday.
Just 16% of voters wanted to keep the stage-three tax cuts in their current form. A further 17% want to scrap the stage-three cuts entirely.
Those earning more than $200,000 were more likely to support revamping the tax cuts (49%) than want to keep them unchanged (32%).
A majority (55%) of Coalition voters supported restructuring stage three, with just one quarter (25%) saying to keep them as legislated by the Morrison government in mid-2019.
Almost two-thirds of voters (65%) said it was more important to adapt economic policy “to suit the changing circumstances even if that means breaking an election promise” compared with one quarter (24%) who favoured “keeping an election promise regardless”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2013/apr/27/audley-harrison-crumbles-defeat-70-seconds | Sport | 2013-04-27T22:59:59.000Z | Kevin Mitchell | Audley Harrison crumbles to defeat to Deontay Wilder in 70 seconds | Audley Harrison's journey, surely, is over. In just 70 seconds – 12 seconds quicker than his defeat to David Price last October – the 41-year-old heavyweight crumbled in the face of raw power, this time delivered by Deontay Wilder, who was entitled to celebrate his 28th straight knockout victory in as many fights with the chilling boast: "I'm a beast with God-given talent."
The 6ft 7in American, built along lean and muscular lines, immediately called out the Manchester heavyweight Tyson Fury, saying: "I will come back to England whenever he wants to fight him."
Fury offended some but caught everyone's attention with an uneven, spectacular debut at Madison Square Garden last weekend, when he knocked out the former world cruiserweight champion Steve Cunningham in a roughhouse brawl and signed off with a song for the crowd. He and Wilder could do good business one day.
Harrison has nowhere to go. As against Price, he barely pawed out a jab and, when Wilder started swinging lefts and rights in a neutral corner as if impersonating a threshing machine, Harrison was doomed. He took some crunching shots, slid down the ropes, covering his head as best he could and, although he bravely beat the count, his plea to the referee, Terry O'Connor, that he was fit to continue was as optimistic as scheduling this contest for 12 rounds in the first place.
"I beat the count," Harrison said. "I was still in the fight, ready to fight." He was not. When he looks at the tape, even this most inventive and charismatic of dreamers will know it. And, if he weighs up the evidence, he will admit there is no more to give, after 31 wins (23 stoppages) and four knockouts in seven defeats over 12 years. He has entertained us often – and enough. He won Olympic gold, in Sydney 13 years ago and he should cherish it.
As for the 27-year-old Wilder, who has been carefully groomed by Golden Boy Promotions since he won bronze at the Beijing Olympics, he may just be the real thing. He is raw and still untested but he has chilling power – and a good line in victory rhetoric.
"It was a great performance," Wilder said, "and a long time coming. I am going to be the next champion of the world. Nobody can stop my power. When I feel a face in my glove, it excites me.
"As soon as I hit him, the fight was over. His eyes were in the back of his head. I am a beast with a God-given talent but experience can take you only so far. Nobody can stop me." GBP's chief executive, Richard Schaefer was by Wilder's side, beaming.
Earlier, Amir Khan's brother Haroon, who won a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games for Pakistan – an achievement greeted with admirable equanimity by the crowd – joined the ranks of several British boxing brothers in the professional game with a four-round points win over a three-fight novice, Brett Fidoe.
Khan is a slimline, bantamweight version of his brother, and the genetic tics were obvious: a stiff jab, lot of right hands thrown with vicious intent and a willingness to box in the hitting zone. He also showed decent evasive skills, although Fidoe, whose only win was a stoppage result in his last outing, reddened his features with a couple of good right-hand swipes.
Amir was not enthusiastic about Harry turning over when they first discussed it more than a year ago, although he has gradually warmed to the idea, and the younger Khan was honest enough to admit: "I could have fought better. There was a lot of pressure, obviously, but it was great to fight in front of a big crowd. Definitely different from the amateurs."
Harrison would agree with that. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2024/jan/26/talking-horses-podcast-tip-off-prevents-cheltenham-weight-farce-horse-racing-tips | Sport | 2024-01-26T16:25:17.000Z | Greg Wood | Talking Horses: podcast tip-off prevents Cheltenham weight farce | The British Horseracing Authority has narrowly avoided the embarrassment of a hot favourite running with too much weight in the saddle after it emerged that Lossiemouth, last season’s Triumph Hurdle winner, had been set to carry 3lb more than her correct burden when making her seasonal debut in the Grade Two Unibet Hurdle at Cheltenham on Saturday.
Lossiemouth was initially given a weight of 11st 3lb in Saturday’s race, which included her mares’ allowance of 7lb, but the published weight was amended to 11st on Friday morning, apparently because the conditions surrounding a penalty for her Grade One win at last year’s Festival had been incorrectly applied. Under the race’s conditions, a 6lb penalty is incurred for a Grade One win after 30 September 2022, but is reduced to 3lb if the win came in novice or juvenile company.
City of Troy draws Frankel comparisons after panel unveils new ratings
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“Due to an error at the weights stage, we can confirm an incorrect penalty was added to Lossiemouth in the 3.00 at Cheltenham tomorrow,” a spokesperson for the BHA said on Friday morning. “A weight amendment has been published and she will now carry 11st. We apologise to anyone affected by this error.”
Several bookmakers – including the race sponsor – opened a market on Saturday’s race after the final declarations were published on Thursday morning. Lossiemouth was 11-10 with William Hill when betting opened before being backed to 5-6 overnight, and Willie Mullins’s mare was as short at 4-7 on Friday afternoon following the adjustment to her published weight.
The apparent problem with Lossiemouth’s weight was initially flagged up by racing journalist Tony Calvin, on the Betfair exchange’s Weighed In podcast, and the BHA is understood to be continuing an investigation into how the error occurred.
Lossiemouth has not raced since winning the Champion Four Year Old Hurdle at Punchestown in April, and while she had several pounds in hand of her rivals on ratings even before the weights were adjusted, her current price looks very thin against race-fit rivals on what will be her first start in all-aged company.
Love Envoi, who was less than two lengths behind Honeysuckle in a high-class renewal of the Mares’ Hurdle at Cheltenham last year, is a worthy opponent, but the most interesting option at the likely odds is Paul Nicholls’s Rubaud (3.00), at around 5-1.
The six-year-old was, inevitably, no match for Constitution Hill in the Christmas Hurdle at Kempton last month, but he had been progressing steadily in four wins prior to that race and could be a tough opponent to pass if, as seems likely, he gets an easy time of it in front.
Cheltenham 1.15 Victtorino has made rapid strides since joining Venetia Williams last summer and is up just 4lb for his win at Ascot last time.
Cheltenham 1.50 The return to Cheltenham, where he is unbeaten in three starts, could make all the difference for The Real Whacker, last season’s Brown Advisory Novice Chase winner at the Festival.
Doncaster 2.05 A strong hand for Willie Mullins, with Gala Marceau, last season’s Triumph Hurdle runner-up, marginally the pick of his two market-leading contenders.
Cheltenham 2.25 This looks a straightforward task for Jonbon ahead of his much-anticipated run against El Fabiolo in the Champion Chase in March.
Quick Guide
Greg Wood's Saturday tips
Show
Doncaster 2.40 Lightly raced Range posted a decent time when successful at Chepstow last month and should progress for this step up in trip.
Doncaster 3.15 Kandoo Kid has progressed steadily in four chase starts, ran well when stepped up to Grade Two company last time and is still feasibly weighted on that form.
Cheltenham 3.35 The 2022 Grand National winner, Noble Yeats, is an intriguing runner back over hurdles and could be too much for his rivals to handle if anywhere close to his best. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2010/dec/10/audley-harrison-david-haye-fight-inquiry | Sport | 2010-12-10T01:42:04.000Z | Everton Gayle | David Haye and Audley Harrison to face British Boxing Board of Control | The British Boxing Board of Control wants to see both Audley Harrison and David Haye about their world heavyweight fight at the MEN Arena in Manchester last month
The board said it has "called Audley Harrison to appear at a date and venue to be confirmed to discuss his performance in the contest against David Haye".
Harrison could have some of his £1m purse docked for a display that was at best below par while the board is concerned by suggestions that Haye may have laid a wager on the outcome of the defence of his world title.
Haye's manager, Adam Booth, said they had no problem going to the board to answer any questions. "David said something in the heat of the moment straight after the fight," he told the Daily Express. "We know and David knows he has done absolutely nothing wrong." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/mar/30/11-years-10-arrests-at-least-62-women-how-did-britains-worst-cyberstalker-evade-justice-for-so-long | Society | 2022-03-30T05:00:06.000Z | Sirin Kale | 11 years, 10 arrests, at least 62 women: how did Britain’s worst cyberstalker evade justice for so long? | The conversations always started the same way. A woman would get a message from a social media user. It would say: “Can I tell you a secret?” The messenger often, but not always, appeared to be a friendly young woman, peppering the conversation with words such as “hun” and signing off with a kiss.
But the messenger would also claim to have information about the woman’s life. The victim’s partner was cheating on her; a friend was talking behind her back. If the woman blocked the anonymous messenger, another appeared. If the woman stopped responding, she would get incessant calls from someone breathing down the phone.
This stalking could go on for years. Sometimes, the stalker spread lies about the victims to her friends, family and colleagues: that she was having an affair with her boss, or even her stepdad. The stalker would hack into the victim’s social media accounts, or create fake accounts in her name. He would pose as the victim to have sexually explicit conversations. He would even send stolen intimate photographs of her.
Victims lost friends, family members, relationships and professional opportunities. One terrified victim slept with a baseball bat in her hand. Another kept a samurai sword beside her bed. Some were diagnosed with depression and anxiety and needed medication.
Nine-year sentence ... Matthew Hardy. Photograph: Cheshire Police/SWNS
Nobody, except the stalker, knows how many victims there were. The Guardian has spoken to 10 survivors directly and each knew of another half a dozen or dozen women who had been targeted. “We’re going to have hundreds of victims,” says PC Kevin Anderson of Cheshire constabulary.
The person responsible for all this suffering? A 30-year-old unemployed man from Northwich, Cheshire, called Matthew Hardy. For more than a decade, Hardy behaved with near impunity. “Every time his name comes up, I hear other names,” says Zoe Jade Hallam, 31, a model and mechanical operative from Lincolnshire who survived Hardy’s stalking. One force alone, Cheshire constabulary, was contacted about Hardy more than 100 times by 62 victims over an 11-year period. During Hardy’s years of stalking, he was arrested 10 times. But the police and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) appeared unable to put a stop to his offending.
Until January 2022, that is, when Hardy was sentenced to nine years in prison for five counts of stalking. The average custodial sentence for stalking is under 17 months. “It’s the longest sentence we’ve ever heard of,” says Violet Alvarez of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, an anti-stalking charity.
For survivors, the sentence was the news they had been waiting for. But why was Britain’s worst‑ever cyberstalker allowed to evade justice for so long?
H
ardy did not have a good time at school in Northwich. Melanie (not her real name), a 30-year-old HR worker who lives in Cornwall and was in his class in the mid‑00s, says: “He was bullied. People thought he was strange.” Gina Martin, 30, a women’s rights campaigner in London, was another schoolmate. She recalls feeling sorry for Hardy and trying to be kind. “He was isolated,” she says. “I used to make an effort to say hi.”
Social media was in its infancy. In 2006, Facebook opened membership to anyone aged 13 or older – and British teenagers rushed to sign up to the platform. It was around this time that Hardy began to stalk his female classmates and girls from neighbouring schools. Melanie was one of his first victims. It started in 2009, when they were students at nearby sixth-form colleges.
“A random person would add me on Facebook and start messaging me,” she says. “They’d say my boyfriend was cheating on me and they just wanted to let me know.” Melanie’s classmates were also getting messages. “We all banded together and found out it was Hardy. Every time he messaged us, we’d say: ‘You’re Matthew Hardy, go away.’” Melanie says that Hardy harassed about 25 girls from her school.
‘Being a victim of Matthew Hardy fed heavily into the reason I do this work’ … Gina Martin, a women’s rights campaigner. Photograph: Sophia Evans/The Guardian
In 2010, Hardy messaged Melanie again, after the death of her mother: “Need word about your mum asap x.” Hardy told Melanie that her mother had been cheating on her father and he was going to tell him. She reported him to the police. “I couldn’t handle it any more,” she says. “He was coming for my deceased mother.” The police, she recalls, “said: ‘We can’t do anything. It’s online. We don’t know who it is.’”
Amy Bailey, another pupil from Northwich, was 16 when Hardy began stalking her, in 2011. “He’d call 50 times a day,” says Bailey, an admin worker who now lives a few miles outside the town. At the time, she worked in a garage in Northwich. Hardy would text her, telling her what she was doing. “One time, he said he saw me washing a car,” Bailey says. “Another time, he commented on the colour of my top. I went in and started crying.” She reported him to Cheshire constabulary, who at first told her to delete her Facebook account and block his number.
But Cheshire constabulary did appear to take at least one victim seriously. In October 2011, Hardy pleaded guilty to hacking and harassing a former classmate, Samantha Boniface; he had hacked her Facebook account and impersonated her online. On one occasion, Boniface had been approached by a member of the public, who had asked if she was the girl who had been “talking dirty” to him. Hardy received a restraining order, a suspended prison sentence and 250 hours of community service.
The conviction scarcely seemed to dent Hardy’s resolve. In 2013, he acquired a new victim: Gina Martin, his former schoolmate. “He’d set up profiles pretending to be me,” she says. “Every single day, I would wake up to messages from people saying: ‘Is this you? This person just added me.’” She realised that Hardy was responsible after speaking with former classmates and comparing messages.
