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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jun/23/mea-maxima-culpa-dvds-kermode | Film | 2013-06-22T23:05:29.000Z | Mark Kermode | Mark Kermode's DVD round-up | In the wake of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI, film-maker Alex Gibney told the Hollywood Reporter that the unorthodox move (the first such resignation in six centuries) "seems to me inextricably linked to the sex-abuse crisis". Certainly, Gibney's harrowing documentary Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God (2012, Element, Exempt) cannot have made life in the Vatican comfortable, particularly since the investigation of the Catholic church's failure to act over a priest's abuse of young boys at St John's School for the Deaf in Milwaukee leads directly to the door of Cardinal Ratzinger.
Gibney's central accusation is that, as prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, Ratzinger knew much but did little, a pattern that seems to have existed for centuries within the Vatican, wherein detailed records of priestly abuse are alleged to date back to the 4th century. Among the more belief-defying information uncovered in this searing indictment of self-protection is evidence of a down payment placed by the church on a private island in the Caribbean whereupon paedophile priests were to be housed, away from the scrutiny of the press. Most moving, however, are the herculean efforts of the signing community to have their story heard despite the Vatican's determination to turn a deaf ear. Gibney's may be a film-making voice, but it is the strength, fortitude and unbreakable spirit of these survivors which rings through loud and clear.
The temptation to add the words "minutes too long" to the title of Judd Apatow's midlife crisis rom(non)com This is 40 (2012, Universal, 15) is overwhelming; of its many shortcomings, length is sadly not one. Described as a "sort of sequel" to Knocked Up and a "very personal" project for writer/director Apatow, this follows second stringers Pete and Debbie (Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann) as they encounter what pass for "universal problems" in a particularly rarefied world. That the film is nothing like as funny as it needs to be would be less problematic were it filled with acutely observed insights into ageing and marriage, yet I struggled to recognise or connect with the conflicts or the conversations of anyone (male, female, old, young) on screen. More worryingly, I started having nostalgic thoughts about the "early funny ones" – which I never found that funny the first time round.
They were all, however, works of Wilderesque genius compared with Movie 43 (2013, Momentum, 15), about which I hesitate to use the word "abominable" for fear that they may use it in the publicity. Picture Richard Gere inserting his fingers into the vagina of a life-size doll, only to have them snicked by a swiftly rotating fan; or an animated cat watching Josh Duhamel and Elizabeth Banks having sex while sodomising itself with a hairbrush; or Hugh Jackman spilling creamy soup on to the pendulous testicles that hang from his chin while Kate Winslet stifles vomit; or ... I could go on, but you'd only become morbidly fascinated and I wouldn't want that on my conscience.
For all its grotesquery, the only interesting thing about Movie 43 is the thought that producer Peter Farrelly must have pictures of each of the film's galaxy of stars doing really unspeakable things – how else do you explain their presence here? Completists will be delighted to know that the DVD comes with the alternate Dennis Quaid/Greg Kinnear pitch wraparound which UK cinemagoers were spared.
The main problem with the straight-faced F*ck for Forest (2012, Dogwoof, 18) is that the story of eco-hippies producing leafy porn to save trees is much better suited to a raucous five-minute segment on Eurotrash than a slightly depressing feature-length documentary. Things start jovially enough in bohemian Berlin, where everyone appears to be living in a reality TV show anyway, but by the time our heroic trash humpers start heading upriver in the Amazon to liberate the rainforests with new age erotica, the tribespeople aren't the only ones wanting to send them away with a flea in their ear.
After the mash-up history of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter and the revisionist fairytales of Mirror Mirror, Red Riding Hood and Snow White and the Huntsman, along comes Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013, Paramount, 15) to put an end to whatever fun we may have been having so far. Charismatic Gemma Arterton and bit-dull-really Jeremy Renner play the now adult titular pair who escaped from the gingerbread house of legend to wage steampunk war on witches for evermore. It's clunky, clod-hopping fare, utterly bereft of wit and inspiration,settling instead for CGI gore and anachronistic cussing. Boo.
A well-worn tale of power, corruption and lies, Broken City (2013, StudioCanal, 15) finds talented director Allen Hughes turning in a respectable if unremarkable thriller in which ex-cop Mark Wahlberg gets dragged into an all too apparent web of mayoral deceit. Russell Crowe chews the scenery as the bullish king of New York, Catherine Zeta-Jones bristles as the wife with more than a divorce case on her hands, and everyone keeps waiting for someone to say: "Forget it Jake, it's Chinatown." That no one does is just about the only surprise. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/aug/10/drc-conflict-minerals-restrictions-useful | Global development | 2011-08-10T15:28:23.000Z | Salil Tripathi | Ignore the naysayers, restrictions on DRC conflict minerals remain vital | A string of recent media comments have argued that a piece of US legislation aimed at ending conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) actually hurts civilians.
Pieces in the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor and the New York Times all make the same point – that requiring companies to identify the source of their minerals will drive investment away from the DRC and keep people poor. It is a familiar argument, often made with regard to economic sanctions. It is also simplistic and wrong.
Critics say that, despite good intentions, the Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, popularly known as the Dodd-Frank Act, harms the poorest artisanal miners in the Congo. The relevant section of the Dodd-Frank Act (pdf) requires companies purchasing minerals from Congo to disclose measures taken to exercise due diligence on the sources and supply chains of specific resources associated with conflict in the region.
As with diamonds from Sierra Leone, Liberia and Angola in the 1990s, minerals from the DRC provide revenue for armed groups to buy weapons to continue fighting. Eastern Congo, where these minerals are found, is an area where murders, massacres, rapes, and other acts of gender-based violence are widespread. According to Global Witness, companies from around the world, including China and Malaysia, are working to extract the region's precious resources. To gain access, they must deal with commanders accused of ordering mass atrocities. This exposes them to potential criminal liability and complicity in rights violations.
Critics rightly contend that requiring companies to demonstrate they are not contributing to conflict will result, at least in the short term, in some leaving the DRC to source minerals elsewhere. When that happens, artisanal miners lose income and, without alternative employment opportunities, many will be pushed deeper into poverty.
But Global Witness and the Enough Project, which have spearheaded international campaigns against sourcing minerals from the DRC, aren't naive. They are aware of the impact of such measures on artisanal miners, but also see a greater evil: prolonged conflict. The problem is that the role of natural resource exploitation in the ongoing crises in the eastern DRC is complex and defies a quick fix; it is a reminder that resource governance is an enduring challenge in fragile states.
Should similar measures – the ethical sourcing of cocoa from Ivory Coast, sugarcane from Caribbean islands and South America, diamonds from Sierra Leone, and cotton from Uzbekistan – also be given up where they impact negatively on local job opportunities? Restrictions on conflict minerals alone won't end unrest in the DRC. But not having any restrictions on products known to fuel conflict, ostensibly to preserve livelihoods for the country's people, won't make matters better, either.
Instead, for the Dodd-Frank Act to work, we need a more comprehensive, global approach. Examples of initial, co-ordinated efforts include the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's work to help companies procure minerals responsibly. There are also initiatives by the World Gold Council and jewellers' associations to eliminate links with conflict. Such campaigns suggest major actors are eager to support serious measures. But greater co-ordination is still needed.
The challenge for companies working in the DRC and other difficult environments is to develop measures which ensure they source from entities not party to conflict. It would be a shame if they were to shirk that responsibility now the UN Framework for Business and Human Rights and Guiding Principles is in place as an authoritative basis for government and corporate action at all levels.
For the international community, meanwhile, the task is to establish conditions in which economic activity that promotes peace and sustainable development can flourish. That means providing more resources for peacekeeping, preventing the flow of illegal arms, and prosecuting war criminals.
Governments cannot outsource those critical measures to business. Business cannot avoid calls for due diligence. Both must act to improve the lives of people in the DRC. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/mps-more-transparency-uk-use-drones | World news | 2014-03-25T00:01:00.000Z | Richard Norton-Taylor | MPs call for more transparency over UK's use of drones | Ministers should be more open about the use of drones, but the unmanned aerial weapons are here to stay and should be welcomed, the Commons defence committee says in a report released on Tuesday.
The report says that public disquiet about the controversial weapons – or "remotely piloted air systems" as the RAF prefers to call them – has been fed in part by "misunderstandings and misinformation".
The pilots of unmanned aircraft are not the video gaming "warrior geeks" they are often portrayed as being, and according to the Ministry of Defence, British "remotely piloted combat missions will always involve human operators and pilots", the report says.
The MoD says it is aware of only one incident in which a strike by an armed UK Reaper unmanned aircraft killed civilians. That was on 25 March 2011, when four Afghan civilians were killed.
However, a freedom of information request last month by the campaign group Drone Wars UK revealed that British pilots launched at least 39 missile strikes against suspected Taliban insurgents from American drones in Afghanistan.
Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, subsequently told MPs that the UK and the US operated a "combined fleet" of Reapers, piloted by personnel from either country.
In a separate answer, the junior defence minister, Anna Soubry, told MPs that apart from launching operations, UK Reapers had always been operated by UK pilots.
The defence committee's report points to the "apparently inconsistent answers by ministers". They must make it clear whether or not British Reapers have ever been operated by Americans outside launch and recovery operations, the committee says.
"If public confidence is to be built around the use of remotely piloted air systems it is important that it is clear that UK aircraft have only been utilised within Afghanistan and always in accordance with UK rules of engagement," say the MPs.
The UN and campaign groups have strongly attacked "targeted killings" by unmanned aircraft. The defence committee says it acknowledges " a growing concern in relation to the sharing of intelligence with allies and the uses to which such data may contribute" – a reference to the UK passing information about individuals to the US.
"We do believe that there should be greater transparency in relation to safeguards and limitations the UK government has in place for the sharing of intelligence," says the defence committee making it plain that Britain should not get embroiled in US operations.
"It is of vital importance that a clear distinction be drawn between the actions of UK armed forces operating remotely piloted air systems in Afghanistan and those of other states elsewhere," the report says. Though the MPs say on the basis of the evidence they received, they are satisfied UK remotely piloted air system operations "comply fully with international law", they make it clear they cannot give the same assurances about US operations.
Chris Cole of Drone Wars UK attacked the report for not demanding that all casualties of RAF unmanned vehicle strikes should be revealed as well as the names of the four Afghan civilians killed.
He added: "Although the report acknowledges a sense of public disquiet about the increasing use of armed drones, they suggest this is fed by 'misunderstandings and misinformation'. This is nonsense and the committee knows there is a serious and well informed opposition to the growing use of armed drones for remote warfare."
Jeff Powell, campaigns and policy director at the charity War on Want, said: "It is shocking that this committee has ignored growing public anger over killer drones, and instead claims people 'misunderstand' their use."
Kat Craig, legal director at human rights charity Reprieve, said: "British ministers, like their US counterparts, have refused to come clean with the public over the role our country plays. It is high time the secret drone programme – and Britain's part in it – was brought out of the shadows."
The increasing civilian use of unmanned aircraft for surveillance, including border security, has potential serious implications for personal privacy, including data protection, Tuesday's report adds.
"Surveillance, whether by the police, state intelligence agencies or private companies, will need to be carefully reviewed and updated," it says.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said: "Ministers have always been very clear: UK Reaper RPAS have only ever been used operationally in Afghanistan and, outside of the launch and recovery phase, have only been operated by UK pilots."
The armed forces minister, Mark Francois, said: "With so much argument surrounding the UK's use of remotely-piloted air systems, it is very welcome to see the independent Commons defence committee recognise publicly their value and effectiveness, and that operations comply fully with international law.
"I am particularly pleased to note the committee's recognition of the highly skilled personnel who operate this equipment, supporting and protecting our ground troops, our allies and Afghan civilians on a daily basis.
"I hope this very positive report helps to dispel some of the frustrating myths often propagated, and reassure people that remotely-piloted air systems bring life-saving benefit to our armed forces, and to those we are working to protect, every day." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2002/may/26/worldcupfootball2002.sport11 | Football | 2002-05-25T23:24:34.000Z | Kevin Mitchell | Roy Keane: the man who wanted more | Roy Keane is the Van Morrison of Irish football: inspirational, infuriating, private, passionate and rarely wrong. That is the picture, anyway. What is he really like? It depends who you talk to. Mick McCarthy thinks Keane is a law unto himself and he'd willingly throw him over the beauty spot he took the Ireland team to the other day in Saipan: Suicide Cliff. Eamonn Dunphy, who is writing the player's biography (and what a seller that will now be), says Roy is a largely misunderstood man.
They're both probably right. But the one person who seems to understand him best is the man he most resembles in character and personality. And one day, he might just have his job.
When Alex Ferguson changed his mind about retiring as the manager of Manchester United this year, it was thought he was keeping the seat warm for Sven-Göran Eriksson, Martin O'Neill (who disputed the suggestion vehemently) or Ottmar Hitzfeld of Bayern Munich.
Nobody mentioned Keane. Why would they? He has four years left on his playing contract. But he also has a recurring knee injury, as well as problems with his back and hip. His wife and four children have told him they would like to see more of him around the house. He is 31 years old and running out of not just patience but time.
There is a further clue. Tucked away in the quite marvellous interview he gave The Irish Times last week is a paragraph that was largely lost in the row that ensued. Do you think you'll go into management, Tom Humphries asked him, or 'would you walk away from football altogether?'
That second option crystallised Keane's dilemma. The prospect of giving up football is disturbing for someone whose commitment to it is so consuming, almost manically so.
'It could go either way,' he said. 'I'd be very capable of walking away but I see the challenge of being a manager, I'd love to pull the strings of a big club, players, listen to people. I look at our manager [Alex Ferguson] and I think about it. I know it's stressful. People will say, if I'm going to walk away from this, what chance do I have of being a manager? I don't know. I think I'd enjoy that challenge. At the end of the day, I enjoy managing myself regarding looking after myself, stretching, weights. I'd enjoy stretching that. Good players and good people with me, people I could trust. I'd like that.'
'People I could trust'. It has become clear in the past few days that there are not many of them in the Ireland set-up. He even questioned the wholeheartedness of some of his United team-mates at the end of a trophy-free season. It is Old Trafford, though, that he considers home. He has been there nine years and, if he stays in football, it is unlikely he could easily start again somewhere else, on or off the pitch.
The notion that Keane could one day manage Manchester United might sound ludicrous three days after he was sacked from the Ireland team for launching a paint-stripping tirade at McCarthy that was extreme by even his own demanding standards.
But, in many ways, he is the perfect replacement for Ferguson - if United can handle more of the same. The biggest club in the world needs a leader of comparable stature. Keane might be a disaster (Ferguson almost was), or he might find a maturity and discipline that sometimes have eluded him as a player.
There can be no doubting his passion for the task, nor his uncompromising, draining perfectionism. It was there for all to see in Saipan, as he railed in print at the Irish football establishment for their amateurism as well as chiding Niall Quinn and Jason McAteer for deigning to pretend they understood him (very Van Morrison, that). He also implied strongly that McCarthy should have been doing more to rectify the structural faults. And afterwards, spectacularly, the captain left his manager in no doubt as to what he thought of him as a man and a coach.
'You were a crap player, you are a crap manager,' he told McCarthy at that fateful team meeting. 'The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are manager of my country and you're not even Irish, you English c***. You can stick it up your bollocks.'
Keane said before his departure, which followed that outburst, that he was leaving his international career behind him with 'no regrets'. He might change his mind about that when the full import of his behaviour is digested, when the reactions in Ireland especially are stacked up with all the solemnity of evidence in a murder trial.
The day after he was dismissed, public opinion in Ireland was running slightly against him. Jack Charlton led the criticism. But there were friends about, too. Paul McGrath, himself a turbulent character, who was sympathetically handled by both Ferguson and Charlton, described the affair as 'a terrible tragedy for Irish football'. He was disgusted with McCarthy. As was Dunphy. Kevin Sheedy reckoned 'it has all become too much for McCarthy to handle'. And Ray Houghton defended his old team-mate, pointing out that 'Roy was standing up for all the lads' - a view backed up by Tony Adams elsewhere in these pages.
As Keane sees it, that is what leaders do. He pointedly did not think McCarthy was showing those qualities and said so - in that unforgivable exit speech at the 'private' team meeting. Keane went beyond self-defence, descending into vein-busting, personal abuse, the sort of language that would earn Roy a right-hander in any pub in Cork. Or Barnsley.
As McCarthy said, nobody should be spoken to like that. But it was partly the manager's fault. Honestly, how did he expect the most volatile force in football to react to a dressing-down in front of the players for what was, essentially, a correct assessment of the problems that have dogged Irish football for years - and one with which McCarthy largely agrees, for that matter?
To be fair to McCarthy, he had tried to do it quietly earlier in the week when Keane had first threatened to leave the squad. What is hard to understand is why he found The Irish Times interview such an affront to his authority.
Keane, as captain, has a right, a duty even, to speak about the conditions his players are lumbered with on the eve of the biggest tournament in world sport. That he chose to be more expansive about other issues will not have surprised anyone, though, as his thoughts on the attitude of some players have been known for a long time. If he was guilty of anything, it was candour. And, in the modern media age of sponsor-led interviews, ghosted rubbish masquerading as celebrity columns and avalanche righteousness across the commentary spectrum, such frankness is, apparently, a hanging offence.
There are other issues at play in the great Keane debate, more fundamental ones. And you knew what they were the moment Ireland's Taoiseach , Bertie Ahern, was asked to intervene on Friday. This is about national pride.
It is tempting to regard Keane as the embodiment of the Celtic Tiger: ambitious, tired of being patted on the head, not wanting to settle for 'heroic failure', as that sensible Irish writer Fintan O'Toole said in The Guardian on Friday. This puts Keane at odds with the less stressful Irishness of old.
There is a theory that, now Keane is gone, Ireland can lower their expectations, relax and enjoy the World Cup. But anyone who clings to this nonsensical argument will be disabused of it if he or she stands beside a throng of Ireland fans watching their team play Cameroon on Saturday.
And that was the killer thrust of Keane's considered rant. He expressed it succinctly in the interview. He is tired of being a lovable loser. 'But you know, we're the Irish team, it's a laugh and a joke. We shouldn't expect too much...'
Was Keane right? You'd have to be Irish to know. Or pretend to know.
After all the inquisitions, we will get down to the football. As ever. It's only a game, as Dunphy once said. I spoke to him a few weeks ago in Dublin about the Irish team, about McCarthy and the feeling inside the team and in the country at large. He made the point then that there was an upside to Ireland's relaxed attitude about the fortunes of the national team. Had McCarthy been in charge of England, Dunphy said, he would not have survived that disastrous sequence of six defeats at the beginning of his term - but, equally, there had been a growth in confidence since then. Expectations and self-belief have risen, not out of proportion, but enough to notice. Ireland had shed some of that stifling quaintness.
Last week, Dunphy was in no doubt where the blame lay for his friend's extraordinary final days as an Ireland player. Before he'd been sacked, he had done no more than articulate legitimate concerns; after the fall, whatever the excesses of his argument with McCarthy, it was the manager who ultimately got it wrong.
As someone commissioned for what is no doubt a reasonable fee to write Keane's book, Dunphy would be expected to say that. But I think Dunphy is right. It was the punch McCarthy didn't have to throw. Because it was a fight he didn't have to pick.
Dunphy is one of the few people who could claim to know Keane well. He says the perception that Keane might have been acting like a pampered millionaire footballer is way wide of the mark. He is certainly used to the best at Old Trafford, but he doesn't think it unreasonable that the Ireland team should be treated as least as well.
Dunphy describes him as 'a bright and funny man', who enjoys the company of his family over that of his team-mates, who is happiest doing the simple things. He is, in short, no ogre. Like Dunphy - and McCarthy, for that matter - he cares.
Nevertheless, he provokes strong reactions either way. And those among his enemies who have had enough of his scowling presence seized gleefully on rumours about his private life that were mischievously floated on Friday.
The Sun headlined their front page, 'Riddle Of Roy's Rage'. A story that hinted everything but revealed nothing, said, 'Within hours of the flare-up, rumours were sweeping football that problems in the star's private life had led him to blow his top.'
The Daily Mirror used the story in a different way. 'Keane Abused McCarthy In A Bid To Be Sent Home.' Why? He'd said on Tuesday he was going, and was only persuaded to stay after a long phone conversation with Ferguson.
When Ireland do go out of the tournament, then, people will point out that Keane would have made a difference. He can't win the World Cup on his own, no more than he can cure the common cold; but his contribution to what is essentially a good club side goes beyond his own performance and it would have given them a much better chance of advancing in world terms. For all the emotion that accompanied Jack Charlton's fairytale, Ireland won only won match in open play in two World Cups under him. Keane wanted to do better than that, even with this moderate if otherwise happy team. If you look at the 32 finalists, no one player matters more to his team. Not Beckham for England. Not Zidane for France. Keane brings presence. He is so influential he affects play when he is nowhere near it. And he is nowhere near it now.
Simultaneously entertaining for disinterested observers and painful for those closer to the action, Keane's was a roar in the dark. And McCarthy didn't want to listen to the lion.
Who is playing for United now, synonymous with their success in the past decade and symbolic of their insatiable desire for more? Who already has the respect of everyone at Old Trafford, embodies every bit of (Sir Alex) Ferguson's combative spirit, and represents the best hope of a seamless transition? Step forward Roy Keane. In two years Keane will be 33, a year younger than Kenny Dalglish was when he took over at Liverpool, but with 10 seasons at United on his cv. Whether he will make a manager in the Ferguson mould is a matter for conjecture, but the point about such managers is that they are becoming extinct. Keane could do a job, bridge a gap, take the club on, and is unlikely to shrink from the challenge. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/19/a-contentious-place-the-inside-story-of-tavistocks-nhs-gender-identity-clinic | Society | 2023-01-19T15:00:12.000Z | Libby Brooks | ‘A contentious place’: the inside story of Tavistock’s NHS gender identity clinic | The centre sits near the bottom of a hill that climbs up to Hampstead in north London; a nondescript grey building, partially hidden by trees, with a small sign outside telling visitors they have found the right place.
This is Tavistock and Portman NHS foundation trust on Belsize Lane, a specialist centre for mental health therapies. Within it is the Gender Identity Development Service (Gids), one of the longest running services for gender-diverse children and young people in the world, founded 33 years ago, but whose work here as a national centre will be wound up within months.
Visitors who have come to Gids describe the climb to the third floor, walls decorated with colourful patient art and a tiny waiting area – not much more than a box room. Yet it’s what happens further down the corridor, behind the closed doors of the meeting rooms, that has been the focus of so much attention.
There has been a deluge of argument and speculation, amplified in the media. The service has faced heavy criticism from young people and their parents about lengthy waiting times – and questions that go to the heart of what it does.
Clinicians there give intensive talking therapy to children, and in some cases those young people experiencing gender dysphoria will go on to have hormone blockers to pause puberty and, potentially, further hormones to change gender.
I was treated with nothing but respect, but every detail of my care was scrutinised
Tyler, 21
For Tyler, 21, this proved to be “a lifeline”. Now living as a transgender man, he talks of being incredibly nervous when he had his first appointment in summer 2016, after a nine-month wait.
His mother, Johanna, remembers the pair were greeted at the lift by two clinicians they would see for the next three and a half years – a friendly touch, she thought.
“I was treated with nothing but respect,” says Tyler, “but every detail of my care was scrutinised. I was the one asking about medical intervention; they made it clear at my first session that this was the start of a long journey.”
Johanna adds: “I never felt they were driving any particular outcome but that he had a whole breadth of options to explore.”
But Johanna acknowledges her family’s positive experience was “rare”, and critics of the service applauded the decision to close it.
NHS England announced in July that the Gids clinic within the Tavistock would be replaced by regional hubs, at the recommendation of an independent review of the service by the leading paediatrician Dr Hilary Cass.
She explained: “A single specialist provider model is not a safe or viable long-term option in view of concerns about lack of peer review and the ability to respond to the increasing demand.”
Dr Hilary Cass. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardian
Cass’s interim report also highlighted the lack of agreement “and in many instances a lack of open discussion” on the nature of “gender incongruence” in young people – and whether it is “an inherent and immutable phenomenon for which transition is the best option for the individual, or a more fluid and temporal response to a range of developmental, social, and psychological factors”.
Whistleblowers – and some parents – have also accused Gids of fast-tracking troubled young people on to under-researched medical interventions and failing to consider other factors, such as autism and abuse.
Meanwhile, young transgender people who spoke to the Guardian are clearly fearful of losing a space to explore their gender identity.
Tim, 20, from Wales, says being transgender is portrayed as being “all about going under the knife, but this isn’t true; it’s an umbrella identity with a vast array of expression”.
For 13-year-old Cleo, who socially transitioned at primary school, these interventions are simply about “helping trans kids develop into the people they want to be”.
With so much at stake, and amid so much uncertainty, the Guardian has spoken to specialists in the field, including some who are still at Gids, who have never spoken before. They talk about how the service evolved, the intense pressure they have been under and the divisions among colleagues.
They also give detailed accounts of what happens when a young person seeks treatment there.
The Tavistock Centre specialises in mental health therapies. Photograph: Guy Smallman/Getty Images
‘Creative disagreements’
Gids was founded in 1989 by the child and adolescent psychiatrist Domenico Di Ceglie. It was – and remains – one part of a centre that provides a broad spectrum of ongoing wellbeing and mental health support.
Di Ceglie’s philosophy was underpinned by a core principle – the “unconditional acceptance and respect” for young people’s expression of their gender identity.
But in a 2003 interview, he accepted that a range of factors may lead to childhood gender identity disorder, including trauma and hormones. “Nobody knows for sure what determines this profound sense of perception,” he said.
There were people who felt physical treatment would be a treatment failure working alongside people who were prepared to think about physical intervention
Bernadette Wren
This tolerance of uncertainty made the service “a contentious place” from the outset, explains Bernadette Wren, who worked at Tavistock for 25 years, latterly as head of psychology, and half of that time within Gids.
“We were still exploring the territory, still very much learning and pooling experience,” she says. “There were people who felt physical treatment would be a treatment failure and they were working alongside people who were more prepared to think about physical intervention.”
But what Wren characterises as “creative disagreements” evolved into far more toxic professional disagreements as the years went on, compounded by an exponential increase in referrals and a recruitment crisis.
‘We knew it was a crisis, and NHS England knew it too’
From 2009, Gids became a national service, then in 2016 GPs, schools and advocacy groups were told they could refer to it directly. Demand grew rapidly, from 210 referrals in 2011-12 to more than 5,000 in 2020-21.
In 2011 Gids adopted the early intervention study, a research protocol that lowered the age at which young people could access puberty blockers from 16 to 12.
The service scrambled to recruit and train staff to cope with increased demand, and they began to notice how the profile of those seeking help also changed. The cases were more complex, and there was a huge increase in the number of children and teenagers seeking support.
The waiting list just grew and grew while the metrics for young people’s distress, not just about gender, were getting worse
Bernadette Wren
In her report, Cass explained how the “increase in referrals has been accompanied by a change in the case-mix from predominantly birth-registered males … to predominantly birth-registered females”.
“You could feel the tensions building,” recalls Wren. “We knew it was a crisis, and NHS England knew it was a crisis. Because the patient profile had changed, we felt we needed more time to understand what was going on, but the waiting list just grew and grew while the metrics for young people’s distress, not just about gender, were getting worse.”
Aidan Kelly joined Gids in 2016 as a junior clinician. He remembers the service was creaking under the weight of demand. “The team had almost doubled in size; they were trying to train up new clinicians, manage the waiting list and meet the needs of all these young people.”
Kelly, who left Gids in 2021, recalls how some staff became unsure about whether the young people they were seeing were indeed transgender – or expressing mental distress linked to trauma, abuse or autism.
The internal divisions led to some staff “splitting, becoming embattled and then leaving in a destructive way because they felt their concerns weren’t being heard”.
David Bell, then working in adult services at Tavistock and a staff governor, wrote an internal report reflecting these criticisms. He said staff told him some parents appeared to be pushing their children towards transition, that some children were recommended for treatment after only two appointments, and that the service was recruiting too many inexperienced psychologists.
Staff also told him that when they raised concerns, they were met with hostility, denial, and accusations of transphobia by senior staff.
Keira Bell’s story
Keira Bell speaking to reporters outside the High Court in 2020. Photograph: Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA
Many of these concerns came to the fore again two years later in a high court ruling in the case of Keira Bell, who began taking puberty blockers when she was 16, then medically transitioned and had surgery to remove her breasts as an adult. She later regretted this.
She sued the clinic, arguing she had been too young to consent to treatment as a teenager. The court agreed but this ruling was overturned on appeal in 2021.
Despite the professional and legal dramas playing out in such a public way, the numbers waiting to be seen kept growing. Among them is Ben, a 15-year-old from the north of England who was referred to Gids after a suicide attempt in spring 2021.
It was a moment of utter devastation when he realised he wouldn’t be seen before he turned 18. Our fear was that he would … see no hope
Susie, mother of Ben, then 15
Almost two years later, his mother, Susie, is still struggling to get confirmation that he is even on the waiting list, and the family has been warned he will not be seen before he turns 18.
To add to their anxiety, Ben cannot be seen as an adult unless he is on the youth list.
“It was a moment of utter devastation when he realised he wouldn’t be seen before he turned 18. He was just out of hospital and our fear was that he would do this again, that he would see no hope,” Susie says.
In the interim, like many similar families interviewed by the Guardian, they have sought private treatment. “I would a thousand times over rather be doing this through the NHS, but what choice do we have?” Susie says.
Nathan, 19, explains how he spent three years on the Gids waiting list after coming out at 14. “Every day I would wake up to the sound of the post coming through the door, and hoping that letter about my first appointment would be in the mail,” he says. “I’d get my hopes up every morning just for them to be crushed every day for three years straight.”
‘It is difficult when you have somebody in distress’
Shona Grant, who began working at Gids as a principal social worker and safeguarding lead in 2020, says many young people are surprised when they first arrive. “Because of particular representations in the media there is often an understanding from them that they will arrive on Tuesday and be on medication by Thursday.”
That pressure for immediate intervention necessitates “very delicate conversations”, says Laura Charlton, who worked at the Leeds service as a clinical psychologist from 2014 to 2020.
“It is difficult when you have somebody in distress, they have waited three years and you’re saying: ‘But we have to ask you more questions, there’s four to six weeks between these appointments, and have you considered X, Y and Z?’.”
The lengthy wait also means some young people who arrive at the service have fully socially transitioned already. Does that make it harder to explore all potential options for them?
“Yes, because some have done the exploration and contemplation, albeit without professional input, and may be less open to go back and explore their decision-making further,” says a psychologist who wishes to remain anonymous and still works at the service.
Grant explains that families are seen both together and separately as staff strip away the “layers of the onion” to try to work out how best to help a young person.
The service will also make contact with a young person’s network – their GP, school, local child and adolescent mental health (Camhs) team, if they are involved, likewise any support groups.
Then it is down to someone like Lorna Hobbs, who has worked for the service for four years as a clinical psychologist, to recommend what comes next.
“My job is to assess in the broadest sense what a young person needs to flourish,” she says. “That means to do with their gender but also their mental health, their social circumstances, are they bullied at school? You can’t do an assessment for gender without having an eye on every aspect of the young person’s life.”
Hobbs describes two scenarios. “For example, you want to find out if a person’s dislike for their genitals is preventing them from washing, which could lead to them getting infections, but their distress is such they don’t want to discuss it directly.
“I would do what’s called a body map. Rather than naming the parts, I’d get them to tell me about how they feel about neck upwards, neck to belly button, and so on. That way, the young person is in control of how they talk about their body.”
[Gender] affirmative is saying ‘I believe you’ when you tell me about your experience. It is developing a strong relationship based on trust and mutual respect, but it doesn’t mean you don’t explore
Lorna Hobbs
Likewise, lots of young people tell her they have no interest in having biological children when they are older, but she needs to make them aware of the interaction of hormone treatments on future fertility.
Opponents of the service have challenged whether the gender-affirming approach is the right one for young people who may have become one-dimensional in their thinking.
But Hobbs argues this criticism is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what affirmative means. “For me, affirmative is starting from a stance that says gender diversity isn’t a disorder but has existed across cultures through history. It is saying ‘I believe you’ when you tell me about your experience. It is developing a strong relationship based on trust and mutual respect, but it doesn’t mean you don’t explore.”
Kelly says challenging a young person can actually entrench how they feel. “If you’ve ever worked with a teenager, you know how little use that is because they dig their heels in and become even more certain that they’re right and you’re wrong. You don’t build a rapport that way.”
Drugs, data and gaps in research
The service’s data suggests only 16% of the people discharged from Gids in 2019-20 were referred to the endocrinology clinics that assess their suitability for hormone blockers.
Of that 16%, 96% were prescribed blockers and 55% went on to be approved for gender-affirming hormones while at Gids – young people must have taken blockers for about a year, and also be around the age of 16, before they can be assessed for these.
Before either of these things can happen, two gender specialists decide whether a young person can give informed consent to be referred in the first place – the service recommends four to six meetings but current staff say they actually have about 10.
The endocrinology team then assesses and takes further consent for any physical intervention – most of the people staff see for their first appointment are aged 15 or over.
The most difficult question is whether puberty blockers provide valuable time for children and young people to consider their options, or whether they ‘lock in’ children and young people to a treatment pathway
Dr Hilary Cass
The use of puberty blockers is contentious. Cass notes in her interim report the long-term health effects of puberty blockers are not clear: though they can have a short-term impact on bone density, it is not known if or how they affect people as they mature.
“The most difficult question is whether puberty blockers do indeed provide valuable time for children and young people to consider their options, or whether they in effect ‘lock in’ children and young people to a treatment pathway,” Cass says.
Further, asks Cass, if pubertal hormones are essential to the development of judgment, emotional regulation and planning ability, as initial research suggests, what happens to a young person’s decision-making if they are paused?
Current staff members acknowledge there are gaps in the way they track the progress of young people and in the research into the longer-term effects of the drugs. But they do not accept the claim that young people have been fast-tracked into medical interventions.
Hobbs says she would not put a young person forward if their parents were still having concerns. “You wouldn’t get to that point … people’s transitions are so much more successful if there’s family support.”
One family therapist who recently left the service says taking puberty blockers has given some young people “thinking space” – and they have then decided to come off them.
Another current Gids clinician says it’s the gender-affirming hormones that should be of greater concern.
“I am still slightly dismayed that the focus is on hormone blockers when, as a clinician, I am much more anxious about young people accessing gender-affirming hormones, which are partially irreversible and change people’s bodies for the rest of their lives.”
This anxiety echoes the concerns of the Association of Clinical Psychologists, which has spoken of the “lack of robust, high-quality evidence regarding the safety and effectiveness of using puberty blockers and cross sex hormones to treat gender dysphoria in adolescents”.
The ACP also raised concerns about the minimal evidence that allows clinicians reliably to predict whether a child who presents with gender dysphoria will continue to experience this in adulthood: “In short, there is as yet no reliable way to predict whether transitioning will alleviate any young person’s distress or further contribute to it.”
‘The media presents trans people as a threat’
Many staff say the challenge for the service over the past decade – and the next – has been the complexity of the cases clinicians are dealing with.
Cass’s report notes, for example, that approximately one-third of those referred to Gids have autism or other types of neurodiversity.
Hobbs puts it in a wider context: “We see more complex people at Gids but the complexity of young people presenting for support in Camhs and in school has increased as well.
“We could all hypothesise about why that is, around austerity, and more recently the pandemic. Things have been tough for families over the last 10 years.”
The challenge, says Kelly, will be to understand how mental health difficulties or a neurodevelopmental condition may or may not interact with gender identity. “If those difficulties are unmanaged, for example, they are stuck in their bedroom with terrible social anxiety and might say: ‘If I was seen as a boy, it would be easier’, you know that’s not the whole picture and you obviously wouldn’t put them forward for treatment.”
Most staff emphasise the importance of the child’s network in supporting these other challenges, while underlining that these local services are overwhelmed and underfunded too.
I’ve been prouder of saying that I work at Gids, possibly as an act of resistance, because it really matters that we are here for these kids
Shona Grant
“Often building a network for a young person is like catching sand in a colander,” says Hobbs. “In some areas of England and Wales, for example, Camhs won’t see young people with autism and there is often no statutory support at all in this area.”
Wren says that whatever service succeeds Gids it will have to deal with the same issues, and will doubtless face the same intense media and political scrutiny that she came under before she left two years ago.
“People are in a frenzy about youth developing in certain directions, the legitimacy of changing your body, the rigidity of sex divisions, the way young people don’t fall into discrete groups when it comes to sexuality,” she says.
“This is something we have to, as a society, begin to contend with, although the numbers of young people presenting in this way are still very small.”
The impact on staff of this scrutiny means many are reluctant to speak about their work. “Having worked in child protection for ever,” Grant says, “I’ve never had a right of reply and the stories are not mine to tell, so I’ve found ways of managing that.
“I’ve been prouder of saying that I work at Gids, possibly as an act of resistance, because it really matters that we are here for these kids”.
All the transgender young people the Guardian spoke to emphasised how damaging they were finding the public discourse.
“The political climate is really disheartening,” says Jay, 24, from Warwickshire, “and the media presents this image of trans people being a threat to your everyday lives, whilst I’m scared about going to a pub with my colleagues because I don’t feel safe in either toilet any more. I would love to be out and proud every day, but at the moment that’s just not possible.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/mar/05/australia-in-colour-review-hugo-weaving-narrates-a-thrilling-revitalisation-of-history | Television & radio | 2019-03-05T04:56:21.000Z | Luke Buckmaster | Australia in Colour review – Hugo Weaving narrates a thrilling revitalisation of history | SBS’s new four-part series Australia in Colour is a rare example of a TV show befitting of that overused accolade, “landmark”. This engrossing production reaches far back into the past but has an air of timeliness if not urgency about it, pairing technical innovation with historical revisionism – marking a thrilling unity of themes and aesthetic. The series’ writer/directors (Lisa Matthews, Alec Morgan and Rose Hesp) spruce up the moth-eaten archive documentary look by deploying a similar technique used by the director Peter Jackson in his recent first world war doco They Shall Not Grow Old, transforming timeworn monochrome footage into colour images that sparkle with newfound vividness.
Where Jackson’s film reiterated the historical biases of old, focusing solely on servicemen and omitting the stories of other groups who contributed to the wartime effort such as nurses, the creators of Australia in Colour go the other way – viewing the series, which was made in partnership with the National Film and Sound Archive, as an opportunity to correct the record. And so this retracing of the story of modern Australia is about two kinds of colour: the literal variety that we observe with our eyes, and the symbolic sort that arises from the telling of narratives in full-bodied detail.
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Colour (and its absence) is used symbolically, like in the 1998 American movie Pleasantville, with monochrome images representing ignorance and close-mindedness, and colour marking progress. There are many shots in which colour washes over the frame in a left to right direction, which has an almost magical quality. Narrator Hugo Weaving reminds us of the implicit double meaning by announcing that “Australia’s history, once only black and white, can now be seen for the first time in glorious colour”.
It is through a documentarian’s omissions as much as their inclusions that we understand their objectives. Photograph: SBS
We are informed of “a hidden story” about “a fledgling nation whitewashing its past”. The White Australia policy, the foundation of Canberra and the Stolen Generations are early talking points. The directors make a point of emphasising people who have been neglected in the past, as well as those whose careers are well documented – such as the amazing Annette Kellerman and American boxer Jack Johnson, who after winning a 1908 heavyweight championship in Rushcutters Bay gave “Indigenous Australians a modern black hero”.
Adding another dimension is the observation, again directly articulated in Weaving’s narration, that the history of modern Australia runs parallel to the history of motion pictures, the forming of Federation occurring around the same time as the emergence of cinematic spectacle. The first bits of footage include a clip from 1896 of a cigar-smoking man on roller skates in Sydney – the earliest surviving footage recorded in Australia – and AC Haddon’s film depicting Torres Strait Islanders dancing, which the series claims marks the first time anywhere in the word that Indigenous people are captured on motion picture.
It is through a documentarian’s omissions as much as their inclusions that we understand their objectives. I waited for a mention of Ken G Hall, one of the most popular and influential film directors in Australian history, thus a relevant person to acknowledge given the show’s remit. It never came. The second episode explores Roy Rene, the famous vaudevillian and star of Hall’s 1934 comedy Strike Me Lucky, with no mention of the filmmaker.
Australia in Colour: a rare, intellectually stimulating treat. Photograph: SBS
Much has been written about Hall over the years, compared to a lack of attention given to many non-white and/or non-male people, so it’s thrilling to see the scales realigned and lesser known figures given just acknowledgement. This process also inadvertently makes a point about the nature of history: that there is no full, complete or entirely accurate view of it, only accounts that are more accurate than others. The past remains forever unchanged but the ways we remember it, and the points storytellers emphasise, keep evolving.
More inspiring than any individual stories, though, are the broader points the series makes about national pride. If one truly loves their country one is capable of acknowledging good and bad aspects of it, celebrating achievements and learning from mistakes, in line with that old dictum about the importance of remembering the sins of the past lest we are doomed to repeat them. To see a view of Australian history such as this – deeply credible, detailed, well-researched and visually innovative – so ambitiously connected to the task of correcting fallacies is a rare, intellectually stimulating treat, though many moments are shocking.
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We see Indigenous Australians in chains; we see Indigenous Australians excluded, sidelined or given token involvement in key events; we see irrefutable evidence of our own apartheid. Like the recent series You Are Here, there is, at the core of Australia in Colour, the idea that Australia as a nation is only just beginning to come to terms with its past, the truth having been obscured by many things over the years including the dominance of the Judeo-Christian perspective.
This engrossing production will get people talking, thinking and feeling. Underneath it all is that wonderful dual symbolism: ignorance as monochrome, enlightenment as colour.
Australia in Colour premieres Wednesday 6 March at 8.30pm on SBS | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/feb/20/brian-jones | Politics | 2012-02-20T16:16:28.000Z | Richard Norton-Taylor | Brian Jones obituary | Few heroes have emerged from the damaging fiasco – the repercussions of which are far from over – of the Blair government's discredited dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But one such was Brian Jones, a meticulous, conscientious, intelligence officer working away in the back rooms of the Ministry of Defence. He emerged reluctantly, but determined to set the record straight.
Jones, who has died aged 67 after a short illness, had read drafts of the weapons dossier released by Downing St in September 2002 during the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. He did not like what he saw. He was concerned in particular about claims the dossier made about Iraqi chemical weapons, including the notorious one that they could be fired within 45 minutes of an order to do so.
The Hutton inquiry into the death of the weapons expert and former UN inspector David Kelly was already getting bogged down when Jones gave evidence in early September 2003. He gave it a healthy, much-needed boost, telling it that the government had indeed "over-egged" its Iraqi weapons dossier.
Jones, responsible for assessing the significance of foreign nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programmes, had worked closely with Kelly. He told Hutton that he had written a memo setting out his concerns days before the weapons dossier was published. The 45-minute claim, he said, was based on "nebulous" information from a secondhand MI6 source. He told the Hutton inquiry that his staff had been "concerned and unhappy" with the way that their intelligence had been used. "The impression I had was that ... the shutters were coming down."
The concerns expressed by Jones and his staff in defence intelligence were ignored as the dossier was pushed through by Downing St, with no proper scrutiny by Whitehall's Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC).
In one of its few clear conclusions, the Butler review of intelligence, published in July 2004, stated: "Dr Jones was right to raise concerns about the certainty of language used in the dossier on Iraqi production and possession of chemical agents." Butler criticised MI6 and top officials in the MoD's defence intelligence staff for not heeding the concerns and words of caution expressed by Jones and his colleagues.
They were fully justified by subsequent JIC reports and evidence to the Chilcot inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the invasion of Iraq and its aftermath. As a result of Jones's evidence, the government promised that in future more attention would be paid to experts in defence intelligence.
Jones was born in Bristol of Welsh parents. He studied at Cardiff University, where he was awarded a first-class degree in metallurgy in 1965. Sponsored by the UK Atomic Energy Authority, he later studied the physical metallurgy of nuclear-reactor cores and earned a PhD in 1968.
He took a post as a research scientist with Canada's atomic energy authority, where he investigated alternative structural materials for nuclear reactors. In 1973, he returned to Britain and joined the admiralty's marine technology establishment in Dorset. His research focused mainly on the structural integrity of submarines and their nuclear pressure vessels. He was appointed head of metallurgy there in 1979.
Four years later, he was appointed officer in charge of the naval aircraft materials laboratory in Gosport, working on helicopters and Royal Navy jets. Throughout this period, he published many papers in academic journals including Nature, as well as classified reports. He joined the Defence Intelligence Staff in Whitehall in 1987.
After retiring early in 2003, he wrote and lectured about the relationship between politics, intelligence and WMD, and the threat posed by states and terrorists. He was appointed visiting senior research fellow at Southampton University's Mountbatten centre for international studies. His book, Failing Intelligence: The True Story of How We Were Fooled Into Going to War in Iraq, was published in 2010.
Jones was a rugby fan and a lifelong supporter of Bristol Rovers FC. He was a talented artist, sketching mainly in pen and ink. He also wrote short stories and poetry, though not for publication.
He is survived by his wife, Linda, and two sons.
Brian Jones, defence intelligence analyst, born 24 August 1944; died 10 February 2012
This article was amended on 8 March 2012. It had said that the weapons dossier was released in September 2003. This has been corrected. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/sep/28/bournemouth-west-ham-premier-league-match-report | Football | 2019-09-28T16:09:48.000Z | Ben Fisher | Aaron Cresswell’s strike salvages draw for West Ham at Bournemouth | After almost a year out through injury, Andriy Yarmolenko is making up for lost time. The winger, who tore an achilles last October, opened the scoring and was the catalyst here as West Ham fought from behind to earn a point through Aaron Cresswell. The draw was sufficient to hoist Manuel Pellegrini’s side up to third in a game dominated by disallowed goals, disillusion and a little disorder.
At the final whistle Pellegrini and his counterpart, Eddie Howe, were embroiled in a touchline contretemps, with the West Ham manager irate at the Bournemouth assistant manager, Jason Tindall, whom he argued was trying to unfairly influence the referee, Stuart Attwell. Howe played down the exchange, insisting he and Pellegrini were discussing VAR calls. “I never talked about the VAR decision,” Pellegrini said. “I talk about the assistant coach of him [Tindall], the complete game with the referee trying to pressurise in every decision. That’s what I complain [about], not about the VAR. I think they don’t need it because they are a good team that play offensive football. I think Eddie has done very good work here – his assistant doesn’t need to do those kinds of things because I don’t think it’s fair for the referee.”
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Attwell already had his hands full. Two minutes after Joshua King put the ball in the net, sweeping home to cancel out Yarmolenko’s fine curled opener, Bournemouth were finally able to celebrate. King benefited after the ball dribbled off Nathan Aké’s right leg from a deep Diego Rico cross. As he wheeled away, though, the assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis raised his flag, only for the VAR, Andrew Madley, to overturn the decision. That was just the beginning of a contentious afternoon, with Aké having a volley ruled out after the offside Dominic Solanke clouded the view of West Ham’s goalkeeper Roberto, who replaced the injured Lukasz Fabianski. Later, Howe seemed stumped at Cresswell getting away with tugging at King’s shirt in the box.
Callum Wilson fires home for Bournemouth. Photograph: Arfa Griffiths/West Ham United FC via Getty Images
These sides were both licking their wounds after being humbled by League One opposition in midweek, with Burton and Oxford knocking Bournemouth and West Ham respectively out of the Carabao Cup on Wednesday. Saying that, these teams were almost unrecognisable, with Howe and Pellegrini making a combined total of 19 changes from those defeats as they reverted to more tried and tested formulas here. That meant a return to the starting lineup for Yarmolenko, who built on his sweet strike against Manchester United last weekend with another finish full of panache. Felipe Anderson floated a cross towards Sébastien Haller. He eluded Rico to fish the ball out of the air with his right foot before picking out Yarmolenko, who did the rest.
Howe acknowledged the goal gave Bournemouth, sloppy until that point, the impetus they required. They did not trail for long, even if they were made to wait for confirmation of King’s equaliser. Things went from bad to worse for West Ham, with Fabianski forced off with a hip injury and frustrated as Aaron Ramsdale saved well from Anderson following a clever Haller dummy, before Angelo Ogbonna headed over unmarked from a corner.
Thirty seconds after the break, West Ham would come to regret those missed opportunities. Solanke jinked his way past Declan Rice before laying the ball off for King, who nudged the ball to Callum Wilson. Roberto had no chance.
Bournemouth could have been out of sight but Aké’s goal was ruled out and Roberto repelled a fierce Wilson strike. Having survived, West Ham made sure to punish with Cresswell hammering home.
The Fiver: sign up and get our daily football email. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/mar/31/councillors-oven-ready-scheme-to-force-private-schools-to-pay-their-bit | Education | 2020-03-31T06:30:45.000Z | Melissa Benn | Councillor's 'oven-ready' scheme to force private schools to pay their bit | When councillor Libby Lisgo visits one of the most deprived estates in Taunton, in her ward of Priorswood, she can see the fence of Taunton school, one of the area’s famous independent schools. “While we are struggling to raise funds to take local residents on rare day trips, I can see a fleet of minibuses on the other side of that fence, sitting idle,” she says. “And I can’t help thinking: ‘Gosh, if only we could access those from time to time’.”
Like most local councillors since 2010, Lisgo has had to oversee and implement brutal cuts to services, including closing libraries and community centres, while at the same time formally approving an annual 80% tax break on business rates for local private schools.
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Business rate relief for private schools has become controversial in recent years, with the Scottish government taking the radical step to abolish it from September 2020 and moves in England, announced in the recent budget, to review it.
It was after a particularly gruelling budget-setting meeting in 2017 that Lisgo’s colleague Steve Ross, an independent councillor, hit on the idea of asking the four local private schools – Taunton school, Wellington school, Somerset, King’s College Taunton and Queen’s College Taunton – each to contribute 10% of their business rate relief. This would provide an overall sum of around £100,000, out of a rate relief saving of near on £1m, to a community fund that would support libraries, children’s services and other local projects. They put the idea to the council and proposed tightening up council scrutiny of the “public benefit” offered by the schools, their duty under the 2006 Charities Act.
Conservative-controlled Taunton Deane voted down the proposal. Councillors, many of whom had links to the area’s private schools, instead suggested opening up a “dialogue” with the four schools. Sadly, says Lisgo, that never happened.
Recently, Lisgo saw her chance to have another go, after the merger of Taunton Deane with neighbouring West Somerset to create Somerset West and Taunton, now under Liberal Democrat control.
Armed with what she calls her “oven-ready idea”, she was more optimistic. “If austerity was very much on our minds in 2017, it is even more so three years down the line,” she says. This time her motion also proposed the establishment of “a joint consultative body” to explore providing “volunteering and financial support to our neediest communities”.