Martin grew to dread visiting her parents’ house in Northwich. “I knew he lived five minutes away,” she says. “When I’d walk places on my own, I’d put on a hat and put my hood up. I was always scared of him.” Bailey, too, was unravelling. “I was going insane,” she says. “I lost the plot. I went crazy. I accused someone at work of being him.”
Every single day, I would wake up to messages from people saying: ‘Is this you? This person just added me’
Gina Martin
In 2013, Bailey contacted Cheshire constabulary again and provided officers with screenshots of the accounts that had been harassing her. One included Hardy’s real name. Hardy pleaded guilty to harassment and hacking and was given a suspended sentence and a restraining order. By 2014, Hardy had breached the restraining order and started stalking Bailey again. “I’d ring the police up and say: ‘He’s breaching the restraining order,’” she says. “They’d look into it, but nothing would happen.” She reported him for breaches of his restraining order in 2014, 2015 and 2017.
Martin reported Hardy to Cheshire constabulary in 2016. In September, Hardy was arrested and interviewed under caution. Officers submitted Martin’s case to the CPS, but, in April 2017, it declined to bring it forward. “It was implied to me that, until someone got hurt or he stalked someone in person, there was nothing they could do about it,” Martin says.
In June 2017, a man took a photograph up Martin’s skirt at a music festival in London. Police told her the incident wasn’t illegal. Martin campaigned to change the law and “upskirting” was made a criminal offence in 2019. “People say that upskirting was the first thing I ever did,” Martin says. “But that’s not true. I took that incident so hard because three months previously the CPS dropped the case I had against Matthew Hardy. Being a victim of Matthew Hardy fed heavily into the reason I do this work.”
Hardy stalked these three Northwich pupils periodically for a combined 25 years. Melanie escaped first, in 2016, when she married and changed her name and he wasn’t able to find her. With Bailey and Martin, he continued until 2021. “I feel like I missed my 20s because of it,” Bailey says. “I was constantly scared and paranoid. I ended up going on antidepressants. My anxiety was through the roof. I was too scared to go out. I thought that everywhere I went he would be watching.”
S
talking was Hardy’s life’s work and there were three phases to his offending. First, he stalked girls he went to school with. Then, he stalked women in his surrounding area. Finally, he stalked women to whom he had no connection at all. Usually, they were vibrant young women, with thriving personal and professional lives. Often, they had large social media followings. Zoe Jade Hallam was in the third tranche of women caught up in Hardy’s net.
It started in 2018. The first message was on Snapchat, she recalls. “He said: ‘Can I tell you a secret?’” It progressed to silent phone calls. When Hallam cried on these calls from stress and fear, he would message her afterwards, chiding her for “crying like a baby”. He would taunt her. “He’d say: ‘Guess who I managed to speak to. About 50 people. Even some of your family’s fellas. Bet you’re arsed now.’”
Hardy pretended to be Hallam’s partner’s father online and initiated inappropriate conversations with teenage girls from a fake account. “My boyfriend’s dad was a doctor,” Hallam said. “It was really damaging to his professional reputation. And I felt to blame. It was me that drew Matthew Hardy to him.” This was a common sentiment among Hardy’s victims, who were sometimes blamed for his harassment. “He ruined so many relationships,” says Abby Furness, a 22-year-old dancer from Brighton. “Because people would associate me with drama. They thought I was causing it. It wasn’t me. But my name was on everything.”
‘All I do now is worry. It doesn’t leave you’ … Abby Furness. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Hardy began stalking Furness in 2019. He impersonated her online and tried to initiate a sexual conversation with a colleague. He obtained intimate photos of Furness and sent them to her boss. Worst of all, he sabotaged her relationship with her boyfriend. “My boyfriend got a message from a fake Instagram account saying that they knew I’d been cheating on him,” Furness says. “It gave our relationship trust issues. We ended up breaking up a month later.” Hardy also harassed her family so badly that she remains blocked on social media by some of them.
“I kept thinking it would stop,” Furness says. “But it kept getting worse and worse. He’d contacted more people. I’d lost more friends over it. More work.” Paranoid, Furness began to suspect the people in her life were responsible. “Could it be my closest friend?” she says. “My boyfriend?” She developed anxiety and depression.
Hallam reported the harassment to Lincolnshire police in April 2019. She was petrified and at breaking point. She slept with a samurai sword by her bed, because she lived alone and thought whoever was harassing her would break in. She gave the police Hardy’s phone number, but they said they couldn’t trace it. “They said they only do that in high-profile cases, like a rape or a murder,” says Hallam. “I said: ‘So we have to wait for that to happen before you do anything?’”
He ruined so many relationships. People would associate me with drama ... It wasn’t me. But my name was on everything
Abby Furness
Her experience is not unusual, says Alvarez. “Online stalking behaviours are usually not addressed as seriously by police and prosecutors,” she says. “Police officers often tell victims to simply block their stalker, or come offline. This advice is not appropriate, nor does it stop the stalker.”
In desperation, one of Hallam’s family members hired a private investigator, who identified Hardy as her stalker in July 2019. She supplied his name to Lincolnshire police, who told her that an officer would visit Hardy and tell him to stop. “He lasted two months before he did it again,” says Hallam.
In July 2020, Furness was packing for a holiday to Ibiza. Hardy messaged. “You need to be very careful,” he said. “Beware.” Terrified, Furness called Kent police. “They said: ‘Do you really think you are in danger? Because we’re 20 minutes away from you and something might happen over here.’ I said: ‘OK, I guess it’s fine then.’ I felt really silly.’”
While she was in Ibiza, Furness was on Instagram Live when an account by the name of Matthew Hardy started asking her questions. Afterwards, Hardy messaged her on Facebook and confessed that he had been the person stalking her. When she checked the messages again later, Hardy had deleted his Facebook account.
She felt as though there was no point getting back in touch with Kent police. “When I phoned them, they made me feel like I was wasting police time,” she says. “[They thought] I was this blond, naive girl who had loads of followers on Instagram, posted where she was all the time and wanted attention.” Even after his confession, Hardy continued to stalk Furness until September 2021. “Nearly every day, I’d get a message from someone I hadn’t spoken to in years saying: ‘Abby, I got your WhatsApp message, has your account been hacked?’” she says.
T
he women’s ordeal may have continued were it not for PC Kevin Anderson, a 22-year veteran of Cheshire constabulary. In December 2019, Anderson was assigned to a stalking case involving Hardy. Digging around in Cheshire constabulary’s internal systems, he found something shocking. There were more than 100 logs on the system about Hardy, from 62 victims. (Some of these logs may have been duplicate reports of the same incident.) Hardy had been arrested 10 times and voluntarily interviewed a further three times. One detail stood out: Hardy had almost ruined a marriage, by telling a woman that her fiance was cheating on her – on her wedding day. “I thought: this guy needs to be brought to book,” says Anderson.
The reports, which went back to 2011, made for uncomfortable reading for the police. “I can’t speak for the officers that were speaking to the victims at that time … people maybe didn’t understand what was happening to the victims, or understand the legislation,” Anderson says. He contacted officers with active cases on Hardy and arranged for them to be transferred to him.
One case concerned a 23-year-old boutique owner, Lia Marie Hambly, from Maidstone, Kent. Hardy began stalking her in 2019. He contacted Hambly or her family and friends hundreds of times. “He would say that he hates me, that I’m a bitch,” she says. “Or he’d pretend to be me and talk to them.” He would call 10 times an hour, from unknown numbers, in the middle of the night.
‘I thought he would only get a few months’ … Lia Marie Hambly. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian
She went to Kent police in November 2019. “They’d only ever email me and say: ‘Don’t worry, we’re looking into it,’” says Hambly. She made a complaint about their handling of the case.
In February 2020, Anderson phoned Hambly and told her that he was taking on her case. “The relief that someone cared,” she says. “Someone wanted to do something about it. He said: ‘We’ll get there. I’m here to listen and help you.’ That was all I wanted to hear.”
“What struck me with Lia’s case was the way she handled herself,” says Anderson. Hambly, a former paralegal, had used her expertise to compile a dossier of every contact she had had with Hardy. “Hardy had told me that screenshotting his messages was pointless,” she says. “Talking to the police was pointless. He said I’d never find out who he was, or what he knew.” But she felt differently. Her indexed dossier was a staggering 700 pages long and numbered by Hardy’s social media accounts.
By now, the Hardy case had taken over Anderson’s life. He would lie awake at night, asking himself if he had read a report correctly, or obtained all the phone numbers Hardy was using. “I had to make sure that I got a conviction for these people,” he says. “They’d put their faith and trust in me.”
Hardy had told me that talking to the police was pointless. He said I’d never find out who he was, or what he knew
Lia Hambly
Anderson had five victims on indictment and a further four on schedule, meaning that the judge would take the additional cases into consideration when sentencing Hardy, if he were found guilty of the charges on the indictment. “I had to take a pragmatic approach,” he says. “With so many victims, it was difficult to portray what was happening. It could dilute the case if there were too many. So the strongest things were what we had on the indictment.”
Nonetheless, he contacted other victims to ask if they would like to support the case by providing evidence for the court to consider. In all, Anderson collated more than 100 incidents from 62 victims, which he used to show Hardy’s bad character in court.
When Hardy was arrested in February 2020, he denied everything. Even after he was charged in March 2021, he carried on stalking. Martin’s grandmother died of Covid in 2020. The following year, she received a message from a profile pretending to be her dead grandmother. “It said: ‘Hello, Gina,’” she remembers. “I was crying. I knew it was him.”
Hardy even found time to acquire new victims. He began stalking Jill, 42, a probation officer from Manchester, in June 2021. Hardy impersonated a young female relative of Jill online and attempted to initiate a sexual relationship with Jill’s husband. Jill contacted Greater Manchester police, but she says they did nothing to help her. The stalking left her so paranoid that she slept with a baseball bat in one hand and a phone in the other.
Eventually, one of Jill’s relatives put the phone number that had been harassing her into a prank-caller website. The number had been looked up 349 times and six users had left comments. “Messaged family members trying to ruin relationships/start incestuous relationships,” one user wrote. “His name is Matthew Hardy and he has done this for years.” Jill spoke with Cheshire constabulary, who used her case as supporting evidence.
I
n October 2021, Hardy pleaded guilty to stalking involving fear of violence and harassment at Chester crown court. In January 2022, he was sentenced to nine years in jail, which is believed to be the longest sentence handed out in a British court for a stalking offence. Anderson thinks it was necessary. “He would never have stopped,” he says. “Even on bail, he was still doing it.”
Hambly was in court that day. “I couldn’t believe it,” she says. “I thought he would only get a few months.” At home, Hallam got the news from a friend. “I was so emotional,” she says. Her voice breaks and she chokes back sobs. “I thought I would have to live with this for ever.”
Hardy’s crimes have cast a long shadow. His victims are triggered by unknown numbers – which meant contacting survivors for this piece was challenging. When we spoke, many expressed fears that I was a stalker pretending to be a journalist. Hardy has completely shattered their sense of safety. “All I do now is worry,” says Furness. “It doesn’t leave you. It’s like a cut that keeps getting deeper and deeper over the years. It never heals.”
In mitigation, Hardy’s defence barrister, Sara Haque, said that Hardy was autistic and had learning difficulties and mental health problems. “The defendant wishes to have a full, happy life,” she told the court. “He sees these people living their happy lives online and tries to make a connection with them … there is then a rejection that the defendant feels, which then triggers a lashing out.”
‘I thought I would have to live with this for ever’ … Zoe Jade Hallam. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Melanie believes his offending is connected to his school days. “He was always ignored by women,” says Melanie. “He never had a girlfriend. He never hung out with girls. I’m not a psychologist. But it seems to me that he was trying to get back at the girls who rejected him.” Alvarez says that cases like Hardy’s are mercifully unusual. “It’s rare for us to see a case where the perpetrator has multiple concurrent victims,” she says. “However, this does happen with particular typologies of stalker, such as an ‘incompetent suitor’, or intimacy-seeking stalker.” Such stalkers are typically motivated by loneliness and unknown to their victims, or have met them only briefly.
All the victims are grateful to Anderson for working tirelessly to secure Hardy’s conviction. “Kev was amazing,” says Hambly. “I cannot fault him.” Despite finally being the officer to end Hardy’s campaign of terror, Anderson wishes he could have done more. “I still have a pang of guilt about not being able to bring the other victim accounts to court via a charge,” he says.
But there is anger at how long it took to stop Hardy’s stalking and harassment. Martin says: “What worries me is that it’s not a sustainable solution – to hope that these cases happen to pass across the desk of a police officer who makes it their job to convict this guy. That is not how we are supposed to get justice.”
Unfortunately, this is too often the case. Across England and Wales, police consistently fail to bring charges against stalkers. “Only 11% of reports of stalking result in a charge,” says Alvarez. Even when the stalker is charged, conviction rates are abysmal. “Just 0.1% of cases result in a conviction,” says Alvarez. This is despite the fact that many stalkers go on to commit further crimes. The criminologist Dr Jane Monckton-Smith places stalking at stage five of her eight-stage homicide timeline. A 2017 study of 358 femicides from the University of Gloucestershire found that stalking took place in nine of the 10 murders surveyed. “It’s therefore incredibly important for the safety of the victim that this risk is recognised as early as possible by police officers when they respond to a call,” says Alvarez. “Sadly, victims state that often police don’t believe them, or refuse to put the right protections in place.”
Cyberstalking is on the rise. Calls to the National Stalking Helpline about it have increased 20% since the start of the pandemic. Stalkers are taking advantage of our increasingly digitised lives to target victims through spyware, drones and even smart kettles and CCTV. Alvarez is particularly concerned by the rise in stalking using Apple AirTags as tracking devices. To address this, the Suzy Lamplugh Trust has called for the creation of a national taskforce to examine low conviction rates, as well as multi-agency stalking intervention programmes to identify and monitor high-risk stalkers.
For now, Hardy won’t be able to ruin his victims’ lives. But the chaos he wreaked may take a lifetime to unpick. “I used to say to my friends that this would be a good book one day,” says Melanie. “Because none of it makes sense. But it’s also like: why did we all have to suffer for so long? Why did it take so long to put him away?” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/may/26/end-game-fall-of-theresa-may | Politics | 2019-05-26T07:00:07.000Z | Toby Helm | End game: the fall of Theresa May | After her emotional resignation statement on Friday morning, Theresa May retired to Downing Street for a few private, comforting words with her husband, Philip. Then she composed herself before calling in her Downing Street staff to say a final thank-you.
As she entered the No 10 meeting room, which was packed with between 30 and 40 people, most of whom had been with her throughout her premiership, loud applause and cheers rang out.
Less than half an hour earlier, many of these same officials and staff members – like much of the country – had crowded round televisions to watch her announce the date of her departure outside the front door of No 10. Some, like the prime minister herself, had broken down in tears.
Enough wishful thinking. The next PM must confront hard realities on Brexit
David Gauke
Read more
But despite her swirling emotions, May still wanted to pay a personal tribute to those who had stuck with her through an extraordinarily turbulent premiership.
“It was very, very sad,” said one staff member. “She called us in and said she was sorry things had gone the way they had, but that she and all of us had done our best. She thanked us all for our work. She was composed and seemed OK, but it was difficult for everyone.”
Another who was there said May looked calmer than she had half an hour before, as if a huge weight had suddenly been lifted off her shoulders. But there was no disguising the pain of the moment, and the grim realisation among her team that a premiership that had lasted less than three years, and that had involved little but struggle and crises, was ending in total failure.
In July 2016, when Theresa May entered Downing Street for the first time, she set herself two main goals that both involved healing national divides.
The first, she made clear when addressing the nation on 13 July 2016, was to do more to help “ordinary working-class families” get on in life. She promised those familes that she would “think not of the powerful but you,” adding that the “government I lead will be driven not by the interests of the privileged few, but by yours”.
But it was her second goal - to deliver the Brexit that the British people voted for in 2016 - that was to consume almost all her time and energy and, in the end, bring her leadership of the country to its disastrous finale.
Will Tanner, who advised May from 2013 to 2017, said after watching her resignation speech that his former boss had always been spurred on by high-minded intentions and a sense of duty. But in the end she had been defeated by a confrontational political system that she deeply disliked, and brought down by colleagues who had refused to recognise the real-world need for compromise.
“Theresa was always a politician frustrated by the grubby deal-making of politics and in the end was unable to play the game,” Tanner said. “She will feel exasperated that others chose to posture while she tried to do the right thing, and regret the mistakes that she made – not least calling a general election in 2017. Having reached Downing Street to calm a gathering storm, she has been consumed by it.”
As Conservative MPs and ministers reflected on her downfall, many said that the most remarkable thing was that the May premiership had lasted as long as it had. “Over time she became defined not by her achievements but by her ability to hang on and survive everything that went wrong,” said one Tory minister who remained supportive of her to the end. “It is not quite the legacy she would have wanted.”
May holding a press conference in Downing Street after winning a vote of confidence in her leadership of the Conservative party by 200 votes to 117. Photograph: Nils Jorgensen/Rex Shutterstock
Less than a year into her time at No 10, May had made arguably her worst of decision of all, to call a snap election in the hope of winning her own mandate to deliver Brexit – only to lose the Tories their majority and leave her dependent on the Democratic Unionist party to get legislation through the Commons. But somehow she staggered on, setting new standards for defiance with every month that passed.
She was to lose one foreign secretary (Boris Johnson), two Brexit secretaries (David Davis and Dominic Raab), and a string of other ministers in her vain pursuit of a Brexit deal that could unite the party and country. Last December, with the anti-EU Tory right increasingly mutinous, she survived a confidence vote of her own MPs, though 117 voted against her.
And on it went. The crises mounted. In January, May crashed to the biggest parliamentary defeat suffered by any prime minister in the modern era, and this was followed by several other crushing losses. Brexit had to be delayed not once but twice, from 29 March this year to the end of October.
Before Easter, a desperate May turned to Labour in an attempt to strike a cross-party compromise that would finally allow the UK to leave the EU and avoid it having to take part in European elections.
The opening of talks with Corbyn and the prospect of EU elections, however, left the Tory party in open revolt, and Nigel Farage and his new Brexit party stood ready to exploit the Tories’ and May’s woes. Then, 10 days ago, Labour pulled the plug on the cross-party negotiations, and the last hope that a Brexit deal could pass through parliament vanished. “That was effectively that for May. That was when no one could really pretend any more,” said a former Tory minister.
Except for May herself. In characteristic fashion, she refused to give up. Last Tuesday, she outlined to her cabinet one last “bold offer” on Brexit that she hoped would persuade enough MPs across the Commons to back her. The cabinet meeting lasted three-and-a-half hours. It was tense and fractious. Several ministers, including Andrea Leadsom, leader of the House of Commons, and Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, could not believe what May was now proposing as a means of trying to woo Labour, including the idea of a temporary customs unions and – more explosive still – a vote on whether to hold a second referendum.
It was so quiet in the chamber when she spoke. It was like the last rites. It's not normal for the House to be like that
Former Tory minister
None of the cabinet ministers regarded as frontrunners in the race to succeed May as leader – including Jeremy Hunt, the foreign secretary – dared speak up for her ideas. Michael Gove, the environment secretary and Geoffrey Cox, the attorney general, expressed strong concerns about the referendum idea.
The next morning, Gove went public, casting doubt on whether the plan would ever be put to a Commons vote, as May still appeared still to intend to do. It was a clear signal that her cabinet was not prepared to back the prime minister’s last desperate throw of the dice.
When May then outlined her plans to parliament on Wednesday, there was almost no support from Tory MPs and none from Labour. A former minister said that he had never experienced a more deathly atmosphere in the Commons. “It was so quiet in the chamber when she spoke,” he said. “It was like the last rites. It is not good – or normal – for the House to be like that.”
Afterwards, a cabinet minister who had lived daily with May’s Brexit struggles since the late summer of 2016 said that there were now two options for the prime minister and both led to the same destination. She could force her new Brexit proposals to a vote in the Commons, in which case he thought she would almost certainly be defeated by upwards of 250 votes and be forced to resign. Or she could pull the vote, and by doing so tell MPs that a Brexit deal was now completely beyond her. It was, he accepted, “like choosing which of two routes you take to the guillotine for your own execution.” Another government minister said: “It is sad to see – but this time it really is over. She is dead now. It is just a case of when the life support machine is switched off.”
Some time late on Wednesday, after Leadsom had called the prime minister to say she was resigning – and following meetings with the chief whip, Julian Smith, and Sir Graham Brady, the chair of the 1922 Committee – May finally decided that enough was enough. But she only confided the decision to a very few aides, including her chief of staff, Gavin Barwell. She told them that she would delay an announcement until Friday, because Thursday was polling day in the European elections and it would be inappropriate to go public as voters were heading to the ballot boxes. On Thursday morning, Hunt and the home secretary, Sajid Javid, both went to see May to ask her not to push her plans to a vote. Hunt told her he felt it would be unfair on Tory MPs to ask them to back proposals that so many of their constituents would vehemently oppose. She listened politely but did not tell them of her resignation plans.
Andrea Leadsom, the leader of the House of Commons, resigned from May’s cabinet on Wednesday. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
No sooner had May made her tearful statement on Friday, bringing the Tory war over her leadership to an unpleasant end, than a potentially even more ugly battle over the succession began in earnest. Johnson, the early favourite to enter No 10, set out his stall without delay, insisting that under his leadership Brexit would happen this autumn, no matter what. Playing to the hard-Brexit wing of the Tory party at Westminster and the 100,000-plus Tory members who will ultimately choose the new leader, Johnson said at a meeting in Switzerland: “We will leave the EU on 31 October, deal or no deal.”
By Saturday he had been joined by a lengthening list of candidates that included Hunt and Leadsom, former work and pensions secretary Esther McVey, health secretary Matt Hancock, and the new international development secretary, Rory Stewart. In a taste of things to come, Stewart tore into Johnson in a BBC radio interview on Saturday, saying that he could never work under the former foreign secretary because of his willingness to entertain a no-deal Brexit. Accusing Johnson, in effect, of being slippery, he said: “It pains me to say it. Boris has many, many qualities, but I talked to him a few days ago and I thought he had said to me that he was not going for a no-deal exit. He has now come out and said yesterday that he is going for something which I believe is undeliverable, unnecessary and is going to damage our country and economy.”
Writing in the Observer, the cabinet minister David Gauke, who will not stand in the contest, says there is now a danger of leadership candidates failing to deal with reality and indulging in wishful thinking as they seek the votes of Tory MPs and grassroots members.
The danger with this is that “big promises fail to be delivered, leaving the public yet more disilllusioned, angry and tempted by the snake oil of populism,” he writes. Anyone who backs a no-deal Brexit, he argues, should come clean with the country about the damage it would do. “We should not pretend that leaving the EU without a deal will be anything other than enormously harmful to our economy, weaken our security relationships and threaten the integrity of the union,” Gauke says, adding that the task that faces the next prime minister “will be the same one that Theresa May faced for three years”. In essence, he is warning that her departure will do nothing to solve the country’s problems – and could make them even worse. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2013/jul/04/beach-boys-mike-love-interview | Music | 2013-07-04T08:00:00.000Z | Dave Simpson | The Beach Boys' Mike Love: 'There are a lot of fallacies about me' | Hello Mike. Where are you?
I'm on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. Nevada and California share the lake and I have a home on the Nevada side.
So you're near some water, if not actually a beach?
There is a beach here! But no, I wouldn't want to go surfing. When the waves are up with the wind it's rather chilly.
What do the Beach Boys make of British beaches? Is the surf as good in Bridlington as it is in California?
You know the Don't Go Near the Water video? That was done on Brighton beach. Well, we weren't on the beach itself. It was kinda rocky.
Your band mate Bruce Johnston once summed up your contribution to the Beach Boys, saying, "If Brian [Wilson] was the shy, introverted guy in school, then Mike was the cool guy who'd tell him how to ask girls out, and that's what Mike did for Brian's music." Is it true that you brought the philosophy of sun, surfing, cars and girls?
Well yeah, that was my part, in the lyrics, the concept and the hooks. Nobody structures harmonies and chord progressions and melodies better than Brian, but I was blessed to have him as first cousin, and we have a special chemistry together. We loved the same kind of music and we learned from the best: Chuck Berry, the Everly Brothers and doo-wop stuff, the Four Freshmen. We have the depth and appreciation of those complex beautiful harmonies along with R&B and rock'n'roll. It was a great synthesis with our voices.
You were the lead singer on many of those songs, and you took them to millions of people, yet people always talk about Brian's genius. He is a genius, but do you ever feel they should talk more about Mike Love?
Well, I wrote with Brian. So many of those hits. For instance, Do It Again – which went to No 1 in England. I came back from a surfing trip with some high school buddies and said: "Hey Brian, I just went to the beach and the waves and the girls were great. We've got to do a song called Do It Again." He remembers it being at my house. I remember it as being at his house. He starts pounding at the piano, I was summoning up the words and we got a chorus together, which was basically a bunch of doo-wop inspired harmonies. We created that whole song in 15 minutes.
Wow. Did many of the songs come that easily?
Well, the reason Wild Honey is called that is because Brian was doing this R&B-type track. I went to the kitchen to make some tea, looked up in this cupboard and there was a jar of wild honey. So I wrote this song about a guy who was obsessed with this girl and didn't care what his mom said. I wrote the lyrics while he was finishing the track. Just like that. It was that way between us.
There have been so many phases of the Beach Boys in your 51 years as a band – the surfing era, Pet Sounds, the Kokomo period in the late 1980s. Which is the best period?
Gosh. I couldn't say because they each have their own unique charm, but when Good Vibrations went to No 1 in 1966 and Great Britain voted us the No 1 group (1) – No 2 the Beatles, No 3 the Stones – that was pretty special. In December 1967 we learned transcendental meditation from the Maharishi and he invited us to India. Lo and behold, who was there but the Beatles.
Today, it seems unthinkable that a pop group would go on tour with a guru, as the Boys did with the Maharishi.
The 60s was a time of unthinkabilities. George Harrison and I both had our birthdays – he in late February, me in mid-March – in 1968 above the Ganges mountains. Spectacular. It was such a special time, and the Maharishi was a great host and guru. Not for fortune or for fame but for enlightenment we came. I was at the breakfast table when Paul McCartney came down with his acoustic guitar playing Back in the USSR. I said, "You ought to put something in about all the girls around Russia," and he did.
Did discovering transcendental meditation stop you smoking marijuana?
I learned TM in December 1967, and that was it with marijuana for me. Alcohol and marijuana and other drugs may be relaxing or invigorating or whatever, but you can get plenty relaxed through meditation without the negative side-effects.
Which have been famously a big part of the Beach Boys history. It must have been pretty weird when half the band got into TM and the other half got into cocaine and LSD?
It was! It kinda created a them and us situation. Bruce and Alan [Jardine] and myself didn't [indulge] and the Wilson brothers did. Tragically with Dennis [Wilson] it led to his early demise (2). With Carl [Wilson], he'd been smoking since he was 13 or 14 and contracted lung cancer. That was a bummer. The tragedies have affected us emotionally, and like anybody's family you're going to have loss. Transcendental meditation helps you have a clearer perspective on life. As the Maharishi used to say: "Take it as it comes." It gives me the strength and clarity and energy to do 160 shows a year.