Once again the motion failed. “One reason put forward by the councillors was that the finances of the local independent schools are on a knife edge,” she says. Lisgo found this hard to take seriously given that “one school has recently hosted receptions in Hong Kong, Dubai and Los Angeles”, with more global events planned. “And we are asking for a token amount really: £25,000 each, less than the average cost of a single boarding place.”
7:03
Should we abolish private schools? – video
Francis Green, the educational economist and co-author of Engines of Privilege: Britain’s Private School Problem, shares Lisgo’s disappointment. “One can’t help thinking that the local private schools may have missed a trick here, a chance to earn some goodwill for the long run. Rather than take this low-cost opportunity to transparently discharge their obligation to provide some public benefit, they and their supporters in council have preferred to stick to their legal rights as charities.”
Undeterred, Lisgo, branded a “Marxist” in one local newspaper headline, is now inviting other councils to have a go – “maybe a Labour-controlled council with a reasonable number of independent schools in their area”.
Will others take it up? Julie Robinson, of the Independent Schools Council, says: “It is not the role of local councils to regulate local charities or decide how charitable funds are spent. Charities must apply their assets and funds to their primary purpose as stated in their objects. In the case of schools, that is education.”
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But opinion may be shifting. In the recent budget, the government announced a review of business rates and the Independent Schools Association, which promotes the charitable objectives of private schools, is now warning the sector that business rate relief may not survive beyond 2021. More broadly, there is a widespread sense across the political spectrum that the resources gap between private and state schools is unacceptably wide and reform is necessary. This makes voluntary contributions look like a moderate step rather than an extreme proposal.
The Conservative-controlled Westminster council is currently asking householders in properties worth more than £10m (council tax band H) to contribute a small sum to local services, and has so far raised £900,000 through this “unofficial mansion tax”. Kensington and Chelsea and Surrey councils have implemented similar plans.
Mark Lehain, a free school founder and Conservative party candidate in the last election, says Lisgo’s plan is an interesting idea but that private schools would need to have “control over how the funds were used to make sure they were for educational purposes”.
Many in Labour local government dislike the voluntary angle. Steven Longden, a Trafford councillor and co-founder of the campaign Abolish Eton, thinks going down this route merely “gives private schools good PR. Do we really want the voluntary crumbs off their table? No, I want legislation to remove their privileges and tax exemptions.”
Succeed or fail, the proposal has created a useful mobilising tool. Historically, the political conversation around the private-state divide has tended to be about national inequalities: all those privately educated judges and journalists and old Etonian prime ministers.
But Lisgo’s initiative brings the issue back down to local earth, shining a spotlight on the vastly discrepant provision often found within a single area. “A lot of people locally have said to me, ‘I didn’t realise that these schools were charities – and you mean that they don’t pay business rates like everyone else?”’
Lisgo remains upbeat. “I have had so many conversations around the proposal. People think it is a jolly good idea. If we had genuinely begun to initiate that dialogue between our schools and the council, things might look different. I still struggle to understand why we can’t make use of those minibuses parked on the other side of the fence.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/feb/21/heavy-rain-sony-quantic-dream | Technology | 2010-02-21T00:09:00.000Z | Will Freeman | Heavy Rain | Game review | Video games have long been in thrall to Hollywood – an obsession with turning virtual playthings into "interactive movies" that has cursed countless releases. The dichotomy of the two mediums – that films are for watching, and games for playing – is too powerful to overcome: cinematic creations sacrifice their power in allowing interaction and games lose their focus when the narrative leaves the players' control. A dead end, leading, at best, to brave failure and, at worst, ignominious farce. Until now. Until Heavy Rain.
A slick neo-noir, this is the most intense crime drama seen on any games machine of any era, intelligent and mature when its contemporaries are simply "adult". Developers Quantic Dream have presented an elaborate and disturbing murder mystery that lets players assume the role of four leading characters. Hence scenes jump between a tormented father, a likable private detective, an open-minded FBI agent and a savvy female journalist. To detail the events that unfold would be to spoil the thrill of playing, but to explain how it works is to reveal one of the most ambitious contributions to the medium in years.
Essentially, Heavy Rain places destiny in players' hands – letting you affect the decisions and actions that ultimately determine how the game unfolds. Even the smallest act can lead to a huge narrative twist that would otherwise be missed, and a normally banal chore can carry as much tension as the many stand-out fight sequences. More remarkable still is that you feel your personality and mannerisms reflected in the interactions of the cast. Heavy Rain's abstract control system might be occasionally ungainly, but it allows you to prod at the narrative in a way that is extraordinary, to assume the role of both actor and director.
Along with the plot's breathless pacing a sumptuous score is delivered with skill, and the game is beautifully shot. The poetry of cinematography fully realised, combined with a genuine ability to evoke sadness, fear and guilt, make for one of the most emotionally provocative titles ever.
Quantic Dream's latest may not only be the best game you've ever played – it could even become one of your favourite films. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/apr/04/martin-sorrell-ceo-role-in-doubt-as-wpp-investigates-misconduct-claims | Business | 2018-04-04T07:20:02.000Z | Mark Sweney | Martin Sorrell's CEO role in doubt as WPP investigates misconduct claims | Sir Martin Sorrell’s iron grip as chief executive of WPP is under threat after the advertising group hired a law firm to investigate an allegation of personal misconduct.
Sorrell is one of Britain’s best-known and most highly paid business leaders. He is also the longest-serving FTSE-100 chief executive and has run the sprawling WPP empire since starting the business in 1985.
In the last five years alone Sorrell has been paid well over £200m for running the world’s largest advertising group thanks to lucrative and highly controversial reward schemes. His £70m payout in 2015 was one of the biggest in UK corporate history.
The investigation will increase pressure on Sorrell, who is already feeling the strain as WPP’s share price has tumbled almost 40% in the last year to its lowest point since 2013.
The price slump has wiped £9bn off the value of the business, which owns 406 separate advertising and marketing firms in more than 100 countries, including top-flight brands such as Ogilvy & Mather and J Walter Thompson. It has 134,000 staff.
WPP recently reported its worst performance since the advertising recession in 2009, which Sorrell described as “not a pretty year”.
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The 73-year-old “unreservedly” denied the misconduct allegation, which involves the improper use of company funds and allegations of improper personal behaviour.
“The board of WPP has appointed independent counsel to conduct an investigation in response to an allegation of personal misconduct against Sir Martin Sorrell, chief executive officer of WPP,” the company said.
“The investigation is ongoing. The allegations do not involve amounts which are material to WPP.”
Sorrell, who is on a rare holiday, said he rejected the allegation but understood that the company had to investigate the matter.
“WPP is investigating an allegation of financial impropriety by me, specifically as to the use of company funds,” Sorrell said.
“This allegation is being investigated by a law firm. I reject the allegation unreservedly but recognise that the company has to investigate it. I understand that this process will be completed shortly. Obviously, I shall play no part in the management of the investigation under way.”
WPP has called in two top law firms, Allen & Overy and Slaughter and May, to advise on the investigation.
The trouble at the top has once again put a spotlight on the issue of succession at WPP amid accusations of a “Sorrellcentricity” – the view that Sorrell runs the giant business autocratically as a personal fiefdom, dominating decision-making.
The question of who will succeed Sorrell is raised every year at the company’s shareholder meeting. Sorrell has never given any indication that he may be ready to step back.
Roberto Quarta, a US businessman hired as WPP’s chairman two years ago, has said that succession planning has intensified, becoming “even more focused and detailed”.
He said there was an “exceptional team of potential candidates” from WPP’s top management, as well as a “constantly refined list of external candidates”.
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There is understood to be tension about Sorrell’s future among members of WPP’s 12-strong board, which has been heightened by the recent performance slump. At least one director is known to be agitating to oust him.
“If Sorrell were to leave the company for any reason, WPP has a relatively deep bench of talent who could pick up any slack on a near-term basis,” said Brian Wieser, an analyst at Pivotal. “A more significant issue relates to who would lead the company next and what strategic direction the company would pursue.”
WPP shares fell a further 2% in trading on Wednesday in response to the investigation.
Sorrell has denied the group’s poor recent performance was a result of his agencies being cut out of deals between advertisers and Google and Facebook.
He said WPP spent more than $6bn (£4.4bn) of its clients’ advertising and marketing money with Google, its biggest single investment, last year, a 10% rise. Facebook received about $2.1bn of its ad spend last year, a 30% rise.
Sorrell and his family trust owns a stake of about 1.8% in WPP, worth about £250m.
“As a significant share-owner, my commitment to the company, which I founded over 30 years ago, remains absolute – to our people, our clients, our shareholders and all of our many stakeholders,” Sorrell said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/aug/10/books-to-give-you-hope-gilead-by-marilynne-robinson | Books | 2016-08-10T15:44:44.000Z | Sian Cain | Books to give you hope: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson | If literature is not the cure for all ills, it is at least a balm for some anxieties, an elixir for a few worries. When we were looking for a theme for our annual summer series on the books desk, every idea was overtly tied to current events. Books about Europe, elections, politics. It was both unavoidable, and something we wanted to avoid. To briefly strap on my pith helmet and take a rare step into the wild, alien world of political commentary: I think we now all agree 2016 has been a year of relentlessly bad news.
So when we finally we settled on the theme “books to give you hope”, we had some worries that the pitch was potentially too broad, and too ambitious (“Don’t fret everyone, we have books!”). But when we put the idea to you in our Reading group, you put us at ease. The sheer range of books you proposed to give someone hope – PG Wodehouse, Lord of the Rings, nonfiction by Laurie Lee or Amy Liptrot, Catch-22 (the eventual top choice) – showed us that the breadth of the theme was interesting in itself, as it lent itself equally to all genres and moods.
So what we are hoping for this time around is not to indulge in some prescriptive posturing, a sort of vague bibliotherapy that doesn’t account for your individual concerns – rather, these are books that gave us hope at different times, titles that variously taught us something new about the world, or ourselves.
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Now, for mine. The first time I read Gilead by Marilynne Robinson, some years ago, was on my first day of holidays after some particularly rigorous university exams. It was a transcendental experience. I remember wandering around in a kind of fugue state, dazedly responding when spoken to and mashing some food into my face during breaks, as I finished it in one sitting. This isn’t hyperbole – Gilead is a serene, almost meditative book, and Robinson writes with an unnameable, enviable quality that forces you to read slowly, with intention.
This is not to imply her writing is soporific or dull; on the contrary, the frequent bursts of pleasure that come from reading such sweet clarity are invigorating. Robinson’s novels are rare things, and all the better for it: four in 33 years and all four are fantastic. “I would rather be tastefully silent,” she has previously said, than write a bad book. It shows.
Gilead is told through a letter by John Ames, a terminally ill pastor in the crumbling prairie town of Gilead, who is writing a letter to his seven-year-old son. The letter is full of advice and religion, but is also confessional, with revelatory truths about Ames’s family history – all delivered among small moments of self-interruption as he observes his son play, talk, eat in real time. Treasured moments to a father who knows he will not see his son reach adulthood.
Ames finds new, heartbreaking beauty in everything around him: Sundays (“Sometimes I have loved the peacefulness of an ordinary Sunday. It is like standing in a newly planted garden after a warm rain”), nature (“a line of oak trees can still astonish me”), even his heart, which now flutters with a new irregularity. Everything is more beautiful for being ephemeral. As death comes closer, Ames’s musings become increasingly metaphysical: “I feel as if I am being left out, as though I’m some straggler and people can’t quite remember to stay back for me.” He laments what he can offer his son: “What have I to leave you but the ruins of old courage, and the lore of old gallantry and hope?”
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It all sounds very worthy – except it isn’t. To label Gilead worthy would be to imply that it is very deliberately trying to improve you. But the worth found in Gilead is something much stranger, at least for me; as a young person imagining a grand, dramatic future for myself, it taught me that an ordinary life could be also be good and even more meaningful. When you’re young and invincible, with a head full of vague plans for as-yet-unperformed great deeds, it is a useful lesson to learn that quietness does not equate with insignificance. Ames’s life – an existence of small impact, but a graceful one – has enviable value. Years on, Gilead still makes me hopeful by reminding me of the possibilities in my future, as ordinary and small as it may turn out to be. As Ames concludes, to his son and himself: “There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/18/piers-morgan-phone-hacking-mirror-editor-judge-prince-harry | Opinion | 2023-12-18T14:15:24.000Z | Archie Bland | Piers Morgan will find many ways to deny phone hacking – but how long before his number is up? | Archie Bland | So how much, exactly, did Piers Morgan know about phone hacking when he was editor of the Daily Mirror? It depends when you ask him. And since he edited the newspaper for nine years when hacking was at its zenith, and since other people similarly accused have spent time in prison, this seems important for reasons that do not depend on your feelings about Prince Harry.
On Friday, for example, Morgan had a simple line for reporters gathered outside his house. Perhaps his thinking had been clarified by the unfortunate news that a judge ruling on claims from Harry and others had found that there had been extensive hacking going on at the Daily Mirror, and that there was no doubt Morgan knew about it. Similar evidence has been presented to the Leveson inquiry and in previous litigation, but never as extensively or with such a powerful endorsement from a judge as this. But it’s all nonsense, Morgan sputtered, who would do such a thing? “I’ve never hacked a phone, or told anybody else to hack a phone,” he said. Simple.
As he also said, this is a line he’s maintained for a long time. You would be amazed at how carefully he has maintained it. He used exactly the same words to the BBC in September. He used exactly the same words to the BBC in May. He used exactly the same words on Twitter (now X) in 2015. He used exactly the same words to the Guardian in 2014. He used exactly the same words on CNN in 2011. Ask Piers Morgan what his favourite biscuit is at any point in the last 15 years and the response is likely to have been that he never hacked a phone, and he never told anyone else to, either.
If you view the narrow precision of Morgan’s repetition as interesting, you will probably go looking for other things he’s said about phone hacking. And you will find a laundry list of public statements from a bygone era that don’t exactly contradict his later recitations, but do cast them in a different light. In 2003, he told Charlotte Church that she should change the security number on her phone to stop reporters from accessing her voicemails. In 2006, he wrote that he had been “played a tape of a message Paul [McCartney] had left for Heather [Mills] on her mobile phone”. In 2007, he told Press Gazette that hacking was “an investigative practice that everyone knows was going on”.
What are we to make of this change of emphasis? If we take him at his word, we will have to conclude that Morgan knew absolutely loads about phone hacking, but had absolutely nothing to do with commissioning it. You might wonder if there was any need to tell the voicemail interception specialists used by the Mirror to hack a phone, and reflect that when you get the plumber round because your sink is blocked, you don’t need to encourage them to bring a plunger.
‘Alastair Campbell gave ‘compelling evidence’ pointing to illegal techniques being used by the Mirror’s agents to obtain details of his mortgage.’ Photograph: Steven May/Alamy
The thing is, Mr Justice Fancourt didn’t take him at his word, and went to great lengths to explain why.
In rejecting the judge’s 386-page ruling, Morgan dwelled on the evidence of Omid Scobie, who was once an intern at the Mirror. Scobie said that he had heard Morgan being told that a story about Kylie Minogue was sourced from a voicemail. Morgan said Scobie was a “deluded fantasist”. As for Alastair Campbell, who, according to the judge, gave “compelling evidence” pointing to illegal techniques being used by the Mirror’s agents to obtain details of his mortgage: he is “another proven liar who spun this country into an illegal war”.
Now, you might not trust Scobie or Campbell. But what Morgan left out is that Scobie’s story fits precisely with invoices, numbers on a Mirror reporter’s phone, and a matching article about Minogue bylined to someone the judge described as “a known phone hacker”. Campbell’s claims, meanwhile, are lent considerable weight by the fact that the Mirror had just used the same private investigators to do exactly the same thing to Peter Mandelson. The corroboration for Morgan’s claim of innocence, on the other hand, is simply that he keeps making it.
Set Scobie and Campbell aside, if you think they have sold the judge a pup. Perhaps because it was cold outside, Morgan didn’t find time in his doorstep speech to critique the rest of the evidence cited in the judgment.
Melanie Cantor, an agent and publicist, said that Morgan “always seemed to be the first person to know about events that had recently happened” involving her clients, and that invoices and phone records demonstrated that she had been repeatedly hacked by the Mirror’s reporters. The judge concluded that “sensitive information … was passed to Mr Morgan, who must have known how it had been obtained”.
Benjamin Wegg-Prosser, the head of strategic communications at Downing Street under Tony Blair, said that Morgan had explained to him how hacking had been used to get a story about Ulrika Jonsson’s affair with Sven-Göran Eriksson. And David Seymour, the Mirror’s political editor, said that he had watched Morgan playing that McCartney voicemail to a group of reporters. Morgan, he added, was “unreliable and boastful [and] apt to tell untruths when it suited him”. The judge said he accepted Seymour’s evidence “without hesitation”.
Those are just the human sources. The judge also drew on mountains of invoices, emails and phone records. Still, Morgan had another card to play, another that he turns to quite a lot: an enthusiastic swing at the motivations of Prince Harry, who he said was on a mission with his wife, Meghan, to “destroy the British monarchy”.
If that is the purpose of Harry’s exhaustive legal crusade against the Mirror, the Daily Mail, and the Sun, it seems an odd way of going about it. But hacking has never just been about Harry. Even on Friday, there were three other claimants. The wider litigation involved more than 100 others.
Hacking was certainly not just about Morgan, either. But his confected outrage as the evidence against him mounts does give a sense of how we can expect the story to continue from here.
The financial consequences are instructive, too. Harry won £141,000 in damages; another claimant won £32,000; another two didn’t get a penny, because their claims were made too late. Morgan will not have to pay any of it. Meanwhile, he is under contract at Rupert Murdoch’s TalkTV and the Sun, on a deal reportedly worth about £50m. Both outlets would have had ample evidence to suggest his involvement in hacking before this case even began, and neither has shown any signs of abandoning their man, who never hacked a phone, and never told anyone else to.
Archie Bland is the editor of the Guardian’s First Edition newsletter, and writes on media, culture and technology
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/2018/jun/04/genius-crossword-no-180 | Crosswords | 2018-06-03T23:01:02.000Z | Boatman | Genius crossword No 180 | Each clue or solution involves a word in common. To reach the defined solution to be entered in the grid, in some cases it must be added to the wordplay; in others it must be removed from the result of the wordplay.
Deadline for entries is 23:59 BST on Saturday 30 June. You need to register once and then sign in to theguardian.com to enter our online competition for a £100 monthly prize.
Click here to register
Click here for the printable version. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/21/nanoplastic-pollution-found-at-both-of-earths-poles-for-first-time | Environment | 2022-01-21T12:00:24.000Z | Damian Carrington | Nanoplastic pollution found at both of Earth’s poles for first time | Nanoplastic pollution has been detected in polar regions for the first time, indicating that the tiny particles are now pervasive around the world.
The nanoparticles are smaller and more toxic than microplastics, which have already been found across the globe, but the impact of both on people’s health is unknown.
Analysis of a core from Greenland’s ice cap showed that nanoplastic contamination has been polluting the remote region for at least 50 years. The researchers were also surprised to find that a quarter of the particles were from vehicle tyres.
Nanoparticles are very light and are thought to be blown to Greenland on winds from cities in North America and Asia. The nanoplastics found in sea ice in McMurdo Sound in Antarctica are likely to have been transported by ocean currents to the remote continent.
Plastics are part of the cocktail of chemical pollution that pervades the planet, which has passed the safe limit for humanity, scientists reported on Tuesday. Plastic pollution has been found from the summit of Mount Everest to the depths of the oceans. People are known to inadvertently eat and breathe microplastics and another recent study found that the particles cause damage to human cells.
Dušan Materić, at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and who led the new research, said: “We detected nanoplastics in the far corners of Earth, both south and north polar regions. Nanoplastics are very toxicologically active compared to, for instance, microplastics, and that’s why this is very important.”
The Greenland ice core was 14 metres deep, representing layers of snowfall dating back to 1965. “The surprise for me was not that we detected nanoplastics there, but that we detected it all the way down the core,” said Materić. “So although nanoplastics are considered as a novel pollutant, it has actually been there for decades.”
Microplastics had been found in Arctic ice before, but Materić’s team had to develop new detection methods to analyse the much smaller nanoparticles. Previous work had also suggested that dust worn from tyres was likely to be a major source of ocean microplastics and the new research provides real-world evidence.
The new study, published in the journal Environmental Research, found 13 nanograms of nanoplastics per millilitre of melted ice in Greenland but four times more in the Antarctic ice. This is probably because the process of forming sea ice concentrates the particles.
In Greenland, half the nanoplastics were polyethylene (PE), used in single-use plastic bags and packaging. A quarter were tyre particles and a fifth were polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used in drinks bottles and clothing.
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Half the nanoplastics in the Antarctic ice were PE as well, but polypropylene was the next most common, used for food containers and pipes. No tyre particles were found in Antarctica, which is more distant from populated areas. The researchers took samples only from the centres of the ice cores to avoid contamination, and tested their system with control samples of pure water.
Previous studies have found plastic nanoparticles in rivers in the UK, seawater from the North Atlantic and lakes in Siberia, and snow in the Austrian alps. “But we assume the hotspots are continents where people live,” said Materić.
The researchers wrote: “Nanoplastics have shown various adverse effects on organisms. Human exposure to nanoplastics can result in cytotoxicity [and] inflammation.”
“The most important thing as a researcher is to accurately measure [the pollution] and then assess the situation,” Materić said. “We are in a very early stage to draw conclusions. But it seems that everywhere we have analysed, it is a very big problem. How big? We don’t know yet.”
Research is starting to be carried out on the impact of plastic pollution on health and Dr Fay Couceiro is leading a new microplastics group at the University of Portsmouth, UK. One of its first projects is with Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust and will investigate the presence of microplastics in the lungs of patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma.
The research will investigate whether recently carpeted or vaccumed rooms, which can have a high number of fibres in the air, trigger the patients’ conditions. “Aside from the environmental damage caused by plastics, there is growing concern about what inhaling and ingesting microplastics is doing to our bodies,” said Couceiro.
Her recent research suggested people may be breathing 2,000–7,000 microplastics per day in their homes. Prof Anoop Jivan Chauhan, a respiratory specialist at Portsmouth hospitals university NHS trust, said: “This data is really quite shocking. Potentially we each inhale or swallow up to 1.8m microplastics every year and once in the body, it’s hard to imagine they’re not doing irreversible damage.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2011/oct/26/corinthians-carlos-tevez-manchester-city | Football | 2011-10-26T19:26:40.000Z | Andy Hunter | Corinthians target cut-price Carlos Tevez as Manchester City get tough | Manchester City remain unmoved from their stance that Carlos Tevez will not be sold for a cut-price fee in January despite claims to the contrary from Corinthians and the threat of legal action by the player against Roberto Mancini for defamation.
Tevez's representatives are considering their options after the Argentina international was hit with a record four-week fine of £1m and warned as to his future conduct having been found guilty of misconduct in the Champions League defeat at Bayern Munich last month.
The Corinthians president, Andrés Sánchez, responded to the deterioration in Tevez's already poor relationship with City by telling the Brazilian media that his club's former striker will be available for less than half his summer value when the Premier League's transfer window reopens in January. A proposed move to Corinthians collapsed in July.
Sánchez said: "Although many people do not believe it, Tevez is much closer to the Corinthians than you can imagine. The initial offer was €40m and that is now €18m (£16m) because of all the problems he has faced back in England."
City are adamant this is not the case and that, given Sheikh Mansour's wealth and his belief that Tevez has shown frequent disrespect towards him and the club, the owner is prepared to hold the 27-year-old to the remaining three years of his contract – even if Mancini chooses not to select him – or until a club meets the player's market value.
Mansour and the City chairman, Khaldoon al-Mubarak, are said to be unhappy at Tevez's behaviour and the club is among the select few in the world able to withstand the pressure to sell a potentially unused £250,000-a-week asset.
They have also given their complete backing to Mancini to deploy the former Manchester United striker as and when he sees fit, although the threatened legal action against the manager could prove a major distraction to the club should the defamation case reach court.
Mancini did not discuss the situation after City's 5-2 Carling Cup fourth-round victory at Wolverhampton Wanderers on Wednesday night. A spokesperson for the club explained that was due to the legal process.
Lawyers for Tevez are assessing whether to sue Mancini over the City manager's comments that the striker refused to play at the Allianz Arena on 27 September but the Argentinian's camp will not rush to a decision on their next move. Tevez has 14 days to appeal and it seems certain he will do so, with the player expected to present his case first to City's board of directors and, should they rule against him, then to the Premier League.
City's exhaustive disciplinary hearing into the events in Munich found Tevez guilty of five breaches of contract including that he had refused Mancini's request to appear as a substitute in the 2-0 defeat. Tevez's representatives insist City's charge relates to a failure to resume warming up rather than a refusal to play.
The Premier League leaders suspect Tevez's actions may have been premeditated after he had been told six days before the Bayern game that his requests to leave the club had cost him £6m in loyalty bonuses due over the course of his contract.
They also believe his anger at being demoted to fourth-choice striker by Mancini, and confirmation that his contract would not be renegotiated following the breakdown of a transfer to Corinthians, may also have been factors.
Mancini could be successfully sued for defamation if his post-match claims that Tevez refused to play, said to both Sky and the written media in Munich, are proved false and if the Argentinian's camp can show his earning capacity has been damaged as a result of the allegation.
The trial would result in Mancini, Tevez, team-mates who were also on the bench against Bayern and the club's fitness and coaching staff being called to the high court to give evidence.
There does remain a way back for Tevez at City should he show contrition for his actions in the Champions League game and apologise to Mancini, who said the striker was "finished" with the club on the night, although that appears highly unlikely.
City could have another battle on their hands after it emerged that Kolo Touré is planning to contest any potential punishment he is given for his six-month suspension for a failed drugs test. The Ivory Coast defender, a former City captain, is due to appear before an internal disciplinary panel, chaired by City's football executive, Brian Marwood, next week, when the club could fine the player. Touré's agent, Saif Rubie, said: "Kolo is disappointed the club have decided to take this stance and he will contest any planned action against him." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/jan/24/albanese-government-under-pressure-to-reveal-next-moves-after-failed-referendum | Australia news | 2024-01-23T23:00:01.000Z | Josh Butler | Albanese government under pressure to reveal next moves after failed referendum | The Australian government must “urgently” accelerate its plans on closing the gap in Indigenous life outcomes after the unsuccessful voice referendum, according to the top representative body of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community organisations.
The Coalition of Peaks has also suggested Labor should convene a “proper process to bring together Aboriginal people” to decide the future of the Uluru statement and its calls for voice, truth and treaty.
“In the meantime, we urgently need to get on with closing the gap and the Coalition of Peaks want to see funding for our communities hitting the ground now,” its acting lead convener Catherine Liddle told Guardian Australia.
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After the defeat of the referendum, which failed to win a majority in any state, the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, said the government would “consult on Indigenous Australians about a way forward”.
But three months on from the 14 October vote, little has emerged on Labor’s next plans in Indigenous affairs policy to bridge yawning gaps in life outcomes between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians. Indigenous-led organisations and senior figures in the yes campaign have questioned when new steps may be outlined, with some privately supporting the notion of government proceeding with legislated models for truth, treaty and voice.
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The Coalition of Peaks, a representative body of more than 80 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community-controlled peak organisations, met with the Indigenous Australians minister, Linda Burney, in November 2023 to discuss next steps.
Liddle, also the chief executive of the SNAICC (Secretariat of National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care) National Voice for our Children, said the Coalition of Peaks wanted to see further funding for Indigenous issues as soon as possible.
“The Coalition of Peaks have put a proposal to the Albanese government on what could be done to accelerate efforts to implement the national agreement and close the gap in the wake of the failed referendum and we are working with the government on this,” she said.
Liddle said the coalition wanted to ensure “all governments fulfil the commitments they have already made”, which she said included having Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people “at the table with governments” in decision-making.
“We know that Aboriginal people overwhelmingly voted for a voice. We voted for change and to improve our life outcomes. The Coalition of Peaks remain resolute and committed to bring about the change communities voted for,” she said.
The Productivity Commission is expected to hand down the final report of its review into the national agreement on closing the gap in early February. The government is expected to table its latest Closing the Gap report in mid-February, where further announcements on next steps in Indigenous affairs policy could be outlined.
Liddle said the Closing the Gap report should be accompanied by “significant and adequate funding” announcements, including a legislated closing the gap fund.
“We need funding to get to our communities urgently so that they can start to see the change all hoped for. We haven’t had a huge injection to support closing the gap since 2008 when it was around $5bn,” she said.
Burney told Guardian Australia in November the government was “taking our time” with setting its next plans, admitting that “might be frustrating to some people”, but flagging that truth-telling was being considered.
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In a statement this week, she said the government had “unwavering” commitment to working improving outcomes.
“The status quo remains unacceptable – we can all agree that we need to do more to address the inequality faced by many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people,” Burney said.
She said consultations she had conducted continued to raise priorities of health, jobs, education and housing, as well as “the importance of better understanding about our shared story and history.”
Labor has remained tight-lipped on the future of the Uluru statement, which Albanese has publicly committed to on numerous occasions – most prominently in his May 2022 election night victory speech.
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Albanese did not answer a recent question at a press conference on whether Labor would advance truth and treaty processes, while the future of the Makarrata commission remains in limbo.
Liddle said any “significant changes” on Indigenous affairs policy, which she said would include the possibility of legislating parts of the Uluru statement, must be decided with Indigenous people.
“It is very important that there is a proper process to bring together Aboriginal people to agree what happens next on the Uluru statement and that any engagements are conducted in line with the national agreement on closing the gap,” she said.
What form a truth-telling process takes should be a negotiation between the government and Aboriginal community representatives. This will take some time.
“It is clear from the referendum outcome that Australia needs a truth-telling process on our collective history and on the constitution itself, how it works and how it was developed.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/06/due-to-get-married-fiance-lost-interest-in-sex | Life and style | 2019-08-06T07:00:13.000Z | Pamela Stephenson Connolly | We’re due to get married, but my fiance has lost interest in sex | I love my fiance. He’s kind, caring, and makes me smile and laugh. We’re due to get married next year but one thing keeps nagging at me: our sex life. It has never been great – to start with, he had problems with stamina – but now we have had sex only once in seven months. I’ve tried to speak to him, but he keeps brushing it off and it only makes things worse. I look at other men and sometimes dream about them. Must I get used to a sexless life?
Some people choose to enter or remain in sexless marriages for a variety of reasons. But sex is clearly important to you, so you have to make a choice. Your sexual connection with your fiance is not going to improve by itself. First, take steps to try to rekindle eroticism between you. Do this gently: he is probably unwilling to address it because he is embarrassed, ashamed or confused. Without blaming or shaming him, help him to understand how important it is to address this, and don’t take “no” for an answer. This does not mean offering him an ultimatum. Approach him with love and understanding, and reassure him that this is fixable. There are many possible reasons for his lack of interest, including his perceived issues with “stamina”. Having trouble maintaining an erection or climaxing too quickly are common problems that can be treated. Perhaps he suffers from stress, or a passion-killing mood disorder such as depression or anxiety. Or he might be taking medication that affects his sexual response. You need to work as a team to figure this out. You have put up with this situation for a long time, and I am wondering why. Some people do not believe they have a right to get their sexual needs met – and make commitments and compromises that lead to long-term misery. Is this you? You need to decide.
Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.
If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to [email protected] (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online and in print. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions: see gu.com/letters-terms.
Comments on this piece are premoderated to ensure discussion remains on topics raised by the writer. Please be aware there may be a short delay in comments appearing on the site. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/aug/17/a-level-results-in-england-show-biggest-drop-on-record | Education | 2023-08-17T18:21:48.000Z | Richard Adams | Thousands fewer students in England awarded top A-level grades | Thousands of students in England have missed out on top marks in their A-levels as results plummeted across the board after the government enforced a reversal of pandemic-era grade inflation.
The sharp fall in As and A*s came as the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, was accused of “adding insult to injury” for suggesting no one would be interested in pupils’ exam results 10 years after the event anyway.
Five thousand fewer students in England gained three A* grades than in 2022, while the proportion of top A*-A grades shrank from 35.9% to 26.5% within a year, with 67,000 fewer awarded this year.
The proportion of A* grades awarded in England was 8.6% – a steep fall on the 14.5% awarded last year and but still above the 7.7% awarded in 2019. The proportion of A* and A grades combined were also higher than in 2019, by 0.7 percentage points.
Headteachers said they were alarmed to see that in some cases grading was even more stringent than the last set of A-level exams taken before the pandemic, with the proportion of A*-C grades this year lower than those awarded in 2019 because of a sharp increase in the number of lowest grades.
For the first time, more than one in 10 entries in England were awarded an E or U (unclassified) – a 10% increase on such grades in 2019. The increase is likely to be the result of more students taking A-levels based on their GCSE results awarded by teacher assessment when exams were cancelled in 2021.
England’s results also showed a large gap in top grades compared with Wales and Northern Ireland, where regulators have taken into account the long-term impact of the pandemic through more generous grading.
Northern Ireland awarded A*-A grades to 37.5% of its A-level entries, while Wales awarded 34% – in stark contrast to the 26.5% in England.
As school-leavers opened the results they had worked towards for two years, Keegan said those who didn’t receive their expected grades “shouldn’t be disappointed”, adding: “They won’t ask you anything about your A-level grades in 10 years’ time. They will ask you about other things you have done since then, what you have done in the workplace, what you did at university.
“And then, after a period of time, they don’t even ask you what you did at university.”
Bridget Phillipson, the shadow education secretary, responded that Keegan’s remarks were “downright rude” and that she needed to apologise.
“This is a nerve-racking day for young people who’ve worked incredibly hard. The last thing that they need is the secretary of state offering comments like that.
“It really does add insult to injury coming from a government that completely failed to put in place the kind of support that our young people needed,” Phillipson said.
Keegan later qualified her remarks, saying: “It is true; it is just real. It’s an important step to get to your next destination, but when you’re a couple of destinations further on there’ll be other things that they look at.”
Jo Saxton, the head of Ofqual, the exam regulator for England, defended the fall in grades, saying: “There are no surprises here and the changes in grading that we’re seeing are very similar to the changes that we saw last year. And these results are above those of 2019 so these students have absolutely had the protection that they deserve, given everything they went through.”
But Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said this year’s set of students should be proud of what they achieved. “Whatever the rationale, however, it will feel like a bruising experience for many students, as well as schools and colleges which will have seen a sharp dip in top grades compared to the past three years,” he said.
Ucas, the university admissions organisation, said 79% of UK school-leavers qualified for their first choice of undergraduate course starting in autumn – slightly below the 81% who did so last year but higher than the 74% who got their first choice in 2019. About 60,000 students entered clearing in the hunt for university courses.
Jeremy Miles, Wales’s minister for education, said there was no evidence the differences in approach between England’s grading and the rest of the UK was creating difficulties.
“What’s been happening behind the scenes is that the exam regulators have been working closely together, and with universities, so that everyone understands the approaches being taken in the four countries, and I don’t think we have any evidence that is causing issues,” he said.
Independent and grammar schools had the largest drop in top grades compared with last year but both received more top grades than in 2019. Forty-seven per cent of entries from independent schools received A* or A grades, as did 39% of entries from grammar schools in England.
There were also sharp regional disparities. While London and south-east England recorded a greater proportion of top grades compared with 2019, there was a fall in the north-east of England, and in the Yorkshire and Humber regions. There was an 8 percentage point gap between students getting A*-A grades in south-east England and those in the north-east – wider than the 5 percentage point gap in 2019.
Chris Zarraga, director of Schools North East, said: “If these challenges across different stages are not addressed, we risk this year’s gaps and inequalities becoming the norm.”
Mathematics remained the most popular subject, while economics replaced geography in the top 10, with more than 39,000 students taking the subject. English literature went up in popularity, after two years of declining entries, while computing recorded the highest increase with 16% more entries this year.
The second cohort taking the new vocational qualification, T-levels, also received their results, with a third of the students who enrolled dropping out before the end of the two-year course. Of the 3,119 students who received results, 90% achieved at least a pass and 22% earned a distinction or better.
This article was amended on 18 August 2023. An earlier subheading incorrectly described Gillian Keegan as the health secretary. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/29/armed-police-patrol-french-beaches-crs-resorts-bullet-proof | World news | 2016-06-29T15:53:53.000Z | Saeed Kamali Dehghan | Armed police to patrol French beaches amid terrorism fears | Tourists visiting French resorts this summer will see armed police patrols on the beaches, as the country beefs up security measures for the holiday season.
Officers belonging to the CRS riot police force, who have previously been equipped with batons and handcuffs, will be allowed to wear special holsters carrying weapons for the first time. Bulletproof vests will also be at their disposal.
The move comes two weeks after an unarmed French police chief and his partner were killed in a stabbing in front of their house outside Paris. Isis claimed responsibility for the attack, which has sparked a debate in France about whether the forces should carry weapons outside working hours. France remains in a state of emergency following November’s deadly attacks, which left 130 dead.
Paris attacks leave France in trauma, fearing for the future
Natalie Nougayrède
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Concerns about the security of shoreline resorts have also grown since last year’s mass shooting at the Tunisian tourist resort of Port El Kantaoui, near the city of Sousse.
Nicolas Comte, a spokesman from the Unité SGP Police-Force Ouvrière, the syndicate representing the French national police, said on Wednesday that there had been no specific terrorist threats; the measures were taken primarily to ensure the safety of lifeguards.
“This is the first time that these officers will be armed. Normally throughout July and August they are in their swimsuits and unarmed,” he said, according to local reports.
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Comte was quoted as saying that recent news had shown it was “dangerous” to be a police officer in France, as officers were potential targets for terrorists. He said the CRS forces could clearly be identified as they normally had police badges and wore T-shirts.
“We can see these days that the police are the target of terrorists, but this is also to ensure the police are ready to respond in the event of an armed attack,” Comte said. “This is a win-win situation for everyone. It means that there are people to provide security for everyone when they are on the beach. Holidaymakers will not see police in heavy armour, they will see lifeguards.”The number of CRS police forces patrolling French resorts is down to 297 from the usual 460, possibly due to the pressure of patrolling other events such as the Euro 2016 football championship and the imminent Tour de France. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/mar/13/everton-wolves-premier-league-match-report | Football | 2022-03-13T16:08:17.000Z | Richard Jolly | Conor Coady heads Wolves to victory and deepens Everton’s drop worries | Only Ryan Giggs has won more Premier League games as a player than Frank Lampard but one of the division’s royalty is increasingly threatened with ejection from the ranks of the elite. Everton’s position grows ever more precarious. Ever-present in the top flight since 1954, now only goal difference separates them from the bottom three.
They were imperilled by a fourth consecutive league defeat and by results elsewhere. Relying on others to save them seems a flawed theory when they showed precious little inclination to save themselves. They trusted that Goodison Park would make a difference. Instead a Merseysider did: Conor Coady, a former Liverpool player and lifelong fan who sealed Wolves’ first double over Everton since 1972-73.
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They leapfrogged Tottenham, whereas Everton had been hammered 5-0 by Spurs. “This wasn’t more worrying than Tottenham,” said Lampard, but if Everton hit rock bottom in north London, a shambolic second half suggested improvement was limited. The boos at the final whistle were the most negative reaction Goodison has produced in Lampard’s reign but felt unsurprising after Jonjoe Kenny contrived to collect two cautions in three minutes and Everton ended up being outclassed by Rúben Neves.
The Wolves manager, Bruno Lage, said: “Rúben has the talent to be the top of the top.” But he left Everton nearer the bottom three and the contrast with Dele Alli, whose cameo was lamentable, was stark and cruel to the Englishman. The January signing seems an unfortunate fit for Everton: both have lost their way. For each, a decline in status could follow. Lampard was nevertheless defiant.
“The only thing that matters is to stay up,” he said. “We have to have the absolute desire and fight to get out of this. It has been a long time that we haven’t been winning enough games. That doesn’t change overnight.”
Yet it needs to change soon or one of the founder members of the Football League may not be meeting in the Premier League next season. “Going down,” came the taunt from the vocal visiting fans and, as Everton only have two wins in their past 20 league games, they may be right. They have not scored in the past four, whereas Wolves have an unexpectedly potent force.
Coady, who failed to register a shot on target in his first 87 Premier League appearances, has doubled his tally of Wolves goals this season from three to six. His third of the campaign was a wonderful header, curling away from Jordan Pickford from Neves’s cross as Wolves’ vice-captain and captain led by example. “Conor looks like a striker to score that,” Lage said with a smile. “It was a magnificent goal.”
It allowed Wolves to display their superiority. Raúl Jiménez volleyed past one post and Daniel Podence drilled a shot past the other. Neves is known more for his passing than his dribbling but he embarked on a 40-yard solo run before Marçal had a shot saved by Pickford. “One of the best second halves we did,” said Lage. Everton could not say the same. When Kenny made his premature exit, Lampard’s plans were in ruins.
Jonjoe Kenny receives his second-half red card for Everton. Photograph: Martin Rickett/PA
They have been subject to regular rethinks. Lampard showed a ruthless streak as Everton began without the spine of Monday’s side. Dominic Calvert-Lewin was ill, with the manager unsure when he will return, but Allan and Michael Keane were dropped in a switch to 3-4-3.
A winning formula remains elusive but Richarlison at least lent a dynamism a labouring Calvert-Lewin has lacked of late. Everton’s roving frontrunner often showed the slipperiness to escape the attentions of Wolves’ three centre-backs. Richarlison burst beyond them to latch on to a pass from the recalled Vitalii Mykolenko. The excellent José Sá parried the Brazilian’s shot. Later, Richarlison mounted a one-man attempt to rescue a point, glancing a post with a header when offside and bending a shot into the side netting.
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But Everton were stripped of momentum after his early effort. In a stop-start spell, Hwang Hee-chan went down injured three times in swift succession, eventually necessitating his withdrawal. An apologetic wave to the Gwladys Street End was not enough to spare him jeers. Wolves served as irritants again when his replacement Podence collapsed in histrionic fashion in a seeming attempt to get Pickford sent off. Instead, Neves and co found a more stylish way of frustrating Everton, leaving Lampard still in search of the win that will halt their slide.
“We have 12 games [left] and we are waiting for that moment when things turn in our favour,” he said. They are 12 games from an escape, or from ignominy. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/may/27/california-isla-vista-shooting-police-suspect-questioning | World news | 2014-05-27T15:55:08.000Z | Jessica Glenza | California shooting: local police under scrutiny over suspect questioning | Classes are canceled and a memorial is planned for Tuesday at the Santa Barbara campus of the University of California after 22-year-old Elliot Rodger killed six students and injured 13 more.
On Friday, the Santa Barbara City College student allegedly stabbed his three roommates to death, shot and killed three strangers, left eight more with gunshot wounds and hit four people with his car before apparently shooting himself dead.
Rodger left a trail of YouTube videos and a lengthy text attributing plans for the apparent killing spree to his lack of a sex life and rejection by women.
But as local police comes under scrutiny over their questioning of Rodger before the shooting, mental health professionals are cautioning that identifying and stopping mass murderers is nearly impossible.
Weeks before the rampage, Rodger's mother requested police perform a welfare check on her son after viewing his recent YouTube postings. Deputies from the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office interviewed Rodger at his apartment, now the scene of impromptu memorials, but found Rodger polite and courteous, apparently not raising officers' concerns.
The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office is conducting an internal investigation. Spokesperson Kelly Hoover declined to comment in detail on officers' encounter with Rodger, according to Reuters.
It's unclear if police watched any of the YouTube videos which prompted Rodger's mother's concern in the first place.
Rodger later wrote about the encounter in a 141-page manifesto titled "My Twisted World," saying he had hidden firearms, legally purchased, in his home in preparation for the attacks.
Police officials and mental health experts say Rodger's behavior still may not have been enough to allow authorities to act.
Hoover said, in general, deputies are barred from entering residences without a warrant, unless they believe someone is in immediate danger. Instead, police said they found Rodger polite and courteous upon their visit.
And mental health experts say that while mass murderers tend to display "deluded thinking," they're also difficult to pinpoint.
Identifying mass killers, "is not an exact science," Risdon Slate, a professor of criminology at Florida Southern College told the AP.
"We can point to all the warning signs we missed. But they're yellow flags. They're not red flags until blood is spilled," said James Alan Fox, a criminal justice professor at Northeastern University who has written several books on mass murders.
A memorial is planned at UCSB's Harder Stadium at 4pm PT on Tuesday. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/24/leavers-take-control | Opinion | 2016-06-24T17:53:30.000Z | Marina Hyde | The leavers really have taken control. That why things are unravelling | Marina Hyde | Wanting your country back turns out to have been a zero-sum game. Waking up this morning, about 52% of voters felt they’d got it back, and about 48% felt they’d lost it. Yet perhaps in the long reckoning both sides will find they had, in the unspeakably tragic phrase of the hour, more in common than that which divides us. Maybe it’ll be like Clint Eastwood says at the end of The Outlaw Josey Wales, as he stares that thousand-yard stare: “I guess we all died a little in that damn war.”
EU referendum as it happened: Juncker calls for start to Brexit negotiations
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For now, the victory belongs to Boris Johnson and Michael Gove, and to Nigel Farage. This is their triumph. Either celebrate it, or attempt not to choke on it. They have “taken back control”. They have “got their country back”.
What else did we get back? Definitely our financial arse, which was being handed to us way before the FTSE-100 even opened. David Cameron’s much-remarked-upon political luck has finally run out, and a campaign whose guiding spirit was a mendacious short-termism has produced the ultimate long-term result.
Whichever way you slice it, this feels like a significant moment for trust in politics. Before the result was even formally declared, Farage had rubbished the idea of the extra £350m for the NHS as a “mistake”, while the MEP Dan Hannan had talked down the idea of a reduction in immigration. What a magical mystery tour it will be for people, then, to discover what it was in fact they were actually voting for. And who will be blamed for things now the EU bogeyman is slain? The history of the continent offers a series of chilling answers to that inquiry.
Nigel Farage: ‘This will be a victory for real people’ Guardian
Doubtless a coherent plan of action will emerge. For now, Farage has one idea for the credit column: “June 23 needs to become a national holiday,” he declared. And we will call it INDEPENDENCE DAY!” (Come, friendly aliens … )
To watch him bluster about a win against “big politics” and “getting on with the job” was to be struck by an old conviction: there is little so dangerous in politics as people who regard complex things as being incredibly simple.
As for Johnson and Gove, who have spent the best part of eight weeks joyfully telling whoppers and making mind-boggling Nazi comparisons, they deployed their extra-special slow and quiet voices to address the nation. Gove in particular came off like an am-dram quaverer seconds from segueing into John Hannah’s “Stop all the clocks” reading from Four Weddings and a Funeral.
As for Boris, never forget that the only untruth the prime ministerial favourite-in-waiting corrected in the entire campaign was the Sunday Times’ misapprehension that he dyes his hair.
“This does not mean that the United Kingdom will be any less united,” he intoned this morning, suggesting he must have been watching the day’s events on tape delay. Before breakfast the SNP had declared it sees Scotland’s future as part of the EU, while Sinn Féin called for a referendum on Irish unity. Boris was proud we were the fifth largest economy, he went on, apparently unaware that Events had already bumped us down to number six.
For those who had voted to remain … well, a new dawn had shat, had it not? Four hours before the official leave campaign mounted their podium, Nigel Farage arrived triumphantly in front of the Houses of Parliament, to which he has failed to get elected seven times, and which may ultimately only be visible protruding from the sand to be stumbled upon by a latterday Charlton Heston. (Ask your grandparents, millennials. Because really, even by their own exacting standards, this result was the baby boomers’ finest hour.)
What would the Ukip leader say? Cometh the hour, what man would come? When Margaret Thatcher arrived in Downing Street in 1979, she famously addressed “all the British people – howsoever they voted”, with the attributed words of St Francis of Assisi: “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope.”
EU referendum full results – find out how your area voted
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Finally required to find his own words for the moment towards which he had been building all his political life, statesminnow Farage dismissed half the country as indecent, ruling: “This is a victory for ordinary people, for decent people.” Where there was harmony, let him bring discord. “Mass immigration is the issue that ultimately won this election.” Where there was faith, let him bring doubt. “And we did it all without a single bullet being fired.” Where there was hope, let him bring despair.
Yes, this is his victory. Fascinatingly, he seemed psychologically incapable of accepting it. I must confess to always having suspected that a man of Farage’s Partridgean stature would become overwhelmed in his hour of personal destiny, and was struck by his decision to pull out of the final referendum TV debate merely an hour before he was due to appear. Vote night itself saw him concede early, only to unconcede, then reconcede, then re-unconcede.
What insecurities tug beneath the surface of the leader of the United Kingdom Independence party? Or rather, the leader of the Kingdom Independence party, given the various schisms opening up seemingly by the hour. As for what sort of country Farage believes himself to have taken back control of, there were heavy clues, not just in that infamous poster but in the film he narrated at his final rally on Wednesday morning.
A work of suitably nostalgic, sub-Pearl & Dean production values, this depicted a place of Spitfires and the battle of Britain and the Queen’s coronation. Most jarring (for this viewer at least) was a section in which Farage explained that Britain was “a country of sporting greatness”. Bizarrely, this was illustrated only with footage of Ian Botham from the 1981 Ashes series.
Why? You’d think there’d have been something slightly more au courant – the London Olympics were pretty epic, for instance. What precisely is it about so much of the British sporting success that has followed Botham’s Ashes, a full 35 years ago, that makes it unsuitable for a Ukip rally film? Perhaps we’ll put our collective finger on it as he becomes more emboldened by this stunning victory.
Each of us can speak only as we find. For my own part – with a political wishlist that has always included progressivism, tolerance, universal human rights, openness, truthfulness and an outward-looking national state of mind – I can’t help feeling 2016’s wave of departures finally makes sense. All those cool people died just in time. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/feb/27/australias-renters-face-staggering-increases-with-more-to-come | Australia news | 2023-02-26T14:00:24.000Z | Peter Hannam | Australia’s renters face ‘staggering’ increases – with more to come | Australia’s renters are facing “staggering” increases in weekly costs, with worsening shortages of homes pushing up rents by a third or more in the past year in the most stretched markets.
Data from PropTrack found most of the biggest increases were in the regions, with Katanning, a town several hours’ drive south-east of Perth, registering the biggest annual increase in weekly house rents at 47% to a median price of $375.
Melbourne’s CBD led increases in units, with residents reporting a 42% rise in rents over the past year to a median price of $540.
‘It will be a disaster’: mayor’s dire warning over developer-led housing outside Sydney
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“These are really staggering rent increases,” PropTrack economist Anne Flaherty said, adding the rental jump was broad-based. “The speed at which rents are rising is far outpacing what we historically see.”