You usually tour as the Beach Boys with Bruce Johnstone, but last year all the surviving members reunited for a 50th anniversary tour that everyone – not least Brian Wilson, Al Jardine and David Marks – didn't want to end. Did you enjoy it yourself?
I had a wonderful experience being in the studio together. Brian has lost none of his ability to structure those melodies and chord progressions, and when we heard us singing together coming back over the speakers it sounded like 1965 again. Touring was more for the fans. Brian has a great band and he does his own thing, and Bruce and I have a fabulous band and we enjoy going places, big and small. But that configuration that happened last year you can only do in so many places and so often. So it was an agreed 50 shows that grew to 73 because of demand. But there was always a term, then we were always going back to what we do. Brian is in the studio again. He loves the studio. It was a great experience, it had a term to it, and now everyone's going on with their ways of doing things.
Will you ever write with Brian again? If you made one more Beach Boys album it would be the 30th …
[Intrigued] It has a ring to it, doesn't it? I was hoping to get together with Brian on [2012's] That's Why God Made the Radio, but a guy who was involved in the production of that album engineered it otherwise. Which was a drag because I have that history of co-writing with Brian, and he and I love each other going back to childhood. Given the opportunity, I would definitely write with Brian.
Do you see much of him?
I saw a lot of him on that tour.
You've played at Live Aid. You've played at the White House. This weekend, you're playing in London with boy band JLS and the stage show from the children's book The Gruffalo. Er, what's that about?
I hear it's a sort of family day in Hyde Park. We love Hyde Park. We first came to London in the early 60s. Brian came with us the first time, and when he departed from the touring group in 1964, Glen Campbell filled in. Great guy. He used to do a Beach Boys medley in his shows.
You once called Mick Jagger "chickenshit" because the Rolling Stones had always refused to appear on the same bill as the Beach Boys. Does that mean that JLS are braver than the Stones?
[Warily] Nawwwwww! It doesn't mean they're braver! I'm interested in hearing those guys sing. They must be popular for a reason, huh? But it's true, I did challenge Mick Jagger one time. But he's too busy making a fortune.
That speech you made to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1988 (3) is probably the most notorious ever made at a major awards ceremony. To step up in front of the world's media and start attacking virtually the entire rock establishment … if nothing else, it's gloriously iconoclastic.
[Sheepishly]. Yeah. Well. Ya know … [a tiny chuckle] I hadn't meditated that morning … [long pause] It was so funny. Someone said to me: "Hey Mike. You're either meditating too much or not enough!" Mick Jagger threw my shoes into the audience, so I threw his. Some years later some guy came up to me wanting to sell me back my tuxedo shoe. I told him he should keep it.
Whatever happened to your wonderfully titled proposed solo album, Mike Love Not War (alternate title Unleash the Love) (4)?
I think it is a brilliant title and a necessary title … I have another album called First Love, which is Mike's first album. I've stockpiled these things for decades now, but we finally have a team to get my music out. There's a song called Going to the Beach, a Beach Boys summertime classic. Mike Love Not War is about the hopes and aspirations of those on the planet who like to see more positivity and harmony. I want to get a couple of people to sing with me on it.
Anyone in mind?
Neil Young. He's as anti-war as he might be. It all goes back to John and Yoko saying Give Peace a Chance and Marvin Gaye singing What's Going On.
You seem very chilled today, Mike. Why have you had such a bad press in recent years? (5)
I think there are a lot of fallacies about me, things that need to be rectified. I'm working on a book that will lay rest to some of them. I know what I did and didn't do. People say the Beatles were John Lennon. What is Paul McCartney? Chopped liver? But everyone has their own favourite members whose creativity they gravitate to. That's normal.
But it must upset you when people set up internet groups (6) devoted to attacking you?
I don't let it. I think these people have more time on their hands than they should. The essential thing is, Brian and I have done some spectacular things together. All the other stuff is superfluous. The benefits and blessing far outweigh the negatives.
Footnotes
(1) We think Mike refers to the 1966 NME readers' poll, which voted the Beach Boys world's best vocal group.
(2) Drummer and fab solo artist Dennis Wilson actually died from drowning in the Pacific ocean, but had been weakened by years of alcohol and drug abuse.
(3) Mike's "chickenshit" jibe at Jagger was accompanied by similar digs at the "mop-tops" (the Beatles), Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and "Ms Ross" (Diana).
(4) Mike's unreleased solo album from 2005.
(5) Not everyone loves Love. A vocal anti-Mike lobby brand him such things as "arguably the most malignant presence in the history of pop music". Typical grievances are that he sued Brian Wilson over songwriting credits, acquired the rights to the Beach Boys name and wrote 1988 US No 1 Kokomo, hated by Beach Boys purists.
(6) Among them are Facebook groups I Hate Mike Love and Mike Love Is a Douchebag, and the uncompromisingly titled article Mike Love Is Kind of an Asshole.
The Beach Boys perform with JLS, the Saturdays, Paul Young and the Gruffalo at the Barclaycard British Summertime festival in London's Hyde Park on 7 July. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jun/03/flights-by-olga-tokarczuk-review | Books | 2017-06-03T06:30:46.000Z | Kapka Kassabova | Flights by Olga Tokarczuk review – the ways of wanderers | One of the fragment-chapters in this fascinating novel of fragments tells of a man who takes a particular book on his travels: a short one by the French-Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran. He feels that European hotels would do well to replace the obligatory Bible with Cioran, because the Bible was no use “for the purposes of predicting the future”. The narrator, an alterego of the author and a good-humoured, reliable voice that carries the novel through its many digressions, meets him on one of her countless peregrinations, and he quotes Cioran at her: “It was clear to me that our mission was to graze the dust in search of a mystery stripped of anything serious.”
This reflects the existential preoccupations of Flights, whose central recurring tropes are physical movement, the mortal body and the meaning of home. It is a novel of intuitions as much as ideas, a cacophony of voices and stories seemingly unconnected across time and space, which meander between the profound and the facetious, the mysterious and the ordinary, and whose true register remains one of glorious ambiguity. Olga Tokarczuk is a household name in Poland and one of Europe’s major humanist writers, working here in the continental tradition of the “thinking” or essayistic novel. Flights has echoes of WG Sebald, Milan Kundera, Danilo Kiš and Dubravka Ugrešić, but Tokarczuk inhabits a rebellious, playful register very much her own.
I first read this novel in Bulgarian translation, where the original Polish title has been kept: Bieguni. This word is the key to the book, much more so than the freely rendered “Flights”, a bland but understandable choice in the mostly smooth translation of Jennifer Croft. The bieguni, or wanderers, are an obscure and possibly fictional Slavic sect who have rejected settled life for an existence of constant movement, in the tradition of the travelling yogi, wandering dervishes or itinerant Buddhist monks who survive on the kindness of strangers.
The beiguni have rejected settled life for an existence of constant movement, in the tradition of itinerant Buddhist monks. Photograph: Rungroj Yongrit/EPA
These wanderers appear halfway through Flights; a desperate woman in an unnamed Russian city meets a seemingly crazy “shrouded” woman who shows her that there is an escape from her life of suffering. The shrouded woman is one of the bieguni, and her monologue provides the most powerful voice of the novel: “Whoever pauses will be petrified, whoever stops, pinned like an insect, his heart pierced by a wooden needle, his hands and feet drilled through and pinned into the threshold and the ceiling … This is why tyrants of all stripes, infernal servants, have such deep-seated hatred for the nomads – this is why they persecute the Gypsies and the Jews, and why they force all free people to settle, assigning the addresses that serve as our sentences.”
For the narrator, the obsession with wilful deracination begins in childhood, with her conformist parents and their “timid tourism” every year in the family Škoda. Though away from home, they remained “within the same metaphysical orbit of home … They left in order to return.” The narrator, by contrast, develops an attraction to all things broken, unfinished, incomplete and peripheral: “anything that deviates from the norm, that is … overgrown or incomplete, monstrous and disgusting”.
And so she takes us to creepy basement museums where anatomical pathologies are preserved in jars; to lurid exhibitions of skinned human bodies; and deep into the minds and bodies of characters real and imagined, sometimes both. Historical figures are unexpectedly imagined: the dead Chopin’s heart, accompanied on its long journey back to Poland by his loving sister Ludwika; an imagined biography of the Flemish surgeon who identified the achilles tendon. The more obviously fictional stories are no less fascinating – the poignant, thrillerish marital drama of Kunicki and his family, who disappear on a Croatian island; the portrait of the Mengele-like Dr Blau, who loves to cut up bodies; the disturbing one-sided correspondence to the Austrian emperor by a woman whose father, a former courtier and diplomat, was posthumously stuffed on account of being black. After a chance encounter with a woman whose mission is to write “a book of infamy” by cataloguing all of humanity’s cruelties, the narrator thinks of Atatürk, whose social reforms included exiling Istanbul’s wild dogs to barren islands, condemning them to devour each other.
Flights is a passionate and enchantingly discursive plea for meaningful connectedness, for the acceptance of “fluidity, mobility, illusoriness”. After all, Tokarczuk reminds us, “Barbarians don’t travel. They simply go to destinations or conduct raids.” Hotels on the continent would do well to have a copy of Flights on the bedside table. I can think of no better travel companion in these turbulent, fanatical times.
Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova is published by Granta. Flights is published by Fitzcarraldo. To order a copy for £11.04 (RRP £12.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/oct/19/week-in-britain | UK news | 2010-10-19T13:04:25.000Z | Derek Brown | BBC sheds top brass to save pounds | The BBC is hacking away at itself, in a desperate bid to stave off the threat of imposed cuts. Senior management is so far taking the brunt of the pain, as director-general Mark Thompson makes good his promise to cut 25% of the Corporation's top jobs by the end of 2012.
Among the latest to go are Sharon Bayley, hired in May last year as director of "marketing, communications and audience". The £310,000 ($490,000) post, whatever it means, will remain vacant. Two Corporation board members, Peter Salmon and Lucy Adams, are also being dropped. Salmon heads BBC North, but angered fellow managers when he said this summer that he would not move to Salford when the Corporation opens its new head office there next month. Adams was paid £320,000 to be the BBC's director of people or, in plain English, personnel manager.
The good times in broadcasting have not quite stopped rolling. Those being culled from the senior ranks will have handsome payoffs. And there are plenty of eager beavers willing to take their place. One such is Danny Cohen who has been appointed controller of BBC1, the Corporation's flagship television channel, at the ripe young age of 36. He will be paid £260,000 a year to oversee an annual budget of £1.13bn.
The BBC is anxious to rid itself of a fat-cat image in the midst of savage public-spending cuts. It is also keenly aware that many Conservatives loathe the very idea of public-service broadcasting, and believe the Corporation to be staffed entirely by mad lefties.
Ed gets measured
Of the many agonies of being leader of the opposition, prime minister's questions is the second-worst. (The first, of course, is not being prime minister). Ed Miliband, the new leader of the Labour party, had his first PMQs last week and, to the surprise of many parliament-watchers, he made rather a good fist of it.
The actual questions and answers were of the usual yah-boo-sucks sort, dripping with sarcasm and larded with soundbytes for the telly. But – and this is the important thing – Miliband made David Cameron sound shrill and petulant, while he himself came over as measured, even statesmanlike. He even turned one of Cameron's better rhetorical remarks to his own advantage. "I may be new to this game," he said, "but I think that I ask the questions and he gives the answers."
Labour backbenchers, most of whom had voted for David Miliband to be party leader, were delighted with his little brother's performance. Their resounding cheers must have been music in the ears of the man who would be prime minister.
Novel win for humour
Another delighted debutante last week was Howard Jacobson, who has at long last won the Man Booker prize for his novel The Finkler Question. The announcement stunned the literary world, for the book is a comedy, and the Man Booker judges are not noted for an excessive sense of humour.
Jacobson, on the other hand, is fully capable of laughing at himself. He's also quite good at eating his own words, declaring himself thrilled to have won a prize that he has often rudely derided. He said he would use the £50,000 award to buy his wife a handbag, asking: "Have you seen the price of handbags?"
Critics have noted that The Finkler Question might be a laugh-out-loud exploration of British Jewishness, but that it is also deeply serious. Sir Andrew Motion, the Booker award chairman, described it as "a very sad melancholic, book. It is comic, it is laughter, but it is laughter in the dark".
Thames turns tide
More than 50 years ago, the Thames was a chemical cocktail. It was biologically dead; a sad, filthy waterway choked with rubbish and human waste. Today, by almost magic comparison, the river is alive again. The Thames and its tributaries are home to 125 fish species alone, including salmon, trout, sole and bass.
The revived Thames has now been given a top worldwide conservation prize. The International Thiess river prize is awarded annually in Australia and comes with $346,000 to be spent on further restoration work.
More good riverine news: the otter, which was thought just 30 years ago to be on the brink of extinction, is making a strong comeback over most of the country except the extreme south-easterly county of Kent. The recovery is attributed to a 1970s ban on organo-chlorine pesticides, which used to pollute farmland run-off. Now our rivers, not only the Thames, are running clean again.
Dun Roman
For nearly 20 years, ever since the Church of England began to ordain women, there has been a steady trickle of high-church defectors to Roman Catholicism. In a phrase much used by the bells-and-smells tendency, they have gone home to Rome.
The simmering row over the ordination of women has intensified in recent years, as the debate moves on to the probability of female priests becoming bishops. Traditionalists who simply can't bear that idea have been further tempted to defect by Pope Benedict XVI's offer of a separate home within the Catholic church for Anglicans who want to continue practising some of their own traditional rites.
The arcane issues dividing Anglican and Roman Catholics have been highlighted with the decision by an entire C of E parish in Folkestone, Kent, to decamp to Rome en masse (so to speak). The congregation of St Peter's, who almost certainly must now worship elsewhere, is likely to be joined on the road to Rome by at least three Anglican bishops.