Rising demand was one factor, as Covid-related work changes meant more relatively well-paid city residents found they could work remotely, and outbid locals.
Lately, the return of overseas students and a resumption of migration have combined to push up competition for inner-city units in particular, Flaherty said.
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“We lost those at the start of the pandemic and we saw vacancy in Melbourne CBD and Sydney CBD increase, and rents fell,” she said. “Now we’re in exactly the reverse situation where demand is back very strongly and that’s driven a recovery in rents.”
Other groups have estimated average rental increases exceeded 10% in 2022 even as rising interest rates triggered a drop of property prices. ANZ last week projected property prices in capital cities would slide another 10% in 2023, bringing the total peak-to-trough retreat to 18% before they start to make a modest rebound in late 2024.
Flaherty said higher borrowing costs themselves were not necessarily driving rents higher.
“Landlords basically can charge what the market can afford,” she said. Without the current “rental crisis”, landlords couldn’t push rents above the market prices just to claw back the higher borrowing costs.
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One effect of higher interest rate costs, though, was that average would-be homebuyers have had their borrowing capacity slashed by about a quarter even as real estate prices have dropped. “There’s a cohort of renters out there who had been delayed from buying because it’s less affordable,” Flaherty said.
The outlook for supply isn’t promising either. The Housing Industry Association last week warned the combination of skills and material shortages and higher costs would push the rate of construction of new homes to the lowest year rate in a decade.
Here's how other states' rental increases over the past year stacked up, starting with South Australia. (Source: @PropTrack ) (🧵👇) pic.twitter.com/C9uSozKekw
— @[email protected] (@p_hannam) February 27, 2023
The HIA expects the number of detached housing starts to “fall below 100,000 starts per year for the first time in a decade to just 96,300 in 2024”, it said. “This is a very rapid slowdown from the 149,000 starts in 2021.”
Short-term rentals destroying ‘social fabric’ of region, Byron Bay residents tell inquiry
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The slowing rate of new homes being built just as demand picks up point to more rental increases to come as the market remains tight. Nationally, vacancy rates are below 2% and in some regions even below 1%.
“Renters are realising that if they want to be successful, in some cases, they need to offer more than what the landlord’s even asking,” Flaherty said. “We’re certainly expecting to see rents climb higher this year.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/mediamonkeyblog/2013/dec/18/daily-mail-michel-roux-sr | Media | 2013-12-18T09:28:19.000Z | Monkey | Daily Mail picks wrong Roux in anti-EU snafu | Media Monkey | The Daily Mail's Ephraim Hardcastle diary column can't resist picking up on Eurosceptic comments made by culinary legend Michel Roux Sr that: "The EU's increasing and bewildering intrusion into national lives dilutes countries' identities as it marches on with its alarming aim of an 'ever closer union'." Rubbing its hands with glee, it describes him as "French-born MasterChef chef", adding "Let's hope Roux's chance of future appearances on the Europhile BBC survives such heresy." All very well and good, but it isn't Michel Roux Sr, 72, who is a judge on MasterChef, but his nephew Michel Roux Jr, 53. As Michel Jr would say on MasterChef: "Mmm … not good." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/social-care-network/2016/dec/12/laingbuisson-report-privatising-childrens-social-services | Social Care Network | 2016-12-12T09:56:37.000Z | Ray Jones | New report is the next step to privatising children’s social services | The long-awaited LaingBuisson report on creating a marketplace for children’s social services in England has at last been published by the Department for Education. Why the delay? What is now clear is that ministers may have thought it too hot to handle. At the same time as it was quietly published, the government issued a statement distancing itself from some of the key options presented.
The report’s title – The potential for developing the capacity and diversity of children’s social care in England – is a little misleading. In essence, it is a report on how to promote the marketisation and potential commercialisation of statutory children’s social services.
There is nothing on how local authorities might increase their own in-house capacity to deliver children’s social care services. It is all about how arrangements outside local authority direct provision can be stimulated, and indeed may be required, by the government.
This is another step on the journey initiated by David Cameron to move statutory children’s social services outside local government (and, by extension, local accountability and transparency), albeit the first moves were made in 2006 by Tony Blair.
Why don't we talk more about the privatisation of social care?
Bob Hudson
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Professor Julian Le Grand is the architect of this initiative. He, along with Isabelle Trowler, the government’s chief social worker for children, and Alan Wood, a frequent government adviser, were the DfE’s advisory panel overseeing the report’s preparation. Each has previously expressed support for opening up children’s social services to a wider range of profit and non-profit providers.
Does the government’s apparent disavowal of the report’s findings signal that the tide is turning, or is Theresa May just preparing the flood defences against a wave of opposition?
The coalition government got into deep water with public opposition in 2014, when it proposed changes in statutory regulations so that any organisation or company could be contracted to take decisions about the welfare and safety of children. G4S, Serco, Amey, Mouchel and Virgin Care attended meetings arranged by the DfE to explore how they might become more involved in shaping and providing children’s social services.
The report claims that change in a dispersed marketplace of providers will inevitably generate service improvement
Rather disingenuously, the government stated then, and continues to assert now in its response to the LaingBuisson report, that “we reject those options which would allow … profit-making organisations to deliver [statutory children’s social services]”. If this is the current government’s position it should amend the 2014 regulatory change that allows profit-making businesses, such as the big outsourcing companies, to provide these services on contract. They have to set up a not-for-profit subsidiary, but the parent company can then make its profit by providing facilities and services to its subsidiary at whatever price is set by the parent company.
What LaingBuisson was tasked to do was “explore the potential for developing capacity and diversity of children’s social care services in England”. Its report is based on the un-tested and un-evidenced assumption that “transformation [of children’s social services] itself brings longer-term benefits for the service user” and an “expectation of improved outcomes in the medium to long term”.
This is a staggering assertion. Rather than continuity, coherence and cooperation across local agencies that are reasonably well-resourced and stable, the claim is that churn, change and fragmentation across a more dispersed marketplace of providers will inevitably generate service improvement. This fits, however, with the government’s mantra that “innovation” is the answer to a 90% increase in child protection workloads over the past eight years as funding to local authorities has reduced by 40%.
The LaingBuisson report is well worth a read. Its international comparisons reveal that nowhere else apart from England does the state look to contract out crucial assessments and decision-making about the safety and protection of children. The report also shows how much of children’s social services, such as children’s homes (66%), foster care (47%) and social workers (14%), are already provided through independent, largely profit-making, companies.
Justine Greening should withdraw the disastrous children and social work bill
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The distance sought by the current government from this report, commissioned while David Cameron was prime minister and Michael Gove education secretary, might provide some relief. Theresa May and Justine Greening have the opportunity to set their own course. They inherited policies that are controversial with the public and seen as high risk by those who work to assist families and protect children. As with the children and social work bill, which is generating widespread public, professional and parliamentary opposition, now is a good time to pause, reflect and engage with those working within children’s social services.
Join the Social Care Network to read more pieces like this. Follow us on Twitter (@GdnSocialCare) and like us on Facebook to keep up with the latest social care news and views. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/jan/26/amsterdam-post-brexit-london-financial-cake | Cities | 2017-01-26T07:15:03.000Z | Renate van der Zee | Going Dutch: will Amsterdam grab a slice of the post-Brexit cake? | Is Amsterdam going to be the new London? Some people seem to think so. Ever since last June’s Brexit vote, there has been serious talk of the Dutch capital as a potential candidate – if a slightly less obvious one than Paris, Frankfurt or Dublin. The American professor of business journalism, James B Stewart, even pronounced Amsterdam the “winner” in his column for the New York Times.
Among his reasons are the people’s impressive grasp of the English language, their good international schools, and the picturesqueness of their capital. On top of that, Amsterdam already is a centre of international commerce, has one of the best European airports, and has a very good rail network that takes you to Brussels in a mere two hours.
Some European cities have made overt attempts to present themselves as a viable alternative to London as the financial capital of Europe. Shortly after the Brexit vote, a truck with a billboard advising “Dear start-ups, Keep calm and move to Berlin” was seen driving through London. Online advertisements aimed at international banks emerged saying “Welcome to Paris Region”, and more than 4,000 British-based executives were contacted to point out the advantages of the French capital.
The idea that the entire City of London will pack up and move to another city is not very realistic
Kajsa Ollongren
Amsterdam kept a low profile and did none of that. But Kajsa Ollongren, the city’s deputy mayor in charge of economic affairs, did make three trips to London to talk to firms that could consider Amsterdam as an alternative business location.
“The idea that the entire City of London will pack up and move to another city is not very realistic,” she says. “It’s much more likely that only specific sectors will want to move to the continent. I do hear from some firms that they are considering the possibilities, though – and Amsterdam is certainly seen as one.”
Ollongren’s strategy is to focus on sectors for which Amsterdam could be especially attractive, such as fintech, clearing and high-frequency trading. “Fintech is big in the City and it’s emerging in Amsterdam – so there’s a match,” she explains. “Dutch clearing houses have an excellent reputation and they are perfectly able to do their work in English, so that’s another branch that could attract interest. We think it’s more effective to focus on specific slices of the cake.”
The Dutch capital has a good rail network and is seen as the gateway to Europe. Photograph: funky-data/Getty Images
Two of the greatest advantages of Amsterdam are, according to Ollongren, its excellent digital connectivity and the fact that it already has a financial sector – as opposed to Berlin – although the German capital might be stronger than Amsterdam when it comes to startups. Another important selling point is its geographical position: “Amsterdam is considered to be the gateway to Europe. Here we definitely beat Dublin.”
“Amsterdam will undoubtedly get their share after Brexit,” says Roel Beetsma, professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam. “I expect it will attract businesses in the sectors it’s good at – payment transactions, for example. The Netherlands also has strong insurance and pension sectors and big data storage centres. That can be interesting for some companies. But in the end, it will remain small fry.”
According to Beetsma, scenic canals and a fluency in English are not enough to attract the biggest financial institutions. When it comes to atmosphere Amsterdam can beat Frankfurt hands down, but certainly not when it comes to the size of its financial sector.
“The Dutch financial world has suffered severe blows during the financial crisis of 2008. Banks have witnessed layoff after layoff. A lot of employment has disappeared and there are still jobs at risk. The financial industry is too small to make Amsterdam an interesting location for the really big banks,” he says.
‘The wisest thing for Amsterdam would be to focus on its strengths,’ says Audrie van Veen. Photograph: Michael Kooren/Reuters
Another issue is the country’s severe cap on bankers’ bonuses: no more than 20% of annual salaries. “Big financial businesses look for a place where the restrictions on salaries are as small as possible,” Beetsma says. “Compared to London, salaries are low in Amsterdam – that is a major stumbling block. So I think Paris and Frankfurt will turn out to be the winners in the end.’’
Dutch Europe expert Audrie van Veen agrees there won’t be one single European city that absorbs all the companies and financial institutions that are considering leaving London.
“First of all, I think London will remain an important financial hub. And the companies that do leave will spread out over various cities on the continent – Amsterdam will not be the city that benefits the most,” van Veen predicts.
“The wisest thing for Amsterdam would be to focus on it strengths, like innovation and digital connectivity; to attract businesses that otherwise would have established their headquarters in London but are now looking for other possibilities.”
Indeed, such developments are already taking place. Last year Japan’s biggest bank, the Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, expanded its office in Amsterdam with personnel from London; it now serves as the headquarters for all its continental activities. Other major Japanese financial institutions are said to be considering similar moves.
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“Mitsubishi’s decision was already in the making, but was probably accelerated by the Brexit vote,” Ollongren says. “I have nevertheless congratulated them on their strategic choice. I strongly believe this will attract other European headquarters of Asian banks to Amsterdam.’’
Ollongren is, however, not optimistic when it comes to the wider economic effects of Brexit. “It’s basically not good for Amsterdam, or the whole of Europe for that matter – we miss out on a lot of investments due to all the insecurity. But if Brexit has to happen,” she adds, “it’s wise to make sure Amsterdam attract parts of the financial sector.”
Van Veen warns of even greater hazards: “With the rise of populism in Europe and the looming disintegration of the European Union, it is doubtful whether the so-called ‘new London’ will be in Europe after all. It could well turn out to be New York, Singapore or Hong Kong.”
Follow Guardian Cities on Twitter and Facebook to join the discussion, andexplore our archive here | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/apr/24/the-letdown-a-sweet-patchwork-of-comforting-stories-for-anyone-feeling-alone | Culture | 2020-04-23T17:30:02.000Z | Meg Watson | The Letdown: a sweet patchwork of comforting stories for anyone feeling alone | Iknow this is a column about shows you recommend watching in isolation, but I’m not sure if this one is comforting or excruciating right now. Maybe both! But if you’re self-isolating with small children, it’s almost definitely the latter.
The Letdown is the story of a new mum, Audrey (Alison Bell), struggling to cope with her changed circumstances. As the primary caregiver to her daughter Stevie, she’s largely confined to her home. She feels inadequate, out of control, confused, and frustrated as her previous life – friends, parties, a semi-stable career! – slips out of grasp.
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“There’s no point whinging about what you’ve lost: muscle tone, sleep, freedom…” says Ambrose (Noni Hazlehurst), the stern leader of her local mothers’ group. The Letdown never quite whinges about Audrey’s new life, but it is frank and self-deprecating in a particularly Australian way about its difficulties.
Created and written by Alison Bell and Sarah Scheller, The Letdown was originally developed as part of ABC TV’s Comedy Showroom in 2016. It then went on for a two-season run in collaboration with Netflix. In feeling and form, the show follows in the vein of another recent ABC gem turned international success story: Please Like Me. Bell and Scheller wrench humour from the tender and personal (the story stemmed from Scheller’s experiences at a mothers’ group). And through that, The Letdown spotlights the sometimes joyous, sometimes tortuous complexity of domestic and family life.
New mother Audrey feels inadequate, out of control, confused and frustrated.
This is a particular kind of domestic life – white, inner-city Sydney, well off enough to live in a family-owned home there – but the story is enriched by the other members of Audrey’s mothers’ group. There’s methodical business woman Ester (Sacha Horler), eager stay-at-home dad Ruben (Leon Ford), bogan mum of three Barbara (Celeste Barber), overachiever Sophie (Lucy Durack), young mum Georgia (Xana Tang), and queer musician Martha (Leah Vandenberg).
These people are dealing with very different problems, but they’re united by many too. Over two seasons, The Letdown creates a sweet patchwork of their stories that feels like a big comforting doona for anyone (but specifically new mums) feeling overwhelmed or alone.
I don’t have any children, but I am in the age range where people expect motherhood to be on your mind. I suppose it is. Each baby that pops into my news feed makes me wonder about the shape and feel of that world. How do you know if it’s what you really want? How do you reckon with the parts of yourself you leave behind?
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My mum has told me many times, “one day you’ll be a mother and you’ll understand”. It’s only ever said in moments of sacrifice.
The Letdown is a rare look at those initial sacrifices that are mixed in with the joy, and the world that consistently takes them for granted. I can’t say it makes me want to push a human being out of my body tomorrow, but it would definitely give me a sense of humour about the horror of it all if and when I do.
The first season of The Letdown is now on Netflix | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/nov/12/protests-spain-amnesty-deal-catalan-separatists-independence | World news | 2023-11-12T13:44:57.000Z | Sam Jones | Fresh protests held across Spain over amnesty deal for Catalan separatists | Tens of thousands of people have gathered across Spain to protest against the acting government’s plans to secure another term in office by offering an amnesty to those who took part in the illegal and failed push for Catalan independence six years ago.
The proposed amnesty law, which would apply to hundreds of people who participated in the unilateral effort to secede from Spain, has already led to a series of violent protests outside the Madrid headquarters of the governing Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE).
While the PSOE’s leader and caretaker prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, argues that the act of clemency would help promote coexistence after the tumultuous political and territorial crisis of 2017, his opponents have decried the move as a cynical and self-serving means of remaining in power.
The issue of an amnesty arose after July’s inconclusive general election. Although the conservative People’s party (PP) finished first, it has proved unable to form a government, even with the support of the far-right Vox party and other, smaller groupings.
However, the PSOE and its partners in the leftwing Sumar alliance have been able to muster the necessary backing by promising the amnesty to the two main Catalan pro-independence parties in return for their support. Sánchez is now expected to win congress’s approval to be reappointed prime minister in a debate and vote towards the end of this week.
Protests were held on Sunday in towns and cities across the country, including Madrid, Barcelona, Seville and Valencia.
People congregating in the capital’s Puerta del Sol square carried effigies of Sánchez as Pinocchio, chanted, “Prison for Pedro Sánchez” and carried banners with messages includin: “Democracy in Spain is at risk”, “Sánchez traitor” and “No amnesty for terrorism – Europe, save us”.
The PP said 500,000 people had taken part in the Madrid rally, while the central government’s delegate to the region put attendance at 80,000.
Speaking in Puerta del Sol, the PP’s leader, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, once again accused Sánchez of “buying his investiture in return for giving his partners judicial impunity” and said Spaniards would not remain silent over the amnesty.
“The office of prime minister of Spain can’t be an object to be bought and sold,” said Feijóo. “Spaniards want democracy, equality, justice and dignity. Spain has never sold itself, and they [the PSOE] have tried to cover up the fact that they lost. The prime minister of Spain will always be the person that’s won the elections.”
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Carles Puigdemont: from self-exile to unlikely kingmaker of Spanish politics
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His colleague Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the populist PP president of the Madrid region, went further, telling the crowd that Sánchez had finally revealed his “totalitarian” project.
“He’s decided that he will not lose power, whatever the cost for Spain; that nothing and no one will take it from him,” she said. “He’s decided to dynamite the rules of the game and to suppress institutions and state powers.”
Vox’s leader, Santiago Abascal, described Sánchez’s deal with the Catalan parties as “a coup d’état in capital letters” and said it was the “most delicate moment in Spanish politics in the past 40 years”. He also called for a “permanent and peaceful mobilisation” that went far beyond Sunday’s one-off demonstrations.
Sánchez himself has urged the PP to show “good sense” and to cease trying to stir things up.
“I ask them to respect the result at the ballot box and the legitimacy of the government we will soon form,” he said on Saturday. “I ask them to be brave and to say no to the bear-hug of the far right, and to abandon the reactionary path that they’re currently following towards the abyss. We will govern for all Spaniards – for four more years of social progress and coexistence.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/jan/25/major-league-rugby-new-york-toronto-seattle-glendale-season-two | Sport | 2019-01-25T16:00:33.000Z | Martin Pengelly | Major League Rugby: New York and Toronto expand reach in season two | Major League Rugby kicks off its second season this weekend with two new teams to watch. The Toronto Arrows will join Rugby United New York in taking on the Seattle Seawolves, Glendale Raptors, Austin Elite, Houston SaberCats, San Diego Legion, NOLA Gold and the Utah Warriors.
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Next year, the New England Free Jacks and as yet unnamed teams in Washington and Atlanta are scheduled to join the professional rugby union competition. Prospective teams continue to build in Dallas, Los Angeles, Ohio and elsewhere.
Fascinating stories are brewing. Consider two. In Seattle, the Seawolves will open on Sunday against the team they beat in the first championship game, the Raptors from Colorado. Thousands of miles away in wintry Gotham, New York are preparing to enter the fray.
Seattle won MLR in year one rather in the way Wasps used to win the English Premiership: they didn’t finish top of the regular-season ladder, losing at home and away to Glendale, but they turned things round on neutral ground in the final. In a sense this was not a surprise: the Emerald City is a rugby hotbed, home to the storied Saracens club, plugged in cross-border with teams from British Columbia.
The Seawolves were coached to the title by a Canadian stalwart, 55-cap scrum-half Phil Mack. It wasn’t a straightforward ask for the 33-year-old: he continued to lead on the field after taking over off it when the original coach wasn’t granted a visa.
“Anybody that’s been in a player-coach role knows there’s some hurdles,” he says now, in a break from pre-season training. “You’re making decisions for an entire team and it’s difficult. There are really tough conversations to have with the guys you’re not going to pick, when you’re picking yourself.
“But the players checked their egos at the door. The leadership group we have, we have a ton of experience internationally from props out to the wings. So with that group pushing in the same direction it really helped.”
In that group is the English full-back or wing Matthew Turner, like Mack an experienced hand on the World Sevens circuit. There is also a new fly-half, the highly rated USA youngster Ben Cima, to replace retiring Australian Peter Smith. A raw-boned pack is once again seasoned with Canadian brawn.
Mack is now assistant coach to Richie Walker, the former USA women's sevens coach named to the position late in the day after the South African Anton Moolman also suffered visa problems. Being an assistant, Mack says, offers a chance to “focus on my personal game a little bit more, to learn from someone seasoned in coaching and pick up anything I can”. He’ll attempt that in a year which should end with the culmination of his Canada career: a second Rugby World Cup, in Pool B in Japan.
Phil Mack attacks against France at the 2015 Rugby World Cup in England. Photograph: Franck Fife/AFP/Getty Images
Seattle weren’t unbeaten at home in year one but by the end of it they had made Starfire, the Tukwila venue where the Sounders of MLS play cup games, the most forbidding MLR venue. The “sold out” signs went up and likely will again, a raucous crowd ready to make things uncomfortable for any visiting team.
“Any time you win something you kind of put a target on your back,” Mack says. “So it’s going to be a different challenge, we have to come up with a way to keep that same mentality we had last year, which was pretty humble and we worked pretty hard.
“But when teams come to Starfire it’s a different experience to what the rest of the league is offering and it’s a massive boost to us as players to have that support. It shows what a fanbase Seattle can generate.”
Ticketholders and armchair fans thus anticipate a rematch of the championship game in which Mack expects a “highly motivated” Coloradan team to produce fireworks on the pitch, matching those laid on off it.
Generating fanbases, of course, is what MLR is all about, particularly in Toronto and New York. What with being a great of the Canadian game, Mack has “loads of friends who play on the Toronto team” and so looks forward to that long trip east. He’s also, “like everybody”, curious “to see what New York’s going to bring to the table.”
Rugby United New York, or RUNY, operate out of owner James Kennedy’s construction company office at the bottom of Broadway, opposite Wall Street, a couple of blocks down from Trinity Church where Alexander Hamilton lies buried. They will play their home games at a minor league ballpark in another famous neighbourhood, Coney Island, but that won’t happen till mid-March: it’s too damn cold right now.
Visit on an averagely brutal January day, wind howling down the skyscrapered canyon outside, and Kennedy makes warming cups of tea. The conference room is full of props doing paperwork – Callum Mackintosh, formerly of Gala, Hawick and Currie, stares at an iPad rather as he would an opposing Scottish loosehead – so the conversation takes place in the main man’s office, surrounded by merchandise, balls and schedules penned on the walls.
General manager James English, oddly enough an Englishman to Kennedy’s broad Munster Irish, admits the unknown team are in the unknown themselves. RUNY must play their first five games on the road, starting in the sun of San Diego on Sunday. They will only land in Coney Island on 15 March, to face Toronto, for now their only remotely local rivals. MLR isn’t big enough to arrange itself in conferences, the usual antidote to the travel demands of such an enormous landmass.
Over three weekends in February and March, Kennedy says, “we’ll be on a plane to Seattle, then back to New York, then flying to Houston, then back, then flying to Utah which is at altitude, then back.” He laughs, characteristically, about such a slightly ludicrous run-in to that home debut, which he hopes will attract around 5,000 fans out to the end of the D train line.
RUNY go forward, in a 2018 exhibition game against Mystic River, from Boston. Photograph: Troy Benson at TGBenson Photography
New Yorkers like winners so Kennedy’s half-pro, half-semi-pro assemblage of local talent, US internationals such as flanker John Quill and scrum-half Mike Petri and key imports – not least the 33-cap England wing Ben Foden – will be expected to pick up points on the road. For the home games, Kennedy thinks crowds of 3,000 to 5,000, in line with Seattle at Starfire, are out there to be found. By the end of the season, in June, fans might also go to Nathan’s Famous for a hot dog or down to the beach for a swim.
“We can play in cold weather,” Kennedy says, about future seasons. “It’s about having the ability to do snow removal and the fans who will come out whatever.”
Hence in part pre-season forays up to Buffalo, a decent rugby area closer to Toronto, to spread the word among fans of the Bills, “the only other full-contact sports team in New York”. The New York Giants and Jets train and play in New Jersey, you see, but Kennedy’s delighted kidology hints at a more serious problem for any team hoping to rep the Big Apple: finding a home in the city. MCU Park, home of the Brooklyn Cyclones, a New York Mets affiliate, can cope with rugby once turf has been laid over the pitcher’s mound. Building a permanent home will be tough.
Jacky Lorenzetti, the billionaire behind Racing Métro 92 who built the futuristic Paris La Defense Arena, is one of a number of French club owners who have been linked to MLR in the press or by whispers around the game. RUNY, meanwhile, has established its own French connection: Pierre Arnald, once of Stade Français, is a major investor.
It’s Kennedy’s contention that most US pro rugby will be soon be played indoors. For training, at least, RUNY are looking at enclosing a rooftop in the post-industrial, soon to be Amazon-dominated fastness of Long Island City.
Daniel Craig, here celebrating with fly-half Jonny Sexton the Lions win over Australia in Sydney in 2013, is a known rugby fan. Photograph: David Davies/PA
For now, there are a thousand subway ads to launch and a million challenges to face. Unfortunately there’s no subway in Cobble Hill, the Brooklyn neighbourhood where lives possibly New York’s most famous rugby fan and potential RUNY customer: Daniel Craig. How to get a club cap on James Bond’s head, and thus on to Page Six of the New York Post, remains a live question.
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Regarding the team, there is sponsorship to sell and, fascinatingly to any rugby geek granted back-office access, there are questions about building a team from scratch. One of them: who will partner US Eagle Nate Brakeley in the heart of the scrum?
It turns out top-quality lock forwards are scarce in America, and indeed around the world. There are rumours that World Rugby is looking at establishing a specialist academy in Richmond, Virginia. If so, that’s closer to the DC team coming in 2020. So Kennedy’s forwards coach, the hulkingly amiable former Namibia prop Kees Lensing, and his assistant Tiffany Faaee, a former Eagle and the first female coach in US men’s pro rugby, are on constant lookout. Samu Manoa, once of Northampton, Toulon and Cardiff, is back in the US and a target for most in the league.
“You need a squad of around 40 players who can play MLR,” English says, if you are going to harbour thoughts of winning MLR. RUNY have tried to assemble that from scratch. Starting this weekend, they will give it the best they can.
Seattle vs Glendale will be broadcast on CBS Sports Network and Root Sports, a local network in Seattle. RUNY vs San Diego will be shown on ESPN+ and in New York on SNY.
This story was updated on 25 January 2018 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/feb/03/osian-ellis-obituary | Music | 2021-02-03T16:16:50.000Z | John Amis | Osian Ellis obituary | Osian Ellis, who has died aged 92, delighted in playing the harp in every available lineup. Among his many fine recordings, his account of Handel’s Harp Concerto directed by Thurston Dart (1959) won a Grand Prix du Disque, and that of Ravel’s Introduction and Allegro with the Melos Ensemble (1962) remains a classic. But he was particularly associated with the music of Benjamin Britten.
The composer first heard him in 1959, in a performance of A Ceremony of Carols. When the premiere of Britten’s opera A Midsummer Night’s Dream was performed at his festival in Aldeburgh, Suffolk, the following year, the second harpist baled out, but the day was saved by Osian, who devised a way of playing very nearly all the notes himself.
There was already a harp part in Britten’s opera The Turn of the Screw (1954) – Osian played that, and was involved in other premieres from the 1960s, of the War Requiem and the three church parables. These works – Curlew River, The Prodigal Son and The Burning Fiery Furnace – were conductorless, with Osian and his fellow instrumentalists dressed as if monks.
Osian Ellis introducing Britten’s Harp Suite, with the first movement played by Catrin Finch
At the end of the decade Britten thanked him with the Suite for Harp Op 83 (1969), which appositely contains a reference to the Welsh hymn St Denio. When Osian first tried the piece, he told Britten that one passage was impossible. The latter apologised, but asked if Osian had thought of using this pedal here and that one there. Of course it worked, and Osian became even more in awe of a musician he also respected as a performer: “He was the one conductor who made you play your best – you couldn’t do enough for him. I don’t know another conductor who does that for you.” Osian also premiered Britten’s Canticle V (1974), with the tenor Peter Pears singing TS Eliot’s The Death of St Narcissus, and A Birthday Hansel (1975), to texts by Robert Burns.
Osian also took up the composer’s arrangements of folksongs so that he could accompany Pears, who was Britten’s partner, when the latter was either too busy composing against deadlines or, later, when his health incapacitated him.
Osian Ellis, centre, with Benjamin Britten, left, and Peter Pears. Photograph: Richard Williams/Wales Harp Festival
Born at Ffynnongroew (sometimes spelt Ffynnongroyw), Flintshire, Osian was the son of a Methodist clergyman, Tomos Ellis, and his wife, Jenny (nee Lewis). From Denbigh grammar school he went to the Royal Academy of Music, London, as a pupil of Gwendolen Mason (who had performed with Ravel), later becoming professor of harp himself for three decades from 1959. For the first few years after his student days he was a freelance, playing solo recitals, chamber music – which he said he liked best – and lugging his instrument about with orchestras large and small.
In 1951 he was in the theatre orchestra at Stratford-upon-Avon, where he shared a house with the actors Hugh Griffith and Richard Burton. On the radio he was a member of Wally Stott’s orchestra accompanying Spike Milligan, Peter Sellers and Harry Secombe in The Goon Show.
Whereas most orchestral harpists are the first on to the platform to spend 10 minutes tuning their instruments before the concert begins, Osian came on at the same time as his colleagues. He said that early tuning was a waste of time, because when the hall filled up with the audience the temperature rose and changed the pitch of the harp. His playing was not only always impeccably in tune, but he projected his sound so that what he played was always vivid and easily heard, instead of the dim tinkle that so often prevailed in orchestras.
This projection and utter musical reliability ensured a rapid rise, so that by the time he was 30 he was well established. He was a regular member of the London Symphony Orchestra from 1961 to 1994, and well regarded by all conductors.
In addition to solo recitals, he gave joint concerts with speakers of poetry, including Peggy Ashcroft, Margaret Rutherford, Flora Robson, Paul Robeson and Burton. Among the composers who wrote works for him were Gian Carlo Menotti, William Schuman, Robin Holloway and his fellow countrymen Alun Hoddinott and William Mathias.
Osian also sometimes sang a light baritone in his recitals, either arrangements of Welsh folk songs or penillion, semi-improvisations on Welsh poetry. Compositions for his own instrument included Diversions (1990), a fascinating competition piece for two harps, which he recorded playing both parts. He wrote The Story of the Harp in Wales (2008), was an honorary bard, and in 1971 was appointed CBE.
Though certainly genial company, Osian was not a good sailor, as became apparent on a journey to The Hague for a recital with Ashcroft. I found him in a corner crying in desperation: “Sink the boat, sink the boat.” After retiring, he returned to north Wales, living in Pwllheli, Gwynedd, where on Sundays he could be heard playing the organ in church.
In 1951 he married Rene Jones, a viola player, and they had two sons. Tomos, the younger of them, died in 2009, and Rene in 2012. He is survived by his other son, Richard, his grandchildren, David and Katie, and his sister Elfrys.
Osian Gwynn Ellis, harpist, born 8 February 1928; died 6 January 2021
John Amis died in 2013
This article was amended on 3 February 2021, to correct the name of Paul Robeson. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jun/29/cuauhtemoc-blanco-mexico-football-player-politician-world-cup | Football | 2018-06-29T09:00:35.000Z | David Gendelman | Can the World Cup help elect controversial Mexico legend Cuauhtémoc Blanco? | Twenty years ago at the World Cup in France, the Mexico striker Cuauhtémoc Blanco drew international acclaim when he introduced the world to the cuauhtemiña (“the bunny hop”) a playful move in which he gripped the ball with his feet and leapt between two seemingly impenetrable defenders, consequently escaping their tackles. A week later, against Belgium, Blanco cemented his reputation when he scored one of the most memorable goals in Mexican history, a side-footed volley that helped pave the way to qualification for the last 16.
Blanco retired from soccer in 2015, at the age of 42, but this summer his reputation as one of Mexico’s greatest players is casting a shadow on a different profession: politics. Blanco is currently the favorite to win the election for governor of the state of Morelos, a short distance south of Mexico City. For someone with little more than two years of political experience that might seem remarkable. But that would not be taking into consideration the current state of the country’s politics and the influence of soccer in Mexico, where El Tri are central to the nation’s identity – particularly as they prepare to play Brazil in the World Cup on Monday.
Blanco grew up in Tepito, a neighborhood in Mexico City with a reputation for poverty and roughness. It may be best known for the number of legendary boxers who have come from there. “Everyone knows that if you come from the fierce barrio of Tepito, you know how to fight in life, to struggle for life,” the historian and commentator Enrique Krauze told the Guardian. “It has that aura.”
Blanco fit the bill. “Cuauh” or “Temo,” as he is known, became famous for his goals as well as his provocative celebrations. Once, after scoring a penalty, he mimicked a dog urinating in the goal. Sometimes he would dance around defenders after he scored. His signature celebratory pose, a nod to the Aztec emperor of the same name, became known as the temoseñal, or the “Temo sign”. Blanco is “an iconic sports figure who became part of Mexico’s national collective consciousness,” says Duncan Wood, the director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center.
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“He is the most popular soccer player we have ever had,” says the journalist Carlos Puig, who has covered Blanco’s political career for Milenio TV. “We have had better soccer players, but more popular? I don’t think so.”
Blanco had his detractors too, even if they were in the minority. “He is not always a man of sympathy,” the novelist and soccer journalist Juan Villoro says. “He is the kind of guy that you can find in the backstreets of dangerous neighborhoods in Mexico. Therefore he has this kind of special charisma. He isn’t likable for many Mexicans. He remains an uncultivated man. He speaks in broken sentences.”
Cuauhtemoc Blanco in action against South Korea at the 1998 World Cup. Photograph: Mark Leech/Offside/Getty Images
Shortly after Blanco retired from soccer, the Social Democratic Party, a small political party, approached him to run for mayor of Cuernavaca, the capital of Morelos. Cuernavaca is known as the City of Eternal Spring. Many Mexico City residents have weekend homes there. Blanco did too.
Blanco’s new career is no surprise to Villoro, who points out that Mexican voters, like others around the world, have become tired of career politicians. “It wasn’t a very strange surprise that he decided to run for mayor of Cuernavaca,” Villoro says. “He was very famous and our politics nowadays is in a very confused and terrible situation. People are fed up with politicians and everyone is looking for outsiders. It can be an intellectual. It can be a former movie star. It can be a former medalist in the Olympic games. It can be a fighter for civil rights. Or it can be a soccer player.”
Some of the public questioned Blanco’s experience. Doubts were cast about his motivations. It would later be alleged that he had been paid 7m pesos ($353,000) by the Social Democratic Party to run for the office. (Blanco denied this, and reportedly no evidence has been found that any money was exchanged.) Not many seemed to take Blanco seriously as a politician, including Blanco himself. Nonetheless, he won handily.
“Cuernavaca is a paradise on earth,” says Krauze, who lives there for part of the year. “At the same time, it’s hell.” To the west of the city is the state of Guerrero, which has one of the highest percentages of drug-related violence in the country. It’s where much of the country’s heroin supply is produced. The most direct route from Guerrero to Mexico City is through Morelos. Krauze calls Morelos “the door from Guerrero to Mexico City.” Not surprisingly, over the last 20 years, Morelos has become synonymous with violence as well.
In a recent survey of Morelos voters in the newspaper El Financiero, people said security was their most pressing concern. Perhaps it’s no failure on Blanco’s part that as mayor of Cuernavaca he didn’t reduce the violence. It’s unclear if anybody can. But it wasn’t his only flaw.
“In the terrible earthquake we had on 19 September last year, Cuernavaca was very badly hit,” Krauze says. “And I didn’t see much of Cuauhtémoc Blanco’s activity.”
His mayorship was “distinctly disappointing,” Wood says.
“We thought that that was going to be the last stop in his political career,” Villoro says. “But then Graco Ramirez, the governor of Morelos, committed a terrible mistake and that was to go after Cuauhtémoc Blanco. So Blanco decided to do what he has done many times on the soccer field, to fight back. And this made him a local hero.”
According to Puig, the animus between the two began when Ramirez wanted the state to take control of the police throughout Morelos, including in Cuernavaca. Blanco wanted to keep the city’s police department localized. Ramirez had other problems too. Allegations of corruption had exploded under his tenure. Residents had protested against him in the streets. In a poll this past March, his unfavorable rating reached 83%.
“We can explain this current political carnival not because of the political virtues of Cuauhtémoc Blanco, but on the contrary, because of the political failures of all the Mexican political class and especially the current governor of Morelos, Graco Ramirez,” Villoro says.
In March 2017, after a falling out with his previous political party, Blanco joined the Social Encounter Party (known as PES in Mexico), a conservative, evangelical Christian political party that’s against same-sex marriage and abortion. It’s still not wholly clear if Blanco shares the party’s views. “He never gets into politics,” Puig says. “He only talks about helping people.” Around this time, the party and Blanco began to float the idea of Blanco running for governor of Morelos.
In a stroke of political good fortune for Blanco, three months after he joined PES, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (often referred to by his nickname “Amlo”), who is expected to win Mexico’s presidential election this Sunday in a landslide, formed a coalition of seemingly disparate political factions that included Obrador’s own left-leaning Morena party and Blanco’s PES. “Amlo has accepted support of groups that don’t belong to his ideology,” Villoro says. “But we can say that nowadays in Mexico there are no ideologies, and we can even say that there are no real political parties. Cuauhtémoc Blanco belongs to this very extravagant smorgasbord. It’s not a matter of ideas. It’s just a matter of opportunism. It’s realpolitik and nothing else.”
In addition to the claim of getting paid to run for mayor, other sordid stories have swirled around Blanco since he took office. There were complaints that he was an absentee mayor. In December 2016, he went on a hunger strike that lasted two days until Mexico’s supreme court issued a stay against attempts to impeach him. There was reportedly an investigation into the allegation that he had two voter ID cards with different residences, which is illegal. Last April, after a local businessman had been murdered in Cuernavaca, the alleged killer reportedly said that Blanco had paid him $10,000 to commit the crime. (Blanco denied the allegations.) Last month, a member of PES claimed that six hitmen had been hired to murder Blanco. Blanco blamed the threats and allegations against him on Ramirez and his administration. These claims are all unproven but what is clear is that politics in Mexico is a dangerous job. Since September, more than 100 politicians have been murdered, including two in the last week alone.
In an El Financiero poll last week, 53% of voters in Morelos said they were going to vote for Blanco. His nearest challenger stood at 14%. His victory in Morelos appears as assured as López Obrador’s does nationally. The two have benefitted each other, Krauze said. “It’s like the perfect duo, the man who presents himself as the savior of Mexico and the most renowned soccer player. It’s the best couple imaginable.” Add in the memories of Blanco’s World Cup heroics being refreshed by El Tri’s run in Russia and he could be unbeatable. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2021/jun/13/christian-eriksen-cardiac-arrest-swift-action-medics-key-survival-cpr-difibrillation | Football | 2021-06-13T18:32:26.000Z | Ian Sample | Quick action by medics was key to Christian Eriksen’s survival | Swift action was crucial to Christian Eriksen’s survival when the midfielder collapsed during the first half of Denmark’s opening game in the Euro 2020 championship against Finland.
Denmark’s team doctor, Morten Boesen, confirmed that the 29-year-old had gone into cardiac arrest on the pitch and was brought back through a combination of CPR – the manual cardiopulmonary resuscitation that involves repeated pushing down on the chest – and an electric shock from a defibrillator.
Unlike a heart attack, where the heart tends to keep beating, cardiac arrest is a more sudden and dramatic event. Because the heart no longer pumps blood around the body, the critical oxygen supply to the brain and other organs is cut off, presenting an immediate threat to life.
Boesen said the quick reaction of the medical team in treating Eriksen was decisive for his survival and the evidence bears this out. The difference between life and death, or severe brain damage caused by oxygen starvation, is a matter of minutes. In the UK, only 10% of people who suffer cardiac arrest outside of hospitals survive the ordeal. The rate is so low, in part, because people do not get CPR or defibrillation fast enough.
In cardiac arrest, the heart can develop such an unnatural rhythm that it quivers more than beats. This chaotic electrical activity can be reset with a defibrillator by sending an electric shock across the muscle. In Eriksen’s case, one shock from the defibrillator was sufficient to regain his heartbeat. By delivering CPR at the same time, the team ensured a flow of blood around his body.
‘He was gone’: Christian Eriksen had cardiac arrest, Denmark doctor says
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In young, elite athletes, cardiac arrest is often due to an electrical or structural abnormality they have carried since birth but has not been picked up before.
Dr Sonya Babu-Narayan, a consultant cardiologist and associate medical director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Our thoughts are with Christian Eriksen, his family and the whole football community following his sudden collapse. This shocking event is a stark reminder that a cardiac arrest can strike anyone, anywhere and anytime, without warning.
“If someone suffers a cardiac arrest, it’s vital they receive immediate CPR and defibrillation to give them the best chance of survival. Thankfully, it seems that this was the response that Christian received.
“Every second counts when someone suffers a cardiac arrest – the more of us that know how to perform CPR, the more lives that can be saved.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jul/12/fitness.health | Opinion | 2008-07-11T23:01:00.000Z | Rebecca Front | Rebecca Front: Head mic humiliation | You have to hand it to David Cameron. It's a risky strategy for an old Etonian to accuse poor people of bringing their misery on themselves. And, given the alarming rise in obesity, telling fat people to eat less will alienate a hefty proportion - forgive the expression - of the electorate. I am not obese, thank the Lord (though if Cameron's right, the Lord has nothing to do with it), but it struck a chord with me. I too blame outside circumstances when unfit, instead of taking the bull by the horns and doing some exercise. So I'm now light-headed after my first ever aerobics class.
I'm not coming to this exercise business from a standing start. I've belonged to a gym for many years, since my glory days, when nine months of daily dancing in a West End show had left me lithe and supple. So that it should be ever thus, I went about three times a week, and did what I considered to be a workout for 20 minutes or so, and then sat in the lovely juice bar, reading the newspaper, listening to piped Vivaldi and eating alfalfa sprouts. This continued for many years, during which I was convinced I was doing enough to ensure that my place in heaven was both confirmed and delayed for as long as possible.
Then, one day, I was appalled to discover a leak in the ceiling of my luxurious gym. I was on the treadmill, doing a little light jogging and watching CNN with the sound down, when I felt water dripping down my back. I glanced up, looking for damp patches, and glared around indignantly for a staff member to complain to. But no one else seemed aware of it, and I realised that there was no leak - I was sweating. For the first time in 10 years, I was exercising hard enough to perspire. Filled with shame, I stopped going to the gym altogether for a while, and convinced myself that walking my children to school and back was probably just as efficacious and, unlike my gym sessions, I could do it in a rather fetching floral skirt.
But then came the very real fear that, if I put on too much weight, the Duchess of York might come and live with me. So there I was at 9.30 this morning, ready and eager for an hour of jazz dance. Only there was no jazz dance. In some moment of cosmic levity it had been ordained that the dance teacher would be unavailable today, and in her place was the kind of trim-hipped, no-stomached, humourless drill-sergeant I had previously encountered only in very unpleasant nightmares. She began the lesson by lulling us into complacency, then stamping on us. With me, this took the form of asking what I did for a living. "I'm an actress," I said. "Oh," she replied, as if she cared. "And a writer," I continued, thinking it might add colour. "That explains your stiff neck," she countered viciously, and I realised hostilities had commenced.
She wore one of those ridiculous head mics, which seemed a little de trop, given that there were only two of us in the class, until she put on a CD of piercing white noise and proceeded to scream orders over it. She had a particular line in sneery banter, such as "Me instructor, you student", which would have made me want to punch her in the solar plexus if I hadn't been afraid of shattering my knuckles. But after an hour of gyrations I had no idea my muscles could perform, humiliating glimpses of myself in the mirror looking like the girl at school you would never, ever want on your netball team and more physical pain than I have endured since the epidural kicked in on the labour ward, I realised it was over: I had survived and I felt ... well, great, actually. I am already regretting signing up for more, knowing that I'll have that pit-of-the-stomach Sunday night dread before every future session. The only consolation, I suppose, is that the pit of my stomach may soon be a little less prominent than it has been of late.
· Rebecca Front is an actor and writer
[email protected] | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/jan/22/golden-goal-ken-mcnaught-for-aston-villa-v-barcelona-1983-super-cup | Football | 2016-01-22T10:00:06.000Z | Paul Doyle | Golden Goal: Ken McNaught for Aston Villa v Barcelona (1982 Super Cup) | Paul Doyle | By any sensible measure, a goal has to be considered as an all-time classic if it leads to Barcelona’s goalkeeper dropping his shorts and mooning at the referee in anguish. If it is a plunging header in the 104th minute of a contest so brutal that Uefa’s disciplinary chief declares himself “sick and fed up” and threatens to ban Barcelona from European competition, then so much the better. Let us, then, delight in the memory of Ken McNaught’s magnificent header for Aston Villa in the second leg of the 1982 European Super Cup final, a match that Villa had to win because, in the words of their then-manager Tony Barton, “if Barcelona’s tactics succeeded, we would have to fear for the future of football.” Ach, how the world turns.
Golden Goal: Raúl for Real Madrid v Ferencvaros (1995)
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More than a club
Barcelona were more than a club alright. They were also a gang of “butchers” and “animals”, or were so branded by the English press in the wake of relentless fouling while beating Tottenham Hotspur in the semi-finals of the 1982 European Cup Winners’ Cup. “If we play in Spain the way Barcelona did here, there will be a revolution,” said the Spurs manager, Keith Burkinshaw after a first leg in which a policeman had run onto the pitch to stop Manolo Martínez from assaulting Graham Roberts. Spurs were aghast to be fined £2,250 by Uefa after that clash for “unnecessarily hard play” but the Catalan club were ordered to pay triple that amount. They were fined even more after the final, in which Barça lowered Standard Liège. So they were notorious by the time they took on Villa, conquerors of Bayern Munich in the 1982 European Cup final. The two-legged ’82 Super Cup final did not take place until January 1983 because that was the earliest date that the clubs could agree on (the 1981 edition never took place at all because Liverpool and Dinamo Tbilisi could not make space in their diaries). When the ceremonial tie eventually got under way, Barcelona contrived to make their reputation even worse.
The Super Cup was, as you will have gathered from the nonchalant scheduling, generally less sought after than it is today but both these teams were eager to win it, nonetheless. Villa, admittedly, viewed it mainly as a primer for their upcoming European Cup quarter-final against Juventus, but Barcelona craved the trophy on its own merits and their players were offered a £1,000-per-man incentive to bring it home. “We simply have to win this trophy,” said their manager Udo Lattek before the first leg. It was the only European trophy that Lattek had not won but, more significantly at that time, the manager needed as much silverware as possible to atone for spluttering domestic form. That was an intolerable situation for the richest club in the world, who had splashed out on six new players the previous summer, including Diego Maradona, in a bid to end their nine-year wait for the Spanish title but took on Villa while languishing fourth in La Liga.
(Barça finished second in La Liga in 1982 and had been on course to win in ’81, the year Villa won the English league, but whereas Villa had been spared injuries and used only 14 players during their triumphant campaign, Barça’s challenge was derailed when their top scorer, Quini, was kidnapped on his way home from a 6-0 win over Hércules. The erstwhile league leaders picked up a solitary point in their next four matches before Quini was released following the payment of a ransom into a Swiss bank account. The criminals, evidently no masterminds, were collared when they went to withdraw the loot. D’oh! Three of them were sent down for 10 years, while Barça’s wait for the title went on.)
Maradona could not play against Villa because he was ill and, besides, the Argentinian was having trouble adapting to Barcelona and did not get along with Lattek any better than the team’s other big foreign star, Bernd Schuster, did. It was an open secret that Barça were planning to ditch Lattek and make the former Argentina World Cup-winning coach César Luis Menotti the highest paid manager on the planet. Meanwhile at Villa, the miserly Doug Ellis had just returned for a second stint as chairman and made it clear that the club, despite being the reigning European champions, had no intention of competing with the likes of Barça financially: he used his programme notes for the home leg of the final to ask Villa fans to raise money by selling lottery tickets, while a job advertisement on the same page read: “Aston Villa require an experienced person to operate their video camera for selected home matches. Anyone interested in this position on a voluntary basis please contact the club secretary.”
Not for the faint-hearted: the eventful highlights.
They shall not pass
Having defended their domestic title with the élan that Chelsea would later aspire to, finishing 11th the year after winning the league, Villa were again spluttering on the home front and travelled to the Camp Nou for the first leg on the back of a 2-0 defeat to Sunderland that left them seventh in the table. In Barcelona they suffered only a narrow defeat. “We never turned up basically,” recalls McNaught. “But we managed to slip away with only a 1-0 defeat.” So Villa went into the home leg a week later with the trophy still up for grabs. Barça, meanwhile, went into it with a diabolical resolve to hold on to their lead by any means necessary. Five years previously, in a Uefa Cup tie between the same clubs, the Villa Park faithful had applauded Barça off the pitch after a 2-2 draw in the first leg (Barça won the second 2-1), grateful for having witnessed a magical performance by Johan Cruyff in his last appearance in England. There would be no such pleasantries this time.
With Villa’s captain, Dennis Mortimer, out injured, Barton entrusted the leadership of the team to McNaught – the perfect choice, and not just because the Scottish centre-back’s towering frame and blonde helmet hairdo made him look like the fearsome elder brother of A Clockwork Orange-era Malcolm McDowell, fitting for the night of ultra-violence ahead. McNaught had a knack for scoring in Europe: five of his eight goals in 207 appearances for Villa were against continental opponents who could not cope with his aerial power and timing and, indeed, one of them had been a stupendous diving header against Barcelona in ’78, a precursor of what was to come in the Super Cup. What also followed was a rousing performance by the Scot and one particularly choice flourish that must rank alongside Bruce Grobbelaar’s spaghetti-legs routine as the most amusingly inspired mind game manoeuvre in the history of English clubs in European competition. More about that in due course.
This Barça team were full of excellent players, all internationals. Villa were never required to recover from a first-leg deficit during their glorious 1981-82 European Cup campaign and it was obvious from early in this second leg that Barça were going to make it extremely difficult for them to do so now – and that if Villa did manage to infiltrate the visitors’ high-class defence, Barça would immediately chop them down. The Belgian referee, Alexis Ponnet, booked Julio Alberto in the ninth minute for doing exactly that after Andy Blair broke through. “Barcelona have a reputation for that kind of thing and the best way to stop them is to produce a yellow card,” reckoned the BBC commentator Tony Gubba. But the card did not stop them. They were only getting started.
Golden Goal: Ian Wright for Arsenal v Leeds United (1995)
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Urbano Ortega was cautioned in the 40th minute for scything down Des Bremner, but for most of the first half Barça, in fairness, did not need to resort to skulduggery because they defended superbly. Alberto had man-marked Gary Shaw out of the first leg and was diligently subduing Villa’s thrilling forward again, only occasionally deploying tugs and kicks. Villa’s only real chance of the first period came when Alberto slipped and Shaw teed up Peter Withe, who shot wildly from 12 yards.
There was something almost admirable about the conviction with which Barça defended, their paradoxically puritanical insistence that Villa would not get past them even if it meant perpetrating the filthiest deeds. Alberto escaped a second yellow for a blatant body check on Shaw early in the second half but just before the hour he found that tripping or shoving were not possible so he just jumped to catch a lofted Villa through-ball with both hands. That was too brazen for the referee to ignore. Alberto was sent off and Barcelona became even more defensive.
Flowing moves were rare but this was a grippingly hurly-burly contest in which Villa were not simply victims. McNaught clobbered Quini, the striker having come on in the first half as a substitute for the injured Franciso Carrasco. Allan Evans, who had been a forward when Villa made him the most expensive Scottish teenager in 1977 but had since become McNaught’s trusty partner in a central defence so secure that every other Villa player felt free to attack at will, also went into the referee’s book, for throwing Urbano to the ground in frustration at the visitors’ time-wasting. Meanwhile Withe was engaged in an enthralling battle with Migueli, an imperious defender whose hardness had been established beyond doubt when he played in most of Barcelona’s victory Fortuna Düsseldorf in the 1979 Cup Winners’ Cup final, including extra time, with a broken collarbone.
The breakthrough
As time ticked down at Villa Park, Migueli’s brilliance was frustrating Villa almost as much as Barcelona’s flagrant and covert fouling was. Villa were getting so frantic in their attempts to penetrate that they left themselves open to a sudden counter-attack in which Schuster hit the post. Then, with 10 minutes left, Gordon Cowans clipped a free-kick into the Barcelona box, Bremner helped it on and Migueli, for once, was unable to cut it out because, in the words of McNaught, “he had come across the end of Peter Withe’s elbow”. Shaw swept the ball into the net from 10 yards to make the scores level on aggregate – and totally unbalance Barcelona.
“Migueli had been mopping up everything that came into the Barcelona box and I had mentioned to Peter that we needed to do something about the big fella,” says McNaught. “No sooner had I said that than, you know, it was fixed. Then it all kicked off. Barcelona weren’t too happy about what had happened but in those days you could get away with those things, especially as they had been dishing it out themselves throughout the match – big style.”
Many Barcelona players lost their heads and their fouling was no longer aimed solely at snuffing out attacks – much of it seemed plain malicious. But not, perhaps, that of Migueli, whose shirt was drenched in his own blood and who left a little something on Withe in every subsequent tackle. Withe gave about as good as he got. Their duelling seemed gentlemanly, in a ferocious sort of way.
Before the end of normal time Schuster effectively ordered the referee to add his name to the five Barcelona players already in the book when he mowed down Colin Gibson with a two-footed assault that could have made even Wes Craven wince.
Ken McNaught seals Villa’s victory with a diving header. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex/Shutterstock
Keeper of the flame
Villa resumed their pursuit of a winning goal as soon as extra time started. But Barça’s rugged defiance continued. In the 100th minute, however, Mark Walters, the 18-year-old who had been thrust on in place of the unusually quiet Tony Morley, was brought down in the box by José Vicente Sánchez. After much gnashing and mewling by Barça, Cowans stepped up to take the penalty. He had already scored seven times from the spot that season. But this time he missed, Urruti making a good save. No matter, Cowans converted the rebound. Urruti blew a fuse. As Cowans tried to collect the ball from the net, the raging keeper gave him an almighty whack from behind and then ran around the box in a manner that suggested there was plenty more where that came from if any Villa player fancied a rumble. Enter McNaught, the Obi Wan Kenobi of Kirkcaldy.
The Scot marched into the box and stopped just short of Urruti before essaying some impromptu shadowboxing, bobbing and weaving in front of the goalkeeper while sporting a big cheesy grin that spoke of his derisive certainty that Urruti would beat a hasty retreat. Sure enough, the goalkeeper was suddenly becalmed, allowing himself to be ushered away by team-mates forthwith. Barça only needed to score once to regain the lead on the away goals rule – but they were beaten men. McNaught sums it up well: “When Gordon went to retrieve the ball, the Barcelona keeper stuck him up into the roof of the net. He just took a big swipe at him. Obviously it kicked off again then. Andy Blair got involved but Andy was never going to take on anybody so I went in to retrieve the situation. There was no way the goalkeeper was going to try to stick one on me. After that Barcelona just went to pieces.”
Four minutes later Manolo kicked Shaw to the ground to concede a free-kick. Villa took it, whereupon Manolo kicked Shaw to the ground again, this time getting the yellow he seemed to be seeking. Cowans floated over the resultant free-kick from the left and McNaught escaped his marker and dived at the dropping ball before sending a glorious header into the net from six yards. As Villa players rejoiced, Marcos Alonso spat at Walters. He got away with a red card.
Villa began showboating, indulging in some ostentatious tiki-taka long before Barça tormented the world with it. The jubilant Villa Park crowd lapped it up, cheering every pass with English glee because they didn’t know the Spanish for Olé. Evans threw in some cheeky keepie-uppies. “Taking the Migueli!” quipped Gubba on TV. But Evans then put the ‘s’ into laughter by misplacing a pass and cynically wiping out Miguel Alonso with a Barcelona tribute tackle. Off he was sent, too.
Ken McNaught with the notably unshowy Super Cup ‘trophy’ after Villa won 3-1 on aggregate. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex/Shutterstock
The aftermath
Monsieur Ponnet had generally distinguished well between wholesome ruggedness and dastardly violence but nonetheless the match ended with him having shown 10 yellow cards and three reds. “I have never refereed a game like that,” he said later before offering the sort of broad and frank analysis that would get an official the boot nowadays, or at the very least a Twitter lynching: “The Spaniards disregarded the red and yellow cards where those shown to Villa had a calming influence. It wouldn’t have made a difference if I had given them five red cards. They lost their nerve when Schuster hit a post with a shot before Villa scored, yet if they had played football and attacked perhaps they would have got the goal they needed. One of their players told me he was going to take the team off at one stage. I told them that they would forfeit the game if they had not returned within five minutes. Towards the end of extra time I could have sent two more Barcelona men off but I thought at 3-0 that was enough. Some of the Spanish officials apologised for their players’ behaviour after the game.”
Lattek offered an alternative take: “The referee was incompetent and should not be allowed to officiate any more games. He did not see that the violence was not just our fault but also Aston Villa’s. Shaw’s goal should not have been allowed because Migueli had been elbowed in the face by Withe. Aston Villa do not know how to play football. I can’t understand how they won because they are so bad.”
Villa can’t have been all that bad, as Maradona is reputed to have sent his agent to their dressing room after the game to ask for Shaw’s shirt. “I wouldn’t have recognised him at the time, but that’s the story Shawsy puts about,” says McNaught with a chuckle. Uefa’s disciplinary secretary, René Eberle, was in no doubt where the badness really lay, telling the Guardian in the week after the match that: “I was horrified. We are all getting sick and fed up with Barcelona behaving in this way. Football has a bad enough reputation as it is and they are making it worse.” He mooted kicking them out of European competition: “If you fine them they just laugh at you. I have seen performances like this from other Spanish teams – it seems a way of life there and in the end it will kill football.”
Golden Goal: Angelos Charisteas for Greece v Portugal (Euro 2004 final)
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Barcelona’s president, Josep Luís Núñez, suggested that a goodwill mission could set the record straight, if only an error-free official could be found. “The image of our club has been harmed: we are always labelled as animals, which is very upsetting,” he groaned. “We should like to come to England to play a friendly to show we can play good football but there always seems to be a problem with the referee.” In the following decades a shiny new Barça twice won Europe’s top prize at Wembley, making the most of the fact they were still allowed to fraternise with the rest of the continent.
For after the Super Cup donnybrook, Uefa decided to give Barcelona another fine – £20,000 – and a final warning. Four of their players were suspended, including Urruti for five matches, a report revealing that the goalkeeper had bared his backside to the official to express his disgust. Or something. Villa were cleared of any blame.
Uefa also decided, several years later, to upgrade the Super Cup trophy, possibly having noted that McNaught’s reaction to the ’82 memento was reminiscent of the Stonehenge scene in This Is Spinal Tap. “The only disappointing thing of that night was when we were all celebrating after the final whistle and the Uefa representative came up and gave me a plank of wood,” says McNaught. “I said: ‘What’s this?’ And he said “no, no, no, turn it around”. There was a Uefa badge on it. It was nothing like the trophy you get nowadays, but hey, it was still the European Super Cup so I was still proud to hold my plank of wood aloft.”
The goal itself, at 5m53s. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jan/13/ezra-miller-pleads-guilty-unlawful-trespassing-vermont | Film | 2023-01-13T17:36:14.000Z | Gloria Oladipo | Ezra Miller pleads guilty to unlawful trespassing in Vermont | The actor Ezra Miller has pleaded guilty to unlawful trespassing in Vermont after being charged with stealing liquor from a neighbor’s home in May.
Miller, who appeared in several Justice League films and stars in the upcoming feature The Flash, agreed that by entering the plea and abiding by the conditions, they would avoid a three-month jail sentence and be subject instead to a $500 fine and a court fee, a year of probation and conditions including continued mental health treatment.
During a plea deal accepted on Friday, a Vermont judge accepted Miller’s admission of the unlawful trespassing charge, a misdemeanor, the entertainment news site Deadline reported.
Other charges associated with the incident would be dismissed without prejudice, but a burglary charge could be re-filed if Miller violated the terms of their probation, the court heard.
Miller can also count time spent in treatment towards the probation period, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Miller was originally charged with three counts of burglary, trespassing and petit larceny for the May incident after they broke into the pantry of their neighbor, Isaac Winokur, and stole several bottles of liquor.
During the nearly 30-minute hearing in Bennington, Miller answered superior court judge Kerry Ann McDonald-Cady’s questions but declined to make a statement.
However, after the hearing Miller’s attorney, Lisa Shelkrot, sent a statement on the actor’s behalf.
“Ezra would like to thank the court and the community for their trust and patience throughout this process, and would once again like to acknowledge the love and support they have received from their family and friends, who continue to be a vital presence in their ongoing mental health,” the statement said.
The May incident is one of several arrests involving the 30-year-old actor.
The actor has been accused of choking a woman in Iceland and arrested twice in Hawaii, once for disorderly contact and harassment and again for second-degree assault, reported Variety.
Miller also has several protective orders filed against them by parents accusing the actor of inappropriate conduct involving children, reported Insider. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/nov/16/prem-ratan-dhan-payo-review-salman-khan-sensitive-side-on-show | Film | 2015-11-16T11:59:18.000Z | Mike McCahill | Prem Ratan Dhan Payo review – Salman Khan's sensitive side on show | The nature of public accusation and counter-accusation may mean that Salman Khan can never appease his fiercest critics, but give him this at least: he’s trying hard. Khan owned the summer season upon pairing with an adorable child for July’s Bajrangi Bhaijaan, and he’ll surely maintain that box-office dominance with the postmodern fairytale Prem Ratan Dhan Payo. Here is both a sumptuous Diwali treat and another object lesson in the power of mediated fantasy to overturn anything so piffling or painful as reality: for three hours, this charm offensive successfully returns us to the company of the planet’s most likable fellow.
Salman Khan's suspended sentence shows the extent of stars' VIP treatment
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In fact, this is a tale of two Salmans. Old Salman is represented in the personage of Vijay Singh – not the golfer, but a brooding, moustachioed prince with forearms like bedside cabinets, set for an expedient yet loveless marriage with aid worker Maithili (Sonam Kapoor). Prince Vijay has his enemies, however. After an assassination attempt incapacitates him, the court turns to the one individual who resembles the prince to ensure the match proceeds as anticipated: this is Prem (Khan again), a prancing flibbertigibbet with a modicum of acting form from his days in a theatre troupe.
If the plot’s familiar, no imagination or expense has been spared in mapping the kingdom it winds through. Writer-director Sooraj R Barjatya has apparently spent the nine years since his last feature finessing this coherent, pleasurable screenplay, while saving a decade’s worth of budgets to blow in one go here. These tunics and saris give the lavish fabrics of Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella a run for their money; the shimmering Palace of Mirrors – constructed, in defiance of all known health-and-safety guidelines, atop a waterfall – makes much of Spectre look like something on offer in Poundland.
Yet we get wit with the glitter. Perhaps inevitably, a princely stick-on moustache goes astray as Prem beds into his new role, and his good-natured yammering causes consternation for uptight courtier Diwan (a terrific Anupam Kher, scattering notes of worryworn humanity like rose petals). Barjatya has a sly, winning way of mixing mythology with modernity: the Prince’s horse-drawn carriage arrives with Forbes magazine in its reading rack, while there are nods to everything from the Ram-Leela legend to Game of Thrones via Roman Holiday.
Yet as the pre-intermission cliffhanger establishes, Barjatya has something more substantial on his mind – and it’s something he can use Khan’s considerable clout to address: the sorry fate of women in patriarchal societies. Since Prince Vijay is too busy waggling swords to notice his bride-to-be’s discomfort, the sensitive Prem sparks a minor revolution within court, opening up to his fake fiancee in ways the real prince appears incapable of, and re-establishing diplomatic ties with the latter’s scorned sisters. Transforming one dreary state function into a footballing free-for-all, this political progressive puts girls and boys on a level playing field.
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That it’s Khan who’s fighting for change makes this doubly special: we’re watching modern cinema’s most rapid and radical modification – mollification, even – of an established star persona. Where Bajrangi Bhaijaan identified maternal qualities in this previously hulking heavyweight, Barjatya’s film wonders whether the actor nicknamed Bhai – brother – could equally be claimed as a sister. In a rhapsodic courtship sequence early in the second half, you catch the star observing the newly liberated Kapoor with genuine awe, and with good reason: for one, nobody has ever appeared more luminous drinking directly from the tap.
Perhaps Khan has realised, as have so many action heroes over time, that he can’t play the tough guy forever; that, without some application of sense and sensibility, the relentless flexing of moviestar muscle can appear like so much posturing in the gym mirror. (Or the Palace of Mirrors: whatever it takes for a hero to take a long, hard look at himself.) Khan has surely made his mistakes, not least associating with film-makers who were only ever interested in him for his biceps. Yet these last two movies – bringing the best out of this performer, and everyone around him – constitute a pretty wonderful form of community service. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2008/dec/01/independent-daily-mail-office2 | Media | 2008-12-01T00:01:00.000Z | Emily Bell | Emily Bell: The Mail/Indy office share will not be the last peculiar pairing | The climate for newspapers in the UK at the moment is bitingly cold. Last week another torrent of redundancies flowed from all parts of the industry - 50 more jobs to go at the Telegraph, which had only recently completed phase one of a restructuring, 60 jobs to go at the Independent and an office-share scheme with the Daily Mail to further save costs, and Trinity Mirror losing another 78 jobs from its regional divisions. The misery, it seems, never ends.
The Independent's relocation from Canary Wharf to the lower-cost environs of London's Kensington High Street (this in itself is a curious anomaly) is a bold, last throw move by Independent News and Media. It was almost certainly precipitated by events earlier in the week in Australia, where Tony O'Reilly's company failed to sell a 39% stake in the press group APN to the other Antipodean media company, Fairfax. Without the expected £550m from that sale it was difficult to see how the INM Group would be able to enter the severe and global recession without either closing its UK national titles or finding a radical solution - and the Daily Mail option is just that.
Apart from anything else, the relocation flags that there is unlikely to be another solution, such as a sale of the Independent titles, in the near future - if at all. The attraction of the newspaper for the well-heeled and power-hungry has waned. From the moment Tony Blair started to holiday at casa Berlusconi it was clear that to access power, all the rich had to do was to be rich. Why buy a newspaper when a huge fortune and a yacht moored off Corfu will have politicians queuing to join you? Yachts have in general more utility than newspapers - you can go on holiday in them for instance - and they are a lot cheaper to run.
Given the disappearance of the "ownership premium" for newspapers, the economic outlook is even more adverse. It is practically impossible for companies without scale to keep even relatively healthy titles and news brands alive as profitable entities. In the US, great names in journalism, such as the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times, teeter precariously on the brink. Ten days ago the New York Times' decision to cut its dividend by 75% was particularly significant. The NYT is owned by the Sulzberger family, which has many members reliant on the dividend - with it slashed, the family income drops from $25m to $7m. In these circumstances, vows to never sell the family silver are sometimes, understandably, broken. The Bancroft family never imagined they would sell the Wall Street Journal, and certainly not to Rupert Murdoch, but they will be sighing with relief at what now seems like a brilliantly timed deal.
One solution urged on the NYT, and adopted by the Washington Post, is to form a trust to protect the business. The Guardian benefits from the long-standing Scott Trust and the protection it offers. But establishing a trust means giving up the benefits of a public quote and, more significantly now, having the funds to form the Trust in the first place.
Given the long-term weakness of a market that is going to, by even the most conservative estimates, see a 10% to 20% decline in 2009, vast numbers of mergers and unlikely partnerships will take place. The vulnerability of publicly quoted press groups, added to the woes of commercial radio, will almost certainly force the government and regulators to look again at cross-media ownership rules - constructed to safeguard plurality, but which will need to be redrawn to act against complete collapse in certain areas. The rapid accumulation of critical mass, and assets which can share costs, will be a hallmark of the coming years. If the Independent and the Mail look like curious bedfellows, far more peculiar pairings are sure to follow. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/may/16/how-we-stay-together-its-like-the-bow-on-a-present-or-the-icing-on-a-cake | Life and style | 2021-05-15T20:00:37.000Z | Alexandra Spring | How we stay together: ‘It’s like the bow on a present or the icing on a cake’ | Names: Jodie Nancarrow and Jayne Watson
Years together: 20
Occupations: retired
“It was a one-night stand that’s lasted for 20 years,” jokes Jodie Nancarrow about her enduring relationship with wife Jayne Watson. And despite the casual start and some challenging times, their commitment to each other is still going strong.
How we stay together: ‘You’ve got to either take space or give space’
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They started out as friends. Both were in other relationships and Jodie’s former partner was a nurse, just like Jayne. The foursome were all close, and Jayne and Jodie found they had plenty in common. Although they didn’t meet until their 30s, they’d both grown up in country towns in regional New South Wales, about half an hour apart. Their fathers had similar jobs and they had close friends in common. “Her best friend in Muswellbrook High was my friend in Denman primary school,” remembers Jodie.
After their relationships ended, Jayne and Jodie maintained their friendship. By then, Jayne was living in Bylong, running the general store, while Jodie was living in Armidale. Neither were in a rush to get involved in another relationship. Then, in 2001, Jodie asked Jayne if she could stay with her one weekend while she was visiting family in the area. Jayne agreed and the two went to dinner with Jodie’s family. Later that evening, back at Jayne’s place, things took a romantic turn. And when Jodie hesitated, in the name of their friendship, they agreed it would be a one-off.
Yet a few weeks later, they got together again. And for the next three months, Jodie would drive four hours to Bylong each fortnight to spend time with Jayne. It wasn’t long before they decided that Jodie would move. “That’s what they say about lesbians and U-Haul trailers,” Jodie laughs.
‘We knew what each other’s limitations or what your best attributes were and it just flowed.’ Jodie and Jayne in 1999 before they got together. Photograph: Jodie Nancarrow and Jayne Watson
Both were surprised at how hard they fell for each other. They’d been friends for so long and it hadn’t occurred to them. “It was so unplanned and so random,” Jodie explains. “It could’ve gone the other way. It could’ve gone, ‘Righto thanks very much. That was great. See you later.’ But it didn’t. And we ended up joining forces.”
Jodie began working in the Bylong general store. She was mindful it was Jayne’s business and essentially “worked for love”. However, Jayne was concerned that working together could cause problems – something that had happened in her previous relationship.
How we stay together: ‘Sometimes it was just the four of us against the world’
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Instead they found they complemented each other. Often Jayne comes up with the ideas and Jodie sees them through to the end. They also took on complementary roles. “We had different strengths in different areas,” says Jayne, “so you could concentrate on separate things. You weren’t bombarded by the whole business, because you just concentrated on what you liked to do.” Jodie nods: ‘“We knew what each other’s limitations or what your best attributes were, so you let that happen, and it just flowed.”
They share an important attribute too: “We’ve both got that work ethic behind us,” says Jayne. “We’re probably very similar in that aspect. Usually there’s some difference within partnerships. I think we’re both fairly driven, and because of that, that maintains our relationship, just moves it forward really.”
They were also good at living together. “Our friends have said, ‘How do you possibly live, work, sleep, holiday, do everything together?’ And really simply, she doesn’t shit me,” says Jodie. Both agree not to sweat the small stuff and always share the workload: “If I was sitting on the lounge, and Jayne started cleaning the house, well, I wouldn’t say, ‘All right, well go for it. I’ll just watch you’. I’d step in and say, ‘OK, I’ll give you a hand’.”
‘I never, ever thought I would get married. And when the decision was yes, it [became] really important,’ says Jayne of her marriage to Jodie in 2018. Photograph: Jodie Nancarrow and Jayne Watson
When they see things differently, they end up agreeing in the long run. “We talk a lot,” says Jodie. “Like any other couple, you can still have an argument or a disagreement. But it’s not a big deal. And I’ve certainly learned as I’ve matured [not to] let the minutia get in the way. Just try and be concise in what you say, and be respectful. And don’t be taken for granted ... I think we both feel really similarly about not taking each other for granted.”
The most trying time in their relationship came when South Korean coal company Kepco arrived in the Bylong Valley in 2010 with plans to set up a coalmine. The company started up buying land and disrupting the small community. Both Jayne and Jodie protested the plans for the mine, and because their general store was the main business in town, they were often drawn into the community discussion. “It really got going in about 2012,” says Jodie. She says it was painful “to see our community just get torn apart and crumble … Turning people against people.” The pair felt that the once-happy community changed, neighbours turned against each other, and open discussion was replaced by terse, tight-lipped conversations.
Over the next few years, their relationship became strained as they struggled to hang on to the business. “We were so stressed that we were both prepared to shut the shop completely and move, and just go,” says Jayne.
They hung on for as long as they could. “We looked at each other and went, ‘You know what? This is going to kill us,’ and we don’t want to be here if the mine goes ahead,” says Jodie. “I felt very hypocritical, but in the end, we had to do what was right for us, and we sold.”
The stress had taken its toll and they knew things had to change in order for them to stay together. “That was the catalyst in us making our decision, that we did want to stay together. But certainly, not under the pressure that we’d been under.”
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In 2017, the couple left the valley. They spent six months recovering from the stress, before settling into a more normal pace and eventually retiring. “Slowly, things started to improve and the pressure was no longer, well, it didn’t exist,” says Jodie.
Then in 2018, after the marriage equality bill passed, they decided to get married. It was Jayne who proposed to Jodie. “I never, ever thought I would get married. And when the decision was ‘yes’, it [became] really important.”
Jodie was thrilled even though she was “blown away” when Jayne asked. She says she’s surprised by how much being married meant to them; and what a difference it made to their relationship. “I thought about all the times we went, ‘A [piece of] paper doesn’t mean anything, we’re good, we’re solid, we’re strong.’ And we are all those things. [But marriage] also made it very legal [for] when we’re no longer here – writing wills, and all that sort of stuff. It made it a lot easier to be legal.”
She’s quick to add that it’s not just for practical purposes. “It was also very romantic, and [the wedding] was really nice. I still think about what it is that makes that bit of paper, saying our vows to each other and inviting our close friends and family to be a witness to all of that. But it’s just special. It’s like the bow on a present or the icing on a cake.”
Over the years, they’ve gotten better at dealing with any conflict between them. Says Jodie: “Being able to honestly talk about how you feel ... calmly, and try not to make decisions when you’re under pressure, and under stress. Make decisions when you’re both calm and can talk. Listen and be able to listen too.”
Jayne agrees communication is key - and acknowledges that everyone has bad days: “You just have off days. So you need your space, and you should accept it.”
‘The relationship’s peaceful now. It’s contented and settled, which is really nice. We’re really lucky,’ says Jayne. Photograph: Jodie Nancarrow and Jayne Watson
While their romantic gestures are not as common these days, they say not much else has changed over the years. “We still laugh a lot, which is nice. And enjoy our company,” says Jayne. “The relationship’s peaceful now. It’s contented and settled, which is really nice. We’re really lucky.”
Jayne says her commitment to Jodie “is to be responsible, look after her, just have her back, to listen and be supportive. Just to be there.”
Jodie nods: “Just having my best mate by my side, who I happen to be married to, is a bonus, and the commitment means everything. I can’t wish for anything more to make my life better. I am blessed and I am extremely lucky to have this woman sitting next to me.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/mar/11/disney-pixar-employees-gay-content | Film | 2022-03-11T14:20:34.000Z | Andrew Pulver | Disney accused of removing gay content from Pixar films | Disney has been accused of cutting LGBTQ+ content from the films of Pixar, the animation giant and Disney subsidiary, during the editing process.
A letter from a group of employees of Pixar – the studio behind Toy Story, The Incredibles and Inside Out – claimed Disney executives have “barred” moments of gay affection from films before they are released.
Signed by “the LGBTQIA+ employees of Pixar & their allies”, the letter says: “We at Pixar have personally witnessed beautiful stories, full of diverse characters, come back from Disney corporate reviews shaved down to crumbs of what they once were.”
It adds: “Nearly every moment of overtly gay affection is cut at Disney’s behest … Even if creating LGBTQIA+ content was the answer to fixing the discriminatory legislation in the world, we are being barred from creating it.”
First reported by Judd Legum of Popular Information, the statement is the latest development in a crisis for Disney prompted by the company’s response to the controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill which passed in the Florida state legislature on Tuesday. Officially known as the Parental Rights in Education bill, it seeks to ban teaching of sexual identity and gender orientation in early-grade education as well as in “a manner that is not age-appropriate or developmentally appropriate for students”. The wording of the latter has been attacked as so vague that it may effectively enable parents to prevent discussion of the topics at any age. The bill is currently awaiting a signature from state governor Ron DeSantis.
The letter came in response to a company memo sent by Disney CEO Bob Chapek on Monday after Disney failed to make a public statement in opposition to the bill, and revelations that every politician who sponsored the bill had received donations from Disney. Chapek defended the lack of opposition to the bill, saying: “Corporate statements do very little to change outcomes or minds … they can be counterproductive and undermine more effective ways to achieve change.” He added: “I believe the best way for our company to bring about lasting change is through the inspiring content we produce, the welcoming culture we create, and the diverse community organisations we support.”
Pointing out that Disney has already stopped commercial activities in Russia after the invasion of Ukraine and threatened to boycott the state of Georgia over its planned Religious Liberties bill in 2016, the Pixar employees group says the company’s claims “ring hollow”.
Chapek, who became CEO of Disney in 2020 after Robert Iger stepped down, is thought to want to step back from the kind of advocacy that flourished under Iger, with the Hollywood Reporter suggesting that Chapek is “concerned that Disney might be viewed as too liberal”.
Disney has been contacted for a response. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jan/10/us-national-parks-dismantling-under-way | Environment | 2020-01-10T11:00:36.000Z | Jonathan B Jarvis | The great dismantling of America's national parks is under way | Jonathan B Jarvis and Destry Jarvis | Sign up for updates on America’s public lands.
Under this administration, nothing is sacred as we watch the nation’s crown jewels being recut for the rings of robber barons.
For more than 100 years, professional management of our national parks has been respected under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Yes, they have different priorities, the Democrats often expanding the system and the Republicans historically focused on building facilities in the parks for expanding visitation. But the career public servants of the National Park Service (NPS), charged with stewarding America’s most important places, such as the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone and the Statue of Liberty, were left to do their jobs.
America's public lands are in danger – and in 2020 we'll report from the frontlines
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Even in the dark days of interior secretaries James Watt and Gail Norton, both former attorneys with the anti-environmental Mountain States Legal Foundation, the National Park Service (NPS) was generally left untouched, perhaps because they recognized that some institutions have too much public support or their mission too patriotic to be tossed under the proverbial bus.
This time is different and we should know, as Jon, one of this story’s authors, worked for the last 10 interior secretaries as a career NPS manager, and ultimately led the agency under Barack Obama, and Destry, Jon’s brother and co-author, has worked with the past 12 NPS directors as a conservation advocate. The change began within 24 hours of the inauguration when Donald Trump complained that the NPS was reporting smaller crowds on the National Mall than Obama had drawn. Perhaps this is when the NPS wound up on the list of transgressors. Soon the interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, attempted to double the entrance fees, rescinded climate policies and moved seasoned senior national park superintendents around to force their retirements.
Plan clears way for mining and drilling on land stripped from Utah monument
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After Zinke’s abrupt resignation, secretary David Bernhardt populated too much of the department’s political leadership with unconfirmed, anti-public land sycophants, and announced a reorganization to install his own lieutenants to oversee super regions, realigning NPS from seven regions to twelve in the name of greater efficiency.
Next came the proclamation that career staff in Washington would be sent to the field to be closer to the people they serve, but in reality, to be out of the way and no longer an impediment to his agenda.
Then came the decisions to leave the parks open to impacts during the unfortunate government shutdown, illegally misuse entrance fees, open park trails to e-bikes, suppress climate science, kill wolf pups and bear cubs in their dens to enhance “sport hunting”, privatize campgrounds, and issue muzzle memos to park managers. With a waiver of environmental laws, bulldozers are plowing ancient cacti in national parks along the southern border in order to build a wall. Senior career park managers are likely to be replaced with unqualified political hacks.
These are not random actions. This is a systematic dismantling of a beloved institution, like pulling blocks from a Jenga tower, until it collapses. You ask, why on earth would someone want to do that to the popular National Park Service, the subject of one of Ken Burns’ acclaimed documentaries and often called “America’s best idea”?
Because if you want to drill, mine and exploit the public estate for the benefit of the industry, the last thing you want is a popular and respected agency’s voice raising alarms on behalf of conservation and historic preservation.
Because if you want the public to ignore the science of climate change, the last thing you want are trusted park rangers speaking the truth to park visitors.
Because if you want to get the federal government small enough (in the words of Grover Norquist) to “drown it in a bathtub”, the last thing you want is a government agency with high popular appeal that needs to grow rather than shrink.
It is clear that this administration cannot be trusted with the keys to the vault of our most precious places that define us as a nation, such as Mount Rushmore or Yosemite national park.
When this nightmare ends, and we begin to rebuild, we suggest it is time for Congress to consider making the National Park Service an independent institution, more akin to the Smithsonian, and no longer subject to the vicissitudes of a hostile political agenda in a Department of the Interior dominated by extractive industries and anti-public land crusaders.
Brothers Jonathan and Destry Jarvis have spent a combined 87 years in the conservation of parks and public lands. Jonathan was the 18th director of the NPS and served in the agency for 40 years. Destry has spent 47 years as an advocate for national parks working for several non-governmental organizations and in the private sector.
The opinions expressed here are those of the authors. For more information about how this project is supported, click here. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/nov/13/yorkshire-ripper-peter-sutcliffe-dies-aged-74 | UK news | 2020-11-13T16:42:23.000Z | Alexandra Topping | Peter Sutcliffe, Yorkshire Ripper, dies aged 74 | Peter Sutcliffe, the serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper, has died in hospital, a Prison Service spokesman said.
Sutcliffe, 74, was serving 20 life terms at Frankland prison in County Durham for murdering 13 women and attempting to kill seven more in the late 1970s.
A Prison Service spokesman said: “HMP Frankland prisoner Peter Coonan (born Sutcliffe) died in hospital on November 13. The Prisons and Probation Ombudsman has been informed.”
It is understood that Sutcliffe died at University hospital of North Durham, 3 miles from the prison, after being sent there with Covid-19. He was in ill-health, was obese and had diabetes, but reportedly refused treatment.
His admission to the hospital came two weeks after he had been treated there for a suspected heart attack.
Twelve victims of Peter Sutcliffe, who were killed between October 1975 and November 1980. Photograph: PA/PA Archive/PA Photos
Boris Johnson’s official spokesman said it was “right” that Sutcliffe had died behind bars. He said: “The prime minister’s thoughts today are with those who lost their lives, the survivors and with the families and the friends of Sutcliffe’s victims.”
Brian Booth, the chairman of the West Yorkshire Police Federation, said: “The monster who murdered so many innocent women in and around West Yorkshire should rot in hell. He is the very reason most people step to the plate and become police officers – to protect our communities from people like him.”
Sutcliffe used hammers and screwdrivers to murder his victims over a five-year period, between 1975 and 1980. He targeted women from all walks of life – the youngest was 16, the oldest 42 – sparking a reign of terror that meant no woman in the region felt safe. In some areas, police warned women not to go out alone at night.
The 13 women Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering were:
Wilma McCann, 28, from Chapeltown, Leeds, who was killed in October 1975.
Emily Jackson, 42, from Morley, Leeds. Killed on 20 January 1976.
Irene Richardson, 28, from Chapeltown, Leeds. Killed on 6 February 1977.
Patricia Atkinson, 32, from Manningham, Bradford. Killed on 24 April 1977.
Jayne MacDonald, 16, from Leeds. Killed on 26 June 1977.
Jean Jordan, 21, from Manchester, who died between 30 September and 11 October 1977.
Yvonne Pearson, 22, from Bradford. Killed between 20 January and 26 March 1978.
Helen Rytka, 18, from Huddersfield. Killed on 31 January 1978.
Vera Millward, 40, from Manchester. Killed on 16 May 1978.
Josephine Whitaker, 19, from Halifax. Killed on 4 April 1979.
Barbara Leach, 20. Killed while walking in Bradford on 1 September 1979.
Marguerite Walls, 47, from Leeds. Killed on 20 August 1980.
Jacqueline Hill, 20. Killed at Headingley on 16 November 1980.
Despite the 2.5m police hours expended on catching Sutcliffe, a mishandled investigation meant he remained at large for six years. He was interviewed – and released – nine times in connection with the killings, with officers repeatedly missing clues that could have led to an earlier conviction.
Former detective Bob Bridgestock said senior detectives “wore blinkers” during the inquiry. “It’s the victims that served the life sentence and then the victims’ families that really serve the true life sentences,” he said.
Marguerite Walls, Sutcliffe’s 12th victim. Photograph: PA
In 1976, Marcella Claxton, 20, was hit over the head with a hammer near her home in Leeds; she survived and produced an accurate photofit but was discounted as a Ripper victim, because police said she must have been attacked by a black man, according to the English Collective Prostitutes . Police overlooked that Sutcliffe had been arrested in 1969 for carrying a hammer in a red light district, and an anonymous letter sent by his friend Trevor Birdsall to try to expose him.
For a significant period, George Oldfield, West Yorkshire police’s assistant chief constable, was put off the track by a tape purporting to be from the killer that later turned out to be a hoax.
At his Old Bailey trial, Sutcliffe said: “It was just a miracle they did not apprehend me earlier – they had all the facts.”
Eventually, in January 1981, Sutcliffe was stopped with a sex worker. When officers found screwdrivers in the glove compartment of the vehicle, others went back to the scene of the arrest and found a hammer and knife 15 metres (50ft) from where the vehicle had been.
As the net closed, Sutcliffe unexpectedly confessed, and calmly told Det Insp John Boyle: “It’s all right, I know what you’re leading up to. The Yorkshire Ripper. It’s me. I killed all those women.”
Richard McCann, the son of Sutcliffe’s first-known victim, Wilma McCann, said he had ruined many lives. “He will go down as one of those figures from the 20th century in the same league I suppose as someone like Hitler,” he told Sky News.
“It was never just a drunken fight, he went out there with tools and implements and he murdered people again and again and again and again.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/28/will-road-pricing-answer-the-uks-net-zero-car-tax-conundrum | Business | 2022-01-28T07:00:04.000Z | Gwyn Topham | Will road pricing answer the UK’s net-zero car-tax conundrum? | Road pricing may promise a fairer, sustainable way to make polluting drivers pay, ease congestion and fund better transport, but few politicians in power have ever wanted to take the flak that would come with introducing it.
The Treasury has stressed the move from petrol and diesel to electric cars as part of Britain’s net zero strategy will require new sources of revenue to replace billions in lost fuel and vehicle excise duty. However, despite a year of speculation that the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, was warming to the idea, there has been no mention of road pricing as a possible solution in his budgets.
Sadiq Khan has been bolder, announcing last week that London will bring in more charges for motorists, in some form, by 2024.
While Khan has backed road pricing in principle, last week’s announcement still contained the familiar caveat that the technology to make a London-wide scheme work wouldn’t be ready until some time later in the decade.
The city is potentially the canary in the coalmine for the rest of the UK. Congestion has grown, and London needs to tackle widespread air pollution and meet challenging environmental targets, with an ambition to drive down car use by more than a quarter. But there is also an imminent funding crisis after Covid, with billions in lost revenue from transport and the government unwilling to fully help the mayor.
Why is road pricing likely to happen, how might it work and what are the potential obstacles?
The finances
Roads, unlike most utilities, are essentially unmetered, with the way they are paid for failing to reflect when and where they are used.
Instead the Treasury collects money from motorists via fuel duty and vehicle excise duty. Fuel duty is a blunt tool that charges motorists for how much they drive, and the efficiency of their vehicle. Raising it has become politically toxic – Conservative chancellors have frozen the 57.9p-a-litre levy for a decade – but the bigger longer-term problem is the move to electric cars. That puts fuel duty revenues, about £28bn a year pre-pandemic, on their own path to net zero.
Conservative chancellors have frozen fuel duty for a decade at 57.9p per litre levy. Photograph: Geoffrey Swaine/Rex/Shutterstock
Vehicle excise duty, worth roughly £6bn a year, is also currently not paid by electric car owners, who are likewise exempt from London’s congestion or clean air charges. That is seen as an acceptable trade-off for the high purchase price of electric cars for early adopters, but car owners driving “for free” could soon feel politically tricky, and in the long term new funding, such as road pricing, feels inevitable.
The logistics
Worldwide, basic road-charging schemes currently range from tolls for bridges, tunnels, or stretches of motorway, to the kind of congestion zone London already has, often relying on number plate recognition cameras, transponders or other sensors.
Singapore has arguably come closest to a comprehensive road-pricing scheme, with motorists billed automatically for journeys calculated via in-car units triggered when they pass a series of gantries. The system was first put in place before the millennium.
But the grid road system in the small city state makes it relatively easy to calculate where someone has driven from a series of fixed points. London’s eventual scheme – particularly if it does, as the mayor suggested, take account of factors such as the relative availability of public transport, congestion, or time of day as well as distance travelled – would require some form of GPS tracking.
The technology
Khan said the tech could be ready in two and half years, just beyond his remaining term in office. The Green party and others argue it has been ready for years, in various forms. For example, car owners have grown used to insurers installing black boxes that can track speed and performance.
A smart road-pricing scheme could require in an in-car device, as used in Singapore – but that could be replaced by a smartphone and app. As any user of satnav or exercise apps knows, an individual’s movements can already be tracked effectively.
Singapore has operated a road-pricing scheme for more than 20 years. Photograph: Suhaimi Abdullah/Getty Images
However, Steve Gooding, the director of the RAC Foundation, is less convinced: “Is [the technology] ready at the scale it needs to be, for everything it needs to do, for all the vehicles moving in Greater London 365 days a year?”
Civil liberties
London’s congestion zone was originally set up in 2003 by the then mayor, Ken Livingstone, with clear separation from the other arms of the state. But in 2015 his successor, Boris Johnson, instructed Transport for London to give full access to the data to the Metropolitan police, and records of who drives into central London are now stored for two years.
The Green party’s Siân Berry, a London Assembly member who has long backed the idea of road pricing, says stricter safeguards should be in place around the data – and more would certainly be needed should journeys be logged by GPS. That could be via an app that is under the driver’s own control in terms of details, or an in-car unit that tots up charges but does not keep a journey history, she suggests. “But you need to put privacy into the conversation early on, not later, or you risk it becoming an issue that cancels the scheme.”
Fairness
As a report in 2021 from Tony Blair’s Institute for Global Change noted, this cuts both ways: do nothing to reform the system and the wealthiest electric car owners will forever get a free ride while still using roads and creating congestion – and particulate pollution.
While it is argued that overall, road pricing should be fairer and beneficial, there may be winners and losers, particularly at the borders of schemes, and key workers with fixed shift times may not be able to avoid peak charges.
But the status quo is not fair for non car-owners, argues Berry. She adds: “It’s 20p for petrol or £1.50 for the bus for a short journey – the price signals are completely wrong.”
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Public opposition
The London congestion charge proved less of a vote-loser for Livingstone than many anticipated. However, attempts by Labour in 2007 to implement a nationwide road-pricing scheme attracted what was then one of the biggest protest petitions from the public.
The tide may be turning, slowly. Concerns over car use and urban air quality are firmly on the agenda.
Motoring organisations have also joined the call for charging in some form: the RAC Foundation backs it, while the AA’s Edmund King has proposed tradeable “road miles”, measured through telematics. A recent report from the Social Market Foundation thinktank claimed that the formerly hostile UK public could now be won over. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/dec/17/celebrity-self-help-books-publishing-trend-dawn-french-eddie-izzard | Books | 2017-12-17T00:05:16.000Z | Vanessa Thorpe | Your guide to a happy new year… by Dawn, Eddie and other celebrity self-help gurus | Once the post-Christmas slump lifts and 2018 looms, an unprecedented crowd of well-known faces will be waiting to take readers by the hand and guide them into the new year. Following a tide of celebrity autobiographies, celebrity novels and celebrity children’s fiction, this year the book-shaped gift under the tree is more likely to be a celebrity self-help manual.
Comforting and instructive life manuals written by well-known entertainers and performers are being heavily promoted this season as booksellers bank on a public thirst for sincere advice from familiar, if unexpected, stars.
Leading the pack is Dawn French’s new journal, Me. You. A Diary, which came out in hardback this autumn ready for the Christmas market, but is also selling well as an interactive ebook. In its digital format, as well as in print, French’s deliberately collaborative effort invites each reader to make their own comments on the author’s daily tips for better living.
“This book is a way for us to tell the story of a year together,” suggests French. “Feel free to write your appointments in it, lists, thoughts and reminders of, say, who to kill, and when, and in what order. By the end of the year, I am hoping you will have a fatter, scruffier book that is written by me but totally personalized by you.”
The book is one of a number of literary counselling projects, each authenticated by a star name. And publishers have clearly judged it is comedians who make the best confidants. The acclaimed autobiography of Eddie Izzard, Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens, in which he reveals the continuing impact on his life of his mother’s death when he was six, has picked up many admirers since its launch this summer, and is still selling, bolstered by a promotional tour, which is now running in Paris until the end of January, with US dates just announced for February.
Comedian Sarah Millican’s How to Be Champion, billed as “a guide to surviving life”, also offers encouragement to depressed readers who might be facing up to a failed marriage or an unsatisfactory career. The message is summed up in the author’s exhortation: “Be yourself or else you’ll have to keep up the pretence for ever.” Chapter headings include Things My Dad Taught Me and Ten Good Things About Being Overweight, and the life hints are mostly modest and grounded with the occasional favourite cake recipe.
Millican describes how she eventually conquered the nerves that once forced her to recite her own childhood poetry from behind a curtain in the living room of her South Shields family home. After her first marriage fell apart just over a decade ago, she began to “try-out” at standup comedy gigs, partly as a form of catharsis. A successful solo run at the Edinburgh festival fringe soon saw her established as a leading light entertainment figure.
A trend among comics for revelatory, and even melancholy, solo shows has been evident on the live circuit for some time. Standup acts about mental and physical illness, and on coping with bereavement, are now as common as traditional observational comic material. And while comedians regularly gain notoriety for having a tougher-than-average ability to present their world view, it seems a willingness to expose a few personal insecurities is now a definite bonus.
The commentator and columnist Caitlin Moran could be considered to have reinvented the self-improvement publishing format with her bestselling How to Be a Woman, published in 2011. In this semi-ironic look at the advice genre, Moran debunked many restrictive taboos surrounding femininity, and some of its themes were followed up this year in Daisy Buchanan’s How to be a Grown-Up.
Last Christmas Davina McCall had a hit with her candid book, Lessons I’ve Learned, discussing the reliance on drugs she once shared with her mother. This summer the comedian Robert Webb waded into equally deep waters when he tackled the social construction of masculinity in his honest memoir, How Not to Be a Boy. A live tour based on Webb’s book has just ended.
The wave of supportive celebrity sharing has also crossed the Atlantic with the launch this winter of Unqualified, by Hollywood sitcom actress Anna Faris. She offers advice on love and relationships, given added piquancy by her high-profile breakup with the film star Chris Pratt, who writes the book’s foreword.
This celebrity foray into self-help follows renewed interest in the whole genre. In the last five years, several major British publishing houses have refreshed imprints in this territory. Three years ago Hodder & Stoughton launched Yellow Kite, an imprint designed “to help you live a good life”, and shortly afterwards HarperCollins relaunched its Harper Thorsons brand for “mind, body and spirit” titles. Last year Penguin launched Penguin Life, aiming at putting out 20 titles a year, and this year Bloomsbury launched a health and wellbeing imprint called Green Tree.
Yellow Kite’s Liz Gough recently told Glamour magazine she suspected that readers’ increasing interest in seeking emotional help from books was in line with the popular phenomenon of online TED talks. “People are struggling to make sense of the world, and they want to enrich their lives in some way – whether that’s going to a book club or a poetry reading, or taking up other methods of self-care such as yoga or meditation,” Gough said. “People are looking for balance between the scientific and the spiritual.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/jan/29/brussels-prepared-for-trade-war-with-us-if-it-restricts-eu-imports | Business | 2018-01-29T13:36:03.000Z | Daniel Boffey | Brussels prepared for trade war with US if it restricts EU imports | Brussels has warned that it stands ready to retaliate and potentially open up a transatlantic trade war if the US delivers on apparent threats to restrict European imports.
The US president, Donald Trump, claimed in an interview with ITV broadcast on Sunday that the EU had been “very unfair” on American exporters, and that it would “morph into something very big” that would “turn out to be very much to [the EU’s] detriment”.
Washington is currently examining the case for protecting US economic interests on national security grounds, including the imposition of import tariffs on aluminium and steel.
Responding to Trump’s comments, a spokesman for the European commission told reporters in Brussels that the EU was ready to hit back if its importers were made to suffer.
The spokesman said: “For us trade policy is not a zero sum game. It is not about winners and losers. We here in the European Union believe that trade can and should be win-win.
“We also believe that while trade has to be open and fair it also has to be rules-based. The European Union stands ready to react swiftly and appropriately in case our exports are affected by any restrictive trade measures by the United States.”
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Asked what measures could be taken by Brussels, the spokesman said he would be “better understood if I don’t elaborate any further”.
In his interview with Piers Morgan, Trump had spoken of his own experience dealing with the EU. He has previously complained to its leaders that, as a businessman, the bloc had made it difficult for him to set up golf courses.
Trump, who has described Brexit as a great thing, told Morgan: “I’ve had a lot of problems with European Union, and it may morph into something very big from that standpoint, from a trade standpoint.
“We cannot get our product in. It’s very, very tough. And yet they send their product to us – no taxes, very little taxes. It’s very unfair.
“They’re not the only one, by the way. I could name many countries and places that do. But the European Union has been very, very unfair to the United States. And I think it will turn out to be very much to their detriment.”
The comments appeared to bring closer the possibility of a clash over trade between the EU and the US. Last summer, the EU commissioner for trade, Cecilia Malmström, warned that, should such a “trade war” between the US and the EU be waged, it would be “extremely unfortunate” for the whole world.
In a formal submission last month to the US steel investigation, the European commission had said any “sweeping measure targeting many steel products and all countries for national security reasons is not justified”.
On Saturday, there was great relief in Belfast after a surprise ruling preventing the US from imposing a 292% import tariffs on planes partly made by British workers.
Bombardier wins fight against huge tariffs on aircraft imports
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The US commerce department said in December that the UK and Canada had given aerospace firm Bombardier, which employs over a thousand people in Northern Ireland, unfair subsidies.
However, the case, which centred on a complaint by US rival Boeing, was dismissed by the US International Trade Commission (ITC), in a move which was also warmly welcomed in Downing Street. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/19/the-guardian-view-on-teacher-shortages-pay-must-go-up-and-workload-down | Opinion | 2023-06-19T17:51:14.000Z | Editorial | The Guardian view on teacher shortages: pay must go up, and workload down | Editorial | Astaffing crisis in English schools that has been building for a decade shows no sign of easing. The number of vacant posts increased by 44% between 2021 and 2022. One in four new teachers leaves the profession within three years. The headteacher of one secondary school describes trying to fill some roles as “advertising for a unicorn”. Even in English, where recruitment has traditionally been easier than in maths or science – where schools face competition from higher-paying private sector employers – there are shortages. Growing numbers of pupils are taught by staff without expertise in the subject.
This should be a source of profound concern, and also shame, in government. It is ministers’ job to oversee state schools. They are responsible for a situation in which becoming and remaining a teacher have become less attractive. Gillian Keegan is the seventh education secretary in five years. It does not appear that any of them have grasped the problem. Without teachers, teaching cannot take place. The difficulties are most severe in disadvantaged schools and areas, meaning that attainment gaps can be expected to increase.
There is no great mystery about causes. In 2019, after recruitment targets had been missed for six years in a row, the government announced plans to remove barriers to part-time teaching, and reduce the workloads that are repeatedly cited as a reason why teachers quit. Where bursaries were introduced to fund training in some subjects, shortages eased off (these are being brought back for English this year). But pay remains too low, after years of freezes and budget cuts, and this year’s average rise of 5% was only half the rate of inflation (and lower than increases in Scotland and Wales).
The pressures remain intense. Teachers are subjected to a form of inspection, in Ofsted, that is not faced by other professionals. The inspectorate’s response to the recent death of the headteacher Ruth Perry was not sufficient to allay concerns about unmanageable stress. Schools cope with a huge range of issues, from sexual harassment and bullying, to the difficulties that some children bring with them from home. In a context where social care, special needs and mental healthcare thresholds have all been raised by councils, sometimes schools are the only places where families feel they can turn for help – or offload frustration. Given that the UK has a younger teaching workforce than most comparable countries, it is unsurprising that some become overwhelmed when forced to assume responsibilities for which they are not ready. Teaching also lacks the flexibility, and options for home working, that other graduate employers increasingly offer.