Slipway into history
A new Royal Navy warship has been launched into the River Clyde in Glasgow. Not much new there, you might think, and you'd be right. The Clyde has witnessed thousands of such launches, from piffling little cargo ships to giant ocean-going liners, as well as fighting vessels.
What was newsworthy about last week's slipway launch is that it was the last. In the future, if we build warships at all, they will be put together in dry docks and floated out, or else assembled like giant model kits. It won't seem the same.
Nor does the Navy's latest ship exactly echo the lean, rakish lines of earlier generations of Britain's Bulwarks, as they were once known. The type-45 anti-air destroyer is undeniably big at 7,100 tonnes, but its sternly angular, functional lines are likely to impress geeks more than romantics. At least its name evokes traditions: it will be called HMS Duncan, after the admiral who defeated a Dutch fleet at Camperdown in 1797.
Art falls on stony rules
The Tate Modern gallery doesn't do things by halves. The latest installation in its cavernous Turbine Hall consists of tiny handmade, handpainted ceramic sunflower seeds. A hundred million of them.
Conceived by the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, the idea was for visitors to walk through the exhibit, giving it a tactile as well as visual impact. It was immensely popular, and lasted all of two days before it was fenced off from the public. The reason? That old music-hall act, Health and Safety, feared that gallery-goers might breathe in tiny particles of ceramic dust and become ill.
So now the sea of seeds is unchurned by human feet. It lies still and tranquil and rather silly. Still, not so many seeds are being quietly pocketed by art lovers. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/may/18/electric-planes-nasa-carbon-emissions | US news | 2021-05-18T10:00:50.000Z | Oliver Milman | Nasa leads push for electric planes in next frontier of cutting emissions | Over the next year, at a research site on the fringes of the Mojave desert in California, Nasa will hunt for a breakthrough against one of the climate crisis’s most stubborn challenges – how to eliminate carbon pollution from aviation via a new generation of electric airplanes.
Prodded by Joe Biden’s quest to slash the US’s planet-heating emissions to net zero, Nasa is corralling companies to demonstrate improved ways to power aircraft via batteries rather than jet fuel, with the aim of phasing in electric flights for Americans within the next 15 years.
World’s largest all-electric aircraft set for first flight
Read more
The demonstration tests of electric propulsion will be overseen by Nasa’s Armstrong Flight Research Center, located north of Los Angeles, the site of several previous landmarks such as the first crewed plane to break the speed of sound.
Breakthroughs of similar importance can be made to tackle the growing, and unsolved, problem of how to curb planet-heating gases belched out by the tangle of commercial flights that crisscross the world. Electric planes may be, finally, getting ready to take off.
“Industry used to scoff at the idea of electric planes but that’s no longer the case, they are very interested in this,” said Jim Heidmann, manager of advanced air transport technology at Nasa’s Glenn Research Center, which operates an electric flight test facility near Cleveland, Ohio.
Nasa has been working on electric planes for the past decade, grappling with laws of physics that haven’t dogged the mainstream adoption of electric cars. Currently, to power a 737-size jet with electricity would require a battery the size of the plane itself. “That’s just not feasible, it would be too heavy to take off, let alone fly,” Heidmann said. “Weight is quite a bit more important for planes than cars.”
A long, international flight on a large plane may have to rely upon a hybrid model of battery and jet fuel, a sort of Prius of the skies, but advances in lithium-ion battery technology and other components are also leading to the development of smaller, propellor-driven electric aircraft that are now coming to fruition.
Nasa has created the X-57, an experimental two-seater electric plane it expects will have a range of about 100 miles and a cruising speed of 172mph. Private companies, meanwhile, are eyeing smaller regional flights of up to 500 miles as a first step. Last summer, a modified Cessna that can carry nine passengers made a successful 30-minute flight in Washington state, a journey that was more cost effective, as well as cleaner and quieter, than if it had run on aviation fuel, according to AeroTEC and magniX, the companies behind the feat.
“Initially we will get to planes carrying up to 20 people, while the technology Nasa is working on will stretch that perhaps to planes with 100 people,” said Kevin Noertker, co-founder of Ampaire, a California-based firm recently acquired by SurfAir Mobility, another aviation company, that has run tests of a six-seater electric plane in Hawaii and plans to further try out its technology in the UK later this year.
“For that regional aviation, commuter planes, it’s a no-brainer. I think by the early 2030s we’ll be able to deliver electrified planes that are larger and higher-performance and for the very big planes, some sort of hybrid.”
What is claimed to be the world’s first commercial electric airplane – a 62-year-old, six-passenger DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver seaplane retrofitted with a 750hp electric magni500 propulsion system – flies in Vancouver, Canada, in 2019. Photograph: Harbour Air Group/EPA
Noertker said technology improvements and the push from the Biden administration to electrify transportation is “tremendously exciting”. He added: “This is a transformational moment in the aviation industry, it’s an inflection point,” he said.
But significant barriers remain. Jet fuel is still far more energy-dense than batteries, meaning the technology isn’t yet ready for universal adoption. There are other issues, too – aviation regulations aren’t geared towards electric planes, airlines produce thousands rather than millions of units unlike the car industry and there is a certain level of public nervousness about being propelled into the skies by avant-garde technology.
But airlines are coming under increasing pressure to cut emissions in order to address the climate crisis, particularly given the shift to clean energy already under way in the power sector and other modes of transportation. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, which has badly hit the industry, airlines around the world carried a record 4.3 billion passengers, with carbon dioxide emissions leaping 33% in the six years to 2019.
The airline industry accounts for about 2% of global emissions but this share is set to increase as flights rebound and other sectors start embracing renewable energy. Researchers have warned that air travel could eat up as much as a quarter of the “carbon budget” the world has left to avoid global heating of more than 1.5C, a point at which civilization will face punishing climate disasters.
Various airlines have promised to cut their emissions to net zero by 2050 but none can yet vow this will be through ditching jet fuel and going electric. Other avenues being looked at include hydrogen-based fuels, carbon “offsets” where forests and other carbon-rich sites are protected or an ethanol-based fuel derived from the gut bacteria found in rabbits, which has been touted by the Virgin Atlantic founder, Sir Richard Branson. A combination of different approaches may prove the way forward.
“Many of the airlines are on the sidelines looking at what we are doing and it’s our goal to go as fast as possible to get them those solutions,” said Noertker.
“This has already caught the public attention – just look at the rise of flight shaming, or France cutting short-haul flights where you can take the train instead. Call me an optimist, but coming out of this pandemic things will be shaken up and the industry will be more accepting of this technology. Things are going to change.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/may/15/black-pirate-french-classic-dvd | Film | 2011-05-14T23:05:26.000Z | Philip French | The Black Pirate – review | As Johnny Depp is about to make his fourth appearance as Captain Jack Sparrow in the latest film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, it's worth looking back to the authentic, silent, swashbuckling classic, an early two-colour Technicolor production that the athletic Douglas Fairbanks starred in 85 years ago. Fairbanks, who'd created United Artists with Chaplin, DW Griffith and Mary Pickford, came to the role after appearing as Zorro, D'Artagnan and Robin Hood, and he's a marvellous presence as the only survivor of a brutal pirate attack, bent on avenging his father's death by infiltrating a pirate crew. He performs his own stunts, fences gracefully and rescues the beautiful heroine, Billie Dove. This is a handsomely restored print, using the original score, and has an informative commentary by film historian Rudy Behlmer. The film's American director, Albert Parker, came to Britain and gave up film-making to become a successful agent, representing James Mason among many others. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/apr/23/nicholas-hytner-national-theatre-memoir-interview-bridge | Stage | 2017-04-23T08:00:08.000Z | Rachel Cooke | Nicholas Hytner: ‘I’ve always thought of theatre as a cure for loneliness’ | Nicholas Hytner makes several appearances in the diaries of Richard Eyre, one of his predecessors as director of the National Theatre. The most arresting of them, however, is definitely the first. “He has,” writes Eyre, after the pair meet for lunch in 1987, “a face like mime – Barrault from Les Enfants du Paradis – oval face, arching eyebrows, animated, almost over-animated. Flights of ideas and gossip, riffs of enthusiasm, indignation, then repose; latent violence, subverted by a childlike smile.” Eyre goes on to praise Hytner’s talent and appetite for work, but it’s those two words, “latent violence”, that linger in the mind. Picturing a dagger poking through an arras, you wonder what on earth he could have meant.
In his office by Borough market – the nerve centre of his new theatre, the Bridge, which will open in October – Hytner looks amused. “I dunno,” he says, when I ask what Eyre was getting at. “It’s always alarming to know what perceptive people have seen in you. The wonderful thing about a comment like that is that I may be so latently violent I don’t even know it about myself.” Still, it’s possible that on this occasion, the beady Eyre was mistaken. “I think Alan [Bennett, his friend and collaborator] would say that one of my faults is that I side-step conflict. I can be stubborn and strong-willed, but sometimes I will just duck out and put up a wall rather than have the row.” He shakes his head. “I really don’t like a row.”
This is certainly the impression he gives in his own memoir, out this week, a book whose very title, Balancing Acts, suggests a nimble equanimity. Even when Harold Pinter abuses him loudly in a restaurant – “You’re a fucking liar, and you’re a fucking shit!” – Hytner takes it in his stride, meekly offering the playwright an apology (he had failed to revive Pinter’s short play, Celebration). But this is not to suggest that it is totally in thrall to the actors and directors who throng its pages. Hytner, it’s true, isn’t willing to dish as Eyre did – and nor, in any case, did he keep a diary during the years (2003 to 2015) that he was running the NT. Nevertheless, the book is what you might describe as a safe space for those who maintain, as I do, a deep-seated fear of theatrical memoirs (“Darling Ken was so marvellous in Henry V!” etc).
For one thing, there is his modesty. Never reluctant to call out a flop – in the old days, he will tell me, a favourite backstage game at the NT was: “What are the 10 worst productions we’ve ever done?” – Hytner is as likely to claim that he always knew this or that play was destined to be a hit as he is to put on a farce by Ray Cooney. (After seeing a preview of the international juggernaut that was War Horse, for instance, he deemed it: “Too long. Too slow. Not clear. Indulgent, long, pretentious…”)
War Horse at the National Theatre.
For another, there is his willingness, when necessary, to send up the theatre. Even he is embarrassed by it, sometimes. “I started to sweat, hoping it would end soon,” he writes of Benedict Cumberbatch’s audition for Frankenstein, a 25-minute fiesta of grunting, mewling and twitching. By Hytner’s telling, it was often left to him to think about fun at the NT, some of his more earnest colleagues being rather neglectful of the idea of entertainment. Pondering his first season, he looks at the list of productions, a “repertoire that might have come straight from the Granville-Barker playbook”, and worries that it all seems too worthy: “An evil spirit whispered in my ear: boooring.”
Balancing Acts reminds the reader, almost inadvertently, of the astonishing success the National Theatre enjoyed during the period he ran it. Hytner transformed its box office, previously feeble, through the introduction of the Travelex season with its £10 tickets; he oversaw the staging of hit after hit, productions such as War Horse that made tons of money for the theatre when they transferred to the West End and beyond; and he oversaw an £80m redevelopment of its Grade II* listed building, a project that saw the Cottesloe, its smallest auditorium, reopen, bigger and better, as the Dorfman. What makes this all the more amazing is that the job did not (as it seems to have done to others) drive him mad or make him depressed – though we must add one proviso to this, which is that the theatre’s dustbins, in his eyes located in entirely the wrong place, did become something of an obsession.
Again, he laughs. “All roads led to those bins,” he says. “In the end, sorting them out had to be part of an £80m project. Of course, that could very easily have got to me if I’d had to work it all out for myself. But I didn’t. That was up to Nick [Starr, then the NT’s executive director, now Hytner’s partner at the Bridge theatre] and Lisa [Burger, then its chief operating officer]. I think Peter Hall [another of his predecessors] and Richard Eyre both did a lot of worrying. Peter fought a lot of battles so that his successors didn’t have to. He was this great buccaneer. But no, my book is not about my dark nights of the soul, probably because I’ve always found directing theatre to be the easiest part of my life.”
London's new Bridge theatre should encourage playwrights to think big
Michael Billington
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Wasn’t it lonely sometimes? “I’ve always thought of theatre as a cure for loneliness. For me, it’s therapy. I’ve always been rather timid about facing… [emotional] turmoil head-on. A rehearsal room isn’t cosy by any means. But ultimately, it’s not dangerous the way ongoing friendships and relationships are.”
In extremis, he would plonk himself on the casting department’s sofa and “shove” any problems he might have been having with a particular actor on to them. “And there was always somebody around: Simon Russell Beale would usually be flopped somewhere with some huge volume about Palestrina, or something.” (Beale is a former chorister with a passion for classical music.) Didn’t he ever lose his rag? “Yes, once or twice, and I always regretted it.” He came to recognise the look in the eyes of the theatre’s permanent staff – the lighting and sound teams – when they knew a show was not working. But unless he was directing the production, there was nothing to be done. It was up to the director to fix it. “Most of the time, you can only say to the people who know it can be better, that yes, it can – though, of course, sometimes it can’t.”
He is absolutely sure, now, that he left at the right time. Still, it took a while to get used to the feeling that the NT was no longer his responsibility. “There was one show I went to [after I left] where I was aware pretty quickly that the audience was bemused,” he says. “I rather liked it, but as the audience distanced itself, I felt a trickle of sweat go down the back of my neck.”