In relation to English, specifically, the shortage of teachers is linked to falling numbers learning the subject. A-level entries are down to 54,000 from 90,000 in 2012, and here, too, ministers are partly to blame. Their reforms stripped creativity and critical thinking out of the curriculum, particularly at GCSE level, while rhetoric about the importance of Stem subjects, especially maths, reduced the status of other subjects – even if this was unintended. Routes into teacher training have also become more complicated.
The danger is that problems become self‑reinforcing, as the churn in staff makes schools less stable places. But pay and working conditions must be improved if we want children to thrive. The Conservatives’ recent approach to schools, including Boris Johnson’s refusal to fund a recommended pandemic recovery package, has been negligent. The damage will take time to repair. At a minimum, Ms Keegan should publish the report of the independent pay review body, as unions have requested, and press the Treasury to fund the recommended 6.5% increase. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/sep/28/oliver-sacks-his-own-life-review-beautiful-and-honest-study-of-an-amazing-man | Film | 2021-09-28T15:00:25.000Z | Cath Clarke | Oliver Sacks: His Own Life review – beautiful and honest study of an amazing man | Take your pick of extraordinary moments in this excellent documentary about the neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks. In 2015, aged 82, knowing he had months to live, Sacks sat down at home in New York and talked to the camera with great honesty. During his childhood in north London, he recalls his mother, a surgeon and gynaecologist, bringing home a foetus for him, aged 10 or 11, to dissect. Later, when she found out he was gay, she told him he was an abomination, that he should never have been born.
In his mid-20s, Sacks escaped London, his mother and homophobia for the freedom of California. There is a photo of him arriving at work on a huge motorbike, shaggy beard, puffing a cigar, looking like an extra from Easy Rider – only he’s wearing a white lab coat. This was around the time he was a physician to a California chapter of the Hells Angels and had an amphetamine habit that would have killed an ordinary man. But he was a champion weight-lifter; the bulk saved his life.
Sacks wrote that the most significant moment in his life was in the late 1960s, treating victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica or “sleeping sickness” epidemic. Remarkable black and white home movie footage shows patients rising like Lazarus – if only fleetingly – after decades in catatonic states. Sacks’s 1973 book Awakenings, about the experience, was adapted into the Robin Williams movie. He recounts other famous case studies here, including Dr P, the brilliant music teacher with visual agnosia who mistook his wife for a hat, and gave Sacks the title for his best-known book.
Still, for me, the standout moment of the film is Sacks at a zoo, crouched in front of a chimpanzee enclosure: face pressed against the glass, nose to nose with a chimp, mirroring its movements, twisting his lips, becoming simian. What he is doing looks like a kind of extreme empathy, feeling his way into the animal. A friend with autism describes his approach as a clinician, getting inside the heads of people with neurological differences. He debunked the stereotype that people with autism didn’t have an inner life, she says – and demystified conditions like hers and Tourette syndrome.
Sacks, maybe because he knows the end is near, can be boyishly silly, too, gigglingly telling a story about sticking his willy into a bowl of jelly to cool a night-time erection. And, after being celibate for 35 years, there is a glorious happy ending to the story of his sexuality. What a man. Just writing this makes me want to watch the documentary all over again.
Oliver Sacks: His Own Life is released on 29 September in cinemas (for one night only) and on 4 October on digital platforms. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/09/barry-jenkins-when-you-climb-the-ladder-you-send-it-back-down | Film | 2019-02-09T09:00:06.000Z | Roy Williams | Barry Jenkins: ‘When you climb the ladder, you send it back down’ | “S
o, you saw the film?” Barry Jenkins is eager to ask the minute we are introduced. He gives good eye contact through those stylish thick-rimmed glasses – not the big-time, Oscar-winning writer-director speaking, but a nervous artist, anxious about the new work he is starting to screen. I love it, I tell him. If Beale Street Could Talk may be only Jenkins’ third feature-length film, but it has already been nominated for three Oscars (best adapted screenplay, best supporting actress, best score), just two years after his Moonlight walked away with the Academy Award for best film. A passionate film about race and love, it’s an added pleasure to see black characters of such complexity on the big screen. British film industry, kindly take note.
Adapted from James Baldwin’s 1974 novel, Beale Street tells the story of a young black couple in 1970s Harlem. When Tish (KiKi Layne) becomes pregnant, they plan to marry – until her fiance Fonny (Stephan James) is set up by a racist police officer for a rape he did not commit. The film explores the different reactions of their siblings and parents, led by Regina King in a standout performance as Tish’s mother, as they fight for Fonny’s freedom.
Baldwin has been dead for 30 years, but his depiction of the fight against a country’s powerful prejudice is a sad reminder that not enough has changed, that Black Lives Still Matter. Yet Jenkins turns a bleak story into a compelling romance, as the young lovers strive to be regarded as human beings. With its lingering, saturated-colour photography – the director has cited Wong Kar-Wai’s In The Mood For Love as an influence – Beale Street is one of the most visually arresting films I’ve seen.
“That was kind of our intention,” says Jenkins, who also wrote the screenplay. “We thought, ‘How cool would it be, to have this absolutely ravishingly gorgeous depiction of black romance, just pure and lush and vibrant – but then really lean into the systemic injustice issues that Baldwin’s talking about – with a very angry, almost bitter voice?’”
On the set of If Beale Street Could Talk. Photograph: Tatum Mangus/Annapurna Pictures
Beale Street was filmed on location in New York and the Dominican Republic – filling in for Puerto Rico, still devastated by 2017’s Hurricane Maria. It was shot on an Arri Alexa 65 camera, Jenkins tells me (he’s a little bit geeky like this: taking joy in the details of the craft), because “it is the best digital camera for portraiture”. Throughout the film, as he did in Moonlight, the director lingers over often wordless scenes between his characters, presenting them as a series of moving photographs.
I tell him that if Moonlight didn’t finally kill off the ugly argument (and I have heard it, from producers and directors alike) that you can’t film black people because they’re just too dark, then Beale Street surely will. “My cinematographer is a white guy, actually,” Jenkins points out, referring to James Laxton, who also worked with him on Moonlight. “We both prioritise exactly what you’re talking about. Every day we’re on set and we’re in colour correction. And it’s always, ‘But how was the skin? What are we doing to protect the skin?’ Not even protect: ‘What are we doing to properly calibrate what we’re doing for the skin?’”
Jenkins’ 2008 film Medicine For Melancholy. Photograph: Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar
One of the distinctive features of this film, and of Moonlight, is a series of straight-to-camera shots, where the actors seem to directly address the audience, without dialogue. Jenkins says he films these shots without really knowing where they will go, or how he will use them. “Sometimes I see an actor slip into that place where there’s no separation between the actor and the character. That’s when you do these things. The actor isn’t acting. They’re just being.” He says he was struck by a recent New York Times profile of him by the novelist Angela Flournoy, in which she observed the effect of these almost meditative moments in Beale Street. “She was saying that, for non-black audiences, these scenes are so charged, because for them it might be the first time they have ever looked a black person directly in the eye in this [meditative] state. And for black audiences, they see someone they know. It just never occurred to me. Then I looked out at a recent Q&A, for a mostly white audience, and I realised, holy shit, this might be true – that a large percentage of this audience have never looked someone like Stephan James in the eye in an unbroken moment of connection.”
While Jenkins’ film largely honours Baldwin’s novel, the director has added a new ending that follows the original – giving the audience just a glimpse of hope. Even so, he is convinced he has remained faithful to the book’s central message. Which is? “I think it would be: ‘We are not broken. You cannot break us.’ I wanted to show that, even in the most devastating circumstance, the family unit had not been broken.”
A girlfriend told me I needed to grow up. That's how I found James Baldwin
He wrote the script almost simultaneously with that for Moonlight, on a trip to Europe in the summer of 2013. Jenkins bought a return ticket to Brussels, booked into an Airbnb for two weeks, and first – because adapting Baldwin looked too daunting to kick off with – started on Moonlight. “I thought, ‘I’ll just get my legs’, because I hadn’t written anything in a while. And then I’ll switch to Beale Street.” When the Moonlight script came together in 10 days, he travelled to Berlin for fresh inspiration, writing Beale Street over the next four weeks – an intensely productive period.
“I’ve never had that happen again in my life. I’ve tried to replicate it, and I think the reason it worked was because, as a human being, I ceased to exist. I didn’t have any friends, I didn’t have a cell phone, I didn’t know anyone, I had no family. It was just the bartenders who were helping me, giving me caffeine or alcohol.”
Jenkins came to Baldwin as an adult. “I didn’t grow up as a voracious reader. James Baldwin was recommended to me by a girlfriend, who was a little older than me, more mature, worldlier, smarter, more attractive,” he says, with a laugh. “And she, in breaking up with me, recommended – so I could grow up – that I read James Baldwin: ‘I’m done with you, but I’m going to give you a hint. You need to read James Baldwin.’ She recommended Giovanni’s Room and The Fire Next Time. That was how my love affair began.”
****
In his first job after film school, Jenkins, now 39, worked as an assistant at Harpo Films, Oprah Winfrey’s company which, before shutting down in 2013, focused on literary adaptations (Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God). Part of Winfrey’s mission was to make movies that would encourage people to read those authors. Has literary adaptation always been part of Jenkins’ own plan? Beale Street is the first English-language Baldwin adaptation, and Jenkins had to lobby the writer’s estate hard to make it. “As a visual storyteller, it’s just nice to have someone, like Mr Baldwin, or Tarell Alvin McCraney [the American playwright and Jenkins’ co-writer on Moonlight] who’s already put so much thought and so much richness into the source material, that I can then take and try to find ways to lift it up even higher, taking it into this realm from that,” he explains.
In Moonlight, Jenkins says, he watched ‘the actors relive some of the things we lived through’. Photograph: AP
Jenkins is currently working on another adaptation, of the Pulitzer prize-winning novel The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead. It is the story of two slaves who escape southern plantations through a network of safe houses and secret tunnels to reach the northern states, where they will be free. Working with a team of screenwriters, Jenkins will direct a 10-hour TV series for Amazon.
Moonlight was based on McCraney’s semi-autobiographical play In Moonlight Black Boys Look Blue, about a tough childhood with a drug-addicted mother, and a painful coming out. Both McCraney and Jenkins grew up in the predominantly black, working-class Miami neighbourhood of Liberty City, attending the same high school (Jenkins is a year older). “We never knew each other,” the director says. “This is sad to say, but I might not have been brave enough to have been Tarell’s friend when we were kids. I feel like Tarell was always proud to be who he was, and was likely ostracised for it. I was more a follower than a leader, you know, when I was that age.”
Like McCraney, Jenkins’ mother was an addict, and he was raised by a family friend, his father having died when he was 12. Two years ago, the director told the Guardian: “There were seven or eight of us in a two-bed apartment. There was usually food, but sometimes not.”
I never thought, 'Hey, maybe one day I might like to make movies.' It just didn’t seem possible
How did his childhood shape him? “I think when you know nothing else, that thing becomes normalised. So, I didn’t think there was anything extraordinarily disadvantaged about my upbringing until I extended further out into the world and saw that not everybody grows up this way. That, ‘Oh, this thing I’m just learning about now, these kids learned about when they were five. And these comforts that I’m just experiencing now, these kids have experienced their entire lives. When I was growing up, it just didn’t seem cruel or difficult at all. It was only in the making of this film [Moonlight], and to be honest, watching the actors relive some of the things we lived through. Then it was like, ‘Woah, that was an ordeal.’”
Which films inspired him, growing up? “I wasn’t really inspired by film,” he says, “but I admired Spike Lee’s movies because they just felt very, very, very black. I remember watching School Daze and thinking, ‘What the hell is this?’ There were colleges for black people that just black people go to? And those colleges had all this shit going on? This is so energising!
“Otherwise, it was the really big Hollywood stuff – The Color Purple, Aliens, Die Hard, Coming To America. I would catch the bus to go to the AMC theatre downtown. But I never thought, ‘Hey, maybe one day I might like to do that.’ It just didn’t seem possible.”
Winning an Academy Award for best picture must have felt even more farfetched. He grins when I bring up one of the most rollercoaster nights in Oscar history. How did he feel when Damien Chazelle’s widely tipped La La Land was announced the winner of the best picture Oscar in 2017, before the error was corrected?
“OK.” Jenkins takes a breath and takes himself back to the night in question. “When Faye Dunaway read out La La Land, it was perfectly fine, you know? It wasn’t an unexpected result, it wasn’t a shocking result. The only thing shocking about the whole night to me was the switch, you know? I remember hugging Jordan Horowitz [co-producer of La La Land], and I remember hugging Damien Chazelle, and just the look on everyone: ‘What the hell just happened?’ I remember seeing Warren Beatty backstage, him showing me the actual card, and me for the first time believing – or accepting – that we had won best picture. Because there’s nothing written on the Oscar when you first get it. It was a very wild night. Very wild.”
‘The only shocking thing about the Oscars night was the switch, you know.’ Photograph: Ben Quinton/The Guardian
Given the #OscarsSoWhite furore of the previous year (when there was not a single actor or director of colour among 25 nominees), there must have been air punches around the globe when Moonlight belatedly scooped the prize. “I have no doubt that the OscarsSoWhite thing played a role in Moonlight’s success,” Jenkins says. “But when it becomes, ‘Oh, Moonlight only won because of OscarsSoWhite,’ I’m like, ‘Well, say a film won the top award from this critics’ body, then that same film was the highest-rated film on this website, then it goes on to have one of the 10 highest ratings on Metacritic in the history of the website – if I told you that same film won best picture, you wouldn’t question it. But if I told you a black film about a gay black boy whose mom is addicted to crack-cocaine won best picture, then you go, “Oh, it only won because of diversity,’” he laughs.
A new renaissance in black film-making is declared every few years, but this time it feels there’s some truth and momentum to it. As well as Jenkins, in the US there is Ryan Coogler, who directed Black Panther and is working on a sequel; Spike Lee (nominated for his first Oscar last month, for BlacKkKlansman); Training Day director Antoine Fuqua; Ava DuVernay (Selma, A Wrinkle In Time); and Jordan Peele (Get Out and the upcoming Us).
“I think there’s something about the present moment that is collectively inspiring,” Jenkins says. “I don’t think any one of us sees the success of another and feels anything but joy and pride. And I can see that the generation behind us, they see that, and they feed off it.
“You have people like Ava, Ryan and Jordan who are leading by example. Ava did Selma and then created this television show [Queen Sugar], and said every episode was going to be directed by a woman, most of them women of colour. Jordan had massive success with Get Out, and said, ‘Hey Spike, I’m going to help you make this film’ [BlacKkKlansman, which Peele produced]. When you climb the ladder, you send it back down. And that’s exactly what’s been happening for the last 10 to 15 years.”
Jenkins finally receives the 2017 best picture Oscar. Photograph: Getty Images
He points to technology as another democratising force. “You see more people from backgrounds that are way outside the core centre, which has always been hetero white American men in the Hollywood system. You can go to any film festival in the world right now, and there are so many people just – not waiting, because waiting’s the wrong word, but who are going to get put on one way or the other. And your ass is going to get left behind if you’re not hiring these people.” Dear British film industry, again, please take note.
I tell Jenkins I look forward to the day when the list of British black film-makers who have been entrusted to make hits is as long as the American one. But the director says he has always admired the European system of financing films. “Here are the funds: you don’t have to really worry about the commercial prospects because it’s not private money, it’s public money, and so it’s just about the art. Stateside, it’s almost impossible to raise the funds to make a movie like Steve McQueen’s Hunger, and to make it in that style.”
Even so, I say, the US seems more awake to the talents of a generation of British actors and film-makers: Daniel Kaluuya, Letitia Wright, Amma Asante, John Boyega, Aml Ameen, Naomie Harris – all of whom have followed the likes of Idris Elba to work Stateside, and who can blame them? How many more times can they play a stabbing victim on Casualty? But Jenkins doesn’t want to overstate the opportunities the US has to offer, especially now. “We were moving in this direction where we were trying to eradicate borders, and now we’re trying to build them again,” he says. “I have to think about how we went from the election of Barack Obama to the election of a reality TV star with a heinous past. There were many millions of people who voted for this guy, and I’m trying to understand why that is. What was it about the present moment that made them feel, ‘This is a direction I don’t want the country to go in? This is the direction I want the country to go in.’ Borders and lies and fake this and xenophobic that.” He sighs.
Instead, Jenkins thinks there are reasons to be positive about black British culture right now – and that a change is coming soon. He gives an example. Just over a year ago, he was in London and looking for a quiet place to write. He went to Soho House and, spotting Daniel Kaluuya in a corner, went over to say hello before starting work. “I was there writing for four or five hours, and there were all these young black men who just kept coming in and sitting down with Daniel. I recognised one of them, Kibwe Tavares, who directed Jonah, which Daniel starred in. This was at the height of Get Out and Daniel was having all these meetings with young black UK directors. And just from watching the demeanour of it, I could tell he was like, ‘What are you working on? What’s going on? How can we build?’ And so, this shit’s going to happen. It’s going to happen.”
If Beale Street Could Talk is out now. Roy Williams’ plays include Sucker Punch, Fallout and Sing Yer Heart Out For The Lads
If you would like a comment on this piece to be considered for inclusion on Weekend magazine’s letters page in print, please email [email protected], including your name and address (not for publication). | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture-professionals-network/culture-professionals-blog/2013/nov/26/purni-morell-unicorn-theatre-interview | Culture professionals network | 2013-11-26T13:23:00.000Z | Matthew Caines | Arts head: Purni Morell, artistic director, Unicorn theatre | Hi Purni, could you tell me a bit more about Unicorn Theatre and how its history plays into its mission today?
The Unicorn was founded in 1947 as a touring theatre that operated out the back of a van and took plays around the country for children. Its core founding philosophy was that plays for children should be treated as, made the same way and judged the same way as plays for adults.
Today, the Unicorn serves an audience aged zero to 21-years-old. At the moment, the majority of our audience comes from London and we're about half school audiences, half family audiences. We programme around 30 shows a year, of which about half to two-thirds are our own productions.
It's very important to me that we're seen as a theatre first and foremost, and it's a coincidence that our audience happens to be children – rather than considering that what we're doing is educational, or building the audience of the future, or providing extended day care.
To my mind, the artists that we employ here are the same artists you would see on any stage in London or in the UK. I'm very passionate about making sure that what we're not is about educating children into enjoying plays into their future adult life; I think it's about the experience they have for that particular performance, on that particular day.
You mention being seen as a theatre first and foremost – do you get hung up on definitions?
I think it's really important to fight definitions if you possibly can. It's difficult to fight them because they're useful for having shorthand conversations, but shorthand conversations are always general. So if you're trying to investigate what it is we're doing, you have to move away from them.
Because you've also programmed work for adults …
The plays that we do I hope speak to children on their own terms about the life they're living, but in fact the greatest influence on our audience's life is that of their parents. I thought it would be interesting from time to time to do a show that was for adults, just to complete the picture.
Maybe once a year we'll do a show for grown-ups but it tends to be on the theme of children or childhood, or the way in which we, as adults, relate to children, our assumptions about them and so on. I'm not going to be doing Ibsen, for example.
How do you approach those two kinds of shows and audiences?
When I started, I found there hadn't been much of a crossover between artists working for adults in theatre and artists working for children. I think there had been an assumption that making theatre for children was a specialism, or required special skills, whereas I take the view that doing a play requires the special skill of being able to speak to your audience and understand who your audience is.
That's true of whether you're in a city, or in the country, or whether you're dealing with adults or children. It doesn't really matter how you cut that particular cake; each time you make a play you've got to revisit that for the first time.
How have recent changes to funding and cultural education impacted on what you do?
There are undoubtedly a lot of changes taking place in funding. But for us – and we're unusual in this – the greater effect has come from the changes to cultural education, and the changes that have been made to the curriculum.
The pressure on teachers has grown noticeably and palpably, even in the two years I've been in this job. The biggest question that we talk about in our staff meetings is what we, as a theatre, can be doing, should be doing, want to do, to make sure that a child's experience of childhood isn't just passing exams or meeting targets.
When you're six, you're examined at a number of things. The criteria for success, particularly in education, are becoming narrower and narrower. As the foremost theatre for young people in this country, we have to do something about that. I see teachers thinking "I really want to take this class out, but if I do then they won't be able to study this and they won't be ready for that exam, and then we'll be marked down."
What role does the theatre have to play in that?
Cultural education is, for some reason, something some people are quite suspicious of, or something they don't quite trust. Yet we all benefited from it ourselves, and we all participate in it all the time. I feel like that's the biggest challenge, but that's not a challenge for Unicorn. The question for us is: what is our place within this thing that is a problem for society?
Are we trying to create young people who are going to be able to get jobs, or are we trying to develop young people who are confident in who they are, and can think creatively and can shape the world in their own image in the future? I think, as a theatre, we have a part to play in that.
You've spoken about Europe treating children's theatredifferently than the UK – what are the differences?
I have a friend who says there are two problems in this world, and only two: one is how you live with other people; the other is how you live with yourself. What I like about theatre is that it's the meeting point of those two problems.
Theatre is both the private and public. When you're at the theatre, you are moved by what you experience and see in an intensely private way, but you do it with a lot of other people who are doing it in their own intensely private ways. You also receive it collectively. Theatre is the only artform where that particular problem – where the individual and society intersect – can properly be explored. It's not that you sit there and think about it, because it actually happens in that environment. It's visceral.
What my experience in the rest of Europe told me was that theatre was an artform of the emotions, rather than of the intellect, and that you can do exactly the same for children as you do in theatre for adults. If you go and watch a production of Macbeth, much of the drama comes from you knowing that what Macbeth is doing, and the course he's embarked on, is a bad plan. The drama comes from the fact that you, as the audience, know more than the character does.
Sometimes, traditionally in English children's theatre, there has been the habit to do the opposite, to assume that the people on stage have got something to tell the audience; that the performers and characters know more than the children in the audience. I think that's the death of drama.
One of the things I learned in Europe was to make sure that what you're doing for children is that same thing you're doing for adults, rather than doing something different because they happen to be younger.
Purni Morell is artistic director of Unicorn Theatre – follow it on Twitter @Unicorn_Theatre
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https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2012/nov/05/bayern-hamburg-thomas-muller-strike | Football | 2012-11-05T16:44:12.000Z | Raphael Honigstein | Bayern Munich back on track after Thomas Müller's wonder strike | Raphael Honigstein | It has become common to describe the first goal in a game as a Türöffner, a door-opener. Few teams are more in need of said key intervention than Bayern, a side who truly come into their own once spaces open up in the opposition half. But on Saturday night at the Imtech Arena, it wasn't so much Bastian Schweinsteiger's stooped header before the break that made the real difference but the second goal, a truly wondrous strike from Thomas Müller. There's no obvious comparison in tool box terms but if Schweinsteiger opened the door, Müller knocked up an exquisitely-shaped chaise longue for the visitors to settle down and put their feet up for good in the 3-0 win at Hamburg. "It was important for us, it gave us the chance to take a deep breath," the 23-year-old said about his unlikely strike.
Chances are people in Germany will see it again and again this season. It's a dead-cert for the Goal of the Month competition and will push Marco Reus's pile-driver against Greece at the Euros all the way for the Goal of the Year prize, too.
"I looked up and didn't see anyone for the cross, so I tried to have a go myself," he explained later, "and I had a good foot." The HSV keeper René Adler was anticipating a cross and admitted to getting his angles "all wrong" but then again, who could have expected Müller shooting past the goalie from just inside the touchline, on the turn? "Anatoliy Tymoshchuk scores similar goals in training but not while the ball is in play," Müller joked later. The 2-0 ensured an ultimately comfortable evening for Bayern who mercifully slowed down after Toni Kroos had added a third. As reactions after defeats go, this was impressive stuff, Hamburg's glaring lack of quality notwithstanding. "They were one, maybe two levels ahead of us," said Adler. Asked about a perceived duel for the Germany gloves with Manuel Neuer, the 27-year-old came up with a knowing smile. "I lost that battle in glorious fashion," he offered.
Franck Ribéry's devastating performance saw the Frenchman hailed as the best Ribéry ever; he's indeed close to his 2007 level, perhaps even better. But this was Müller's win, really. After an indifferent season and hot-and-cold Euros, many expected the gangly and somewhat erratic attacking midfielder to fall victim of Bayern's push for more depth in the squad. With Swiss "magic cube" (Blick) Xerdan Shaqiri coming in and Toni Kroos all but immovable in the No10 spot, Müller looked set for campaign as a bit-part player. And when (fairly spurious) rumours about interest from Arsenal surfaced in July, it's fair to assume that his departure would not have caused mass protests outside the club's HQ in Säbenerstrasse.
Instead, he has emerged as the club's most consistent midfielder, just ahead of the more cultured and technically impressive Kroos. Seven goals in the league have already equalled his tally for 2011-12. Müller has become the designated penalty-taker, too, after a series of misses from Arjen Robben, Schweinsteiger and Mario Mandzukic. And he is increasingly the spokesperson for the team as well. More interesting than the careful captain Philipp Lahm and much more open than the slightly curmudgeonly Schweinsteiger, Müller is (at last) a truly Bavarian voice, mixing humorous irreverence with healthy confidence. "For those who thought we'd slip up, it's bad luck," he said with a smile, "we can forget the debate about us having a November depression. Others drop points, we have a superb day. It'll be a nice evening for us."
Ironically, a team that was supposed to be less dependent on his improvisation, has turned into more of a Müller-team, as far as the work ethic and his very disciplined kind of positional indiscipline goes. "We are all one or two per cent more eager to win this season," he explained. As Jörg Kramer from Der Spiegel remarked on Sky on Sunday night, all of the attacking midfielders now follow the Müller template of popping up in the most unexpected of spaces.
"It's almost impossible to tell where exactly they are playing," Kramer noted, contrasting Müller's freedom to change sides from his nominal slot on the right with the "positional football" strait-jacket under Louis van Gaal. Müller, the son of a BMW engineer, once memorably described himself as "an interpreter of space" in a Süddeutsche Zeitung interview and it's obvious that his unusual, mostly instinctive playing style is best served with a brief to go on as many exploratory runs as possible.
It's yet to be determined whether Bayern's flexibility has come as a natural consequence of the players' willingness to cover more ground or as the result of Jupp Heynckes's new master plan. But as long Bayern combine individual talent with so much hard work, it doesn't really matter. With Ribéry in perfect shape, Kroos playing superbly well, and Mario Gomez and Robben still to come back to regular first-team action, Bayern are unlikely to be shifted from the summit this season. And the various superstars will have to continue to find space on the team-sheet next to the accidental whizz kid on Grissini legs from the village of Pähl – not the other way round.
Talking points
"Maybe we're too good for this world," said Schalke 04 sporting director, Horst Heldt, philosophically on Saturday. What he meant: the Royal Blues had neglected to kill off Hoffenheim in the Rhein-Neckar-Arena, an opponent that was "already dead on a plate," as Heldt put. Markus Babbel's team were indeed inferior throughout the 90 minutes but in the end, they won the game 3-2, thanks to a general lack of sharpness from the visitors in both boxes. Huub Stevens, who never needs a reason to be in a foul mood, even when everything is rosy, was particular miffed about Sven Schipplock's last-minute winner, eight minutes after Atsuto Uchida had equalised for the second time. "You have to take the draw," grumbled Stevens, "instead I see my defenders running forward to chase a winner." Heldt added: "We were naive." A seven point-gap to leaders Bayern will spare him the "Bayern-hunter" headlines for the time being.
As preparations for Arsenal's visit on Tuesday night go, this defeat will not hurt that much either. Schalke, who might be without the centre-back Kyriakos Papadopoulos (head injury) again, will only concentrate harder on doing what they do best: getting results with impeccable organisation at the back and nigh stereotypical efficiency at the other end.
The only goalless game of the weekend was perhaps the most entertaining and finely balanced. Stuttgart escaped with an unlikely draw that could have easily transformed into an even unlikelier win late on, but Vedad Ibisevic missed the Swabians' best chance at the home of the champions. "We have to get used to the fact that a draw feels like a defeat for us," said the dejected Borussia Dortmund coach, Jürgen Klopp.
A stray elbow from Raphael Holzhauser connected with the nose of Sebastian Kehl, sent the Black and Yellows captain into A&E and naturally divided opinion. The upshot was only a yellow card for the Austrian. Kehl will play away to Real Madrid with a face mask to protect his slightly fractured nose. Regardless of the result in the Spanish capital, though, one theory will continue to gain currency. This Dortmund squad still don't look ready to challenge in the two main competitions with the same intensity. To the detriment of the Bundesliga, all their best performances seem to come in Europe this season.
Twenty decent opening minutes and yet another fine display from Alex Meier weren't enough for Eintracht Frankfurt to register a win against Greuther Fürth. The 1-1 draw on Friday night left Leverkusen as the biggest winners of the weekend behind Bayern. Bayer 04 were great going forward in the 3-2 win over Düsseldorf – Sidney Sam's opener was particularly handsome – but less assured at the back.
The game, however, will ultimately be remembered for the sort of problem you're more likely to encounter in the agony aunt pages of teenage magazines than on a Bundesliga pitch: Simon Rolfes only lasted 75 seconds after his introduction midway through the second half. The midfielder was sent off for a silly if not altogether terrible tackle on Adam Bodzek. Rudi Völler, the Bayer sporting director, pleaded for clemency but knew it was pointless. "We are Germans, we are German and bureaucratic," he said, quite rightly. Rolfes was suspended for one match after entering the record books with the second-fastest dismissal.
Results Frankfurt 1-1 Greuther Fürth, Dortmund 0-0 Stuttgart, Gladbach 1-1 Freiburg, Hannover 2-0 Augsburg, Nürnberg 1-0 Wolfsburg, HSV 0-3 Bayern, Hoffenheim 3-2 Schalke, Leverkusen 3-2 Düsseldorf, Bremen 2-1 Mainz.
Latest Bundesliga table | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jan/28/carey-mulligan-dennis-harvey-variety-critic-sexism-accusations | Film | 2021-01-28T23:14:00.000Z | Catherine Shoard | I was appalled to be tarred as misogynist': Variety critic hits back at Carey Mulligan's sexism accusations | Dennis Harvey, the veteran film critic whose review of Promising Young Woman has sparked a furore across the industry, has hit back at accusations of misogyny amid calls for Variety to fire him.
Harvey’s review was published more than a year ago, following the film’s premiere at the Sundance film festival. Largely positive, it called Mulligan’s performance “skilful, entertaining and challenging” while also querying the central casting. While “a fine actress”, wrote Harvey, Mulligan “seems a bit of an odd choice as this admittedly many-layered apparent femme fatale”.
‘Alarmingly sexist’: Variety review boosts calls for more diverse film critics
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Discussing the character’s deliberate artifice in more depth, Harvey noted that “Margot Robbie is a producer here, and one can (perhaps too easily) imagine the role might once have been intended for her. Whereas with this star, Cassie wears her pickup-bait gear like bad drag; even her long blonde hair seems a put-on.”
Mulligan objected to the review, telling the New York Times in December: “I felt like it was basically saying that I wasn’t hot enough to pull off this kind of ruse.
“It drove me so crazy … I was like, ‘Really? For this film, you’re going to write something that is so transparent? Now? In 2020?’ I just couldn’t believe it.”
Variety responded by adding an editor’s note at the top of Harvey’s review, apologising for “insensitive language” but leaving his words intact.
Mulligan reiterated her discomfort at the review earlier this week in a video interview hosted by Variety, prompting renewed abuse of the critic on social media.
Speaking to the Guardian, Harvey said he was ill at ease with the way in which Mulligan’s words to the New York Times describing her anger at the review had become received wisdom as to what his review actually said. “I did not say or even mean to imply Mulligan is ‘not hot enough’ for the role,” Harvey said.
“I’m a 60-year-old gay man. I don’t actually go around dwelling on the comparative hotnesses of young actresses, let alone writing about that.”
Harvey added that he had been “appalled to be tarred as misogynist, which is something very alien to my personal beliefs or politics. This whole thing could not be more horrifying to me than if someone had claimed I was a gung-ho Trump supporter.”
Harvey said he avoided the social media discourse triggered by the fallout on the advice of friends who said nobody commenting appeared to have read the review and that some people had said “I must be advocating rape, was probably a predator like the men in the film”.
“What I was attempting to write about was the emphasis in the film and [Mulligan’s] performance on disguise, role-playing and deliberate narrative misdirection. Nor was bringing up Margot Robbie meant to be any comparison in ‘personal appearance’.
“Robbie is a producer on the film, and I mentioned her just to underline how casting contributes to the film’s subversive content – a star associated with a character like Harley Quinn [Robbie’s Suicide Squad character] might raise very specific expectations, but Mulligan is a chameleon and her very stylised performance keeps the viewer uncertain where the story is heading.”
Photograph: Supplied by LMK
Harvey conceded he may not have expressed such a sentiment specifically enough in his review, but said that he was driven by a desire to withhold the plot’s twists and turns from the audience.
“I assumed that film-makers who created such a complex, layered movie wouldn’t interpret what I wrote as some kind of simpleminded sexism. And while Carey Mulligan is certainly entitled to interpret the review however she likes, her projection of it suggesting she’s ‘not hot enough’ is, to me, just bizarre. I’m sorry she feels that way. But I’m also sorry that’s a conclusion she would jump to, because it’s quite a leap.”
Variety's apology to Carey Mulligan shows the film critic's ivory tower is toppling
Peter Bradshaw
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Mulligan’s publicists have not yet responded to the Guardian’s request for comment.
Harvey also highlighted the discrepancy between the reaction of the film’s star and its US distributor, who “immediately asked permission to use multiple pullquotes from the review in their marketing a year ago”.
He also queried the timing of the controversy, noting that his review had apparently been found unobjectionable enough to escape complaint for 11 months, “until the film was finally being released, promoted and Oscar-campaigned”. Only then was his review “belatedly labelled ‘insensitive’ and flagged with an official ‘apology’”.
Variety’s editors had not raised any concerns with the review when he first filed it, said Harvey, nor in subsequent months until the New York Times article.
His professional fate remains uncertain. “It’s left in question whether after 30 years of writing for Variety I will now be sacked because of review content no one found offensive until it became fodder for a viral trend piece.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/feb/08/ian-mckellen-to-play-king-lear-in-london-transfer-chichester | Stage | 2018-02-08T10:38:06.000Z | Chris Wiegand | Ian McKellen to play King Lear in London | Ian McKellen is to star in London’s West End as King Lear, reprising what he has suggested will be his last major Shakespearean role.
The production, directed by Jonathan Munby, is a transfer from Chichester Festival theatre, where it had a short, sold-out run in 2017 and was praised by critics. McKellen’s “superbly detailed performance” in an intimate staging, wrote Michael Billington, offered “a permanent closeup of a soul in torment”.
McKellen previously played Lear in a 2007 production, directed by Trevor Nunn for the Royal Shakespeare Company, which also received a West End transfer. Munby’s production will run at the Duke of York’s theatre, where McKellen made an award-winning West End debut in 1964 in A Scent of Flowers by James Saunders.
“It’s a small theatre,” tweeted McKellen on Thursday, “but we shall make it even more intimate by removing half the stalls seats.”
Full casting for the transfer is yet to be announced. King Lear will run for 100 performances at the Duke of York’s from 11 July to 3 November. Tickets go on sale on 8 February, with some available at £5 for people aged 16-25. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jul/15/five-love-languages-can-transform-your-relationship | Life and style | 2022-07-15T10:00:36.000Z | Nell Frizzell | Can knowing your ‘love language’ transform your relationship? | Thirty years ago, Gary Chapman, a relationship counsellor and Christian pastor, published a book that purported to give the secret to lasting love.
According to The Five Love Languages, there are – wait for it – five “languages” through which people communicate tenderness, affection and commitment to their partner.
We all naturally gravitate towards one of these, he says, and if you can work out yours, as well as that of your partner, you are significantly less likely to find yourself screaming at each other over the washing up.
The languages are: acts of service, words of affirmation, physical touch, quality time and giving gifts. Despite – or perhaps because of – its Christian, heteronormative stance (I have never read so many anecdotes about driving to church), it has sold more than 20m copies and is now a somewhat unlikely hit on TikTok – possibly because young people’s desire to categorise themselves hasn’t really changed since they pored over those quizzes in Just Seventeen.
While many readers may feel squeamish about anything with a whiff of self-help, the book is credited by at least one person I spoke to as having saved their marriage.
After all, as Chapman puts it, this is “the real world of marriage, where hairs are always on the sink and little white spots cover the mirror”.
Tell me I’m good enough, tell me I’m lovable and I will wash your underwear for the rest of our lives
I am not married. At least, not yet. But if my child and my habit of hanging up towels are anything to go by, I am in a long-term relationship. And it’s one that bears the stains and stretch marks of a parenthood, a pandemic, financial insecurity and a long-running disagreement about whether or not to have another child.
My partner and I love each other, but we don’t always show it very well. Today, for instance, I woke up at 4.45am to find him doing Wordle in the dark. I went out for a run. We didn’t say a word to each other. Could I knit us closer together once more by learning my partner’s love language? Well, it wouldn’t hurt.
Words of affirmation
According to Chapman’s slightly unfortunate phrase, we each have a “love tank”. When we are loved, that tank gets filled. As I read the book, it became pretty clear that in my case it is words of affirmation that I need. Tell me I’m good enough, tell me that I’m lovable, and I’ll wash your underwear for the rest of our lives.
“It’s to do with how you were shown love growing up,” says relationship therapist Simone Bose. If you had a parent or carer who used words to encourage you, you might look to a partner for the same.
“But it can go the opposite way,” cautions Bose. “Perhaps what you really wanted was quality time spent with that person. So you crave something quite different in your partner.”
Undeterred, I give it a go. As my partner walks through the door, I tell him that it’s really lovely to see him. Later, when he’s working, I tell him he’s good at his job. Just before bed, I tell him that I love him. Judging by his reaction, I might as well have honked out the saxophone solo of Baker Street.
“Do words of affirmation make you feel loved?” I ask later.
“I don’t think so,” he replies. “I’m just not sure I believe the things people say. If I told my mum I wanted to become a Premier League footballer, she would tell me that I could do it.”
So, that’s affirmation off the list then.
Physical touch
When I ask my dad what makes him feel most loved, he looks at his bike lock for a second then answers: “Physical touch.” This is the man who used to let me draw over his entire back with felt-tip pens, lost in a reverie of physical sensation. The first time he met my newborn son, he stroked his soft fontanelle with tears in his eyes. He is a man who feels love in his body. Perhaps my partner would appreciate some of the same. As Chapman argues, perhaps unsurprisingly: “Physical touch can make or break a relationship.”
“My partner and I both meet in touch,” says No More Page 3 campaigner Lucy-Anne Holmes, whose 2019 book, Don’t Hold My Head Down, charts the year she spent trying to find sexual satisfaction. “We might have a night of candles and massage and eye contact. Or the bar might be much lower – and it might involve a laptop,” she says. “We both express our love in touch, and that’s a big part of our relationship.”
As I was writing this piece, my partner came down with Covid, and so we didn’t hug for three days. During that time, I felt estranged.
Once the infection had passed, I asked him if he’d experienced the same feeling of dislocation. He replied: “I don’t think so.”
When I asked again, a little more directly, my partner did say that sex made him feel loved. But it clearly isn’t his primary love language.
Gift giving
I’m terrible at gifts, but my partner loves giving them. He posts hand-drawn pictures to his mother and buys book tokens to thank people for babysitting. On our first date (in a Travelodge in Bethnal Green) he turned up with a copy of Out on the Wire, a comic about radio production. So thoughtful.
“It might feel unnatural for some,” says Bose, meaning me. “So you need to talk about why it makes them uncomfortable. What does it bring up?”
For me, it’s the pressure of the situation: I find receiving gifts awkward, and choosing them even more stressful. I also hate that they are intrinsically linked to any celebration.
In The Five Love Languages, Chapman writes that every culture involves gift-giving in the “love-marriage process”. But those gifts do not have to be expensive, or even bought. As Chapman puts it: “You must be thinking of someone to give them a gift … It doesn’t matter whether it costs money.”
“Because you’re bad at presents, I think I’d find it an even greater act of love if you got me a gift,” my partner tells me. So, the next day, I spend £12.99 on a mug with “Silence Please” printed across the side. Then I buy a box of condoms and a card. Physical touch and gift-giving all in one go. I reckon I’ve got this nailed.
Acts of service
There is something that Holmes describes as “Grand Designs syndrome”, in which someone builds a house for their partner but, as a result, doesn’t spend a moment with their family for more than a year. I am very Grand Designs syndrome. As a mother, 99% of my love for my son is expressed in acts of service: making him meals, wiping his nose, cycling him to a museum full of insects. With my partner, I follow a similar pattern: making dinner and arranging our social life.
The fact that both of them would happily eat pesto and pasta every night and are always asking me to sit down with them instead, doesn’t make a difference. For me, making dinner is love. As Chapman puts it, acts of service “require thought, planning, time, effort and energy. If done with a positive spirit, they are indeed expressions of love”.
This can be a little tricky when it comes to romantic relationships because “acts of service might make you feel like a parent to your partner,” says Bose, adding: “But perhaps what they actually want is a sexual companion or a collaborator.”
In the spirit of the exercise, I offer to help him with a colleague issue at work. He says thank you, but rose petals do not fall from the sky.
Quality time
In the end, my boyfriend takes an online quiz to find out his love language: “Apparently, I’m quality time, which is impossible when you have a kid.”
It sounds hard. As Bose puts it: “Quality time can be quite a challenging one, especially for people with children, busy jobs or – as in many cases – both. But even 10 minutes of being together, looking at each other, is better than nothing.”
And so the following night, the first truly warm evening of the year, I announce that we are going to eat pizza in the field behind our house. Walking along the little stream that borders our housing estate, my son talks animatedly about ancient Egyptians; he is clearly loving this. We eat and eat, surrounded by tall grass and feathery rushes.
“I love you two,” I say. And I mean it. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jun/27/all-birds-singing-wyld-review | Books | 2013-06-27T09:00:00.000Z | Kathleen Jamie | All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld – review | In the second novel from Evie Wyld, one of this year's Granta Best Young British Novelists, Jake is a woman – a "strong woman", in the sense of being muscular, especially in the arms. It is due to all the sheep-shearing, and her habit of doing press-ups when scared or confused. She knows about sheep and keeps a small flock on a patch of land she has acquired on a fictional English island. The island is big enough to have a friendly farmer called Don, a cafe (closed in winter), a pub and a policeman. And "kids", who may or may not be causing the problem. The problem being that something, or someone, is killing Jake's sheep.
Or so she thinks. She's in no mood to put up with it: her cottage contains a gun, but no fresh bread, axes but no homely fire. Her only companion is a dog called Dog. Is it a yellow-eyed beast, or someone out to track her down? Is it just a fox? When something clatters through the house at night, it could be the ever-present wind and weather, or something more like a poltergeist: a manifestation of all her traumatised and anxious energy.
For the outsider is not the "beast" but Jake herself, who, despite her competence, lives in fear and isolation at the edge of a community. To her chagrin, Jake has to call upon Farmer Don for help more than once. He is a sort of father figure, a decent male where otherwise there are none. "You should go down the pub," he says. "Farmers need each other." She doesn't make friends. She reports the sheep-killing to the police, but is patronised and dismissed.
This is the English side of the story: there is also an Australian side. Jake is Australian, and the novel shifts convincingly back and forth in short sections, from the wintry island to the heat and dust – and spiders – of Jake's homeland.
She has fled Australia to escape the degradations and recriminations of her young life, and as the English story moves forward in time, the Australian story moves back. The deft thing about this novel is that Jake's paranoia is justified and catching: again and again our suspicions are raised. What has she fled? What caused the scars on her back? Perhaps something happened at the sheep-shearing station where Jake worked, the only woman among a shedful of foul-mouthed, rough and ready men. "Not a bad bloke," they said of her, until she was rumbled and had to flee again.
Perhaps the villain of the piece was Otto, the vulgar old farmer she had shacked up with, who locked her in at night and went to town alone. He took sexual pleasure in slaughtering sheep – she was wise to run from him – but he didn't cause the scars. Did the damage come from the squalid non-life Otto had "saved" her from in turn? Or something before that, when she was a teenager at home? With every new layer we are convinced we have our reason, until we realise that we have accused the wrong fella, which is chastening. Not that they are a pleasant lot, these Australian men – certainly not Otto and not the various clients before him, serviced in the back of their utes.
Meanwhile, on the island, Lloyd has turned up to fuel Jake's already heightened sense of alarm. He seems just a mild-mannered vagrant, but is there a trace of Australian in his accent? Lloyd helps Jake and her sheep out of a muddy hole and they form a team of sorts. He can't leave because of the weather, so he sleeps downstairs, does a bit of tidying up, lights a fire. Jake continues in her delusions – or are they? – but slowly comes round to his presence.
In a sense, this is a tale of possible love and redemption, at once energetic and dark. In another sense, it is a book about summary justice and suspicion, which we readers have been indulging in too. There is a Young Adult feel to it, in style if not content: the pace and snappy dialogue, the punchy first-person narration, the touch of outback gothic, the outsider-ness and, of course, the symbolic "beast" prowling the island – all these are youthful.
The two continents are vividly drawn and the book is busy with sheep, dogs, appalling Australian spiders, but, puzzlingly, few of the birds of the title. We have to wait a long time for them. However, when the birds do "sing", and Jake's primal tragedy is revealed, it is clever and very unexpected indeed.
Kathleen Jamie's Sightlines is published by Sort Of Books. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/25/trump-united-nations-general-assembly-speech-globalism-america | US news | 2018-09-26T06:28:30.000Z | Julian Borger | Trump urges world to reject globalism in UN speech that draws mocking laughter | Donald Trump urged other nations to reject globalism and embrace patriotism at a speech to the United Nations that was interrupted by derisive laughter from other world leaders.
In the course of the bombastic address, Trump highlighted the achievements of his presidency, lashed out at enemies – Iran foremost among them – and railed against multilateralism in its spiritual home, the UN general assembly (UNGA).
In one of the more remarkable moments in the history of the annual UN summit, the chamber broke out in spontaneous laughter at Trump’s claim that “in less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country”.
Clearly taken aback, Trump said: “I didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s OK.”
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The president arrived late for the summit, only leaving Trump Tower at the time he was due to speak. His turn in the running order was taken by his counterpart from Ecuador. When he arrived at the green marble podium, Trump expounded on his visceral dislike of multilateral institutions, which he portrayed as inherent threats to US sovereignty.
“America is governed by Americans,” Trump said. “We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.”
In its emphasis on sovereignty, the 34-minute speech echoed much of his first UNGA speech last year.
The greatest contrast with the earlier speech was a list of friends and enemies. Most notably, Trump included the North Korean dictator, Kim Jong-un, in the first group. Just over a year after threatening to “totally destroy” North Korea, Trump thanked the country’s leader for his “courage, and for the steps he has taken”.
Trump presented his June summit with Kim in Singapore as a dramatic breakthrough, saying “missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction,” nuclear testing had stopped, US prisoners had been released and the remains of fallen US soldiers had been returned.
He said the summit represented “a moment that is actually far greater than people would understand”.
Nuclear experts have been unconvinced, pointing out that Kim has showed no sign of being ready to dismantle his nuclear arsenal, and Pyongyang has said it has no interest in unilateral disarmament.
The main target of Trump’s rhetoric was Iran, who he blamed for the Syrian conflict.
Eric Trump and Ivanka Trump wait at the UN in anticipation of their father’s speech. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA
Trump said: “Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it: the corrupt dictatorship in Iran.” He made no mention of Russia, which has provided air support for the Assad regime in Damascus, helping it to survive and prevail in the civil war.
Russia and its leader, Vladimir Putin, were conspicuous by their absence from the speech, although Germany was scolded for buying Russian oil and gas. Trump, whose campaign is under investigation over possible collusion with the Kremlin during the 2016 election, did not address deep differences between the US and the Russia over Ukraine and Syria.
Trump, meanwhile, poured contempt on the Iranian leadership, with a vehemence all the more striking considering he had sent a tweet earlier in the morning that said he was sure that Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, was an “absolutely lovely man”.
From the UN lectern, however, Trump declared: “Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death and destruction. They do not respect their neighbours or borders or the sovereign rights of nations.”
He also accused Iranian leaders of embezzling “billions of dollars” and lining their own pockets.
We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices
Trump on Opec
Rouhani, who was also due to speak on the opening day of the summit, was not in the chamber to hear Trump’s speech, nor were any Iranian diplomats or officials, only a note-taker.
Another notable target of Trump’s speech was the oil producers’ organisation, Opec, which he said was “ripping off the rest of the world”. He said: “I don’t like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good.”
However, elsewhere in his speech, Trump praised leading Opec members Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar for pledging “billions of dollars to aid the people of Syria and Yemen”.
He made no mention of the role of Saudi and UAE forces in the Yemeni conflict, where they have been accused of war crimes because of the civilian death toll from their coalition’s bombing campaign. They are also accused of dragging their heels over efforts to find a peace settlement. Trump, however, claimed his Gulf allies were “pursuing multiple avenues to ending Yemen’s horrible, horrific civil war”.
John Bolton warns Iran not to cross the US or allies: 'There will be hell to pay'
Read more
The main theme of Trump’s speech though, was patriotism, and he urged states to focus on their own national interests.
He said: “Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination.”
The tone and theme of the speech was in direct contradiction to the leaders who preceded and followed him to the podium. The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said that “democratic principles are under siege.”
He said: “The world is more connected, yet societies are becoming more fragmented. Challenges are growing outward, while many people are turning inward. Multilateralism is under fire precisely when we need it most.”
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, cemented his role as the anti-Trump on the world stage. Macron decried the the spread of global lawlessness, “in which everyone pursues their own interest”.
He said: “All against all ends up to everyone’s detriment.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/jan/06/simon-hoggart-obituary | Media | 2014-01-06T09:40:54.000Z | David McKie | Simon Hoggart obituary | Others in its history may have left more of a lasting mark on events, shifting the minds of statesmen, or promoting great national and international causes. But few in nearly two centuries of the Manchester Guardian and Guardian can have afforded more consistent pleasure to readers than Simon Hoggart, the paper's parliamentary sketchwriter, who has died aged 67, after suffering from cancer.
That was partly the product of Simon's cleverness, but it also reflected the fact that, like many outstanding columnists, he thought in different patterns from conventional people. Who else could have written of Bill Clinton as guest speaker at a Labour conference: "The former president was brilliant, dazzling, charismatic, seductive and completely shameless. He wooed them all the time. He didn't stop. He cast his eyes down coyly. Then he raised his head, smiled, and looked slowly round the audience, gazing deep into their eyes. He is the Princess Di of the political world …"
Or of Margaret Thatcher's trusty bulldog Bernard Ingham: "Brick-red of face, beetling of brow, seemingly built to withstand hurricanes, Sir Bernard resembled a half-timbered bomb shelter." Or earlier, of a familiar and much liked performer at Labour conference: "Jimmy Knapp, of RMT, the transport union, was bold and passionate. At least, I assume he was, since I couldn't comprehend a word he said and spent the time marvelling that this vast, stooped, bald man, who looks like a polar bear attacked by a lawn strimmer, is almost precisely the same age as Cliff Richard."
Matched with that was a scepticism that made him suspicious of anything that fashion or rhetorical contrivance was busy asserting. Politicians who claimed to sense the hand of history on their shoulders got a dusty response from Simon, especially if they did so in verbless sentences. As for "the court of history", history, he once pointed out, had yet to reach a conclusion on Richard III.
As gleefully as a pig after truffles, he dug out, in his daily sketches and his long-running Saturday column, unthinking cliche. He would take some resonant, empty statement and destroy it by simple inversion. "Now is not the time for cowardice!" some self‑important politician would boom. So just when, he would ask, is the time for cowardice?
Simon was the eldest of the three children, two sons and a daughter, of Richard and Mary Hoggart, formerly Mary Holt France. At the time of Simon's birth in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, his father was awaiting demobilisation, and the shape of his early years was dictated by Richard's academic employment, first in Hull, which took Simon to Hymer's College, then at Leicester, where he went to Wyggeston grammar school and developed a lasting affection for Leicester City FC. Richard Hoggart was already famous as the author of the sociological book The Uses of Literacy. A rich array of guests appeared at the family home, among them WH Auden, who taught the young Simon how to make a dry martini, extolled the merits of food mixers and talked about drugs.
After school, he took a year off to teach in Uganda ("I was a terrible teacher," he claimed in his 2010 book of recollections, A Long Lunch), before starting at King's College, Cambridge. There he studied English and became part of a group working on the university newspaper Varsity, several of whom went on to be Fleet Street names. His special delight was a column spiced with malicious gossip called Mungo Fairweather's Diary. He had hoped to edit Varsity, but lost out to a subsequent Guardian colleague, Peter Cole. Old Cambridge friends believe that had it mattered to him he could have come away with a first-class degree, but already by then it looked clear he would find his future in newspapers.
The Guardian in those days recruited two graduates every year for its Manchester office. In 1968, Simon was one. There were those in Manchester, at a time when local or regional newspaper experience was usually regarded as an essential preliminary for work on a national or regional paper – as it had been for Simon's subsequent editor, Peter Preston – who were sceptical about graduate entrants. But Simon's conspicuous brightness and his links with the north were useful qualifications.
He once earned a famous reproach for writing too highfalutin a match report of a game between Chelsea and Blackpool, evoking Greek tragedy and, specifically, the blinding of Oedipus ("Will you tell me one thing?" a grizzled night editor asked him, "were they playing with a ball or a discus?") But generally his seemed a particularly promising signing; so much so that he was picked out to cover Northern Ireland, working with Simon Winchester.
He stayed for five years, and for two of them made his home there. He was present through the time of mounting tension that culminated on 30 January 1972 in Derry with the events that became known as Bloody Sunday. Simon was in Belfast that day, with Winchester covering Derry, but a few days before he had written a piece, immediately denounced by the military, about the excessive behaviour of the Parachute Regiment elsewhere in the province. The truth of his report was specifically confirmed in 2010 by the Saville inquiry.
In the autumn of 1973, he moved to London to join the paper's staff at Westminster as a political reporter. The Guardian's long-established sketchwriter then was Norman Shrapnel, but the circumstances of the 1974 parliaments, when at any time a vote might have triggered a new election, meant that events on the floor of the Commons became a prominent part of the news, which against all the paper's traditions put pressure on Norman to update his sketches and start them off with the vote. He became increasingly despondent and in 1975 he resigned.
Simon at this point inherited the title of parliamentary correspondent, but not Norman's old role. He remained a part of the paper's political staff, and his contributions from the Westminster gallery were often more news reports than sketches. It was already clear, even so, especially from his rich accounts of Edward Heath's doomed progress round Britain as he fought to keep his government in power in the contest for the February 1974 election, that here was one of nature's born sketchwriters waiting to happen.
Yet with that restlessness that was one of his enduring characteristics, he abandoned the gallery for the lobby. In February 1976, as Ian Aitken moved up to the role of political editor, Simon, as his number two, took the title political correspondent. Aitken declared himself perplexed at this decision. "Simon wants to be my deputy," he said to a colleague. "I don't know why. I don't sell newspapers; the sketchwriter does." His seat in the gallery went to his old Cambridge friend and rival Cole.
Having made the decision, Simon soon showed signs of regretting it. But by now he was also developing a useful broadcasting practice, appearing at frequent intervals on the BBC Today programme. Increasingly, too, rival papers tried to lure him away: the London Evening Standard, to write its Londoner's Diary; and then in 1981 the Times, under Harold Evans. After a long and painful process of indecision over that offer, he announced that he wouldn't be going. A few days later, he resigned to join the Observer – not then linked as it is today with the Guardian – where he made his debut in June 1981.
In 1983, at 37, he married Alyson Corner, a psychologist, to whom he had been introduced by her cousin, the political journalist Julia Langdon, a friend and at one time a Guardian colleague of Simon's. Both were the children of Portsmouth naval officer families, a culture decidedly different from that of the Hoggarts. Two children, Amy and Richard, were born during his four-year term from 1985 as the Observer's Washington correspondent.
These were happy years. He loved the posting, found his assignments unfailingly intriguing and entertaining, and developed a lasting affection for the US. "Living in New York" he once wrote "is like being at some terrible late-night party. You're tired, you have had a headache since you arrived, but you can't leave, because you'd miss the party."
One of the highlights of almost every subsequent year would be his attendance at an event that called itself the Conference on World Affairs, but which Simon liked to describe as "a piss-up with speeches", at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
In 1989, he returned to London and after a spell as a columnist became the Observer's political editor. This appointment was not, in the end, a success. It was abruptly terminated when the Guardian took over the Observer and the new regime removed Simon and his deputy Paul Routledge, and contrived to lose the seasoned columnist Alan Watkins. The changes mystified some old political hands who saw them as weakening the team. Others thought it partly reflected a piece of miscasting. If Simon had failed to furnish the steady stream of page-one exclusives for which Sunday newspapers thirst, that had never been his particular expertise. After he gave up the post in 1993, he talked of it with some bitterness. "When the Observer sacked me …" he would sometimes say, even two decades on.
The obvious choice thereafter was to return to a seat in the gallery at Westminster. He rejoined the Guardian as sketchwriter and remained there for the rest of his working life, consistently finding even on the dullest and least eventful of days something vivid, piquant and unexpected to say.
He also developed a string of ancillary occupations. In the 1980s, he had written a regular column of disrespectful political comment for Punch, and now he began to contribute to the Spectator, writing on television and for rather longer on wine (along with food, a consistent Hoggartian passion). He also became a familiar voice on the radio and to a lesser extent on television, seized on by producers as someone always sure to light up a programme – most of all, on the News Quiz on Radio 4, first as a participant and then for 10 years from 1996 as chairman.
How, people sometimes wondered, was it possible to sit in the same seat day after day, year after year, observing much the same set of characters, without becoming hopelessly jaded? One remedy for that was to develop a kind of repertory company in which familiar, even beloved, old stagers constantly recurred in an almost soap-opera fashion. Sir Peter Tapsell, weflecting on the wepwehensible nature of modern wealities (Sir Peter, Simon liked to explain, has a slight speech defect) was a particular favourite; so was Michael Fabricant, once disc jockey Mickey Fab, with his unlikely hair – a successor in this sense if no other to Michael Heseltine, the tactical use of whose hair at conference time always fascinated Simon.
The Tory MP Nicholas Soames was another favourite: "Soames" (this, again, at a party conference) "was magnificent, a vast, florid spectacle, a massive inflatable frontbench spokesman. You could tow him out to a village fete and charge children 50p to bounce on him. They could have floated him over London to bring down the German bombers …"
Then there were John Prescott, having his wicked way with the English language and Michael Martin, as Speaker, addressing the house in allegedly impenetrable Scots. Tapsell and, after some early palpitations, Fabricant, enjoyed their punishment; Prescott and Martin, sprung from the working class and feeling that they were mocked for it, vehemently did not.
And though the great parliamentary shakeup of 2010 deprived Simon of several cherished targets, it brought new personalities to study, savour, and sometimes roast. The slightest scent of sycophancy always set Simon's nostrils twitching. "I have my eye on Baldwin," he wrote in the autumn of 2010 of the new Conservative member Harriett Baldwin. "With her blonde hair and her ability to ask the most grovelling questions, she is rapidly becoming the female Fabricant – or at least Fabricant Mark I, before he stopped crawling and became an elder statesman."
Yet, as his 50th birthday came and went, and then his 60th, it seemed to his friends, and they sensed to Simon himself, that his penetrating eye and acerbic pen had been too much confined to entertainment. There had been a succession of books, two early on with a specifically serious purpose: The Pact (1978), written with Alistair Michie, on the Callaghan-Steel arrangement after Labour lost its majority, and Michael Foot: A Portrait (1981), with David Leigh.
But the books that followed were mainly collections of parliamentary reports or subjects developed through the diary he wrote for the Guardian every Saturday from the time of his return from the Observer: collections of what he (wrongly) described as round robins, the records of their friends' often grossly tedious adventures that readers had found included with Christmas cards.
Then there were the often hair-raising experiences reported by gap-year students in letters home, in a book (Dear Mum, 2006), which he concocted with Emily Monk. A Long Lunch: My Stories and I'm Sticking to Them (2010) was described by his publishers as "a host of memories from 40-plus years in journalism" and by Simon himself as "my anti-memoirs". He had toyed with writing his memoirs but rejected the notion after reading Matthew Parris's. His life, he said, had not been eventful enough to fill a book.
Further collections of sketches followed – Send Up the Clowns (2011) and House of Fun (2012). He became a prize draw at literary festivals, guaranteed to pull crowds and send an audience home buzzing. Yet there might have been, should have been, something more left behind. There was always a sense that Simon existed under the shadow of his celebrated father, whose The Uses of Literacy had come to be seen as one of the most influential books of the century. "Hoggart?" people would say when Simon introduced himself: "Are you any relation to Richard?" Eventually it was jubilantly reported to Simon that someone in an airport, noting the surname on his father's luggage, had asked Richard Hoggart if he was any relation to Simon.
The restlessness, the sense of unease that one constantly saw in Simon, was one of the ingredients that made him so alert and responsive and therefore so good at his job, but it did not always make him easy company. He could seem inattentive, distracted, as though his mind was elsewhere. Sometimes he gave offence in ways he was unaware of. (At other times, he knew he was giving offence, and did so deliberately: he nursed a small but distinguished hate-list, prominent among them, to the last, Tony Benn.)
However, this apparent distractedness did not reflect a failure of feeling for friends. Indeed, in compiling this piece, I was told of various unobtrusive acts of kindness to people in trouble that Simon had never spoken about, to add to others of which I had already come to know about over the years, none of them ever mentioned by Simon himself.
Though devoted to his family, he was not endowed for a gentle harmonious life by the fireside. In December 2004, he found himself elevated from the stalls to the stage when the News of the World wrote about his involvement with the Spectator publisher Kimberley Quinn, then the focus of avid media attention because of her relationship with David Blunkett. That episode shook him badly. Even at an age that is sometimes assumed to bring on a mellow maturity his restlessness scarcely abated. Though he savoured an evening at home with a glass – several glasses – of wine and an Araucaria crossword (his reverence for John Graham, the Guardian's Araucaria, was matched by John's for Simon), he was constantly out in society, always likelier to say yes than no to a party, where you would find him expatiating, glass in hand, to attentive gatherings.
He often now seemed weighed down by concern for his aged and ailing parents. In the summer of 2010, however, it became increasingly clear that his apparent dejection had other causes. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. For a time he kept the news to himself, but once he had shared it with family and close friends, his mood seemed to lift. The parliamentary and conference sketches recaptured their sparkle. The Saturday column recounted many happy weekends with friends.
Initially the treatment seemed to be working better than he could have hoped, and against the odds he continued to write until early December. Though increasingly ill, and drained by the disease and the treatment, the old sharpness, the old vividness, were still there in abundance. "Another day, another U-turn. This is less a government than a dodgem car ride. Sparks fly from the roof. Attendants bellow unintelligibly from the sides. Nominally driving, ministers crash into each other. Sometimes they fling the wheel round and nothing happens …" he wrote of the latest ministerial U-turn in one of his last sketches, on 28 November.
Slippered inaction would never have suited him. The columns, the books (if not the ones he ought to have written), the TV and radio slots, the writings on wine and food and literature and bizarre beliefs, would have persisted for at least a further decade, and beyond.
He is survived by Alyson, Amy and Richard, and by his parents, Richard and Mary, his sister, Nicola, and brother, Paul. But far beyond his family, he leaves a host of disconsolate people, from his closest friends to those whose only acquaintance was through what he wrote and said, who know they have lost a rare, wondrously talented and wholly original man.
David McKie
Alan Rusbridger writes: Simon was the last of a breed of reporter hired straight from university to have the edges knocked off them in a Manchester newsroom overseen by a news editor who had seen it all before and who had a shrewd way of throwing the most talented recruits in at the deep end. Simon's initial spells in Northern Ireland were arduous and sometimes dangerous. He learned the hard way how to write tightly, vividly and quickly.
Of course he will be mainly remembered for more than 20 years of political sketchwriting. His news training stood him in perfect stead for the daily task of noting the key moments of any debate before retiring to write something apparently effortless, piercing and funny – all written in the beautiful spare prose that had been drummed into him in Manchester.
His humour was not savage, nor was it exactly gentle. He turned politics into theatre, complete with a cast of characters that he made his own. His refusal to take any MP or situation very seriously masked an encyclopedic knowledge of politics derived from his spell as the Observer's political editor. He had a long, and very functioning, memory. From his column you could often learn as much about what was truly important in politics as from the front-page splash. There was real learning, historical literacy and respect for parliament beneath the mischief and the jokes.
He kept up a prodigious work rate even when ill. At the height of his activity he was simultaneously writing about politics, wine and television as well as radio programmes, a weekly diary and a stream of books. The Guardian will be a different place without him.
Simon David Hoggart, journalist and broadcaster, born 26 May 1946; died 5 January 2014 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/dec/07/lamb-review-noomi-rapace-outstanding-in-wild-horror-comedy-of-icelandic-loneliness | Film | 2021-12-07T14:00:14.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Lamb review – Noomi Rapace outstanding in wild horror-comedy of Icelandic loneliness | Icelandic director Valdimar Jóhannsson makes a coolly outrageous feature debut with this jawdropping horror-comedy of loneliness, co-written by Jóhannsson with the lyricist and Björk collaborator Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson, or Sjón. It is performed with unflinching commitment by its executive producer-star Noomi Rapace, who is first among equals in a great cast of humans, animals and various prosthetic and digital creature effects.
Maria (Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snaer Guðnason) are an unhappy couple with a remote farm in Iceland: it gradually becomes clear they have lost their only child. The drama begins with a strange spirit-visitation in the barn that scares the animals: a ewe becomes pregnant with a bizarre animal-human hybrid and poor, stricken Maria (her name’s importance is left for us to digest) conceives a passionate attachment to this precious being, naming it Ada after her dead human daughter.
As this sweet woolly little thing gets bigger and dressed up in the children’s clothes that this couple appear to have bought in advance for their lost human child, their situation as Iceland’s Unholy Family becomes ever more macabre, and even more so considering the complete calm and naturalness of their behaviour. It comes to a crisis of sorts when Ingvar’s dodgy brother Pétur (a failed pop star with some shady friends) shows up needing a place to stay, and the couple’s new houseguest is extremely freaked out by his hosts’ spawn of unnature. Intending some tough love, Pétur takes a rifle and leads trusting Ada by the hand out into the hills. But the ovine side of Ada’s family might have something to say about all this.
We have to wait to get a good look at Ada and confront the full, horrible truth about what she represents, but Jóhannsson cleverly converts our horror into a stupefied comic bewilderment from the outset. We are not supposed to be scared. What is required of us is compassion and respect for Maria’s strange dignity and strength. It’s a great performance from Rapace.
Lamb is released on 10 December in cinemas. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/dec/05/lubaina-himid-becomes-oldest-artist-to-win-turner-prize | Art and design | 2017-12-05T21:49:55.000Z | Mark Brown | Lubaina Himid becomes oldest artist to win Turner prize | Lubaina Himid, an artist who makes theatrical, witty and challenging works that address colonial history, racism and institutional invisibility, has won the 2017 Turner prize.
Himid is both the first woman of colour to win and, at 63, the oldest winner in the prize’s 33-year history, after it dropped its upper age limit of 50.
She is an artist who, arguably, has been overlooked and undervalued for most of her career. On Tuesday night that changed when she was announced as the winner at a prize ceremony in Hull broadcast live on BBC Four.
Himid – born in in Zanzibar, Tanzania and now based in Preston, Lancashire – thanked the people who gave her sustenance during her “wilderness years”.
She said she was never overlooked by curators or other artists but she was never in the press, perhaps because her work “was too complicated to talk about”.
She added: “I guess the issues I was dealing with were complex, many-layered, and you’ve got to sell newspapers.”
Winning the prize meant a lot to her, she said. “I won it for all the times where we put our heads above the parapet, we tried to do things, we failed, people died in the meantime … for all the black women who never did win it even though they had been shortlisted … it feels good for that reason.”
Himid wins £25,000, money which she will spend on commissioning other artists and, perhaps, the odd pair of shoes.
Alex Farquharson, director of Tate Britain and chair of the judging panel, said Himid made works that were courageous, addressing “difficult, painful” issues.
Himid’s Swallow Hard: the Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007, by Lubaina Himid. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
She won for three exhibitions of her work in Bristol, Oxford and Nottingham.
“Together they offered a great summation of her practice over the last few decades and also revealed how vital her work is at the present moment,” Farquharson said.
The Turner prize, one of the world’s best-known contemporary art prizes, exists to “promote public debate around new developments in contemporary British art”.
Some have questioned whether Himid’s collection fits that mission, given that it includes work dating back to 1987.
But Farquharson said all of Himid’s work, whether from the 1980s or from now, felt particularly “resonant and relevant” today.
He said many of her pieces seemed to have acquired more meaning and people were more ready for them. “They speak to the present moment which has been one of division both in Britain and in America.”
Lubaina Himid: the Turner prize nominee making black lives visible
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The 1987 work on display at Hull’s Ferens Gallery, host to the Turner prize as part of its City of Culture celebrations, is a large and busy stage set of wooden and mixed-media cut-out figures inspired by Hogarth’s Marriage à la Mode. It is easily dateable by the inclusion of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as flirting lovers.
Another work, from 2007, is crockery she has painted with scenes of slavery from Britain’s colonial history.
Himid is not afraid of making well-intentioned liberals feel uncomfortable. On another wall in the Hull show are pages she has torn from the Guardian featuring images of black people.
She dissects the pages for unconscious racial stereotyping, and has painted over them, arguing that the words used in headlines or the pictures that are chosen often amount to caricature.
Himid said the series about the Guardian – a paper she loved – stemmed from when she saw images of black people being juxtaposed with text that had nothing to do with each other as the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery approached in 2007.
Other newspapers were worse. “However, I believed in the Guardian, like some people believe in football teams and I didn’t want my newspaper which made me laugh and made me feel part of a club to do that, and because I hold that newspaper in high regard it needs to behave better.”
Negative Positives: the Guardian Archive, 2007-2015 by Lubaina Himid. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian
Himid was given her prize by the DJ, producer and artist Goldie.
Farquharson said the jury’s deliberations had been “good-tempered, good-humoured and serious” and by the end it was a unanimous decision.
Himid was chosen from a shortlist that also included the Birmingham-born painter Hurvin Anderson, who had been the bookmakers’ joint favourite with Himid to win the prize.
The other nominees were Croydon-born Rosalind Nashashibi for two films, one set in Gaza, the other in Guatamala; and Stuttgart-born Andrea Büttner, whose practice includes printmaking, sculpture and archival works. Her display at Hull included colourful 2 metre-tall etchings she made of smudges on her iPhone.
'I don’t like art but I liked this': Hull gives mixed verdict on Turner prize
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The Turner prize often manages to delight and exasperate in equal measure, but most observers felt it seemed more serious this year than in previous years. Perhaps a good thing. There was none of the more wacky art that has grabbed headlines in the past: no lights in a room being turned on and off, no debating economics with gallery staff and no giant naked backside.
It was the first full year of a rule change abandoning the upper age limit of 50 for artists, a restriction introduced in 1991. Some critics said it gave the Turner prize a more mature feel.
Farquharson said it was striking that Himid was the oldest ever artist to win but that “ultimately it has been about her work. Primarily her artwork but also her example as a curator and educator.”
Rule change frees Turner prize from wearisome focus on the new
Adrian Searle
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Himid is a professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire. She was born in Zanzibar and was brought to Britain as a child by her Blackpool-born mother and raised in London.
Winning the Turner prize brings a useful £25,000 but, more than that, it dramatically raises an artist’s profile and, in theory, widens their opportunities. Previous winners include Rachel Whiteread, Damien Hirst, Grayson Perry, Jeremy Deller and, last year, Helen Marten. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/02/has-london-reached-peak-toxicity | Opinion | 2023-04-02T09:00:17.000Z | David Mitchell | Has London reached peak toxicity? | David Mitchell | It’s a shame about London. It hasn’t really worked out. It was a nice idea of the Romans’ and, like so many of their ideas, it seemed to catch on for a while. But having started in the roads and aqueducts category, over time it’s been moved into the feeding-Christians-to-lions section.
I’m not from London but I moved there because I wanted to be a comedian and London was where most of the TV and radio programmes were made, where a huge amount of the theatres were and the rooms above pubs where performances have to happen before theatres are interested, where the newspapers came from, where the publishers were headquartered – in short, the media and arts hub. I felt I had to go there.
I immediately found it horrible. Incredibly stressful and expensive. In theory, I knew it was a renowned city – but the reality of twentysomething life didn’t involve going to the British Museum or St Paul’s. It involved buying sliced bread and Dairylea in a nasty “Food and Wine” shop, for roughly the same price as the ingredients for a nutritious vegetable stir-fry for 20 if you were shopping anywhere else in the country and then eating them in a grim flat.
It involved the relentless noise of traffic and drilling. It involved anywhere nice being packed and anywhere deserted feeling frightening. It involved the post-apocalyptic vibe of the Northern line and the terrifying frailty of a £10 note under pub conditions. It involved spray from passing lorries and leafless trees fruiting bags of dog shit. I only stayed for the BBC.
This was 25 years ago and, in the intervening time, London has only got worse. It looks smarter now but in every meaningful way, it’s more forbidding. And by “every meaningful way” I mean money. It has become an ever more expensive place to try to exist, to the point where, in my current blessed affluence, I can’t quite work out how the person taking the money for my absurdly priced sandwich and a cup of tea, who doesn’t also have a regular berth on a TV panel show, can afford to rent somewhere close enough to get to the place I’m buying my lunch in order to hand it to me. “How does that work?” I think to myself but don’t inquire because this is London and its unfriendliness and consequent teeming anonymity is the one thing about it I immediately loved.
The place Saturday Live will be broadcast from isn’t Cardiff so much as not-London
And the BBC is going. God knows it may be going in general, but I mean it’s leaving London, in lots of tiny pieces. Last month, the news broke that Radio 4’s Saturday Live is now to be broadcast from Cardiff and, in consequence, the Rev Richard Coles, the brilliant and unique figure who has been presenting it for the past 12 years, will no longer be able to do so.
This is how discredited the concept of London has become. There are no plans to change the programme – the other presenter, Nikki Bedi, isn’t leaving the show and Coles was offered the chance to commute, and there’s no sense in which the format or content are going to be more Welsh or more south-western. So the place it’ll be broadcast from isn’t Cardiff so much as not-London. Quite insulting to Wales’s capital, which would probably prefer to develop its own programming, not just plug in some mics for a creative team heading their way along the M4.
Coles doesn’t live in London, but he lives much nearer London than Cardiff. This is not unusual. Geographically speaking, neither Cardiff nor London makes sense as a UK hub – nevertheless, London’s history of being one means that, within a radius of 50 miles from central London, there are around 18 million inhabitants. The same-size circle centring on Cardiff currently accommodates only about 5 million.
Yet more evidence of London’s cultural toxicity. The BBC feels that losing Coles, and access to a far larger pool of potential replacements, is a price worth paying to slough off the programme’s associations with the UK’s capital. It’s been the BBC’s direction of travel for years already: a decade ago, it sold the iconic Television Centre building in west London, which had the facility to make programmes as varied in scale and spectacle as Blackadder, Blue Peter and Strictly Come Dancing, and spent vastly more than the sum this raised on lavishly extending Broadcasting House where, despite this, the only TV show they can make is the news. The news is allowed to come from London, because the news is unpleasant.
The loss of Coles, a pop star, priest, raconteur and bestselling novelist, is an absurd sacrifice for a Radio 4 programme to make in order to be able to say that its noises are now being made 150 miles to the west. His talent is something that the BBC certainly wasn’t paying the market rate for, but it was profiting from his goodwill. It has squandered that resource by announcing his departure, under its new initiative of Norman Wisdom-style PR, with hurtful ineptitude. Knowing the classic performer’s psyche as I do, I doubt it will come as any consolation to Coles that this isn’t really about him.
The dislike of London comes not primarily from the millions struggling to live there, but from the conviction that those who don’t must see it as elitist. In the current climate, the whole notion of having a capital city feels inappropriate. “Who’s to say that one city is more important than the others?” people ask.
Doesn’t it help to have one, though? The streets paved with gold, a place of jeopardy and opportunity that draws in the young and energetic? That’s not what London is now, but it’s what it has usually been and could be again. Elites are not necessarily a problem if they are defined by merit rather than by having parents who can help with your rent.
London is a great city, but it’s unaffordable and a much less dynamic place as a result. It needs to pull in new people, with hopes, dreams, ambitions and ideas. Historically it has, but currently it doesn’t; it’s stagnant with oligarchs and people are starting to hate it as a result. A case of too many dicks and not enough Whittington. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/21/south-east-australia-shivers-through-freezing-temperatures-as-cold-snap-continues | Australia news | 2023-06-21T00:52:47.000Z | Natasha May | Icy morning in south-east Australia sees Canberra mercury dip below -7C | Many Australians woke up on Wednesday to record-breaking cold temperatures as Sydney and Canberra experienced their coldest June mornings in more than a decade.
Canberra’s minimum temperature of -7.2C was its lowest since 2018 and the lowest for June since 1986, according to Ben Domensino, a meteorologist at Weatherzone.
Sydney CBD’s minimum temperature of 5.2C was the city’s coldest June morning since 2010, Domensino said. The apparent (felt) temperature was below freezing, getting down to -1.4C in Sydney and -10C in Canberra, according the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM).
Newcastle hit 4.3C shortly after 7am, its coldest morning in 23 years, Domensino said.
Melbourne dropped to 4.2°C, which was its lowest temperature since September last year.
Outside the capital cities, several places registered their lowest temperature in five years.
“Bathurst (-7.5C), Mudgee (-6.9C), Orange (-6.6C), Dubbo (-4.7C), Campbelltown (-1.6C), Casino (-0.2C) and Gayndah (0.3C) all had their coldest morning in five years,” Domensino said.
“Perisher Valley’s -10.1ºC was Australia’s lowest June temperature since 2019. Tocal’s -0.3C was its lowest June temperature in records dating back to 1970.”
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South-east Australia hits record June cold, with frosty weather conditions to continue
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Domensino said temperatures had plunged 10C below average for this time of year.
“We have a high-pressure system moving over south-eastern Australia, which will be causing clear skies, light winds and there’s a lingering cold air mass as well.
“So those three things combined will lead to very cold overnight and early morning temperatures.
“Widespread frost is expected to develop from Tasmania right up to central Queensland, including large areas of New South Wales, Victoria and the ACT.”
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The Bureau of Meteorology has issued a frost warning for all districts in Victoria for Wednesday morning, with severe frost possible in the north-east.
⚠️A frost warning has been issued for all districts for Wednesday morning, with severe frost possible in the North East: https://t.co/HLs2UYFQyQ🥶 pic.twitter.com/5yB2q75OOG
— Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@BOM_Vic) June 20, 2023
Miriam Bradbury, a senior meteorologist at the BoM, said Wednesday morning appeared to be the coolest of what had been very chilly conditions the entire week due to a very cold front moving across the south-east.
The BoM forecast widespread areas below zero across inland Victoria, inland NSW in some parts of south-east Queensland on Wednesday.
In Victoria the BoM predicted alpine areas would plunge below -5C, with -8C at Mount Hotham.
Cold conditions will continue through the rest of today into tomorrow morning, with forecast minima of -8°C at Mt Hotham, -7°C at Falls Creek & -6°C at Mt Buller. Small hail has been observed across the E suburbs of #Melbourne this afternoon. https://t.co/F71arc6xjX pic.twitter.com/vtoqeOaP5A
— Bureau of Meteorology, Victoria (@BOM_Vic) June 19, 2023
“By Thursday, Friday, going into the weekend, it’s coming much closer than average, even pushing a degree or two above average in some parts,” Bradbury said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/21/a-curious-friendship-anna-thomasson-review | Books | 2015-03-21T10:00:08.000Z | Lara Feigel | A Curious Friendship by Anna Thomasson review – a 20-year celibate romance | In 1925, the 19-year-old artist Rex Whistler met the 52-year-old Edith Olivier at a house party in Italy. Within hours, they were arguing spiritedly about the nature of power. Within days, Whistler had persuaded Edith to shingle her hair and raise her skirts, embarking on a new life as a Bright Young Person. Within weeks, this unlikely friendship had become the central relationship in both their lives, as it would remain for the next 20 years.
Almost immediately, they transformed each other. Whistler was a diffident, chiselled beauty, a dazzling draftsman whose Arcadian scenes were at odds with the artistic climate of his time. Although he had started to move in aristocratic circles (he met Olivier through the decadent young peer Stephen Tennant), he was awkwardly aware that his father was a builder. Olivier encouraged his romantic vision and introduced him into society, finding him a patron to pay the rent of a London studio.
Rex Whistler, the prolific, overlooked British artist of the early-20th century
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Olivier was an energetic and original woman whose autocratic father had prevented her from straying far beyond the family home. In her 20s, she had briefly acquired independence by studying at Oxford. During the first world war, she had almost inadvertently established the Women’s Land Army. But it was only now, bereft of both father and sister, that she could realise her talents. Encouraged by Whistler, she began to write dark, fantastical stories set in the Wiltshire countryside she loved. Her first novel, published in 1927, was an immediate success.
Anna Thomasson uses their friendship to tell their life stories, following them both until their deaths in the 1940s. This doesn’t sound immediately promising; before reading the book, it’s hard to see how a celibate 20-year friendship could sustain our interest over the course of so many pages. But it’s a relationship that provides a window on to a fascinating world, and the story is narrated with elegant verve.
Part of the interest lies in the enticing cast that quickly gathers in and around Daye House, Olivier’s picturesque Wiltshire home. There is Diana Cooper, Diana Mitford, Ottoline Morrell, Edith Sitwell, Winston Churchill. Most prominently, there is Siegfried Sassoon (who has a lengthy affair with Tennant) and Cecil Beaton. If we know Olivier now, it’s because we recognise her from Beaton’s photographs, casually louche on the lawn with a cigarette in her hand or posed as a stately Elizabeth I at one of their many elaborate fancy-dress parties. Like Whistler, Beaton came to rely on Olivier for artistic and emotional advice. “I really adore her and love her more than almost any friend I have,” he wrote in 1931, with only mild hyperbole.
But most of all, the interest – even the suspense – of Thomasson’s account comes from the central relationship itself. Both Whistler and Olivier were virgins when they met. More interested in love than sex, they were dreamers who encouraged each other’s taste for elaborate fantasies.
As their friendship became more romantic, a language of courtly love developed. This could be flirtatious: “Seeing you against that pink pillow in bed the other day,” Whistler informed Edith, “I feel I must, in honesty, raise your marks for seduction from five to at least eight!” They enjoyed the frisson of physical intimacy. Sharing a suite of rooms with Whistler at a house party, Olivier noted in her diary that her bath was “really in his bedroom, but we are so easy with each other that this seems all right ”. Another time, she described dancing with him at a fancy-dress party where he removed his wig and danced with “his own shapely head” on view. “His beauty unbelievable ... it was a dream ... it must remain a dazzling memory.”
It would be easy to dismiss them both as sublimating sexual desire: her for him, and him for the often overtly homosexual young men he gathered around him. Thomasson doesn’t forget the importance of sex for both of them, but she is also alert to the possibility of other kinds of intensity. In the process, she portrays an emotional climate subtler than our own; certainly one in which friendships were more intense than they commonly are now, perhaps because people were more accustomed to repressing sexual inclinations.
In the first decade of their friendship, both Whistler and Olivier seem to have been content to live celibate lives, fulfilled by the creative and loving closeness of their friendship. This had its costs. For her, it could be exhausting keeping up the high spirits and jet-black hair of her youth, and socially awkward spending so much time with a coterie of younger men. It’s not surprising that she avoided either thinking about or meeting Whistler’s mother. She was uneasily aware of the indignity of an evening spent cavorting in Soho with Whistler and Beaton, pretending that she was drunk.
There was also the more painful cost of loving a man whom she knew to be only on loan to her. This is pain that animates her first novel, The Love-child, which tells the story of a lonely spinster who brings into being an imaginary child called Clarissa, “the creation of the love of all her being”, only to murder her accidentally, casting Clarissa from her mind after she falls in love with a man. Thomasson’s reading of the novel is subtle and convincing. She portrays Olivier as using her writing to live through the betrayal that she, more than Whistler, knows must ensue.
Rex Whistler: A Talent Cut Short – in pictures
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The drama, cleverly marshalled, of Thomasson’s account, comes from Olivier’s fear that Whistler will leave her, that mere friendship, however intense, leaves you without claims. The curiousness of the relationship leaves the reader eager to know what will transpire. And Thomasson is an excellent guide, ready to answer the most difficult questions, but reluctant to judge or to simplify.
In the end, sex does intrude. Whistler is almost seduced by an older man and then falls in love with one impossibly unattainable beautiful and aristocratic girl after another, eventually losing his virginity aged 29. But it is war that irrevocably separates them, leading Whistler to the French battlefield, where he writes to Olivier hoping for “the great joy” of seeing her again. His death a few days later leaves their love intact, enabling her to dream of his ringing the doorbell and embracing her “with great love” before she dies of grief, unable to face “this long lonely life without him”.
Lara Feigel is the author of The Love-charm of Bombs: Restless Lives in the Second World War. To order A Curious Friendship for £16 (RRP £20) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p on online orders of more than £10. A £1.99 charge applies to telephone orders. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2010/sep/15/naomi-alderman-the-player | Games | 2010-09-15T20:00:39.000Z | Naomi Alderman | The player: stop blaming gaming for society's problems | The Daily Mail reported this week that a mother neglected her three children "because she was so obsessed with . . . the Small World game". Small World, the Mail stated, is an online boardgame, which can be played through Facebook and either with friends online, or alone.
Almost all those statements are wrong. The neglectful mother wasn't playing Small World – an engrossing family boardgame made by Days of Wonder. That game can't be played online and isn't on Facebook. Although the Mail has now taken down this story, Days of Wonder VP Mark Kaufmann told me that as of Tuesday they hadn't issued a retraction. The erroneous story has now spread across the internet.
But the problem here isn't just a journalist making mistakes: it is that identifying the game in question is totally irrelevant. The story seemed, astonishingly, to blame gaming for a bereaved mother neglecting her children. Contrast this with the reporting on the horrific death by neglect of three-year-old Tiffany Wright. The adults who should have been caring for her spent their time running their pub instead, but no paper reported this story as "mother obsessed with business neglected child". The point is that they weren't caring for their child – it's irrelevant what they happened to be doing instead of remembering to feed and clothe her.
Gaming is our cultural bogeyman – we blame it for everything from child obesity to violence to short attention spans. But any explanation that fits every situation ultimately explains nothing. Whatever the problem was in this home, whether bereavement-induced depression, or a failure of personal responsibility, excessive gaming was the symptom, not the disease. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/dec/19/dev-hynes-puppy-burnt-kickstarters-charity-cases-blood-orange | Opinion | 2013-12-19T15:12:41.000Z | Holly Baxter | Why celebrity crowdfunding has little appeal | Holly Baxter | This week, a puppy called Cupid perished in a house fire in New York City. There's a sentence to tug on your heartstrings just before Christmas. The puppy belonged to the renowned British musician Dev Hynes, also known as Blood Orange, who reported that he had lost everything in the fire: recordings, computers, clothing; property of financial, sentimental and creative value.
But never fear. His girlfriend's mother stepped in, setting up a crowdsourcing account with GoFundMe to raise a target of $5,000, in order to help Dev and partner replace everything they should have listed under their contents insurance. At the time of writing, donations had already surpassed $24,000. Truly, one must praise the internet god for this heartwarming Yuletide miracle.
Despite this Twitter-driven display of community spirit, I won't be giving to the Dev Hynes home replacement fund. This isn't because I believe people should be punished for making stupid but understandable mistakes such as failing to insure their belongings: I've been there myself. And it isn't that I'm not moved by the plight of somebody whose home has burnt to the ground, or by the good nature of the people pledging money to help him rebuild. It's because crowdfunding is a nice idea with many incarnations, and some of those incarnations have started to become thoroughly depressing.
Remember when Girls star Zosia Mamet, daughter of the film director David Mamet, set up a Kickstarter account earlier this year with her sister Clara? Perhaps not, considering how negatively the plea for funds was received: the sisters asked for $32,000 in order to produce one music video and offered prizes to their contributors, such as the honour of starring as an extra (so, doing work) in return for $7,000, or talking to them on Skype for 45 minutes for $2,000. Eighty people pledged $2,783 between them, meaning that the ruminative video on heartbreak by the Cabin Sisters sadly never became a reality.
At the time, many compared the Mamets' Kickstarter to Zach Braff's successful one – eventually raising more than $3m – for a sequel to Garden State. But there were key differences between these two moneyed celebrities begging from the public that made me supportive of Braff in a way that I couldn't be with the Cabin Sisters. For one thing, Braff had already written, directed and starred in Garden State. For another, he explicitly stated that his motivation for the money was creative control: without the ability to produce the sequel independently, he would have to sacrifice a final cut to someone commercially biased. The Mamets instead were embarking upon a completely new project together in which neither had any more than very limited experience. One of their main motivations for crowdfunding was that they could use the money to spend more time together. Potential backers voted with their feet – or rather, with their wallets.
Crowdfunding is excellent when it's done well. It allows creative individuals with little more than a penny to their name to get their work into the public domain, in the same way someone with a rich parent and access to a printing press, recording studio, or film set might be able to do. It means that it's not only Rebecca Black – the 13-year-old whose mother paid for her production of 2011 ear-splitting vanity record Friday – who gets to have her dream realised. It also reasserts creative control for people who want to build a project with integrity outside the normal capitalist constraints.
But then there's the bad side. Consider the couple who asked the public to cough up and fund the celebrations for their wedding, which will be accompanied by three separate events for friends and family around the globe and therefore has proven prohibitively expensive for the individuals involved. "I raise money for causes and organisations in the community frequently, and never ask for anything in return. Please help me be selfish for once," was the plea of one of the bridegrooms-to-be.
Unfortunately, my purse remained as closed as my meanie heart. Because crowdfunding is not about rewarding those who once gave to charity with a luxury wedding. Equally, it is not about replacing Dev Hynes's lost clothes or paying for a replacement pedigree puppy. What Hynes lost in his recordings can only be reproduced with meticulous time and effort. That's something I'm willing to pay for. Hynes's designer jeans and the honour of working for the Mamet sisters? Not so much.
On 19 December 2013, this article's headline was changed from the original ("Dev Hynes's puppy sob story has left me burnt out") to better reflect the content of the article | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2010/mar/26/french-british-film-andrea-arnold | Film | 2010-03-26T10:43:29.000Z | Danny Leigh | Why are we still so deferential to French film-makers? | Danny Leigh | For the British film lover, a sad fact of life is the suspicion that you've fallen for someone else's art form. For all our occasional triumphs we are so often, at the business end of things, a mere colony of Hollywood – while artistically, we abide in the uneasy knowledge that close to us there is a place where a conveyor belt of fine movies seems to just keep rolling on, effortlessly bringing wonderful, truly cinematic films to its own people and the world beyond. Yup, I'm on about France.
Such was the gist, from an American perspective, of a recent piece by Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. Writing under the teasing headline "Are French films just … better?" O'Hehir looked at the way that for English-speaking cinephiles, French film is still the gold standard – its history such that it's impossible to have even the most cursory chit-chat about the art of movies without paying homage to the Lumières and Méliès, Vigo and Renoir, Cocteau and Clouzot, Godard, Truffaut, Chris Marker, Claude Chabrol, and so on ad almost infinitum into the Gallic sunset. The scale of the legacy is frightening, and that legacy still casts its burnished glow over the modern era.
Of course, in British culture, with our island mentality particularly inflamed about them next door, it's also helped heighten our distrust of foreign language film in general and widened the imaginary divide between "art" cinema and "populist" movies. So on the one hand, there's the hostility or lack of interest that keeps fantastic films made across 20 miles of grey English Channel ghettoised in a handful of cinemas in major cities – the likes of A Prophet, Tell No One or Days of Glory seen by a fraction of the audience who would enjoy them – just as a significant number don't even make it as far as a week's run at the Renoir. And on the other, there is the strange over-reverence, where films that are acutely flawed (35 Shots of Rum) or stodgily conventional (Mesrine) enjoy undue attention in a market where plenty of good films from elsewhere in Europe go unseen.
But when you try to answer O'Hehir's pointedly simple question from a British perspective, things get fuzzy. Certainly, over the course of cinema history, stacking up the classics and measuring the influence, then yes, British film with its weird preoccupations and long passages of inertia looks pasty in comparison with that of France. And yet the reality in 2010 is more complex than that, because while there's more self-assurance to French cinema that gets an international release, the idea that we're somehow less able to create great film seems a bizarre notion best left to the past. Are Olivier Assayas and Laurent Cantet really more intrinsically gifted than Andrea Arnold and Asif Kapadia (and I say that as someone with a fondness for Olivier Assayas and Laurent Cantet)? Was the excellent I've Loved You So Long truly a more extraordinary recent debut than Hunger or Molloy and Lawlor's Helen?
The breeding of French film is impeccable, but there is no national gene for cinematic talent. What France does have is a justifiable confidence in its own work, in the worth of film for its own sake, and as O'Hehir says, in the idea of movie-makers as important players in culture and society. For all the respect granted to François Ozon and Agnès Varda in Parisian talking shops, here our films and directors always seem somehow shunted off to the side of the conversation to an even greater extent than in the US; our class-mangled, highbrow/lowbrow fixated outlook forever promoting the likes of Ian McEwan as wisdom-dispensing grand poobahs over anyone who spends their life behind a camera. So perhaps part of the problem here isn't that French films are better than British ones – maybe they just love them better. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/jan/21/call-my-agent-season-four-review-netflix | Television & radio | 2021-01-21T08:00:26.000Z | Rebecca Nicholson | Call My Agent! season four review – adieu to a fabulous French concoction | If you know, you know. The utterly charming Call My Agent! has become a word-of-mouth hit in the UK, five years after it first began in France, and just in time for its final season to appear on Netflix, with subtitles, for those of us still languishing at the GCSE stage of asking directions to the swimming pool. The series, which is entitled Dix Pour Cent in France, follows the backstabbing, scamming and scheming at a talent agency in Paris, while propping up its more devious machinations with a deep-rooted love of people and, above all, cinema. It is one of my favourite series of recent times.
To recap, for those at the back: Agence Samuel Kerr (ASK) has been in a state of turmoil since the very first episode, when its eponymous founder unexpectedly choked on a wasp. Over the past three seasons, the programme has rotated its cast to find a villain, then shifted them out of the role again when it suits. It always picks up exactly where it left off, so at the beginning of this fourth and final run we find the inimitable Andréa in charge of a reduced agency, scrambling to fill the void left when Mathias and Noémie decided to get out of the agent game and into the production business.
Call My Agent: the French TV hit that viewers and actors adore
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It might all sound a bit insider-industry, and therefore dry, but it isn’t. It’s far too self-aware for that, and certainly too silly. Most of the film and TV stars that the agency looks after are real celebrities, sending themselves up, which led to the wonderful spectacle of Jean Dujardin, unable to break character as a wild man of the woods. Apparently, Call My Agent! had a hard time attracting cameos to begin with but, as it built a name for itself, the stars began to flock. While Juliette Binoche saw out season two, I think the turning point was the Monica Bellucci episode in season three, which became as much about Bellucci satirising her own public image as an insatiable sexpot as it was about the agency. Similarly, Isabelle Huppert took aim at her reputation as a workaholic (and showed a surprising flair for slapstick) as she attempted to navigate multiple commitments across one night in Paris.
The guestlist for the show’s send-off, then, is as starry as you might expect. Charlotte Gainsbourg appears in the opening episode, and Jean Reno in the last, with Sigourney Weaver representing Hollywood coming to town, although I wonder how easy it was for her to keep a straight face while quietly insisting that Camille cut up her meat for her. The series is a little grander this time round, with the occasional big, cinematic flourish, which only serves to bolster its manifesto for cinema as an art form that should be seen on the big screen.
As well as roles, contracts and an increasingly hostile industry, the agents have their own messy personal lives to navigate. Mathias has broken free, while Arlette continues to pull the strings, although she never gets quite enough to do. Gabriel is still nursing confused feelings for Sophia, who has her own confused feelings about fame. Meanwhile, the magnificent Andréa – one of the great TV characters of the modern age – is trying to work out how to balance being a parent to her baby with being a parent to the actors who act like babies. Call My Agent! had built her up into such a formidable figure that I worried it might lose its nerve and reduce her to an emblem of women’s struggles with a work-life balance. Thankfully, it ends up being far more complex than that.
Call My Agent! is as soapy as it is serious, as willing to throw in a big, melodramatic shock moment as it is to sit and savour its quiet and profound beats. At times, its silliness stretches credulity – most of the plots could be resolved in five minutes, if only the characters would talk to each other directly – but it is so charismatic that it almost always gets away with it. I have grown extremely attached to the ASK family, to the extent that I began offering unsolicited advice to the screen. “Just hire a more senior agent!” “Just tell him the truth!” “Andréa, no!” In the final episode, I welled up, more than once. But this remains a wonderful, bright series until the end, and it does end – properly, satisfactorily and neatly. It may be too neat for some but, by this stage, the agents have surely earned their commission. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/science/life-and-physics/2017/jan/22/take-nobodys-word-for-it-evidence-and-authority-in-a-world-of-propaganda | Science | 2017-01-22T13:14:08.000Z | Jon Butterworth | Take nobody's word for it – evidence and authority in a world of propaganda | ‘N
ullius in verba’ – roughly, ‘Take nobody’s word for it’ – is the motto of one of the world’s oldest scientific societies, the Royal Society. It neatly expresses the ideal that the credibility of information derives from evidence, observational or experimental, and not from the innate authority of the source. An important principle, for a Society with a royal patron, in a country which was still in the process evolving away from absolute monarchy.
Despite instances of fraud, undue influence and genuine mistakes, good science still accumulates knowledge this way. Scientists can be just as venal, egotistical or biased as anyone else, and can argue indefinitely about the interpretation of data. (I have experienced this personally.) But arguments about the data themselves are finite. The experiment or observation can be checked and repeated, if there is the will. This usually settles matters.
Trump's inauguration crowd: Sean Spicer's claims versus the evidence
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However, if everybody’s word has to be continually checked by everyone before it is accepted, things get very slow. Generally there is an accepted body of knowledge, published in respected places in enough detail that further repeated experiments probably aren’t needed, and new experiments can be designed to build upon the old. We don’t check J.J.Thomson’s 1897 discovery of the electron any more; we use electrons to do new experiments.
My own experiment, ATLAS at the CERN Large Hadron Collider, is a horrendously complex piece of technology relying on the cumulative knowledge of more than a century of science, and the hard work and ingenuity of thousands of people; engineers and physicists, but also accountants, project managers and more. We check and double-check things often, whenever we can. But over and again we have to trust each other, take each others word for key facts. Otherwise the collaboration simply would not function.
Neutrinos, antimatter, and science as a holistic detective agency
Jon Butterworth
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Both science, and the society that sustains and is enriched by it, are too complex for everything to be checked from first principles by everyone personally before they act on it. Some things have to be taken on trust, and this is where authority creeps back in, of necessity. If someone, or some organisation, has a track record of accuracy and honesty, they are more likely to be believed in the future. We also weigh up how much attention to pay to their claims by considering how well they fit with what is already known, the ‘seamless web’ of overdetermined knowledge.
The road to Brexit was paved with Boris Johnson’s Euromyths
Jean Quatremer
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When that trust is undermined, the first thing is loss of efficiency, and the next is a total breakdown.
This is why no one with the best interests of science, or society, at heart can afford to openly lie, whatever side of an argument might appear to benefit in the short term. Acknowledging uncertainties is vital, owning up to mistakes deserves respect, and outright lies in the face of obvious facts mean the perpetrators must be cast out, and never listened to again. Otherwise they will break the whole system. Whether the system is science or democratic society, this may be their goal, and the threat must be resisted. Don’t just take my word for it.
Jon Butterworth’s book Smashing Physics is available as “Most Wanted Particle” in Canada & the US. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/18/donald-trump-fire-steve-bannon-white-house-nationalism | Opinion | 2017-08-18T12:53:33.000Z | Justin Gest | Steve Bannon's work is done. Donald Trump doesn't need him now | Intrigue swirls around the future of Steve Bannon at the White House in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s management of last weekend’s attacks by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia.
While reports suggest that Bannon’s job as chief strategist is in the balance amid external calls for his dismissal and internal rivals pushing for his ouster, he has remained, largely because of the power he wields as a symbol of the “alt-right” movement inside the Trump administration.
Steve Bannon brands far right 'losers' and contradicts Trump in surprise interview
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The New York Times has reported that Congressman Mark Meadows, leader of the House’s Freedom Caucus, warned the president that he would lose his base without Bannon. The result is a stalemate. Bannon has managed to hold his following over the head of Trump, and so he has stayed his own execution.
However, Trump’s concern that Bannon’s departure would deprive the administration of its bonafides among the energetic alt-right reveals just how insecure the president is of his status with this constituency.