James Corden in One Man Two Guvnors at the National Theatre. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
He remembers all too well the first NT production he saw that had nothing to do with him: “Yes, because Dr Freud might have had something to say about it.” Soon after the noisy opening of Lyndsey Turner’s production of Caryl Churchill’s Light Shining in Buckinghamshire, the sound of Angela Hewitt playing Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring on the piano could faintly be heard. “What an odd choice for Lyndsey to have made, I thought. But then people started looking round and I realised I must have pocket-dialled my iTunes. I remember thinking: unconsciously, I have deliberately disrupted this show.” Him, of all people. Why on earth hadn’t he just turned the phone off? “Honestly,” he protests. “I had muted it. I didn’t know that wouldn’t affect iTunes.”
His book isn’t gossipy, but it is revealing. What we, the audience, take for magic, is often only technical expertise, and relatively small changes – sometimes, a single, subtle adjustment – can turn a play that has no spark at all into one that sets the theatre ablaze.
A few days before Richard Bean’s hugely successful farce One Man, Two Guvnors opened in 2011, for instance, the theatre invited 50 schoolchildren to watch a run-through. They didn’t take to it – something to do, Hytner thought, with the performance of its star, James Corden, which was too smart-alecky by far. “Those kids recognised him from the telly, and he played off that, which meant they failed to get something essential about the show, which was that they were supposed to be watching a simpleton in a seaside postcard Arcadia.” A couple of days later, another 50 children arrived, and this time Corden staked out his territory, hapless and bewildered, from the start: “A few high-definition bold gestures, and everything was fine.”
Nevertheless, it’s all but impossible to guarantee something will be a hit, especially a comedy. “If you could, you’d do it every time. Sometimes, a play is just not the story the audience wants to be told. With The History Boys [by Alan Bennett] there was this weird feeling five minutes into the first performance that it absolutely was. But on other occasions, a play just sits there, inert, and you can’t do a thing.”
Hytner is a neat, compact, contagiously enthusiastic figure: slickly warm, a good talker, slightly guarded, definitely circumspect, but also adorable, somehow. He does not remotely look his age, which is 60. Excessively private people are often that way for rather pompous reasons, but his reticence suggests only a certain vulnerability. He grew up in Manchester, the oldest of four. His father was a QC, and the family was prosperous, though when he attended Manchester grammar school it was grant-maintained: the council paid his fees.
He went to Cambridge, where he did some acting and directing, and afterwards worked as an assistant at the English National Opera. Later, after moving into theatre, he was hired by Cameron Mackintosh – down the impresario swooped, cawing excitedly having seen Hytner’s production of Handel’s Xerxes – to direct the musical Miss Saigon, a gig that meant (he was on a percentage) he would no longer have to worry about money in future. It is a mark of his personality – work, for him, is indivisible from life – that in the years since (it opened in 1989) he seems hardly to have stopped; and yet he has taken relatively few missteps in his career, perhaps because – and this is further evidence of his sanity – he has such a clear idea of what he is good at (theatre, opera, the occasional low-budget film), and what he is not (Hollywood, mainly).
Richard Griffiths and Frances de la Tour in The History Boys at the National Theatre. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
What would his young self have made of this career? “Oh, I was miserable [then]…” he says, answering a question I haven’t quite asked. “I enjoyed school. I was quite a bookworm, and I loved music and theatre. But Manchester in the 70s was, bluntly, a miserable place, a shadow of what it is now. And I was really unhappy about being… you know…” Looking a bit agonised, he takes a breath. “There were one or two courageous boys who were wonderfully effeminate, and just got on with it, and looking back I think: what backbone they had.”
Not so long ago, he returned to his school for the first time in ages and was shown around by a sixth former with whom the staff had decided he would get on. “He told me he was in the dramatic society. ‘And of course I’m gay, too,’ he said. He started telling me what clubs he went to, and I was so moved by it. I thought: how much easier life would have been [if things had been different in my day]. But maybe I would not have ended up in the theatre if I’d been able to go down Canal Street when I was 16.” So when did he come out? “Oh, it took for ever.” He flaps a hand. At university? “Not really. I had a fling, and then… it was the 70s and 80s, and then I got confused.” What a shame, I say. “I know,” he replies. “I look at my teens and 20s and think, what a waste.”
He would not, he thinks, have wanted to write a memoir had he and Starr not been planning their new company; it would have felt too valedictory. As it is, the book is exceedingly well timed – what an operator he is – launching just as the Bridge announces its first season. (It will include Young Marx, a new comedy by Richard Bean and Clive Coleman, starring Rory Kinnear, and a production of Julius Caesar with Ben Whishaw as Brutus, both of which Hytner will direct.) The 900-seat auditorium, close to Tower Bridge, is both the first new commercial theatre of any scale to be built in London since the 30s, and the first outside the West End. In other words, it must combine its considerable artistic ambitions – the emphasis is on new writing – with the need to put bums on seats.
But then, as both he and Starr will tell you, their optimism so tangible you can almost warm your hands on it, over the past 15 years attendances at London theatres have risen by 25%. “This dice we are rolling is very much on the basis that there is plenty of room for more theatre,” says Hytner, emphatically. Is he excited? “Yes, very.” Is he nervous? “How could you not be? But if we have good stuff, people will come.”
Balancing Acts by Nicholas Hytner is published by Jonathan Cape (£20). To order a copy for £17 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/07/syria-earthquake-aftermath-why-is-situation-so-bad-in-war-ravaged-country-aleppo-idlib | World news | 2023-02-07T08:21:42.000Z | Jonathan Yerushalmy | Syria earthquake aftermath: why is situation so bad in war-ravaged country? | Syria bears the scars of 12 years of brutal war, the effects of which are likely to hamper aid efforts in the areas worst hit by the quake. Beset by conflict, food shortages, economic collapse and a recent cholera outbreak, the country’s national infrastructure has been at crisis point for years, barely able to support its war-weary population.
And that was before the worst earthquake to hit the region in decades struck.
‘There is nothing left’: earthquake adds to suffering in war-torn Syria
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Why has the earthquake caused so much damage?
On average, there are fewer than 20 quakes over 7.0 magnitude in any year, making Monday’s 7.8 event severe.
The region most affected in Syria – the northern area that borders Turkey – had already been decimated by years of war and aerial bombardment that destroyed homes, hospitals and clinics.
Buildings in Aleppo – Syria’s prewar commercial hub – often collapse due to the dilapidated infrastructure, which has suffered from a lack of oversight during the war. In January, 13 people were killed when a five-storey residential building fell down in the city.
Aleppo bore the brunt of the combined Russian-Syrian offensive against rebel-held areas, facing relentless aerial bombardment until the rebel groups were driven out six years ago and the government reclaimed it.
Since then, many Syrians have been living in damaged buildings as there has been no systematic reconstruction of residential areas. State services remain minimal.
Can aid get to the areas that need it?
The UN says damage to roads, fuel shortages and harsh winter weather will make it difficult.
The province of Idlib, in the country’s north-west, was among the areas worst hit by the earthquake. Idlib is the country’s last rebel-held enclave. After more than a decade of fighting, millions of refugees have settled in this region, which remains outside government control.
Residents, aided by heavy equipment, search for survivors amid the rubble of collapsed buildings in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province on the border with Turkey. Photograph: Omar Haj Kadour/AFP/Getty Images
“The infrastructure is damaged, the roads that we used to use for humanitarian work are damaged, we have to be creative in how to get to the people … but we are working hard,” the UN resident coordinator, El-Mostafa Benlamlih, told the Reuters news agency.
The government in Damascus also only allows aid to enter the region through one border crossing. The Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity has said all crossings must be opened on an emergency basis.
Syria has been resistant to allowing aid into a region serving more than 4 million people because it regards the aid as undermining Syrian sovereignty and reducing its chances of winning back control of the region.
“The areas worst affected by the earthquake inside Syria look to be run by the Turkish-controlled opposition and not by the Syrian government,” said Mark Lowcock, the former head of UN humanitarian affairs. “It is going to require Turkish acquiescence to get aid into those areas. It is unlikely the Syrian government will do much to help.”
What was the situation in the north before the earthquake hit?
The frontlines of Syria’s war have been largely frozen for years, but a deepening economic crisis has led to fuel shortages, increased power cuts and growing deprivation.
The UN estimates that more than 4 million people in north-west Syria – many displaced by the conflict and living in camps – depend on cross-border aid for their day-to-day survival.
In the past, the opposition has accused Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, of withholding services from districts where the rebellion against him flared, in order to punish residents.
Additionally, dozens have been killed in a cholera outbreak that has been attributed in part to the country’s crumbling infrastructure.
Will aid to Syria need to be increased?
Even before the earthquake hit, the United Nations said the number of people in need of humanitarian support was greater than at any point since the war began, with 70% of the population requiring aid.
Last week, the World Food Programme warned that hunger rates in Syria were at their highest point since the war began; 2.9 million were at risk of sliding into hunger, while a further 12 million did not know where their next meal was coming from, the UN agency said.
The UN estimates 90% of the 18 million people in Syria are living in poverty, with the economy blighted by conflict, drought and the Covid pandemic as well as the fallout from the financial crash in neighbouring Lebanon.
Benlamlih says the earthquake will only make the situation worse. “They are the same people – suffering more,” he says.
But despite the rolling crises through which most Syrians are forced to live, international support remains underfunded. The UN received less than half of the $4.4bn (£3.7bn) it required from donors to meet growing needs in 2022, and if that trend continues, Benlamlih said the prospects for a recovery from the Syrian crisis could dim.
Additional reporting by Patrick Wintour, Reuters and Agence-France-Presse | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/mar/27/womens-super-league-talking-points-from-the-weekends-action | Football | 2023-03-27T11:35:07.000Z | Suzanne Wrack | Women’s Super League: talking points from the weekend’s action | Clubs need to do more if weekend showcase is to shine
Women’s Football Weekend has become a staple of the season after its launch in 2019. It’s a smart idea, capitalising on the men’s international break to highlight the women’s game. This time was no different, with the Football Association, Sky and the BBC heavily promoting the fixtures, which were spread across the weekend. Big crowds duly followed, but there was disappointment with the north London derby being hosted at Brisbane Road while the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was used for Saracens versus Harlequins. The pitch was so poor at Leyton Orient that it was deemed unfit for the women’s match the following day. Meanwhile, Manchester City hosted 5,222 at a packed Academy Stadium while the Etihad across the road loomed large and empty. The FA and broadcasters need the full buy-in of clubs if they are going to make the most of this particular showcase of women’s football. SW
City blow the title race wide open
After Manchester City’s energetic 2-0 victory over Chelsea on Sunday, their manager, Gareth Taylor, reiterated his belief that had his side lost, their opponents would have gone on to win the title. As it is, City’s win, their first in the league over Chelsea under Taylor, has blown the title race wide open. It remains Chelsea’s to lose though. They are one point behind City and Manchester United with a game in hand and only one game remaining against the top-four sides (as opposed to City and United’s two and Arsenal’s three), but they appear to be struggling with injuries as well as with a lack of ideas and options. A tricky game lies ahead, with Aston Villa, the WSL’s best of the rest, awaiting Chelsea after Thursday’s Champions League quarter-final second leg against Lyon. SW
A HUGE WIN!!! 💙
🔵 2-0 🦁 #ManCity pic.twitter.com/960p2D1iym
— Man City Women (@ManCityWomen) March 26, 2023
Eye-catching García finally settling at United
When Lucía García arrived at Manchester United last summer, there was plenty of anticipation around what she could achieve. Instead, it has proved to be a slow start at Old Trafford for the 24-year-old Spain international with eight starts and five goals. But if her performance at the weekend is anything to go by, she is starting to settle. A substitute in the second half against West Ham, García scored the goal of the game with a sublime touch and finish before adding another in injury time. It was a performance that caught the eye of her manager, Marc Skinner. “She’s just taken a little bit of time to adapt to the league,” he said. “When I talk about the ‘Red Devil energy’, it’s her. The way she moves, the way she presses, the way she invades space on the shoulder. She needs to keep it up now.” SD
🤷♀️ @LuciaGarcia17 brought the main character energy to Old Trafford 😮💨#MUWomen || #WSL pic.twitter.com/PLK7ip5M91
— Manchester United Women (@ManUtdWomen) March 26, 2023
Pelova and Foord show no mercy in derby drubbing
Victoria Pelova and Caitlin Foord ran the show for Arsenal in their ruthless 5-1 victory over Tottenham. Stina Blackstenius, who was a livewire at Leyton Orient, opened Arsenal’s account with a thunderous shot and Kim Little and Frida Maanum also got on the scoresheet. Foord scored twice and had Pelova to thank for them. The pair worked well together against opponents who were trapped in their own half for most of the game. “Spurs seem to be the team I can put a few away against,” said Foord. RO
Caitlin Foord celebrates scoring Arsenal’s second goal against Tottenham alongside Noelle Maritz, Victoria Pelova and Kim Little. Photograph: Paul Childs/Action Images/Reuters
Low-key rivalry makes for a healthy Merseyside meeting
The size was not the only healthy aspect of the crowd for Friday night’s Merseyside derby at Goodison Park. There were 22,161 in attendance as Everton and Liverpool played out an entertaining 1-1 draw – the previous record at Goodison had been 5,998 – which took the combined total for the two derbies this season to an impressive 49,735. It was a family-friendly occasion with blues and reds sat side-by-side, but for all the talk of local rivalry pulling in the crowds the Liverpool manager, Matt Beard, spoke passionately about the need to protect the atmosphere. “What we don’t want is it to become like the men’s game,” he said. “Families come to our games and the last thing we want is to create an atmosphere where it’s unsettling for the kids. We have to be careful when talking about rivalry, I don’t think it’s right. These young girls are going to follow their teams throughout their life, this is the start of that journey.” AH
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22,161 spectators. A new home record.