In fact, polls suggest a hard core of unwavering support for Trump that will not suddenly abandon him with the loss of a strategist, whom Trump once uncharitably called “a guy who works for me”. If Bannon is sacked, Trump will still have the alt-right credentials the two built together to mobilize and transform the Republican base.
There’s another reason why firing Bannon wouldn’t be a huge loss: his work is largely done.
Before the 2016 election, many white Americans felt marginalized – relegated in the country they once defined. Many, particularly those in post-industrial regions, had lost once stable jobs and their income has declined. Far worse for many, they felt like they had lost their sense of political clout and social status in American society.
During three years of polling and fieldwork in white working-class communities leading up to Trump’s election, I found this marginality anchored by three key sentiments – that many white Americans feel outnumbered, excluded and discriminated against.
In data from the nonpartisan, nationally representative American National Election Study (Anes) survey in 2016, white working-class people are more likely to deny the advantages that white people continue to possess, and express a sense that they are subject to unique disadvantages that reinforce their externality. A near majority of white working-class people – white people without university degrees – believed that being white made no difference to their fate in today’s society.
Rather, white working-class people were more likely than others to believe their whiteness hurt them. The sample of people were asked: “How many disadvantages do white people have that minorities do not have in today’s society?” Compared with the rest of those surveyed, white working-class people were far less likely to say “none”.
However, white working-class people reveal a greater sensitivity to discrimination in all forms – as it hinders their own pursuits, but also as it hinders other constituencies. Still, they perceived discrimination against black people, Hispanics and women far less than non-white people, and perceived discrimination against white people and Christians more than all others.
When compared with non-working-class white people, a greater share of white working-class people believed that losing jobs to minority candidates was “extremely” likely. They were also more likely to believe that “whites working together” is “extremely” important.
In his time on the Trump campaign and in the White House, Bannon cultivated this frustrated undercurrent and channeled Trump to address their sentiments – ushering in a renaissance of white identity in the US that harnesses the latent energy in a constituency that has disoriented the Republican party and American politics. For white communities with nationalist grievances, the Trump administration’s list of “achievements” looks like this:
24 January 2017: Withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
25 January: Heightened immigration enforcement and broadened the category of people subject to deportation.
25 January: Ordered the construction of a border wall and the tripling of border agents.
25 January: Ordered the removal of funding from so-called sanctuary cities.
26 January: Ordered a weekly list of crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities.
27 January: Suspended the US Refugee Admissions program.
27 January: Ordered a ban of people from seven Muslim-majority countries.
6 March: Ordered a ban of people from six Muslim-majority countries.
18 May: Triggered the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (Nafta).
19 July: Convened a commission on voter fraud that will demand voter data from states, at the risk of disenfranchising minority voters.
1 August : Ordered an investigation of “intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions”.
2 August: Supported bill to cut all documented immigration into the US in half.
15 August: Declined to specifically condemn neo-Nazis and white nationalists after terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia.
17 August : Criticized the removal of “beautiful” Confederate monuments in the American south.
Each of these actions have been undertaken without the support of Congress and, in many cases, without the support of the courts. In fact, many have yet to be enacted because they await court approval, were declared unconstitutional or require the appropriation of money by Congress. Others require no such checks.
Rather, they have made use of presidential authority to execute policies that bypass institutional deliberation to do what was once unthinkable – rendering them a spontaneous, miraculous quality to those on the alt-right who buy into Trump’s messianic self-image.
Even if they are not implemented, they also have a symbolic quality that shows white people with cultural anxieties that the administration empathizes and stands with them.
No doubt, Bannon still thinks there is more to do. We know this is true, because we have seen the list on his whiteboard.
Many of his goals can be checked off. However, he has well-documented (and neatly scribed) ambitions to curtail immigration further, overhaul the tax code and, according to his recent interview with the American Prospect, “the economic war with China is everything”. However, these broader goals are impossible to pursue without judicial approval or cooperation from a skeptical Republican party, and therefore less feasible. In other words, the low-hanging fruit in his “economic nationalism” agenda has been picked.
Bannon’s most attainable, sustainable – and most frightening – achievement is white Americans’ renewed sense of racial consciousness; a sense of shared destiny that was once shamed as unpalatable and ignored by mainstream politicians. He has wielded pervasive fear about demographic change into immense, cathartic political capital in support of Trump and his crusade against political correctness, foreigners and other threats to the historic American social hierarchy.
In the Anes survey from 2016, when a nationally representative sample of white Americans was asked, “How important is being white to your identity?”, the proportion who said “extremely” important nearly doubled from 2012 to 2016. While the increase was not as dramatic among white people without a university degree, they were more likely to report the “extreme” importance of their whiteness at both junctures.
More than anyone else in the Trump administration led by military brass and plutocrat CEOs, Bannon sensed this groundswell of frustration, fear and racial consciousness. His agenda persuaded many people in swing states to turn against the Democratic party in the 2016 election, and it has forged an indefatigable core of support that will stay with Trump through the next general election and beyond.
Viewed in this way, in seven destructive months, Bannon has done what earlier strategists like David Axelrod and Karl Rove took four years to achieve.
Justin Gest is an assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University, and author of The New Minority: White Working Class Politics in an Age of Immigration and Inequality (Oxford University Press). He will publish The White Working Class: What Everyone Needs to Know in 2018. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/mar/27/three-things-with-colin-lane-theres-always-little-mountains-of-salt-around-the-house | Life and style | 2023-03-26T14:00:21.000Z | Katie Cunningham | Three things with Colin Lane: ‘There’s always little mountains of salt around the house’ | Colin Lane and Frank Woodley – who you probably know as comedy duo Lano & Woodley – returned to the stage in 2018 after a 12-year hiatus. The pair came back to deliver a show about Orville and Wilbur Wright, the brothers who invented powered flight, and it was such a hit they quickly went to work reimagining another epic story.
“Because I was in Melbourne during lockdown, I had a lot of time,” Lane says. “So I decided to read Moby-Dick, which is 700 pages. And I said, ‘Why don’t we do a story about Moby-Dick?’ And Frank just went, ‘Oh, yeah.’ So that was the entire creative discussion.”
“Frank was just happy I didn’t read Fifty Shades of Grey during lockdown. Otherwise it would have been a very different show.”
Three things with Caitlin Stasey: ‘Keep this interview far away from my girlfriend’
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The pair launched their take on Ahab and his white whale last year and are taking it around the country once more from April. As Lane tells it: “we’ve been doing it for about a year so we can absolutely guarantee … we’ve cut out all the shit bits.”
Whether he’s on or off tour, Lane starts his mornings with a cup of tea brewed in a special teapot. Here, he tells us why he’s so passionate about that particular vessel and shares the stories behind two other important personal belongings.
What I’d save from my house in a fire
I’d take my Robur teapot, which must be 100 years old. I turned 50 a few years ago and a very old friend of mine bought it for me as a birthday gift. If we’re going on a trip for two or three weeks, I’ll take the teapot because it means that much to me.
‘Buy once, buy well’: Lane’s consumption motto, especially when it comes to these very expensive, very sturdy teapots. Photograph: Colin Lane
I love it so much that I’ve bought similar models for other people. There’s a guy in Melbourne who renovates them – and, look, they’re not cheap, but I can highly recommend the investment. Something I’m trying to live by lately is “buy once, buy well”. You don’t want to get into bed every night going “I hate this mattress” because you’ve got a shit mattress, just like you don’t want to go into the kitchen every morning thinking “I want a cup of tea but I hate this teapot”. I think that daily ritual of brewing your morning tea is all the better when you know it is going to be made in a beautiful vessel that has withstood decades of existence.
My most useful object
I’ve discovered there’s this thing called a Bug-A-Salt gun. It’s about a foot long and plastic. And it’s called a Bug-A-Salt gun because you put table salt into it and then when you’ve got an annoying fly in your house during summer, you point it in the right direction and it fires just a minuscule amount of salt at the fly, killing it.
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I don’t want to condone the use of guns but, when it comes to flies, it does mean you’ve got something much better than a fly swat or rolled-up newspaper. Nine times out of 10, you’ll have success. And it’s more environmentally friendly than bug spray! But it does mean that there’s always little mountains of salt around the house.
The item I most regret losing
I grew up in the 60s and 70s with three sisters. I had a little portable record player, and they bought me – I think it was in 1973 – Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. It was the first record I ever got.
But I’ve moved in the last two or three years and I’ve lost it. And I’m extremely disappointed because last year for my birthday, I got a turntable and speakers and everything, and that was the first record that I wanted to play. It’s one of those things where you get a little bit despondent and question your methods of moving.
How can a person lose just one record? So the irony is that I’ve had to say goodbye to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/jun/11/public-spaces-undemocratic-land-ownership | Opinion | 2012-06-11T13:12:21.000Z | Anna Minton | We are returning to an undemocratic model of land ownership | Anna Minton | During the boom years, towns and cities across Britain witnessed the biggest wave of construction since tower blocks and arterial roads transformed communities in the 1950s and 60s.
From Liverpool One to Cabot Circus in Bristol, privately owned and privately controlled places, policed by security guards and round the clock surveillance, came to define our cities. In London, Westfield Stratford City and the Olympic Park represent the high point of this approach, based on property finance and retail and underpinned by large amounts of debt.
The consequence has been the creation of a new environment characterised by high-security, "defensible" architecture and strict rules and regulations governing behaviour. Cycling, skateboarding and inline skating are often banned. So are busking and selling the Big Issue, filming, taking photographs and – critically – political protest. Occupy found this to their cost when they attempted to site their protest outside the London Stock Exchange, which is in privately owned Paternoster Square. In response, the high court awarded an injunction against protests in the square and the police sealed off the entrance, leading the protesters to move to outside St Paul's.
The Olympic Legacy Company executives who planned the Olympic Park often compare this new part of the city to "a great London estate", in the manner of the 18th-century estates run by Grosvenor, the property company behind much of London's Belgravia.
What they omit to mention is that this was a pre-democratic model of land ownership. Today, the Georgian squares and terraces are part of the fabric of the city, but what is no longer visible is that these places were once barricaded and closed to the public.
Following growing public outrage, which paralleled the rise in local government and was reflected by two major parliamentary inquiries, control over the streets was passed to local authorities and the gates, fences and guards were removed. Since then it has been standard for local authorities to "adopt" the streets and public spaces of the city which means that they control and run them whether they own them or not. Until recently, that is. Over the last decade this hard-won democratic achievement has started to go into reverse.
This is a model that was pioneered in the mid-1980s with the creation of Canary Wharf and the Broadgate Centre. At that time, these two emerging finance centres in east London were virtually the only high security, privately owned and privately controlled places that functioned like this. They were exceptional – and controversial – places created to meet the needs of business, in response to the deregulation of the financial markets and "big bang" of 1986, with its demands for big banks and large trading floors.
Today this is the template for all new development but – like the financial system itself – it is also a model which is in deep trouble. Outside London the development of new privately owned places is at a standstill. In Bradford, Westfield's plans for a 23-acre private estate remain no more than a hole in the ground. There are similar stories in Edinburgh, Preston and Leeds.
This is an approach which depends on large amounts of debt which the private sector is now unable to raise – borrow, to use plain English. Following the financial collapse, plans for the Olympic developments also hit crisis point with private sector developers unable to borrow the necessary funds. Nonetheless, the Olympic developments have gone ahead as the government considered that, like the banks, this project was too big to fail. Around the same time the banks were bailed out the government also bailed out the Olympic Park and developments to the tune of nearly £6bn of taxpayer's money.
While the economic rationale for this way of doing things is unravelling, politicians are also beginning to question the consequences of privatising streets and public places. In his Manifesto for Public Space, the mayor of London makes clear his opposition to the private control of streets and states that the adoption of public space is an important principle which should be negotiated in all new development.
As the mayor has planning powers this is an important policy statement. With planning permission for the Olympics granted before it was published and with so little subsequent development occurring, it is hard to assess its impact. But for those concerned about the privatisation of our streets this is a vital policy tool.
Yet despite the mayor's manifesto, very often it is local authorities themselves who are keen to offload their democratic responsibilities. Sir Robin Wales, the elected mayor of Newham claims that his borough cannot afford to run the Olympic Park, a view which is shared by many other cash-strapped local authorities.
That view reduces democracy to an optional extra. The places we create reflect the social and economic realities of the time and provide a litmus test for the health of society and democracy. That fact that we are setting out to create undemocratic places is simply a reflection of the times we live in.
Anna Minton is the author of Ground Control. A new edition of the book, with a new chapter on the true legacy of the Olympics, is published by Penguin. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/pda/2012/sep/28/viral-video-chart-gangnam-style | Media | 2012-09-28T06:30:04.000Z | Dugald Baird | Viral Video Chart: Gangnam Style tributes, Hunger Games, Andy Williams | You're probably sick of it by now, but you just can't keep a good meme down. Two months after Psy's Gangnam Style video launched on YouTube, it has clocked up 292m views and the most "likes" of all time – and the tributes and spoofs continue to flood in.
Among the best tributes so far have been the Oregon Duck, the Cornell University Flash Mob and My Little Pony versions, but there have also been spoofs themed around Lord of the Rings ("Gandalf Style"), Star Wars and Marvel Comics' Deadpool.
This week, they are joined by the US Naval Academy, whose carefully choreographed routine follows them all over their base. And West Indies cricketer Chris Gayle couldn't help getting in on the action when he celebrated taking a wicket in the Twenty 20 in Sri Lanka – he tweeted on Thursday night "I need a producer to produce my gangnam music video … Know any? However I'm shooting a amateur gangnam style video tmrw … Will post video!"
We also feature a tribute to crooner Andy Williams this week, after he died at the age of 84. His heart-warming delivery of Moon River from the film Breakfast at Tiffany's is well worth a listen, as are Music To Watch Girls By and Can't Take My Eyes Off of You.
For fans of animal videos, there's a couple of treats this week – a clip from BuzzFeed proving that cats are better than dogs; and an incredibly cute video of a pig saving a goat from drowning in a petting zoo.
There are also two witty attacks on new US laws that apparently make it more difficult for disadvantaged groups to register to vote – a typically potty-mouthed campaigning clip by Sarah Silverman (beware of VERY bad language from the start) and The Simpsons' acerbic take on the situation.
Finally, Hollywood blockbuster The Hunger Games gets the Bad Lip Reading treatment this week. Katniss turns out to have an unexpectedly filthy turn of phrase – "I've got the squirts" – while Gale says she smells "like a hot foot forest". But is it as good as BLR's Twilight parody?
Guardian Viral Video Chart. Compiled by Unruly Media and tweaked a bit by Dugald.
1 Amazing mind reader reveals his 'gift'
Belgian psychic appears to outdo Derren Brown – but there's a twist
2 Gangnam Style - USNA Spirit Spot
Clear the decks – it's the new Village People
3 "The Hunger Games" – A Bad Lip Reading
Watch out for Clove's "Yay! A goat!"
4 Pig rescues baby goat
Deserves to star in the next instalment of Babe
5 Sarah Silverman | Let My People Vote 2012 – Get Nana A Gun
Beware of distinctly NSFW language from the start
6 Proof That Cats are Better Than Dogs
It's just an excuse to string a lot of cute pictures together – but where's the harm in that?
7 Andy Williams – Moon River 1960s performance
Brings a tear to the eye – even without Audrey Hepburn
8 iPhone 5 vs Samsung Galaxy S3 Drop Test
Don't you get the feeling he'd rather be using a hammer on the iPhone 5?
9 A Toy Train in Space
Don't you wish you had a dad like that?
10 The Simpsons – Homer Votes 2012
"Mitt Romney … I hear he wears magic underpants"
Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 18:00 on 27 September 2012. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/nov/10/the-kid-laroi-the-first-time-album-review-debut | Music | 2023-11-09T14:00:06.000Z | Shaad D'Souza | The Kid Laroi: The First Time review – angsty debut has moments of thrilling intensity | Most of the time Charlton Howard is singing, he’s screaming. His ragged, adolescent voice has been frequently and correctly compared to the mournful cry of Post Malone, the defining sound of zillennial heartbreak for the better part of a decade. Unlike Post Malone, who sings through a glazed, pilled-out fugue, Howard – who records as the Kid Laroi, a nod to his Kamilaroi heritage – sounds as though he’s always pushing himself to the furthest possible limits: his voice strains, the volume peaks and the spectrum of emotions he’s trying to convey melts into toxic agony.
‘I missed out on being a kid’: The Kid Laroi on fame, fans and coming home to Australia
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I love this aspect of the Kid Laroi’s music: it’s what separates him from the dozens of other Post Malone acolytes populating popular music and what makes his hits so successful on a musical level. The electro-pop song Stay, his biggest hit to date, is a Justin Bieber collaboration that always feels surprisingly fast (I once heard Fox FM play it twice in a row, I assume because it only feels like the first half of a song to listen to it once), in distinct contrast to the sludgy slowcore hocked by Billie Eilish and so many other gen Z stars. The Kid Laroi sounds as though he’s tripping over himself trying to get to the finish line, kind of like the Veronicas in their heyday.
The Kid Laroi is 20, which is the perfect age to be making this kind of raw, purely adolescent music. Unlike Lorde, who about the same age was making literary, wise-beyond-her-years songs written from the lonely edge of a house party, the Kid Laroi’s songs sound like vitriolic text threads, delivered with a spray of blood and spittle.
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Sorry, the opening track of his debut album, The First Time, is a little hard to listen to, like a particularly bitter voice note: “Fucked up, in pain / Why the fuck I spend 150 on this plane? / Why the fuck I spend 260 on these chains? / How am I so paranoid I bulletproof my range? / Shit don’t make no sense / I mean, the pressure’s a mess / I’m 19 trying to navigate money and stress / Weird industry, friends and my family / life is intense / And my girl is upset cos I’m always fuckin’ working.”
He delivers those lines basically in one breath, the lush soul samples beneath doing little to soften the scorching torrent of upset. The Kid Laroi is not an artful lyricist (“Those memories we made / Are burning in my brain / And I’m stuck in yesterday,” he croons on the very next track) but The First Time often succeeds because artfulness is less a goal than massive blunt force trauma. Like many 20-year-olds, he’s angry and needy: on Where Do You Sleep? he asks a partner, plainly: “Where are you at? Who do you sleep with?” A single word switch – “where” in the song’s title to “who” in its verse – pulls the song from the realm of the moody and introspective into delightfully over-the-top paranoia.
The First Time is riven with spoken word interludes from friends and family (including Bieber) telling stories about their lives and loves which try too hard to conjure subtlety around an artist whose key strength is his lack thereof. Ditto songs such as Nights Like This and You, which deviate so far from the Kid Laroi’s established emotional palette of toxic romance and violent sensitivity that they feel totally disingenuous. It’s clear his taste is more wide-ranging than most populist stars but his attempts to flex that taste end up feeling – counterintuitively – anonymous.
Call Me Instead, a collaboration with the jazz pianist Robert Glasper (a favoured collaborator of artistically high-minded rappers including Kendrick Lamar and Mac Miller), ends up feeling like a bad Frank Ocean rip-off. On What’s the Move?, the Kid Laroi drafts in the Atlanta rapper Baby Drill who delivers a verse that feels disappointingly neutered when compared with his solo output.
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These moments distract from the thrilling harshness that the Kid Laroi is so clearly attempting to conjure and which he so often successfully does. Between two verses on Where Does Your Spirit Go? he audibly clears his throat, a neat faux-verite moment that emphasises the intense, often hard-to-hear cadence with which he sings.
There’s not nearly enough of that bullish intensity on The First Time, and far too many songs like Too Much, an A&R-by-numbers team-up with the BTS member Jung Kook and the behemoth UK drill rapper Central Cee. A few songs later, on the zippy, immaculately titled What Went Wrong???, he more cleanly bridges heartbreak with pop aptitude, rattling off a laundry list of relationship gripes over a fizzing drill beat. It feels like the kind of song that could provide a blueprint for future Kid Laroi records that are less patchy. But I hope he keeps shrieking into the pop void.
The First Time is out now (Columbia Records) | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/16/skipping-breakfast-brain-food-study | Science | 2012-10-16T18:30:00.000Z | Alok Jha | Skipping breakfast primes brain to seek high-calorie food, study finds | We are all told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day – and now neuroscientists are starting to understand why. Skipping the first meal of the day not only means you eat more at lunch, research has found, but also means your brain is primed to seek out unhealthier, higher-calorie foods.
Dieters who skip meals often end up gaining weight over the long term, but why this happens is not well understood. Tony Goldstone, of the MRC Clinical Science Centre at Imperial College London, scanned the brains of people who skipped meals and found mechanisms at work that could help explain the conundrum.
Prolonged fasting of any kind seemed to prime certain brain regions to gravitate towards higher-calorie foods when the person did eventually find a meal. "That makes evolutionary sense if you're in a negative energy-balance situation," he said. "You're not going to waste your time going for lettuce." He will present the results of his study on Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in New Orleans.
In the experiment, Goldstone scanned the brains of 21 men and women, all around the age of 25, on two separate days while they were shown pictures of food and asked to rate how appealing they found everything from chocolate and pizzas to vegetables and fish. On one of the days, the volunteers skipped breakfast before their scans; on the other, they were given a 750-calorie breakfast of cereals, bread and jam an hour beforehand. After the scans on both days, the volunteers were given lunch, where they could eat as much as they liked.
"Not surprisingly, when they are fasted they are hungry and they rate the high-calorie foods as more appealing than when they are fed," said Goldstone. "For low-calorie foods, the effect is not as marked. When they come out of the scanner, they are given lunch and they eat more when they haven't had breakfast."
When the volunteers had skipped breakfast, they ate around 20% more at lunch, compared with days when they had eaten a normal breakfast. Their brain scans also showed that activity in the orbitofrontal cortex, which is just above the eyes, was especially responsive to high-calorie foods. "We believe that bit encodes the value of rewards – how rewarding, how pleasant, how tasty something is. Not just food but other rewards seem to be signalled there in the brain," said Goldstone.
The more you like the food you're eating, the more active the orbitofrontal cortex becomes, and when people are asked to suppress their desire for tasty foods, its activity drops.
The changing activity in this brain region could also explain why different methods of weight-control surgery work to differing degrees.
Gastric bypass surgery, for example, involves sealing off parts of a person's gut so that they end up with a smaller stomach, and this produces an average of 20-25% weight loss. In gastric band surgery, doctors tie a band around the gut, which they gradually inflate over the course of a few weeks. This provides, on average, a 15-20% weight loss. "People describe to us that, after gastric bypass, they really don't crave high-calorie foods at all," said Goldstone. "The banding people say: 'I'm not hungry but I do still like those [high-calorie] foods.'"
His research team carried out brain-scanning studies on people who had undergone gastric surgery and found that the orbitofrontal cortex activity was less in the people who had had bypass surgery, compared with the banding. "One of the reasons we think people do better after bypass is that you alter the craving for high-calorie foods, which is mediated by the orbitofrontal cortex," said Goldstone. "We think that is possibly mediated by hormone changes and possibly also they get a little bit ill when they eat the high-calorie foods and they learn that they feel sick and so they avoid those foods." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/sep/12/piers-morgans-weak-line-of-questioning-allowed-rubiales-to-appear-reasonable | Football | 2023-09-12T22:23:57.000Z | Suzanne Wrack | Piers Morgan’s weak line of questioning allowed Rubiales to appear reasonable | Suzanne Wrack | Piers Morgan attempts to give the impression of grilling the disgraced president of the Spanish football federation Luis Rubiales, except he’s not, not really. It is performative, it is all performative. The broadcaster’s continued pushing towards the end of his one-hour Piers Morgan Uncensored interview for a reason as to why the resigning president says it was inappropriate for him to kiss Jenni Hermoso, following Spain’s win at the Women’s World Cup, but will not apologise to the player for his actions is all part of the show, an attempt to give the illusion of good journalism.
Except we know Morgan, we know where he stands on what he perceives as wokeism, we know where he stands on women. He described “cancel culture” as “the new fascism” after his Good Morning Britain exit, has continued to axe-grind against Meghan Markle and called those taking part in the Women’s March on Washington after the inauguration of Donald Trump “rabid feminists” – to name a few examples.
The rise and fall of Luis Rubiales: from Spanish football president to pariah
Read more
Rubiales did not give Morgan a worldwide exclusive interview because he wanted to clear his name by being put under the microscope by the fiercest of critics; he did so because Morgan would allow him the space to say what he wanted. You can see it in the setup alone, it’s stripped back, no furniture, it screams there is nowhere to hide, literally. All that is there is an obscured view of London and two men sitting opposite each other talking. And Morgan is a sympathetic party, his criticism is balanced with a sickening gentleness.
“I can see the impact this has had on you, it’s a difficult thing to be accused of what you’ve been accused of,” he says at one point. At another, despite saying previously that Rubiales can’t play the victim, he gives him the chance to do just that, asking about the impact on his daughters and the mother who locked herself in a church and went on hunger strike in protest at the perceived witch hunt against her son.
“I bought her the ice-cream that she loves, spent a bit of time with her, I was very worried for her,” says Rubiales. Hermoso stays silent, likely struggling to navigate the intensity of numerous investigations and huge public interest, and likely fearful of a man and federation that seemingly wants to litigiously pursue her to establish his case. Meanwhile Rubiales, perpetrator of the kiss, crotch grab in front of the Spanish royal family and overly familiar approach with other players that the world saw live, is given a platform to attempt to twist the narrative around what we all saw.
Except he won’t speak to the details, he can’t legally, so instead he is able to speak broadly, to not launch a defence, but instead try to demonstrate his good character.
The Talk TV interview is “an opportunity”, he says. “There’s a lot of opinion, a lot of people, a million people follow you. And I think that a lot of people, millions of people, have an opinion about me, about what happened. For me, like I tell you, it’s an opportunity to tell the world what really happened. To get that through to the rest of the people.”
Luis Rubiales came out in defence of his actions after Spain’s Women’s World Cup win on Piers Morgan Uncensored. Photograph: Talk TV
Except “what really happened” is what we all saw live on TV and that was Rubiales assaulting a player in her workplace. All the interview with Morgan shows is that he still cannot grasp that. “My intentions were noble, enthusiastic, 100% non-sexual, 100%, I repeat, 100%,” he says. “It was a mutual act, she came towards me, very happy. We were both emotional,” he says at another point.
Except these are all irrelevant straw-man arguments. It doesn’t matter whether there was sexual desire there or not, it doesn’t matter, ultimately, whether it was consensual or not, it shouldn’t have happened.
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What Morgan does in his weak line of questioning is reduce the decision of Rubiales’s resignation to the one incident. There are no questions about the letter signed by 15 players last year expressing their frustrations at the impact of their environment around the national team on their health.
There are no questions about the players that announced they would not play for Spain at the World Cup. There was no connecting of these issues to what took place after the final or asking whether his actions were symptomatic of the environment the players for the Spanish women’s national team have repeatedly complained about for close to a decade.
These omissions allow the kiss and his admittance that it was wrong to be viewed by the public in isolation. Remove the context of the players’ complaints, of the macho culture of Spanish football and Spanish society – that is prevalent and embedded in capitalist society worldwide – from the discussion and you reduce the understanding why the reaction has been so, rightly, strong and, appalling, allowing Rubiales to appear reasonable. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2020/may/12/gilbert-and-george-our-new-normal-coronavirus-instagram-diary | Art and design | 2020-05-12T15:36:35.000Z | Jonathan Jones | Lockdown with Gilbert and George: they've lost the world, but the walk goes on | Aged 76 and 78 respectively, the renowned artist couple Gilbert and George are of the age supposedly most in need of isolating against the coronavirus. Yet exploring the streets of London has been their life since they met as students in 1967 – taking photographs, picking up unusual objects, observing the people around them. There is no second home for them abroad or in the country – their only residence is the house on Fournier Street in east London where they have lived since the 1960s.
So that is where they are holed up. And this week, they are releasing a series of glimpses into their lockdown life, as they unveil their video diary on White Cube’s Instagram account.
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In the first entry on Sunday, they revealed what they call in a handwritten title Our New Normal Walk. Wearing their trademark suits, they walk with deliberation around a line of tables in their home studio. First they do a circuit in single file, then they walk past each other from opposite sides of the tables.
In the foreground is an elegant varnished circular wooden table, laid with antique ceramics, twigs and plants. There’s also a photograph of a young friend or relative on it. This picture surely symbolises everyone they feel cut off from. Gilbert and George are nothing if not social artists. Their art works are visceral documents of a changing Britain, from confrontational 1970s scenes of skinhead street life to a recent series that used empty nitrous oxide canisters collected on their urban walks.
They’ve lost the world, but the walk goes on. Gilbert and George find spiritual solace and aesthetic order in the simple ritual of promenading together. For them, London is the only place worth walking in. As students, they used to hike for miles right through the city until they reached the countryside. Now they are isolated in their own house, walking around a table laden with personally significant objects.
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In Monday’s video diary, they reveal Our New Normal Relaxing. Now there is just one long work table. Gilbert lies on one side of it doing exercises in his suit. George sits on the other side in a rocking chair, equally suited, reading a book. George is an avid reader who has worked his way through most of classic 19th-century British fiction. So his coronavirus reading is probably quite meaty although I can’t make out the volume’s title. It is as if they are enacting the duality of mind and body. While Gilbert exercises his limbs, George prefers a mental workout.
It turns out the funny, sad art of Gilbert and George is perfectly suited to capturing the “new normal”. Formal and disciplined, yet always on the verge of surreal slapstick, their routines resemble a fraught attempt to maintain civilised codes in a chaotic world. Right now that’s what we are all trying to do. Confined to their quarters, Gilbert and George appear to be acting out set routines to stop themselves going mad. Is the spectacle quietly heroic or is it a black farce by Samuel Beckett? That probably depends not only on how their series pans out – will their routines suddenly collapse into a New Abnormal? – but how the history we are experiencing unfolds.
“Ours is essentially a tragic age,” wrote DH Lawrence in Lady Chatterley’s Lover, “so we refuse to take it tragically.” Gilbert and George in their diary of the New Normal act out that defiance. They refuse to pity themselves and don’t even consider giving up. Their stoic adaptation of their habits is quietly moving. Can’t walk through London? They will walk at home. Can’t go out? They can still exercise body and mind. These patriotic artists present their own cheerful manifesto for the coronavirus spirit, the new East End proving as courageous as the old one was in the 1940s. And yet there is a tension to this endurance, an undercutting hint of the absurd. We’re fine, their studied normality insists. Absolutely FINE.
With its brittle poise, their diary is a perfect example of what makes Gilbert and George great artists of our times. They immaculately press on the nerves of this age of polite dread. And they offer the best advice they can in a scrawled final message – “Gilbert and George say: Don’t get it!”
Gilbert and George’s online diary is available at White Cube’s Instagram. Posters are available at The Online Art Show. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/feb/11/hollywoodending | Opinion | 2008-02-11T20:00:02.000Z | Jeremy Pikser | Hollywood ending | The writers strike is over.
Well, not officially. Tomorrow evening Writers Guild members on both coasts of the US will vote on whether or not to go back to work. Nobody much doubts that the vote will be yes. Then, a mail ballot conducted over the next ten days will be held to ratify the new contract. Again, nobody much doubts the vote will be yes on that, too.
How did it happen? What does it mean? Why should anyone care?
First of all, I think it has to be seen as a major victory for the writers. All the more so because since the disastrous failure of the last strike in 1988, the union has repeatedly agreed to weak, bad deals for writers as each new contract was negotiated. To actually win, in a fairly decisive way, substantially reverses a two-decades-old trend in entertainment industry labor relations. Terry George, a leading member of the writers' negotiating committee, goes further. He sees it as a historic reversal of the fortunes of the entire labour movement, which has been almost unremittingly battered since the days of Reagan-Thatcher. While I might be a bit less impressed than he is (after all, screenwriters aren't miners, or even air traffic controllers), I don't think it's entirely insane to put this victory in that context. We didn't just take on the Hollywood studios, like Warner Brothers and Universal, goliaths in their own right. We took on the massive conglomerates who now own them, Time Warner and GE. And we won.
(Full disclosure: I'm not only a writer and a guild member, I am currently serving as a member of the Writers Guild East Council, so, shit no, I'm not impartial. But I'm speaking as an individual, not a representative of the Guild or its official positions.)
After failing to break us with bullying, threats of drastic rollbacks, ultimatums, phony peace offerings and false rumors of concessions circulated in the press, the producers association refused to negotiate with the writers and turned to the historically compliant Directors Guild. This, they thought, would get what they hoped would be a better deal than they'd ever be able to get with the writers, and then use the leverage of that deal to get the writers to take one like it.
But the solidarity of our strike, and the support it had, gave the directors not only leverage to get a better deal than they would have been able to get otherwise, it forced them to ask for more than they likely would have asked for, knowing that the writers (and the actors who have been in strong support of the writers and whose own contract is up soon) wouldn't take a typical DGA sweetheart deal as they had in the past. So the DGA made a good deal.
Immediately, the industry press, the mainstream media, and voices of "reason" inside and outside the guild insisted that the writers take the DGA deal. But the writers' leadership said not so fast, and were again attacked in the press, as they had been since before the strike as erratic, demagogic, strike happy, and, most bitterly damning of all, outsiders unable to use the close personal relationships that make Hollywood deal-making tick.
Well, what happened next belied that entire mendacious storyline. The producers' lawyers, not the "mad dog" union leaders, left the scene, and, behold, a deal was struck. After months of refusing to talk, several studio heads, engaged in direct, informal conversations with the same union leaders we had been told didn't know how to talk to them. And within a couple of weeks, with the pressure of the Oscars (which is a huge advertising bonanza for the studios) and the last chance to mount a television season this year looming, they had a deal. A deal significantly better for writers than the DGA deal.
How good is the deal, really? Did we really win? My answer to the first question is, in terms of dollars and cents, I don't exactly know. I'm not a lawyer or an accountant. Others know better, but I don't think anyone really knows. But my answer to the second is still, unequivocally, yes.
The amount of money, at least in the first two years of the contract, that TV writers will get when their work is streamed on the internet is small, miniscule when compared to what they get when a show is repeated on TV. The paltry DVD rate was unchanged. Guild jurisdiction was not extended to animation or "reality" shows, where miserable conditions and lack of benefits increasingly apply.
But writers will, before the contract is over, be getting a percentage of revenues for prime time shows streamed on the internet. Also compensation for movies streamed or downloaded has been established. And after the first 100,000 downloads at rates more than double the current DVD rate. Perhaps most importantly, in most situations, new material for the internet will now be covered by Writers Guild jurisdiction. The spectre of completely non-union films and television shows being created on the internet, then migrating to broadcast, cinemas and DVDs, has been killed.
They didn't want us to have any of that. They didn't plan on giving us any participation in internet revenues or jurisdiction in internet production. They had visions of using the internet to drive the last nail in the coffin of union work in the industry. And they thought they could get away with it because they are so powerful, because the writers would be faced with a public that thought them overpaid to begin with and greedy to demand more, and because in the face of that the writers, who by nature tend to be retiring and solitary, are seldom if ever strong on unity and group resolve.
But 20 years of media consolidation, corporate greed and criminality, exponentially accelerated in the last eight years, changed the terrain. And the writers resourcefully used their talents over the very internet in contention to break the the usual anti-union stranglehold of the mainstream media. And resourceful use of the writer's talents used the very internet in contention to break the usual anti-union stranglehold of the mainstream media. The public overwhelmingly supported the writers, and, as was repeated by long time members at the guild meeting on Saturday attested, the Writers Guild has never shown the unity, militancy and resolve it has shown in this strike. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/dec/28/music-writers-favourite-musical-moments-of-2015 | Music | 2015-12-28T09:00:25.000Z | Alexis Petridis | When music makes sense of life – our writers' favourite musical moments of 2015 | Blasting years of memories off music made stale by familiarity
For years, I hadn’t given much thought to My Bloody Valentine’s To Here Knows When, because I gave it rather too much thought when it was first released. In fact, I heard it before that: in my late teens, My Bloody Valentine were my favourite band; I knew John Peel was going to play their forthcoming Tremelo EP one night and stayed in specifically to listen. That evening, I’m faintly terrified to note, is a matter of weeks away from being 25 years ago, and for the first part of that quarter of a century, I listened to To Here Knows When so often that it became dulled by ubiquity. I played it over and over, heard it live umpteen times, listened to it in a variety of circumstances and indeed altered states. I suppose, on one level, I was trying to get to the bottom of it, to work out what was going on in the song, how and why Kevin Shields had made it sound the way it does: on another level, I just really, really liked it. I never really came up with any answers to the questions I had about the track, but I did succeed in making myself … not sick of it, but immune to it: after a while, whenever I heard it, I zoned out, in the same way you do when an overplayed hit comes on the radio for the umpteenth time.
I only dug it out because I was writing a feature about high-end audiophiles, the kind of men – they’re always men – who think nothing of spending £40,000 on a pair of speakers, or rewiring their house so that their hi-fi isn’t contaminated by “dirty electricity”. It was a journey into a strange and deeply arcane world, but the people I found in it were funny and charming and self-deprecating: they knew what they were doing was a bit nuts, that their hobby was out of control.
One of them asked me if I wanted to bring something to listen to on his system, which was worth six figures and crammed into the front room of a nondescript terraced house. For one thing, I thought that it would be funny to play something on it that, on release, frequently got returned to the shop because the production was so weird and people thought there was something wrong with the actual vinyl. For another, the music that audiophiles like tends to sound very precise, because precise music shows off their systems – Steely Dan; impeccably played jazz-fusion; Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories, an album they apparently love because of its dynamic range. To Here Knows When is the furthest thing away from that I can think of – the vaguest-sounding piece of music I know.
If I was expecting the audiophile to be taken aback when it came roaring out of his speakers, I was mistaken. He just sat there listening. I, on the other hand, really was taken aback. It sounded astonishing, weirdly tangible, like the music was happening in a space just in front of me, like it was in 3D. You could walk around it, you could reach out and touch it. I was genuinely overwhelmed, but not, I realised, by nostalgia. In fact, it was the opposite of nostalgia. To Here Knows When sounded incredibly alive and fresh, as if years of accumulated memories, associations and familiarity had been blasted off it.
I’ve spent years claiming that music never sounds better than it does played on a minicab’s crappy radio when you’re drunk at 3am, but trust me, when you hear music played through equipment worth hundreds of thousands of pounds, you really know about it. Just for a moment, all the bizarre behavior that audiophiles indulged in – and in the preceding weeks, I’d come across people who believed that if you rubbed a mysterious secret-formula cream that cost £250 into the magnetic strips of your credit cards, it improved the sound quality of your amplifier – seemed weirdly reasonable. I could envisage a future when I spent a lot of money in the pursuit of making my record collection sound as good as this. Then the track ended, the spell was broken – I could envisage a future where I spent a lot of money in the pursuit of making my record collection sound as good as this and my wife divorced me – and I went home. I’d had a glimpse into a world of madness. It sounded pretty good in there. Alexis Petridis
Waking up to the potential of your teenager
Just as everyone who has been a teenager knows how gruseome it can be, so everyone who is parent to a teenager knows there are times when you want the ground to swallow you whole, and times when you want to ground to swallow them whole. How you simultaneously want to yell at them to grow up and tell them that it’s all OK, that they’ll always be your perfect little one. And our year of parenting had plenty of all of that. At the point where my wife and I were both at our most exhausted and ground down by the experience we found ourselves at Latitude, being studiously ignored by the teenager in question.
On the Sunday lunchtime, my wife made plain to me that we weren’t going to be watching A Winged Victory for the Sullen, because she wanted to see her adored Gareth Malone and his choir of festivalgoers. I was daydreaming in the sun in front of the main stage, not really paying much attention, when Malone announced that a 15-year-old called Louisa – who had auditioned two days before – was going to sing lead on a performance of Avicii’s Wake Me Up, the song he recorded for Children in Need.
Louisa began to sing, in a slightly frail but clear and true voice, and somehow this sentimental and trite song overwhelmed me. I thought of the amazing things that 15-year-olds can do and be: this girl was on stage in front of thousands of people, looking – in her facepaint, vest and cut-offs – like she had just wandered on stage from one of the food stalls, and the words to the song suddenly all made perfect sense. “So wake me up when it’s all over / When I’m wiser and I’m older / All this time I was finding myself / And I didn’t know I was lost,” she sang, and I thought of my own daughter and how much she can achieve, how brilliant she can be, and how trying our summer had been. And suddenly I was lying in the grass weeping uncontrollably, tears flooding down my face, my shoulders heaving, hoping no one would notice.
Later on, we saw Louisa meeting her family at the pop-up restaurant at the festival, obviously for a celebratory lunch. She bounded over to them, hugging them long and hard, them beaming at her with unfeigned delight and admiration. Teenagers can be so brilliant; it can be hard to remember that sometimes, but it’s true. Michael Hann
Eight years old, and ready to rock
E was almost nine and wanted to go to her first gig. We missed Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey wasn’t touring, so we opted for Green Man, the multi-buy option. Even factoring in the likelihood that her younger sister would spend half the weekend at the bubble stall, E was bound to catch somebody. Technically the first band she saw was Hot Chip, but they came on at 11 and within a few songs we basically had to cattle-prod her into staying awake. I don’t think it counts as your official first gig if you’re half-asleep and you only know one song. The person she was really looking forward to was Courtney Barnett on Sunday evening. We arrived just in time and stood outside the tent, E climbing on to a recycling bin so that she could see the stage. “If I can see her that means she can see me!” she whooped. I conceded that was possible.
I spent half the show watching Barnett, and the other half watching E’s reactions. When she got really animated she threw her arms out and flashed two peace signs, like that famous photo of Nixon, although that probably wasn’t the idea. She was particularly excited about Avant Gardener (“because I have asthma too”) and Nobody Cares If You Don’t Go to the Party. She could hardly believe that the songs she’d played so many times at home were being performed right there, in a field in Wales, by Courtney Barnett herself. When you’ve been to hundreds of gigs you forget how miraculous that can seem – the feeling that you are in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment. Watching E exposed to the lights, the noise and the crowd for the first time, the whole idea of seeing live music felt fresh and intense, an outrageous privilege. Inspiring, too. As we left, E said, “Do you think I’ll be able to play guitar like that one day?” You spend the first few years of parenthood bending down, adapting to the strange world of small children, and eventually there’s a moment when you realise that you’re hanging out as friends, enjoying the same thing, and the newness of it is overwhelming. Yes, I said. One day. Dorian Lynskey
Memes aren’t just for phones, they’re for clubs
The internet ruined music. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. At 27, I’m slightly too young to know what the industry would have been like in any professional capacity during the 80s and 90s, flush with cash from people willing to spend £14 on one CD. But I’m definitely old enough to know that as online piracy dismantles one creative sector after the next, it’s pretty easy to lament the state of music in the digital age.
So thank goodness for memes (a sentence I never thought I’d type). Sometimes, a perfectly edited Vine video not only provides some quick-fire comic relief but leaps from the screen into an “IRL” interaction. I know that that sounds ridiculous – “kids these days, so desperate and lonely that they use internet jokes to connect with one another” – but I couldn’t deny how much joy the inventive Why You Always Lying meme gave me when I heard its song blared out of club speakers rather than fed into my headphones.
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I was at one of the fifth-birthday parties thrown for Red Bull Studios, trying not to let confetti fly into my mouth and waiting for the rapper Little Simz to play what turned out to be a laughably short 15-minute set. For the first time, I heard it offline: university student Nicholas Fraser’s silly parody of Next’s 1997 single Too Close. Fraser turned a song about bumping and grinding into a knowing smirk, a sassy response to send to someone who you knew was spouting nonsense. Hearing its “mmmohmygod” refrain pumped out in a club, and singing along with that roomful of strangers, I just laughed. And I can’t say most nights out I attend in London revolve around people giggling and imitating an internet-famous comedian’s facial expressions.
Yes, the internet seems to atomise us – not to mention shelter anonymous cowards as they troll and abuse complete strangers. But it’s also a place that’s democratising comedy and music, affording people like Fraser the chance to “go viral” for being imaginative and hilarious. The internet ruined music? Why you always lying? Tshepo Mokoena
Life began again, on a midsummer Sunday in Cornwall
There was a Sunday in midsummer when life seemed to begin again for me. It was a day of blazing heat and hangover, its heaviness weighted by the prospect of a long drive home. Yet down there in the depths of it, I felt a flicker of something fierce and bright and wonderful that I had not felt for a long time.
The last few years have been marked for me by a profound sense of loss – of love and hope and self-belief, of any faith in the sweetness of life. My reaction was to harden myself, to believe that I could make myself impermeable; I would be a cold and clear, unmoving thing, I thought. I would be tough and brave and impassable. I tried very hard not to feel anything at all.
But that weekend I was at the Port Eliot festival in Cornwall, and somehow it had found its way beneath my ribs – all that river mud and gin, all those walled gardens and wide oaks. I had danced until my toes blistered, laughed so hard my sides ached. I had felt the prickle of grass against my bare legs, the early morning air about my face. I had seen, one night, a moon rise round and ripe above the river and felt a kind of unexpected fullness, as if I had eaten it whole.
Then that Sunday afternoon I sat in the cool shade of a marquee and listened to the cellist Oliver Coates play the song Love. This is a track from Mica Levi’s score for the Jonathan Glazer film Under the Skin, an adaptation of Michael Faber’s novel about an extraterrestrial being sent to earth, where she takes on human form and gradually begins to experience human emotions.
I had interviewed Levi earlier in the year and we had talked, then, about how she had struggled with the score at first and of how Glazer had told her to remember it was about a character who is experiencing things for the first time. “The only way I could relate to it after all these discussions was when she’s really rebellious,” Levi said, “when she compromises her species for these human feelings she starts to have.”
I had loved this track on record, but to hear it live that day was a startling thing. Coates is an astonishing musician, a quiet marriage of precision and magic; the song itself is wordless, but somehow louder for it, looped and layered and filled with the urgency of a first moment and a last moment, a sourness and a wonder.
I sat on the front row and listened as the cello seemed to press against my skin, and then to rise up inside my veins as a rush of emotion, a sudden rebellion of my senses, until I did not know quite what to do with all this sound and taste and sight and scent, this visceral, overwhelming feeling of being un-numbed. I could only sit quite still and hold my breath and wish that it would play forever.
The weeks have passed, the days and months, but still it has not faded; I listen to it now and I hear it always: the sound of what it means to live again, what it means to fall in love with the world once more. Laura Barton
Twelve festivals. Overpriced cider. Exhaustion. Bliss
Pogoing to Jon Hopkins’s laser-blazing set at Primavera. Swooning over Father John Misty’s bow-legged lothario act in Green Man’s mountain clearing. Squeezing between angry people with annoyingly large rucksacks so we could glimpse Kanye West’s posh lightbox at Glastonbury. Stifling giggles when Sufjan Stevens headlined End of the Road because the entire festival was so hushed you could have heard someone switch their torch on. Yelling “I can’t do without you” at each other as Caribou closed Field Day.
Saying that my best musical moments of the year have been at festivals with friends is rather like announcing that chips taste better with mushy peas (shut up, they do), or that the world turns, or that Dapper Laughs is a bit of a knob. Everyone has fun in a field with their mates. It’s what the summer musical ecosystem is built on, not much of a revelation. Except that for me, it sort of was.
Seasons in the sun … festivalgoers at Primavera this summer. Photograph: Miguel Pereira / Alamy/Alamy
It’s not that I’ve never had friends (hey guys) or never enjoyed a festival before (Reading 2001 4eva), it’s more that as I hurtle breathlessly into my 30s, tailed by the fear that I’ll never settle down, many of the chums from my teens and 20s have become husbands and wives, have moved far away. They’ve become the people lost to Facebook, whom you forget to message when it’s their birthday. The ones who ask you what you’ve been up to and all you can reply is, “you know, the same”.
I really thought I’d be single and adrift in London forever, but I found a gaggle who still love music more than a decent meal. They share my logic that driving across the country to see a great band or DJ beats a night in with bottle of cheap wine and swiping through dating apps. We’ve road-tripped at ridiculous times because we couldn’t bear to miss a performance that could be life-affirmingly great. We share packs of fags, waterproofs, secrets. I would gladly give my last wet wipe to them.
And it’s true that, 12 festivals later, I probably have been out of it on overpriced cider for most of 2015 and am suffering from exhaustion. But I’ve had those friends with me to gather me up, bundle me into the back of a car, and take me home. Kate Hutchinson
Catching up with the Mekons
I was too young to hear the Mekons when they spluttered into life in the Leeds DIY scene amid the punk fires of 1977. Some time later, I was walking through the city centre on my way home from school when I spotted someone putting up their posters and asked if I could have one. Thus, for the next two years, I had a poster on my wall featuring a band I’d never heard. I’d stare at it now and then: a huge thing bearing a monkey’s face and the title of their debut album, The Quality of Mercy Is Not Strnen (a mangled quote from The Merchant of Venice, based on the infinite monkey theorem, which suggests a monkey given a typewriter will eventually come up with the complete works of Shakespeare). Eventually I borrowed their first two singles, Never Been in a Riot and Where Were You? I wasn’t as taken by the album, but Lonely and Wet – a minor-chord rage of a song about the aftermath of being dumped – hit my teenage self between the eyes.
I’d forgotten about it until late this year, when it cropped up during a screening of the film Mekons Leeds. The performance on the film captured the folkier, jokier, older Mekons performing in 2007, not the punk upstarts, but as he poured out lines such as “I’m just not happy any more,” singer Tom Greenhalgh’s face transformed from cheeriness to anguish. I felt it, too, and for a few, bizarrely intense minutes, was similarly possessed by my younger self, bound up in teenage isolation and confused rage over my father’s death, as well as youthful romantic abandonment, walking home alone in the rain with this song’s fury as a comfort blanket. Hearing it again brought the realisation that every emotion we have ever felt remains deep within us, somewhere, and can even be reaccessed through music. I’d loved to have told my younger self, “Don’t worry, kid. You won’t always feel like this. But many years from now, Lonely and Wet will still be a fantastic song.” Dave Simpson
Devouring Orange Juice in Cambodia
I was sitting on a wobbly stool at a tiny bamboo-roofed bar, on a remote white-sand beach off the south coast of Cambodia, when it hit me. I had been on a canoe trip earlier – moderately terrifying – and, feeling triumphant, when I was also quite drunk and about to eat a massive pizza, life reached its apex. I wouldn’t call it a spiritual epiphany, exactly, but there was definitely something heavenly about hearing my favourite song within such an unlikely context. The deliciously arch, ecstatically squelchy, undeniably British-sounding Rip It Up by Orange Juice; a song that sparked three minutes and thirty-nine seconds of unadulterated joy.