A historic night. 💙 pic.twitter.com/ykZU6gUdos
— Everton Women (@EvertonWomen) March 24, 2023
Lehmann lights up another electric Villa showing
Aston Villa’s goal of securing a top-six place move one step closer after they put five past Leicester. They illustrated why they are one of the most exciting teams in the division; in full flow, any one of their attackers can pick opponents apart in an instant. Rachel Daly regularly gets the headlines – she scored twice on Sunday – but Alisha Lehmann was central to proceedings at Villa Park. The Swiss international’s productivity is sometimes questioned, but two goals and an assist showed what she can accomplish. “Such an unbelievable talent,” said Carla Ward, the Villa manager. “It’s important we’ve got people like Alisha Lehmann in the building because she’s a top pro and a top teammate”. SD
Loves a goal at Villa Park. 💜 @lehmann_alisha pic.twitter.com/A8KhVKl9bC
— Aston Villa Women (@AVWFCOfficial) March 26, 2023
Reading and Brighton add to relegation drama
Sunday’s draw between Reading and Brighton proved there is drama in the battle for survival as well for the title. Things initially went the way of Brighton as Veatriki Sarri scored two first-half goals for the visitors, but somewhat inevitably their suspect defensive capabilities came to the fore, allowing Reading to get back into the contest via two wonderful second-half goals from the substitute Emma Harries. Exciting stuff and there is more to come at the bottom of the table before the end of the season. RO
The definition of a SUPER SUB... 🦸♀️
🔁: 45th minute
⚽️: 46th minute
⚽️: 60th minute
The perfect performance from @ReadingFCWomen's @EHarries9 to turn around a 2-0 deficit 🤩 pic.twitter.com/m6P8GxbQdP
— Barclays Women's Super League (@BarclaysWSL) March 26, 2023
Pos Team P GD Pts
1 Man Utd Women 16 33 38
2 Man City Women 16 20 38
3 Chelsea Women 15 25 37
4 Arsenal Women 15 29 35
5 Aston Villa Women 16 7 29
6 Everton Women 15 2 21
7 West Ham Women 16 -13 16
8 Liverpool FC Women 15 -11 15
9 Tottenham Hotspur Women 16 -15 12
10 Reading Women 16 -18 11
11 Brighton & Hove Albion Women 14 -28 9
12 Leicester Women 16 -31 7 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jan/14/broad-city-stoner-comedy-central-girls | Television & radio | 2015-01-14T16:30:58.000Z | Brian Moylan | Broad City: the stoner comedy that's more potent than ever | Comedy Central does a great job with sketch shows. In the days when a three-minute clip can go viral, it makes sense for the network to invest in shows that double as fodder for internet hits, boosting the viewership of Inside Amy Schumer, Key and Peele or Kroll Show. Then there’s the curious case of Broad City, one of Comedy Central’s biggest hits, which matured from a web series and has become something even more spectacular because of it.
The second season of Broad City kicks off on Wednesday at 10.30pm EST and it has become so much more than the show Amy Poehler dragged off YouTube and into the mainstream. By rights, Broad City could live on with Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer flailing around New York purveying their own brand of stoner humor. Instead, they’re aiming for something like a more authentic and absurd version of Girls that might not cut as deep intellectually but is definitely as well observed and often much funnier. They’re recent graduates with dead-end jobs, hopeless romantic lives, and nothing so great going on besides the unbreakable bond they have with each other. They’re like Laverne and Shirley, if they owned a bong and made penis jokes.
The first episode of the second season could be a sketch show. There’s a bit about the two women riding the subway, a section on Bed, Bath and Beyond (Abbi’s favorite store), and a part about trying to have sex on the hottest day of the year. The gags are as solid as they would need to be to be pulled off out of context, but Broad City is the stronger for choosing to weave them into a wider story about the desperation of modern living in the city and how absolutely absurd it is.
The key to Broad City is that the journeys of Abbi and Ilana, whether they are to find a free air conditioner, recover a lost cellphone, or just get tickets to a Lil Wayne concert, are all about bringing us closer to our heroines, their wants and desires and their shocking lack of self-awareness. What happens is that instead of a great skit playing alone, as it does on something like Inside Amy Schumer, each set piece has a compounding effect, feeding into what we already know and love about these women. You really want them to make it, even though you know they never will and that turns out to be pretty fine too.
The second season has a bit more polish than the first and the jokes and characters have the confidence that comes with experience and success. The aesthetic has always been so DIY (a gift from back in those YouTube days) that it’s actually a bit jarring to see Seth Rogen playing Male Stacy, Abbi’s love interest. Rogen is great (and between this and The Comeback, he’s making the prestige comedy cameo rounds this year), but just the presence of a real live movie star takes a little bit out of the down-to-earth proceedings. Just wait until Kelly Ripa shows up later this season playing herself. That’s going to be truly surreal (and probably quite funny).
Broad City is going to mature as Glazer and Jacobson get savvier at making television, but so far it shows no signs of turning into the maudlin mess that Girls has become. There may be some fancy guest stars, a slightly bigger budget, and actual location shoots outside of their apartments, but that just drags Abbi and Ilana closer to the truth about being young and desperate in New York. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/mar/31/david-davis-brexit-secretary-britain-eu | Politics | 2017-03-31T15:26:11.000Z | Anne Perkins | David Davis: the old knuckleduster leading Britain out of the EU | “There’s something rather Churchillian about him,” mused one of David Davis’s admirers in a recent TV profile. “He’s had his successes and he’s had his wilderness years – and now he’s back.”
This a claim that not even Davis, a man said to be able to swagger sitting down, would make. But it is true that the Brexit secretary has had an unusual and rather old-fashioned career.
First elected in 1987, of the 33 MPs from that era who are still in their jobs, Davis is the only one in government. Thirty years ago, it was rare to enter Westminster via a successful career in industry, rarer still to come from a redbrick university and grammar school. But last year, after the Old Etonians crashed and burned, he was perfectly positioned to join the revenge of the state school kids.
If it seems eccentric to compare Churchill, scion of the Dukes of Marlborough, with Davis, who was brought up in a council flat in south London, then factor in their shared attributes: unshakable self-confidence, a certain vanity, and a capacity to inspire affection and extreme irritation.
Davis is known to his friends as the old knuckleduster. To others, he is more of an inglorious bastard. He has been “shit of the year”, the recipient of the annual whips’ office award for the most awkward and unpleasant backbencher. He loves holding court at a bar or a party, where nowadays he is watched anxiously from a discreet distance by one of his special advisers. Davis enjoys being one of the lads. He may not care for effete toffs, but he got on like a house on fire with the posh MP, diarist and serial philanderer Alan Clark.
He has a long marriage to Doreen, a fellow scientist he met at university who spends most of her time in his constituency of Haltemprice and Howden in east Yorkshire. They have a family of three grown-up children and grandchildren.
Davis is a rightwing populist who resigned his seat in 2008 to fight a byelection in protest at Labour’s infringement of what he felt were core civil liberties. He cares deeply about the rule of law and sovereignty of parliament, but that did not stop him opposing giving parliament a vote on triggering article 50, and he has yet to define the “meaningful vote” he has promised on the outcome of the Brexit negotiations.
David Michael Davis was born in 1948. His early years were spent with his grandparents in York, before he joined his mother and her new husband in a council flat in south London. He passed the 11-plus and went to grammar school. When he did not get good enough A-level grades to go to university – he did subsequently – Davis became an insurance clerk and joined the SAS reserve (capable of killing, goes the joke that may well have originated with him, but only at weekends).
His stint as a part-time soldier has been good currency for the Davis image. With the much-broken nose and his enthusiasm for extreme sports and physical risk, he still looks the part. The US alt-right website Breitbart is particularly impressed. On the day of his appointment, it hailed the “SAS hardman” who was going to take Britain out of Europe.
Davis gets on well with journalists: he is engaging, not pompous, open to ideas and gossipy, as well as – adds someone who knows him well – completely ruthless and entirely devoted to the cause of David Davis.
After university and a master’s from the London Business School – he later went to Harvard for a year – Davis joined Tate & Lyle, at the time a faltering giant. Britain had just joined what was then the common market and the kind of cane sugar the company processed was being challenged by French-grown sugar beet. It was an experience that stuck with him.
Davis already had an eye on a political future. A recent BBC Newsnight profile dug out footage of him, intense and mop-haired, speaking at the Conservative party conference in the year he joined Tate & Lyle. By the time he was 38, in 1987, he was an MP, borne to Westminster by the high tide of Thatcherism. It was the year the Single European Act established the single market, the year before Thatcher’s Bruges speech catalysed anti-European sentiment and started to rip apart the Conservative party.
As Euroscepticism hardened into a faultline in the 1990s, Davis showed a handy political flexibility. Despite his own sceptical views, he became a whip, responsible for persuading fellow doubters to back the Maastricht bill. Then he became John Major’s Europe minister. Across the desk in Brussels, he established a respectful relationship with his French opposite number, Michel Barnier, the man with whom he will negotiate Brexit.
Davis’s ambition is as limitless as his self-belief. He has twice tried to become Conservative leader. He dropped out early in the 2001 contest that Iain Duncan Smith won, served briefly as party chairman and was linked to the coup that removed Duncan Smith from office in favour of Michael Howard. Davis gained a reputation as a schemer and emerged as shadow home secretary.
By 2005, with the Tories facing certain electoral defeat for the third time, Davis and his supporters had an embryonic team assembled for a leadership bid they intended to precipitate immediately after the election. Instead, Howard announced his resignation, but delayed the contest until the autumn, giving the almost unknown David Cameron the chance to build support and Davis the opportunity to sabotage himself.
He hung on as the bookies’ favourite until the Conservative conference in October 2005, when the wheels fell off in a car crash of a speech that was so boring he had to tell his audience when it was finally over.
But he did not retire quietly to the backbenches. Instead, Davis remained shadow home secretary until 2008, when he embarked on another leap into the political abyss. He resigned from the shadow cabinet and stood down from parliament to force a byelection on the issue of civil liberties. It was the day after the House of Commons had narrowly voted in favour of the counter-terrorism bill, extending detention without charge from 28 to 42 days.
None of the main parties opposed him. Cameron, who regarded the move as self-indulgent exhibitionism, was infuriated. But it was also the culmination of an extraordinary personal journey: a populist who had become shadow home secretary supporting capital punishment risked his career on the very non-populist subject of human rights.
But this apparently reckless enthusiasm for the big gesture is all of a piece with the conviction he had described years before in the handbook entitled How to Turn Around a Company. In it, he describes the importance of “taking psychological control” and “challenging everything”. Davis is known to believe that the most important part of negotiating a deal is to appear not to need to make one at all. His fingerprints are all over the government’s “no deal is better than a bad deal” mantra.
Lately, his old cross-party alliances have been crumbling, and not only because of Europe.
Those he campaigned with on civil liberties still speak warmly of his capacity to get to the political heart of any situation. But they are less flattering about his grasp of complex legal detail. They see Davis morphing back into the blokeish master of the universe who once swaggered round Westminster’s bars like a character from Life on Mars. They feel deeply betrayed by the sexist text he sent after Labour voted to trigger article 50 that belittled his old campaigning friend Diane Abbott.
However, as Davis knows, alienating old friends on the left will not do him any harm with the people he needs on board for his fight to get Britain out of the EU with a functioning trade relationship intact. There are few civil libertarians among the Brexiters on the Tory benches behind him. With an office next door to No 10, he is as close to Theresa May as anyone could be – literally and figuratively. The next two years had better be his finest hour.
Potted profile
Born: 23 December 1948
Career: Worked for the sugar company Tate & Lyle for 17 years from 1973. Has been the MP for Haltemprice and Howden (formerly Boothferry) since 1987. Was a government whip during the passage of the Maastricht bill before becoming Europe minister under John Major. Resigned as shadow home secretary in 2008 to fight a byelection in protest at Labour’s erosion of civil liberties.
High point: Becoming Brexit secretary in July 2016 and returning to the cabinet for the first time since 1997.
Low point: Failing to become Conservative leader in 2005.
What he says: “I backed Theresa May [in the leadership contest] because I can see her looking Merkel in the eye and, if need be, staring her down.”
What they say: “[Cameron] is the kind of man that mature Tory ladies have always hoped that their daughter might bring home. By contrast, the same ladies saw the Davis team as the kind of bunch of they wouldn’t want their sons to fall in with” – Conservative Home blog | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/apr/19/michael-gove-makes-case-eu-exit-bbc-today | Politics | 2016-04-19T07:56:47.000Z | Michael Gove | Michael Gove makes case for EU exit: 'It’s time to take back control' | Iwant us to vote to leave the EU before it’s too late, because that’s the safer choice for Britain. If we vote to stay we’re not settling for a secure status quo. We’re voting to be hostages locked in the back of the car and driven headlong towards deeper EU integration.
Brussels has already set out some of its plans for the next great transfer of powers to the EU in what’s called the Five Presidents’ Report. The EU wants more power over taxes and banks. Sadly, we’ve surrendered our veto on these moves. And – what’s worse – if we try to object, the European court of justice can overrule us.
The court has been strengthened through the new charter of fundamental rights. It can now control how we apply asylum rules, how our intelligence services monitor suspected terrorists, and whom we can deport. And just as we are losing all this power, we’re on the hook to pay more money as new countries join the EU.
But if we vote to leave, we take back control. We can take back the £350m we give to the EU every week. We can spend more on our priorities like the NHS. We can take back control of our economy.
The EU has failed to secure trade deals with the huge economies of India, China and America. Outside the EU we can cut those deals. Outside the EU, we would still benefit from the free trade zone which stretches from Iceland to the Russian border. But we wouldn’t have all the EU regulations which cost our economy £600m every week.
We can take back control of our borders. Inside the EU we have to accept that anyone with an EU passport – even if they have a criminal record – can breeze into this country. That will include countries in the pipeline to join the EU – Albania, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey.
Outside the EU, we could have a points-based system like Australia. We could welcome talented people from across the world but block those whose presence here isn’t in our interests.
Britain is a great country – the world’s fifth largest economy with the world’s best armed forces, best health service and best broadcaster. We are first in the world for soft power thanks to our language, culture and creativity. And yet the in camp try to suggest that we’re too small and too weak, and our people are too hapless and feckless to succeed without Jean-Claude Juncker looking after us. That’s a deeply pessimistic and negative vision.
Britain could do better. We’re a uniquely inventive nation. Our greatest invention is representative democracy – the principle that the people who run our country should be chosen by us and can be kicked out by us. It’s time to take back control. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/oct/13/andrew-kerr | Music | 2014-10-13T18:29:22.000Z | Jonathan Sale | Andrew Kerr obituary | Andrew Kerr, who has died at the age of 80, was one of the founders of the Glastonbury festival (or "fair", as it was named in 1971). It was after attending the somewhat shambolic Isle of Wight festival in 1970 that he declared: "We've got to have a proper festival," and approached the Somerset dairy farmer Michael Eavis, who was already staging a small festival near Glastonbury.
"What I was asking seemed even to me a bit loopy," admitted Kerr later. For the summer solstice of the following year, he planned a festival in the vale of Avalon; the event would be free, making it "a giving event which sought a spiritual awakening and a demonstration against greed". It would be funded largely by Kerr (he ended up selling his grandfather's 60-year-old 12-bore shotguns) and by Sir Winston Churchill's 22-year-old granddaughter, Arabella Churchill, who was Deb of the Year in 1967 before she revealed her inner hippy. Her brother, the MP Winston Churchill, considered Kerr to be "intolerably hip", a description that he delightedly took for the title of his fascinating if ragged memoirs (2011).
Perhaps surprisingly, Eavis agreed to let this "crowd of upper-crust hippies" rent Worthy Farm, in Pilton, Somerset, which conveniently turned out to be on the ley line between Glastonbury Abbey and Stonehenge. Bands playing on the stage, built in a pyramid shape that came to the designer in dreams, included Fairport Convention, Arthur Brown, David Bowie, Traffic and Hawkwind.
Kerr was a member of the hip upper-middle-class 1960s set fascinated by "earth mysteries", and Glastonbury, with its Arthurian legends, drew his crowd like a mythical magnet. Educated at Radley college, he was the walking symbol of the worlds of relaxed privilege and mysticism. Jan Roberts, whose late husband Tony was a fellow student of the "sacred geometry" of the landscape, recalls "the great hair and the very regal attitude".
For Kerr the two worlds often collided. Sitting stoned next to Princess Margaret at a dinner, he horrified fellow guests by explaining to her at some length and volume that Jesus was a "hybrid" from a planet named Heaven; it was said that she passed this intriguing theory on to the archbishop of York.
The pyramid at Worthy farm, Pilton, for the Glastonbury festival, or 'fair' as it was in 1971. Bands playing on the stage included Fairport Convention, Arthur Brown, David Bowie, Traffic and Hawkwind. Photograph: PA Archive/Press Association Images
Born to Mark Kerr, a naval commander, and his wife, Mary, Andrew was a descendant of the third duke of Buccleuch, and was described by his eldest brother Frederick as "one of the two black sheep of the family". (Freddie admitted he was the other.) He grew up in Oxfordshire and Devon, and was considered charming and charismatic, although his four siblings irreverently referred to him as Ape.
He began his working life with a brief stint in advertising and a longer period at the AA as a receptionist. In 1957 a man he met in a Soho bar said: "Why don't you have my job?" Next morning Kerr found himself on a train to the Suffolk mansion of Randolph Churchill, father of Arabella, whom he met there for the first time. He was promptly hired, initially as a researcher on the biography of Sir Anthony Eden.
Despite being dyslexic and having only six School Certificates, the new employee became invaluable to the autocratic boss as a friend, fellow drinker, proofreader, personal assistant and the only person who could operate the boiler. He was working on the next project, a massive biography of Sir Winston, when Randolph died in June 1968. Devastated, Kerr left soon afterwards and became a researcher at Yorkshire TV.
After the end of the first five-day Glastonbury fair, Kerr and his partner, Jytte Piggott, left for Scoraig, a remote Scottish croft, where they had two children. When the relationship foundered, a desolate Kerr returned south. He became a worker for the Divine Light Mission of Guru Maharaj Ji, who had given the fair the benefit of his wisdom, addressing it at the age of 14.
Kerr built dry-stone walls. He crewed yachts. He went to Hollywood to write a script. He set up The Whole Earth Show in Dorset in 1992. Meanwhile the Glastonbury fixture had taken on a life of its own, as people turned up over the midsummer period every year for impromptu cavortings.
In 1981 Eavis took over the renamed Glastonbury festival and Kerr came "home" on this occasion and in subsequent years, helping to celebrate the 40th anniversary in 2011 with performers from the original 1971 event. He was still visiting the site until a few days before his death.
He is survived by his children, Martha and Jonah.
Andrew Philip Kerr, born 29 November 1933; died 6 October 2014 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jul/10/hobbit-weinstein-warner-the-butler-dispute | World news | 2013-07-10T11:56:50.000Z | Ben Child | Hobbit profits at centre of The Butler title row, says Harvey Weinstein | Hollywood super producer Harvey Weinstein has accused studio Warner Bros of trying to bully his smaller production house into giving up its share of profits from the Hobbit films in exchange for naming rights to the forthcoming Oscar-tipped film The Butler, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Warner and the Weinsteins are locked in a highly public battle over the title. Warner Bros claims it owns the name The Butler courtesy of a little-known 1919 silent comedy short with the same title, and has won backing from the Motion Picture Association of America's (MPAA) Title Registration Bureau, which mediates such disputes. But Weinstein, who has hired a high-profile lawyer, David Boies, to continue fighting his case, yesterday took to US TV show This Morning to bite back.
"I was asked by two execs at Warner Brothers, which I'm happy to testify to, that if I gave them back the rights to The Hobbit they would drop the claim," Weinstein said on the CBS news magazine show. "For a 1916 short? This was used as a bullying tactic. I think this is 100%. This was the big guy trying to hit the small guy."
MPAA chairman Chris Dodd also appeared on This Morning to argue for continued talks between the Weinsteins and Warner. "They need to sit down and resolve this," he said. "There's an appeals process, go through that. There's no reason why this needs to become as large an issue as it is." He later added: "Sit down and work it out. This is silly."
The Weinstein Company maintains a share of rights to The Hobbit, which gives them at least 2.5% of The Hobbit's first-dollar gross thanks to Bob and Harvey Weinstein's previous ownership of Miramax, which once considered making films based on JRR Tolkien's Middle Earth-set fantasy works. Warner Bros has denied any link between the Butler title spat and Peter Jackson's current film trilogy, with the studio issuing a statement dismissing Weinstein's comments.
"The Weinstein Company, as the New York Times has noted, is following an oft-trodden path of creating 'well-publicised controversies' in order to promote their films by disseminating deliberate misinformation about the true nature of this dispute," the statement reads. "The Weinsteins are sophisticated experts in this arena and three neutral arbitrators have penalised them for blatantly disregarding MPAA rules. It goes without saying that Warner Bros has no issue with Lee Daniels' film (never has) and fully supports the artistic goals of the film-makers. The Weinsteins' suggestions to the contrary are deeply offensive and untrue."
The Butler is seen as one of the early contenders for awards season success in 2014. The film's much-garlanded cast includes Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker as a servant called Cecil Gaines, based on the real-life White House butler Eugene Allen, who served presidents between 1952 and his retirement in 1986. Oprah Winfrey plays Gaines's wife, Gloria, with British actor David Oyelowo as his civil-rights activist son, Louis. Robin Williams, Melissa Leo, James Marsden, Minka Kelly, John Cusack, Alan Rickman and Jane Fonda appear as the various US presidents and first ladies Gaines meets along the way. The film is directed by Lee Daniels, of Precious fame, and will debut in the US on 16 August. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2011/apr/27/macbeth-review | Stage | 2011-04-26T23:46:54.000Z | Michael Billington | Macbeth - review | Macbeth claims that Duncan's sons flee Scotland "filling their hearers with strange invention". But Michael Boyd's production, the first new show in this beautifully revamped theatre, has plenty of strange inventions of its own. Even if some of Boyd's ideas seem capricious, nobody could deny this is a wildly original production.
The concept is to set the play in a Reformation world symbolised, in Tom Piper's set, by fractured stained-glass windows and desecrated religious icons. Scotland becomes a place of brutal pragmatism in which Ross is transformed from an anonymous thane into a relic of an isolated priesthood. The notion of Macbeth as a tyrannical enemy of spirituality is reinforced by a device that Boyd deployed in his Shakespeare histories: the dead are ever-present; by the end, the ghosts of Banquo, Duncan, Lady Macduff and her brood all return to rejoice in the hero's downfall and to rebut his claim about the brevity and insignificance of life.
All this is fascinating. But it runs counter to Macbeth's earlier awareness of divine sanctions. Boyd also dispenses with the Weird Sisters, putting their prophecies into the mouths of children. This leads to a later visual coup, when Macbeth is confronted by a vision of a line of kings consisting of descending puppets, but it destroys Shakespeare's superbly atmospheric opening. The presence on an upper level of three lady cellists, plangently accompanying the action, is no compensation. And, though the idea of a porter setting off fireworks refers to the Gunpowder Plot, it distracts from the real point which is the character's reference to equivocation.
Boyd's inventiveness also tends to crowd the actors. Jonathan Slinger makes little of Macbeth's initial struggles with his fretful conscience. He only comes into his own when crowned, turning Macbeth into a berserk, snickering slaughterer who is prey to nightmarish fantasies: most sensationally when he imagines Banquo's ghost slitting his throat. But Aíslin McGuckin is a fine, steely Lady Macbeth, and Scott Handy impressively turns the ubiquitous Ross into a shining embodiment of virtue.
Bursting with ideas, the production was acclaimed by the audience. But, for once, the description of Macbeth as "this dead butcher" seemed all too apt. And I would have liked more focus on the performances rather than the concept: a little more, you might say, of the Slinger rather than the song. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2019/oct/28/england-response-haka-encouraged-not-penalised-new-zealand-rugby-world-cup | Sport | 2019-10-28T10:14:28.000Z | Liam Napier | England’s response to the haka should be encouraged, not penalised | Liam Napier | The V-shaped formation England went for in Yokohama, which emulated France’s response to the haka in the 2011 World Cup final at Eden Park, set the tone for their dominant semi-final victory over the All Blacks.
Sure, several players stepped over the halfway line and World Rugby probably feels duty-bound to fine England for breaching this rule, having done likewise with France eight years ago. It must also be acknowledged that officials were only doing their job in attempting to instruct England prop Joe Marler, and others, to move back behind the line. Those players knew exactly what they were doing.
England could face fine following their response to New Zealand’s haka
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From a spectator perspective, though, England added to the theatre without overstepping the boundaries of decency. They made their point, and then backed it up. Their response enhanced pre-match tension and heightened expectation for those at the venue, and those watching around the world.
While the All Blacks are adamant England’s actions during the haka had no material impact on the performance or outcome, their alignment immediately signalled intent to meet the three-time world champions head on – and they did exactly that.
Haka in all forms is often misunderstood or misrepresented globally so it is important to appreciate its many purposes within New Zealand culture. At weddings, funerals, and to mark many other significant occasions and events, haka is often performed as a sign of respect.
It carries deep meaning throughout New Zealand, with hundreds of schools and towns crafting their own unique versions that embody their people, history and surroundings. This is true for the All Blacks and other New Zealand sports teams, too. Haka is about more than they alone. The ritual allows the team to connect with each other before engaging in brutal physical battles, and sets the challenge for what’s to come in the 80 minutes.
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When performed with pride, haka forms a special source of inspiration. Equally, then, why should the opposition be confined in the way they connect in the face of this challenge?
England’s response said “challenge laid down, challenge accepted”. Such a message should be embraced. As long as the opposition do not turn their backs or respond in a way which seeks only to cause offence, teams should be able to react as they see fit, rather than being forced to stand in military fashion behind the line.
England players look on while New Zealand players perform a haka. Photograph: Francois Nel/World Rugby via Getty Images
This was not anywhere near the infamous scene from 1997 when opposing English and New Zealand hookers Richard Cockerill and Norm Hewitt clashed in their gripping face-to-face standoff during the haka.
Rugby has too many high-powered twitchy sponsors to allow similar incidents these days but I’m sure the vast majority of observers welcomed England’s response on this occasion. Former England fly-half Stuart Barnes took it too far when he said every team should also have their own pre-game dance, Michael Jackson, or bob shuffle.
‘We knew it would rile them’: Mako Vunipola on England’s haka response
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Haka is no passing pop song but, rather, a deep-rooted tradition that deserves the upmost respect. It is not, however, beyond the scope of being challenged. In fact, haka is at its best when exactly this occurs.
When New Zealand squares off against its Pacific neighbours we see Samoa’s Siva Tau, Tonga’s Sipi Tau and Fiji’s Cibi often performed in unison, in direct opposition, to the haka. The same is true when any number of New Zealand first XV rugby teams clash. Haka plays a major role in these embedded rivalries, with the packed stands performing their challenge alongside players on the pitch.
Atmospheres created by these haka send shivers down the spine. England, clearly, do not share that same indigenous heritage. They and others should, however, be well within their rights to respond as they did in Yokohama.
It sure beats the lame attempts to drown out the haka with songs, some of which have no connection to the countries in question. | Full |
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