Aged 11, I created a name for that fleeting feeling of euphoria. I called it, for reasons only the 11-year-old Harriet understands, “JEDD”. As I reluctantly evolved into a grownup, JEDD visited less and less. That is not a result of a sad life. I am fortunate enough to be part of the minute percentage of the global population who has love, money, a TV that you can pause and the option of a gluten-free pizza base. But adulthood breeds inevitable anxieties, and the enigmatic JEDD arrives only when I am 100% at ease. These days the purity of the moment is always compromised by the cumulative wisdom of age.
However, having moved on from a gaudy coastal strip throbbing with the sounds of Alice DJ, my partner and I fortunately relocated to a small, peaceful beach; inhabited by a kind cocktail-maker named Will, who had an extensive, wonderfully eclectic iTunes collection. Surrounded by strangers, a mix of the odd and sweet, the prospect of pizza and the sound of the most exquisite indiepop song ever written wiggling out of the tinny laptop speakers, JEDD arrived with such force I nearly toppled off my stool.
Rip It Up is a song that sounds like good times and kind people; it has been a friend to me in crap bars, it reminds me of my childhood, my dad. Now it offers memories of a blissful retreat in which two worlds collided; the grey clouds of art-school Glasgow floating over a strange and exotic island. For three minutes and thirty-nine seconds life was perfect, reunited with my old friend JEDD. Until I realised there was gluten in the pizza base, anyway. Harriet Gibsone
A cure-all for the soul – the piano
Earlier this year I travelled to Paris to interview Brian Christinzio, AKA BC Camplight. He recounted a life story littered with self-destructive disasters – drug addictions, flakiness, and most recently UK visa trouble – but pointed out, in an email afterwards, that at least he had always had someone to rely on.
“Not to sound corny, but the piano never let me down.” he wrote. “It’s always there. My 800lb girlfriend. She never changes or throws me for a loop.”
I could certainly relate. The previous summer I’d bought a piano, and this year I discovered that there were few things in life it couldn’t solve. Stressful days would evaporate, melancholy found a place to be productive, boredom was made extinct. Most importantly, devoting myself to the these black and white keys for the first time in over a decade gave me a new perspective on the music I loved most: months spent stretching my handspan to reach the top notes on Aphex Twin’s Avril 14th (a song I fear I may have introduced to, and then promptly ruined for, my wife) or master the orchestral fantasia that is Joni Mitchell’s Down to You.
I marvelled at how some artists could still find fresh melodies out of the most simple, well-trodden chord patterns (that 50s progression – C, Am, F, G – is still bringing the hits home), then marvelled further at the sheer sophistication of others. It’s hardly startling knowledge that Brian Wilson was light years ahead of his peers as a composer, but it’s only when you, quite literally, see it written down that it really hits home. Beatles songs seem no more than nursery rhymes compared with, say, the Beach Boys’ That’s Not Me, with its semitone keychange in the second chorus, so subtle you barely notice it (and there’s nothing more noticeable in pop than a key change).
On a plane from Los Angeles, I watched the Wilson biopic Love & Mercy and found my heart racing during the studio scenes, as exhilarating as any action thriller. It’s virtually impossible to make being in a studio seem exciting on film – you only need to watch Straight Outta Compton for evidence of that – but here it was electric. Director Bill Pohlad used real musicians instead of actors, and counterintuitively allowed the scenes to unfold at length: instead of just focusing on the “exciting” bits, he included the tuning up, the retakes and the mistakes that went into producing such a masterpiece.
In one scene Wilson sits at his piano at home, like I’ve done most nights this year, and shakily picks out the most beautiful chord progression in pop: the one for God Only Knows. It’s a progression unlike any other I’ve come across, the bass notes performing an elegant dance step while seemingly discordant or unusual combinations of notes – a Cº (diminished seventh) chord crops up on the line “The world could show nothing to me” – are repurposed within Wilson’s inventive musical contexts to sound utterly sublime. Being able to head home from the airport and pick out those same chords for myself felt like such a joy, such a privilege – as magical as any musical moment this year. Tim Jonze
Falling in and out of love with Sting
Sting … listening and liking. Photograph: Mogens Flindt/AP
There he was. Creeping looking like he might have been sleeping rough for a fortnight. Sting. Bloody Sting, jumping around at the Macy’s Day Parade at the end of last year in an attempt to save his musical The Last Ship, which had been tanking on Broadway. In a parade that is for all intents and purposes one long saccharine advert for NBC, there was Sting, miming his way through a number about shipbuilding while looking like a character from a Tom Waits song.
I’d always dismissed Sting as someone who got his top off too often and whose most famous song soundtracked a drinking game that had ruined many a night out before they had even started. But I began to look at him in a new light. I listened to Sting and the Police albums for the first time, and liked them. Then, while at the equally saccharine elongated pat on the back that was Global Citizen fest, he appeared again. On the side stage with Common. Playing bass live, and being good. Again. Bloody hell, I thought. I like Sting and I don’t care. Bollocks to being cool while you can sing walking on the moon in some kind of Geordie patois.
But the bubble was burst during a trip to Philadelphia. I’d gone down for the day with a friend who was visiting from the UK. He’d bagged a “bargain” piece of art from a thrift store and we went to see how much it would cost to get it to the UK. The amount was ridiculous, and while the clerk was calculating the cheapest possible option, which was still astronomical, So Lonely played in the background. About two minutes into the song as Sting wailed So Lonely about 30 times in a row and everyone stood around in shock at how much money my friend was going to have to pay, the clerk turned to his colleague and said: “Is this the only thing this guy sings?” With that, the spell was broken and I realised perhaps Sting wasn’t all I’d built him up to be. Lanre Bakare | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/nov/27/croatia-canada-reaction-john-herdman-world-cup | Football | 2022-11-27T22:15:59.000Z | Bryan Armen Graham | ‘We thank him for motivation’: Croatia aim dig at Herdman after Canada go out | Having beaten Canada 4-1 the Croatia coach, Zlatko Dalic, and the forward Andrej Kramaric made clear that they were unimpressed by John Herdman’s comments before the game and the fact he walked off without shaking the hand of his opposite number.
After Canada’s first game at the 2022 World Cup, an unfortunate 1-0 defeat against Belgium, an emotional Herdman said of his team in a TV interview: “I told them they belong here. And we’re going to go and ‘eff’ Croatia.”
Andrej Kramaric strikes twice as Croatia fight back in style to send Canada out
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Having scored two goals on Sunday to confirm Canada’s elimination at the group stage, Kramaric referenced Herdman’s now-infamous comment. “I’d like to thank the Canada manager for motivation. In the end, Croatia showed who ‘effed’ who.”
Dalic had repeatedly decried his counterpart’s lack of respect in the run-up to the match on Sunday. It also became a central talking point back in Zagreb, where the country’s 24 Sata tabloid ran a front-page photo of a naked Herdman with Canadian flags over his mouth and groin region and a headline that read: “You have the mouth, but do you have the [balls] as well?”
On Sunday night, after Kramaric’s double and strikes from Marko Livaja and Lovro Majer followed an early opener from Alphonso Davies, Dalic said: “I did not see the other head coach after the match. Whether I lose or win I always congratulate the winner.”
“He [Herdman] was not there and that’s his way of doing things,” Dalic added. “He’s obviously mad. He’s a good coach, he is a high-quality professional, but it will take some time for him to learn some things.”
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Already a national hero after guiding Canada’s women’s national team to back-to-back bronze medals at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, Herdman has elevated his profile even further by lifting the men’s side back into the World Cup for the first time since 1986.
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But the 47-year-old manager from Consett in County Durham admitted on Sunday that he may have spoken recklessly. “I could have been a little bit more composed coming out of the huddle, but that’s my learning,” Herdman said.
“I’ll take that on the chin. But from a mindset point of view, I think we showed in that first 25 minutes, that little old Canada can compete with the best in the world.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/jul/26/man-booker-prize-2016-who-will-make-the-longlist | Books | 2016-07-26T08:00:08.000Z | Justine Jordan | Man Booker prize 2016: who will make the longlist? | This Wednesday we’ll discover the Man Booker Dozen, those 12 or 13 books chosen for the longlist from novels published in English between 1 October 2015 and 30 September 2016. So who should we expect, or hope, to see on the list?
For me, last year’s winner, Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings, saw the Booker doing what it does best – bringing into the limelight a relatively little-known book that does something new in a way nobody else has. He became the first Jamaican writer to win, with a book of many voices that pummels conventional narrative into submission.
This year, the dates knock out two high-profile contenders – the new novels from Smiths Zadie and Ali won’t arrive until after the cutoff. All eyes will be on Ian McEwan, though, and his September novel Nutshell. When I heard it was narrated by an unborn child, I thought it might be written in some swirling stream-of-preconsciouness, but the opening line – “So here I am, upside down in a woman” – suggests otherwise.
Also sure to be noted for either absence or presence are Julian Barnes’s Shostakovich novel The Noise of Time, a portrait of art under dictatorship; Rose Tremain’s The Gustav Sonata, about personal and political neutrality; and Don DeLillo’s mordantly chilly Zero K, exploring the poetics of cryonics.
Don DeLillo, author of books such as Underworld, White Nose, Americana, and Mao II. Photograph: Getty Images
Other American possibles include acclaimed investigations of family dynamics from Elizabeth Strout, Ann Patchett, Mary Gaitskill and Adam Haslett, while Jonathan Safran Foer is back on form with September’s Here I Am, a darkly hilarious mile-a-minute novel about – again – family, as well as Jewishness and the Middle East conflict. Then there’s Garth Greenwell’s What Belongs to You, in which an American expat pursues a Bulgarian hustler: an exquisitely written investigation of desire and shame. Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, an ambitious debut novel about the Vietnam war and its aftermath, has already won the fiction Pulitzer; Paul Beatty’s race satire The Sellout also picked up awards in the US.
Literary experiment has been in the air for a while now: this year sees followups from Paul Kingsnorth, who channelled Old English for the Booker-longlisted The Wake, with his man-on-a-moor monologue Beast, and Eimear McBride, who applies the choppy Joycean prose of A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing to the world of London drama students in The Lesser Bohemians, published in September.
Deborah Levy made the shortlist in 2012 with Swimming Home; I found her follow-up Hot Milk, an uncomfortable mining of myth, motherhood and female self-definition, even better. AL Kennedy’s latest, the single-day London drama Serious Sweet, is her best book in years; All That Man Is by David Szalay is an impressive investigation of masculinity and – with excellent timing – Europe; and there are new novels this autumn from Donal Ryan and Peter Ho Davies that are already making waves. Karan Mahajan’s second novel The Association of Small Bombs, which traces the ripples of a terrorist attack in Delhi, has had an extraordinary reception in the US (though our reviewer wasn’t so impressed); Krys Lee’s How I Became a North Korean, out in August, is eagerly anticipated.
Chinelo Okparanta, author of debut novel Under the Udala Trees. Photograph: Bart Michiels
What about small presses and debuts? Could we see something from new indie press Cassava Republic, bringing African literature to the UK: Elnathan John’s portrait of religious extremism in Nigeria, Born on a Tuesday, perhaps? Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta, about the coming-of-age of a young gay woman, is another notable Nigerian debut, while Harry Parker’s Anatomy of a Soldier boldly assembles a semi-autobiographical story of conflict, injury and rehabilitation through the narrative voices of inanimate objects. I’ve heard great things about Barney Norris’s novel of interacting lives, Five Rivers Met on a Wooded Plain; and I’ve recently been puzzling over a weird, wonderful and totally indefinable debut by Martin MacInnes, Infinite Ground. If not the Booker, the Goldsmiths prize surely beckons.
Personal favourites? From last winter, I’d love to see Rupert Thomson’s existential thriller Katherine Carlyle on the list, or Kevin Barry’s Lennon extravaganza Beatlebone. Francis Spufford’s fiction debut Golden Hill, a cod 18th-century romp with a serious heart about a stranger coming to 1750s New York, must be the most fun I’ve had with a novel this year, and Rachel Cusk’s Transit, coming in September, is bitingly thought-provoking about childhood, change and the meaning of freedom.
Then there are the titles I would be surprised but delighted by: Australian Charlotte Wood’s furious feminist parable The Natural Way of Things, Ian McGuire’s gloriously nasty whaling yarn North Water, or China Miéville’s This Census-Taker, which is perhaps too left field to make the cut.
But the book for which I’ll be crossing my fingers most tightly has to be Sarah Perry’s The Essex Serpent. I’ve been pressing this compulsive novel of Victorian ideals and ideas, myth and reason, friendship and love, on colleagues and friends for months, and would love to see it on Wednesday’s longlist.
What about you?
This article was amended on 26 July. Mike McCormack was listed as a possible contender for his novel Solar Bones: however as it is published by independent Irish publisher Tramp Press, it will not be eligible to enter the Man Booker. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/feb/25/leap-year-film-review | Film | 2010-02-25T14:30:01.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Film review: Leap Year | Anand Tucker is the massively talented director whose credits include And When Did You Last See Your Father? and TV's Red Riding (now enjoying a sensational big-screen debut in the US). But even he can do nothing with this horrendous romcom script. Wide-eyed Amy Adams is Anna, the uptight Manhattan professional and closet romantic – and ah, to be sure, isn't it Oireland she's after coming to, to make a leap-year marriage proposal, and stranded there by events which would be more believable if the story was set in 1960, or maybe 1860. She is thrown together with a hunky local taxi driver played by, of all people, Matthew Goode – with a dodgy accent. Greater miscasting could only be achieved by getting Jeremy Irons to come on with a pointy hat, playing a leprechaun, while a straight-armed green-clad Edward Fox riverdances madly around him playing Charlie Haughey. Afterwards, the only "leap" I felt like making was off a motorway gantry into the fast lane of the M25. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/jan/12/wolf-like-me-review-so-bad-its-good-no-just-the-former | Television & radio | 2022-01-12T00:00:31.000Z | Giselle Au-Nhien Nguyen | Wolf Like Me review – so bad it’s good? No, just the former | Modern dating is a minefield at the best of times, let alone when you’re 40, living in a foreign country, widowed and the single father of an emotionally difficult 11-year-old. When we meet American expat Gary (Josh Gad), he’s being dumped in an Australian restaurant by a self-described empath who claims he’s not emotionally available enough. Soon after, Gary has a chance encounter with the beautiful Mary (Isla Fisher) when their cars collide, and is stunned when she manages to soothe his daughter Emma (Ariel Donoghue) during a panic attack – something he can’t do himself. Mary seems like a dream come true, but not all is as it seems.
The trailer for Wolf Like Me.
Directed by Abe Forsythe and produced by Jodi Matterson (Nine Perfect Strangers), Bruna Papandrea (Big Little Lies) and Steve Hutensky (The Dry), this schlocky six-part series is choppy and confused, unsure of its purpose. Mary’s true identity is flagged in the title of the show, which has all the subtlety of a Twilight film – except that Twilight could be considered “so bad it’s good”, and this is really just the former.
Mary is a kind of manic pixie dream wolf, playing the prospective stepmother of Emma’s dreams; she gives the girl a Carl Sagan novel, which Emma reads obsessively, and recommends a Queens of the Stone Age song, so Emma locks herself in a car to listen to it. The charm of Mary, for both Emma and her father, is the way in which she can cut through to some kind of emotional centre: through interacting with Mary, Emma is able to develop a new vocabulary that helps her in her therapy sessions. But does all this make Mary a good partner for Gary?
Here’s where Wolf Like Me does, perhaps, succeed a little: illustrating the addictive, push-pull nature of toxic relationships. Just as we think Gary is out for good, something pulls him back towards Mary; Mary’s constant running away act is frustrating but understandable, given her fear of intimacy and judgment. Both characters elicit some sympathy from the viewer, but neither is particularly likable. The relationship is unhealthy on both sides and borders on emotional abuse, manipulation and boundary-crossing. It’s hard to watch without thinking both characters would be better off without the other.
(L-R) Ariel Donoghue as Emma, Isla Fisher as Mary, Josh Gad as Gary. Photograph: Peacock/NBCU Photo Bank/Getty Images
One early scene shows Gary ordering a cab driver to follow Mary home so he can see for himself what she’s up to. “You shouldn’t be following women like this, it’s 2021,” the driver says. This might be the show’s only real moment of self-awareness. Its depiction of women and race leaves a lot to be desired: one particularly uncomfortable thread sees Gary go on a date with an Asian woman, who is only on the dating app to learn English.
My house was a film set: ‘They were filming sex scenes on our kitchen bench’
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Wolf Like Me gets more ridiculous across the six 30-minute episodes, with Mary and Gary’s relationship developing at warp speed as their lives become more intertwined. The climax, in which Mary’s secret is finally shown on-screen, is laughably bad – especially in terms of special effects and costuming – but there’s a sweet father-daughter moment there, in which Gary finally finds a way to communicate with Emma.
Still, the plot is nonsensical. It’s hard to tell what genre Wolf Like Me wants to be. Horror? Romcom? Drama? A mix of all three? Whatever it is, it falls flat.
Wolf Like Me premieres on 13 January on Stan (Australia) and Peacock (US). | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2011/dec/08/favourite-film-night-of-the-hunter | Film | 2011-12-08T15:31:47.000Z | Peter Kimpton | My favourite film: The Night of the Hunter | Motionless for 90 minutes, I could not even remove my coat. I sweated and shivered. I felt in shock. Was the film recreating scenes from my sleep? I had never seen, as far as I can recall, The Night of the Hunter. That is until a cold, wintry night in the 1990s when, working in Glasgow, I went to the city's GFT cinema to catch a new 35mm print of Charles Laughton's 1955 masterpiece. It was his only film as a director. Critics panned it on its release, consequently killing off the actor's career behind the camera, and perhaps robbing history of further works of greatness.
It was a film I'd heard of, but knew nothing about; I wanted to see it, but had no idea why. Then came that dizzying sense of already having dreamt it. So strong was this impression, I felt a bit like the character of architect Walter Craig in 1945's brilliant Dead of Night, wondering if he is trapped in a repeating chain of interlinked ghost stories. Unlike Craig, though, I didn't have repressed urges to strangle anyone. Tricks of the mind? Scarier than ghosts.
The Night of the Hunter, set in Depression-era West Virginia and based on a novel by Davis Grubb, is best known for Robert Mitchum's extraordinary performance as serial-killer-posing-as-priest Harry Powell, a menacing religious misogynist who marries widows for their money and kills them off in the name of the Lord. Having been jailed for stealing a car, he shares a cell with father-of-two Ben Harper, soon to be hanged for murder and the theft of $10,000. Before his arrest Harper hides the money in a rag doll belonging to his little daughter Pearl, making her and his 10-year-old son John swear never to tell where the money is hidden. The plot hinges on Powell's pursuit of the money and John's determination to protect his sister and escape from a psychopath whom others assume is virtuous. Hiding his past, Powell woos, then marries Harper's widow Willa (Shelley Winters). When she discovers his motives he murders her, and the children escape on a boat down the river. A tense chase ensues.
Charles Laughton directing Robert Mitchum and Peter Graves in The Night of the Hunter (1955). Photograph: BFI
At its heart, the film is a children's fairytale – strange and idiosyncratic – but also a noir thriller, laced with the darkest elements of both genres: death, guilt, greed, poverty, cruelty, biblical references and a terrifying pursuit by the scariest of bogeymen. Laughton described it as "a nightmarish sort of Mother Goose tale". John, played superbly by the steely eyed Billy Chapin, is pivotal as the boy who is alone in perceiving Powell's true motives. In a tale of innocence and experience, he must quickly grow up in the most sinister of circumstances; he must resist adult hypocrisy and stupidity, and a new "father" who pretends to be loving, but is secretly abusive.
Gripping in its narrative, the film is also frequently and darkly humorous. Pearl unwittingly repeats a hangman song cruelly sung about their father by other children, just because it's catchy. And I love the moment when she innocently plays with the wads of dollar notes from the doll, just out of Powell's sight, before John spots it and quickly stuffs the money back into its hiding place.
Laughton's film is also daring in its sexual references. There are frequent hints at Powell's paedophilia as he playfully bounces Pearl on his knee to coax out her secrets, and a horribly sugar-coated scene where he buys the lovestruck teenager Ruby some ice-cream. It's a foretaste of his role as Max Cady in 1962's Cape Fear, a performance not bettered by a less subtle Robert De Niro in Scorsese's 1991 version. Earlier in Hunter we also see a furious and sexually repressed Powell in a strip joint, quietly cursing the stage performer at the very moment his trusty, murderous flick knife uncurls and rips through his trouser pocket in a phallic manner.
Robert Mitchum in The Night of the Hunter (1955). Photograph: BFI
The scene in which Powell first meets Willa in the ice-cream parlour and explains the tattooed letters on his knuckles – the muscular battle between LOVE and HATE – is perhaps the film's best-known and influential, revisited with verve by Radio Raheem in Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, and in The Simpsons, where Sideshow Bob (mixing this with De Niro's Max Cady) is limited by his three cartoon fingers, and can only display LUV and HAT.
It's the film's uniquely dreamlike, otherworldly quality which cemented it as my choice for this series, and still mesmerises me. Cinematographer Stanley Cortez (The Magnificent Ambersons) conjures starkly lit, shadowy scenes, particularly when Powell coldly rebuffs Willa's advances on their honeymoon night, and when he later murders her. The film also glitters with sunlit, meadowy vistas that evoke a sense of childhood innocence against a backdrop of brutal 1930s poverty. These contrasting moods surreally come together when Willa's body – throat cut and sitting in the car at the bottom of the river – is glimpsed by local drunk Birdie Steptoe, her hair flowing alongside the reeds in dappled sunlight. It is equally horrific and beautiful.
Nothing quite compares to the moonlit river scene, where the children's escape is accompanied by Pearl's sudden, extraordinary song. As they drift along the swirling waters they are watched over by an assortment of animals – rabbits, birds, a toad – and the effect is bizarre, exquisite and utterly compelling. Walter Schumann's music adds a special dimension. Indeed, hymns and other songs are powerfully used throughout, especially when Mitchum's deep voice reverberates across the silhouetted landscape during his chilling, remorseless pursuit of the children. This scene is my all-time favourite: magical, transcendent – pearlescent, you might say. It also reminds me of Nick Drake's remarkable 1969 song River Man. I sometimes wonder if it was inspired by it.
Robert Mitchum and Billy Chapin in The Night of the Hunter (1955). Photograph: BFI
Laughton, best known for playing Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, should arguably have been more revered than Laurence Olivier if only he'd had the same good looks (their respective performances in Spartacus bear this out), but clearly his skill as an actor had a huge influence on his work as a director. Mitchum is certainly at his best in this film, and Robert Gitt's documentary Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter includes some illuminating rushes of Laughton's demonstrative rehearsals, particularly with the children. It is also fascinating to see silent movie star Lillian Gish in a rare speaking role as John and Pearl's tough but loving protector, Rachel Cooper.
Did I really dream the film before I saw it? The pragmatic answer is that I must have unwittingly caught a glimpse of The Night of the Hunter as a child in the 70s. We didn't have a colour telly until 1981 (for Charles and Diana's wedding, no less), so this black-and-white film, released most unfashionably during the new age of 50s Technicolor, perhaps hit a key part of my subconscious.
I know films can induce deja vu, but is it just an illusion or can we find a narrative familiar because it is so skilfully portrayed, so fundamental to our psyche, and so profoundly scares and comforts us? The Night of the Hunter still haunts me, and to this day I am not sure if I pursued it in the normal way, or if on some deeper, unknown level – like the forces of good and evil it evokes – it has been stalking me all along. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/jan/16/dailystar-channelfive | Media | 2014-01-16T10:18:00.000Z | Roy Greenslade | Daily Star's faux outrage in reporting Celebrity Big Brother's sexy antics | The current Celebrity Big Brother series may have slipped under your radar. But that cannot be the case for readers of the Daily Star.
Monday's Star splash
They have been treated to increasingly hysterical hype about a show that just happens to be broadcast on Channel 5, which is owned by the paper's publisher, Richard Desmond.
Day after day, especially this week, the Star has not spared ink and paper in its mission to boost the programme. It is impossible to say whether this has been responsible for the show's undoubted ratings success (as the Barb figures illustrate).
After all, the producers have gone out of their way to coax the participants into taking part in salacious scenarios specifically aimed at attracting viewers.
Tuesday's Star splash
The Star, exhibiting shameless cross-media promotion, has responded with laughably titillating editorial coverage. Roll up, roll up! See sex on screen and be appalled!
On Monday, it splashed on the previous night's show having been the "most X-rated show ever!" and carried an inside spread of raunchy pictures.
That was hardly a surprise because the housemates had been provided with a room resembling a nightclub, scanty black PVC outfits and told to perform what the Star coyly called "adult-style entertainment."
And Thursday's Star splash
This nonsense was duly reported by the Star as if it was a terribly shocking display:
"Celebrity Big Brother bosses were forced to censor their filthiest-ever sex scenes last night. Producers went into meltdown as the gang's X-rated antics were too shocking to broadcast even after the 9pm watershed. What happened cannot be described in detail in a family newspaper."
Love that "family newspaper" bit. Anyway, on and on it has gone through the week, with front page coverage and pictures of barely dressed women accompanied by articles gasping with faux outrage about the antics of the housemates.
From the moment Desmond acquired Channel 5 in 2010 the Star has been its greatest cheerleader. Now, as this week has proved, it is little more than a daily marketing pamphlet for the TV outlet.
The Star editor must be concerned about the possibility of Desmond selling off Channel 5. However unlikely, if it does go, she may well have sleepless nights wondering how to fill her paper. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/may/12/the-trip-to-spain-rob-brydon-steve-coogan-ageing-comedy | Television & radio | 2017-05-12T06:00:10.000Z | Edward Tew | The Trip: a show about death that deserves to live on | Lurking just over the horizon throughout all three series of The Trip is death. However much fun Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan have, there is always the vague sense that time is running out. In The Trip to Italy, as they sit on a rooftop bar admiring the beauty of the Italian Riviera, Rob can’t stop himself from wondering: “Don’t you think everything’s melancholic once you get to a certain age?”
The reaper’s icy presence is always felt but never seen. Until, that is, it comes roaring into view in the final seconds of The Trip to Spain. Steve, stranded and alone in the desert, gets out of his broken-down car to see some ominous-looking men approaching in the distance. The scene is reminiscent of Ali’s arrival in Lawrence of Arabia, but ends before the equivalent Omar Sharif reveal. The inference is that, if the scene were extended, Steve would almost certainly provoke a fatal misunderstanding by asking the men if they wanted to see his Peter O’Toole. This suggests that Michael Winterbottom, the show’s director and creator, might be thinking of ending the series there – but that would be a grave mistake.
The key to great comedy is knowing when to stop. The best British sitcoms are rarely more than three series long. There are obvious exceptions such as Dad’s Army, Blackadder and The Thick of It, but on the whole, three is the magic number. Other genres can afford to go on longer, but when it comes to comedy, the passage of time changes the gag, and it’s hardly ever for the better. The 55-year-old David Brent is not as funny as the 39-year-old version. The laughter to be found in his character desperately trying to be cool by clinging to youth becomes hollow when there’s nothing left to cling to. As the hair thins, so does the joke. But this wouldn’t be the case with Rob and Steve.
Steve Coogan: 'The Trip is Last of the Summer Wine for Guardian readers'
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At its core, The Trip is a meditation on ageing. For that very reason, the ticking of the clock will only make it better. In the second episode of The Trip to Spain, there is a moment when Rob and Steve are walking side by side from their car to a restaurant. As they approach the entrance, they accelerate into a little jog for the last two yards to try to be first through the door. It’s a tiny, two-second shot that, if you notice it, makes you laugh out loud – and it’s typical of the show’s understated and unique brilliance. It’s a prosaic way of saying something profound: that the absurd tragedy of all men is they never stop being little boys. Moments such as this show why The Trip to Spain needn’t be the last. Imagine that scene when Rob and Steve are 55, 60 or 70. Eventually, Steve could try to tap-tackle Rob with his walking stick; the advancing years will only increase the show’s effectiveness.
In episode four, the pair talk about war and Steve insists that he would go to war if he didn’t have kids. “You’d entertain the troops,” quips Rob. “You’d do Alan Partridge for the troops. And all these proper men, who were giving everything, would love it as you came out and went ‘Ah-ha!’. Do you know what: I’d love it if a sniper got you at that moment.”
Steve replies: “I’d do the ‘Ha’ with my dying breath.” Before that happens, Rob and Steve, please go on another trip. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/dec/22/stay-at-home-if-youre-unwell-say-experts-as-flu-and-covid-cases-rise-in-england | Society | 2022-12-22T17:30:34.000Z | Nicola Davis | Stay at home if you’re unwell, say experts, as flu and Covid cases rise in England | Flu and Covid are on the rise in England, with experts stressing the importance of vaccination and warning that people who feel unwell should stay at home rather than mingling with others during the festive season.
The figures come as cases of scarlet fever and strep A infections continue to rise.
There were 27,486 notifications of scarlet fever between 12 September and 18 December compared with 3,287 at the same point in the year in 2017 to 2018 – the last comparable season. However, in 2017-18 the rise occurred later, with a total of 30,768 notifications across the year.
The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) added that while invasive strep A infections remain rare there have now been a total of 94 deaths in England, including 21 children.
Record waiting times in England’s ambulances in week before strikes
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Dr Colin Brown, the deputy director at UKHSA, sought to reassure parents. “I understand how this large rise in scarlet fever and ‘strep throat’ may be concerning to parents, however the condition can be easily treated with antibiotics and it is very rare that a child will go on to become more seriously ill,” he said, adding that parents should visit NHS.UK, contact 111 online or their GP surgery if their child has symptoms so they can be assessed for treatment.
Dr Mary Ramsay, the director of public health programmes at UKHSA, noted a link between indoor mixing and the rise in cases and hospital admissions for flu and Covid.
“Both Covid and flu can cause severe illness or even death for those most vulnerable in our communities, and so it is also important to avoid contact with other people if you are unwell in order to help stop infections spreading over the Christmas and new year period,” she said.
According UKHSA, overall hospital admission rates for Covid hit 9.56 per 100,000 in the week beginning 12 December, up from 6.61 per 100,000 the week before, with the figure reaching 15.21 per 100,000, in the south-west of England.
Meanwhile both hospital and intensive care admission rates for flu have increased with the weekly hospital admission rate rising to 8.27 per 100,000 in the week beginning 12 December, compared with 6.80 per 100,000 the week before.
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The highest hospitalisation rates are in north-east England, and in those aged 85 and over.
Dr Susan Hopkins, the chief medical adviser at UKHSA, said flu admissions among children under five had also remained high and stressed most children aged two and three could get a nasal spray flu vaccine through their GP surgery.
“NHS services are already under pressure so it’s more important than ever to get protected with the flu vaccine and help keep yourself out of hospital,” she said, adding that wearing a face covering, hand washing and good ventilation could all help to stop infections spreading. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2021/apr/17/harissa-lamb-chops-seafood-noodles-warm-chicken-bread-salad-jane-baxter-15-minute-savoury-recipes | Food | 2021-04-17T06:00:28.000Z | Jane Baxter | Harissa lamb and seafood noodles: Jane Baxter’s 15-minute savoury recipes | Harissa lamb chops with spiced aubergine and yoghurt
Prep 5 min
Cook 15 min
Serves 2 generously (or 4 light meals)
4 lamb chops, no more than 2cm thick
2 tbsp rose harissa
4 tbsp panko breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
1 large aubergine
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 pinch chilli flakes
400g passata
1 big pinch ground allspice
1 pinch cayenne pepper
2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves
150ml Greek yoghurt
2 tbsp chopped mint leaves
1 tbsp toasted pine nuts
Heat the oven to 210C (190C fan)/410F/gas 6½. Rub the harissa into the chops, then coat them in the panko and season. Heat half the olive oil in an ovenproof frying pan, fry the chops for two minutes on each side, then transfer to the hot oven for five minutes, remove and set aside to rest.
As soon as the lamb is in the pan, cut the aubergine into 1-2cm chunks. Set a large frying pan over a high heat, add the rest of the oil, then fry the aubergine for five minutes, until browned all over. Grate in the garlic, add the chilli flakes and fry, stirring, for a minute. Add the passata, allspice and cayenne, season and cook for another five minutes, until the sauce has reduced and the aubergine is cooked through. Sprinkle with chopped coriander and keep warm.
Season the yoghurt and stir in the chopped mint. Spoon the spiced aubergine on to plates, top with the chops and serve with a dollop of yoghurt and a sprinkling of pine nuts.
Asian seafood with rice noodles
Prep 5 min
Cook 15 min
Serves 2 generously (or 4 light meals)
110g rice vermicelli
1 tsp freshly ground white pepper
3 red chillies
4 garlic cloves, peeled
1 tbsp roughly chopped coriander roots (or stalks)
2 tbsp sunflower oil
2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp fish sauce
1 tsp soft brown sugar
75ml chicken stock
200g monkfish
100g cleaned squid
500g cleaned mussels
200g raw peeled prawns
1 handful basil leaves, ideally holy or Thai (regular basil will do at a pinch)
Chopped coriander, to garnish
Soak the noodles in just-boiled water for 10 minutes while you get on with everything else.
Put the pepper, chillies, garlic and coriander root in a small food processor and blitz to a rough paste. Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium heat, fry the paste for a minute or two, until lightly coloured, then stir in the oyster sauce, fish sauce and sugar.
Cut the monkfish into 2cm chunks and slice the squid tubes into rings. Add all the fish and shellfish to the pan, pour in the stock and rice noodles, and stir until everything is well coated. Cover, turn up the heat and leave to cook for two to three minutes, until the mussels open up in the steam (discard any that do not).
Fold through the basil leaves, sprinkle with coriander and serve.
Warm chicken and bread salad
Prep 5 min
Cook 15 min
Serves 2 generously (or 4 light meals)
4 tbsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
4 boneless, skin-on chicken thighs
½ ciabatta
2 garlic cloves, peeled
1 bunch spring onions, trimmed
2 tbsp currants
3 tbsp pine nuts
150g mixed lettuce leaves – frisee and radicchio, for preference
2 tbsp moscatel vinegar
1 tbsp each chopped tarragon and chopped chives
Heat the oven to 210C (190C fan)/410F/gas 6½. Put a tablespoon of the oil in an ovenproof frying pan set over a medium-high heat, season the chicken on both sides, then lay the thighs skin side down in the hot pan and fry for a couple of minutes, until the skin releases its fat and is slightly browned. Turn over the thighs and transfer the pan to the hot oven for about 10 minutes.
Rip the bread into 2-3cm chunks, scatter over a baking tray and put in the oven for five minutes, or until lightly toasted.
Meanwhile, thinly slice the garlic and spring onions, and put the currants in a small bowl and cover with hot water. In a small pan, heat the rest of the oil, gently fry the garlic, spring onions and pine nuts for a minute or two, taking care not to let the garlic brown, then set aside.
Remove the chicken from the oven, pour the fat from the pan into a large bowl, whisk in the vinegar and herbs, and season generously. Thinly slice the chicken and add to the bowl, followed by the toasted bread, drained currants, salad leaves and the garlic, spring onion and pine nut mix. Fold to combine, then serve.
Jane Baxter is chef/co-owner of Wild Artichokes in Kingsbridge, Devon.
The Guardian aims to publish recipes for sustainable fish. For ratings in your region, check: UK; Australia; US. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/12/tfi-fridays-best-performances-manics-garbage-page-and-plant-shaun-ryder-slipknot | Music | 2015-06-12T16:47:51.000Z | Marc Burrows | TFI Friday's best performances: Manics, Garbage, Page and Plant and more | TFI Friday, returning tonight for a one-off nostalgia special, was hands down the 90s’ best music show. Jools Holland was too worthy, Top of the Pops too cheesy, CD:UK too teeny-bop, but on TFI live music, with a real, pogoing audience, provided the beating heart of Chris Evans’ perfect pre/post-pub telly. The show spanned a vintage era for rock and indie (even if it was a little too focused on white, male artists) and crested the wave of Britpop, attracting all the major names (Pulp, Blur, Suede) as well as a smattering of elder statesmen (Bowie, McCartney, Page and Plant). Its simple format – live band in front of baying audience – is weirdly absent from primetime TV today. So ahead of it’s comeback, here are 10 of the best.
1 Manic Street Preachers – A Design for Life (1996)
Evans was an early champion of the Manics’ big comeback single on his Radio 1 show, and his enthusiasm spilled over into TFI. This is one of the Welsh band’s first TV performances without guitarist Richey Edwards, who’d gone missing a year earlier, and captures the blend of defiance and awkwardness that defined this period for them. It’s a triumphant, passionate performance of what was to become the band’s defining anthem. A generation immediately scrawled “LIBRARIES GAVE US POWER” on its pencil case, and Manic Street Preachers briefly became the biggest band in the country.
2 Black Grape – Pretty Vacant (1997)
The performance that put the brakes on TFI as a “live-live” experience. Thanks to Shaun Ryder and Kermit’s potty mouths, the show had to be broadcast on a short delay ever after. It’s a fairly straight reading of the Sex Pistols’ punk classic and packs an energetic if rather messy punch, but the sheer gall of yelling “You’re pretty fucking vacant” at 6pm on Channel 4 made this a proper rock’n’roll thrill for 14-year-olds eating chip suppers off their laps. The look on Chris Evans’ face as the camera pans to him at the end is priceless.
3 Slipknot – Wait and Bleed (1999)
Slipknot’s take on blistering nu-metal was hardly the most brutal or original at the time, but that doesn’t mean middle England was prepared for actually seeing them at primetime. The masked band’s debut UK TV appearance was a full-throttle assault in your living room, and must surely be the heaviest pre-watershed performance in history, with the band making no compromises on their sound. The genius move here was to put cameras right in the middle of the mosh, surrounded by real fans going crazy, capturing up close the no-holds-barred rush of a metal crowd. The performance caused more complaints than any other act on TFI, but it’s easy to imagine that, for some kids, this would have been a life-changing piece of telly.
4 Napalm Death – Low Point, the Kill, Death (1999)
Responding to criticisms that he’d never featured “thrash metal” (and apparently ignoring the fact that Napalm Death aren’t really thrash), Evans invited the grindcore legends to perform an unprecedented three songs – which admittedly lasted a total of 59 seconds. While the band were clearly booked for novelty rather than any commitment to the genre, getting actual, undiluted Napalm Death on teatime telly was still a victory for metal.
5 Reef – It’s Your Letters (1996)
Not exactly a highlight, but probably the most memorable piece of music in the show’s run. Evans reappropriated the Britrock also-rans’ biggest hit, the ubiquitous Place Your Hands, as a jingle for the letters section. Perhaps unwisely, the band agreed to blast out a quick chorus with the words changed to: “It’s your letters!” It become something of a millstone around their neck, with fans constantly singing the TFI version during shows, and singer Gary Stringer being heckled with it in the street on a regular basis. Rumour has it that the band begged Evans to stop using the clip. Fans of the song are directed to this brilliant Twitter account, which tracks weekly sales of the Reef classic, for no apparent reason.
6 Page and Plant – Rock and Roll (1998)
TFI hosted numerous legends over the years, from Tom Jones jamming with the Stereophonics to McCartney jamming with himself, and Bowie delivering a faithful rendering of Starman. The best of the bunch is this 1998 Led Zeppelin sort-of-reunion. Page and Plant had reformed for a new album, and had been reinterpreting many of their classics live, but this is an exhilaratingly straight reading of one of their most straightforwardly rock’n’roll songs.
7 Louise Wener – Life’s a Gas (1996)
Once in a while, the show was happy to mess with the formula and bring the performances into the “bar” area for a more intimate setting. Highlights included Neil Tennant proving he could sing unplugged, the Manics’ James Dean Bradfield doing a wonderful take on Last Christmas, and this breathy reading of T Rex’s Life’s a Gas by Sleeper’s Louise Wener.
8 Annie Christian – Kiss the Day Goodbye (1998)
One of the more admirable TFI traits was taking a chance on new acts. Here, Scottish indie band Annie Christian get their big TV break and frankly knock it out of the park. Despite which, they were, alas, never heard from again.
9 Garbage – Only Happy When It Rains (1997)
A barnstorming performance of the US-Scottish band’s breakthrough hit, a slice of upbeat, sarcastic miserablism in which Shirley Manson’s effortlessly cool, kohl-eyed persona got its first primetime exposure. The next day, Claire’s Accessories ran out of dark eye shadow.
10 Faith No More – Ashes to Ashes (1997)
TFI hosted its fair share of US rock giants, from Metallica to Smashing Pumpkins, but this intense, bruising performance of Mike Patton and co’s Ashes to Ashes takes some beating. Considering they were hardly ever on telly in the UK, and it was years before the internet gave us their back catalogue whenever we felt like it, this was a rare chance to see one of the greats of alternative rock at the peak of their powers.
Any more to add? Let us know in the comments below | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2016/mar/24/the-russia-georgia-war-why-the-icc-is-launching-war-crimes-probe | World news | 2016-03-24T09:45:38.000Z | Fatou Bensouda | The Russia-Georgia war: why the ICC is launching war crimes probe | International criminal court judges have authorised my office to open an investigation into alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in South Ossetia during the 2008 armed conflict.
The conflict was triggered by growing tensions over the status of the region. During a relatively short but intense period of fighting, hundreds of people are alleged to have been killed or injured, including peacekeepers, thousands of people displaced and properties destroyed on a mass scale.
My office first starting analysing the situation back in August 2008, while the conflict was ongoing. The purpose of this was to figure out whether the legal criteria for an international criminal court (ICC) investigation were met.
This included the question of whether there were any relevant and genuine national judicial investigations and prosecutions going on in the countries involved. The Rome Statute, the treaty that governs our work, dictates that the ICC cannot proceed with an investigation if the same cases are already being pursued through national legal systems.
For a long time, Georgian and Russian investigations appeared to be progressing. More recently, however, proceedings in Georgia stalled due to the fragile and volatile security situation in South Ossetia and surrounding areas. As such, in March of last year, my office was informed in unequivocal terms by the Georgian government that there is “no prospect of further progress domestically on the cases related to the 2008 armed conflict.”
In the absence of national proceedings, I asked the ICC judges to authorise my office to undertake our own investigation.
An Ossetian man stands in front of pictures of locals killed during the 2008 South Ossetia conflict. Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA
We will now start collecting evidence from a variety of sources concerning all crimes allegedly committed under the court’s jurisdiction. Identifying suspects will come only at a later stage.
If the evidence collected provides reasonable grounds to believe that a person has committed war crimes or crimes against humanity, then we will proceed to the next phase, which would be to apply to the ICC judges for a warrant of arrest or a summons to appear before the court.
Criminal responsibility
This investigation is open-ended and does not target anyone. It is neither about geopolitics nor settling political differences. It is also not about determining the status of South Ossetia, or assigning blame for the outbreak of hostilities in August 2008.
It is an independent legal process aimed at uncovering the truth regarding grave crimes allegedly perpetrated during the 2008 conflict.
Our mandate concerns individual criminal responsibility. It is about bringing a measure of justice to the victims of serious crimes allegedly committed during the 2008 war. It is about holding to account those responsible – irrespective of their status, background or nationality.
My team and I have met with the Georgian authorities. During my meeting in February with prime minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili and a number of senior ministers from his cabinet, as well as a successful visit of a court delegation to Tbilisi that same month, the Georgian authorities reaffirmed their commitment to fully cooperate with my investigation.
My office hopes to receive cooperation from all sides to the conflict. We are seeking to visit all the relevant authorities as well as alleged crime scenes, and stand ready to do so. I have been encouraged by local assurances of cooperation, and I have also noted with appreciation public statements of support from South Ossetia.
I am committed to do my part and I hope I can count on all parties to do the same. The suffering of victims of atrocity crimes must weigh heavily on our collective conscience, and compel us to do what is right. Justice is their due.
Contact the ICC prosecutor at [email protected] | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/19/persuasion-first-violence-later-the-talibans-new-vice-and-virtue-approach | World news | 2021-09-19T06:45:29.000Z | Emma Graham-Harrison | ‘We don’t want people to be in a panic,’ says chief of Taliban morality police | Mawlawi Mohammad Shebani is officially in charge of policing morals throughout Kandahar, the Taliban heartland of southern Afghanistan.
He is newly appointed head of the provincial office for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, a title which strikes fear into many Afghans old enough to remember its previous incarnation under Taliban rule in the 1990s.
Its officers served as the brutal enforcers of the group’s extreme interpretation of Islam, whipping men into mosques to pray, policing beard length, smashing radios and televisions and attacking or detaining women who tried to work, went out without a male guardian or showed their faces in public.
Now it is back, and in the first western media interview with an official from the organisation, Shebani detailed its structure and how it will police Afghan behaviour, and revealed the pocket handbook meant to guide the work of his men.
He described a network fully integrated into the Taliban police force, with ties to mosques and madrassas, and formal rules of operation, which have been made public.
“The difference is we didn’t have a specific book of principles. There was just the mujahideen without a written code,” he said of the 1990s.
He promised his men would focus on persuasion not violence. But the guidelines he shared with the Observer, drawn up into a dense booklet about the size of a smartphone, approved the use of force against the most recalcitrant offenders.
It describes a multistep process of handling offenders, first educating them, then pressuring them to change their behaviour. If they are still recalcitrant, force may be an option, according to the booklet, published last year when the Taliban were building up the network inside their insurgency, and in the pockets of rural Afghanistan they controlled at the time.
Mawlawi Mohammad Shebani, of the ministry for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. Photograph: Emma Graham-Harrison/the Observer
“Fourth step, if still the person continues (the offending behaviour), and this can cause a lot of problems, then you can stop him with your hands,” the guidelines said.
It also included rules redolent of the harshest aspects of Taliban rule in the 1990s, including a requirement that women leave the home only if they are accompanied by a male guardian, compulsory prayer and stipulations on beard length for men.
Shebani sat down for the interview before his new boss, cleric and now minister Mohamad Khalid, took over the Kabul building that had housed the ministry of women’s affairs. He is operating from the ministry of Haj and religious affairs complex, near Kandahar airport.
“Some people think we are extremist, but we are not like that. Islam is a religion of moderation, not too much and not too little, everything just right,” he said. “Media channels are publishing negative things about us, please spread the reality to the world.”
The leadership is apparently aware of how the organisation is perceived internationally; when they handed out an English language list of new cabinet appointments earlier this month, the vice and virtue ministry was the only one not translated.
There has been little detail about how it will operate. But Shebani explained a system developed while the Taliban were operating as insurgents, that will see his agents integrated into police stations around the province.
Rural Kandahar has 18 districts, and in each of these there are five members of his commission. “There are five main checkpoints in each area, and an officer (from the ministry) is stationed in each, working with the mujahideen and the mullahs,” he said. In the city, there is an officer assigned to each of 15 precincts.
Afghan women in Kabul, September 2021. The new rules read: ‘You should patiently prevent women going outside without hijab, and without a male guardian accompanying her.’ Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty Images
“They watch what people do, and if they see people who are doing illegal things, we find out this way.” Locals will be encouraged to call in, he said. “We have distributed their numbers on social media and the radio, so if local people see anything wrong they can inform the responsible person.”
He wants to start with a campaign of persuasion, with enforcement efforts coming later. For now the group is overlooking small deviations, but he laid open the prospect of harsher controls.
“We want to inform everyone first about the principles,” Shebani said. “There are some small things we aren’t reacting to, as we don’t want people to be in a panic, or feel negative.”
In urban Kandahar, where the Taliban only recently took control, he foresees a more difficult campaign to educate residents on how the new government wants them to live and worship.
“We are focusing more on the city because the Taliban were not in control. People in the districts have learned the principles and are obeying them, but we have come to the city very recently.”
Taliban ban girls from secondary education in Afghanistan
Read more
He ruled out, at least for now, the much feared patrols of the last Taliban rule. “There won’t be any patrols … we want to emphasise we will not be entering people’s homes, or places they have their gatherings and we will not use violence.”
The guidelines specifically bar men from the ministry from entering homes, even when they know that rules are being broken. “If there are sounds of music, of television, a stereo system, coming out of a house they should be prevented. But don’t enter the house to do it,” it said.
The rules include a bar on gossip, and exhortations to cleanliness as well as charity. They even include a call to respect women’s rights, a ban on forced marriage and an option for divorce. But it also stipulates that women should not have contact with any men apart from immediate close family, and should not be able to leave the house alone.
“You should patiently prevent women going outside without hijab, and without a male guardian accompanying her,” the rules said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/15/john-kerry-trump-america-truculent-president | US news | 2018-11-15T12:40:17.000Z | Patrick Wintour | John Kerry: US 'cannot afford truculent child president' | America cannot afford “a truculent child president” if it is to fulfil its global leadership role, the former US secretary of state John Kerry said on Thursday as he lambasted Donald Trump for failing to attend a key Armistice Day commemoration ceremony in Paris at the weekend.
Kerry is visiting the UK to promote his book and will be speaking at a Guardian Live event in London on Thursday night.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Kerry spoke of “a dearth of a leadership on a global basis” adding: “Every country is feeling the pressure of this nationalistic populist and in some cases very frightening rightwing advance.”
He said: “I was appalled that rain drops prevented the president from going to pay honour to those that died in rain, gas, snow and mud. That was the reason he came to Paris.”
Trump refused to attend the rain-swept ceremony citing concerns that his helicopter could not fly due to the weather, and his belief that if he travelled by car, the Paris traffic would be severely disrupted.
Kerry said: “People are tired of the embarrassment of what took place in Paris in the last few days. We cannot have a truculent child president. We need something serious.”
Despite his personal criticism of Trump, Kerry urged his party to avoid becoming so obsessed with Trump that they call for his impeachment. The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives should do whatever is appropriate, he explained, but he said: “the Democrats should not even be talking about impeachment right now. We should be talking about the alternatives that might make life better for the people in our country.”
He highlighted climate change, saying in 30 years of political activity he had “never seen evidence mounting so powerfully as it is today about the urgency of action, but it is not happening on a global basis. Scientists have just said if we do not get our act together in the next 12 years we are in for a serious catastrophe”.
He also called for a global cyber-agreement on a similar scale to the deal restricting nuclear weapons.
Speaking on the UK Brexit debate, he said: “Suffice it to say both President Obama and myself, as secretary of state, came here to Britain before the referendum and we both were remainers”. When asked if he supported a second referendum, he replied: “I said President Obama and I were, and are, remainers”.
He said the most recent midterm elections had made a powerful statement.
“We had, for the first time in history, more than 100 million people – 113 million people vote in the midterm elections. We had seven mid-governorships flip to the Democratic party, six legislatures and the largest number of Democratic Congresspeople elected since Watergate, which took place two months after Richard Nixon resigned.”
He also rebutted the often-repeated claim that wherever Trump campaigned he won, saying Trump lost in Montana, Nevada and Arizona.
He said he had not ruled out standing as the Democratic candidate for the presidency, but said he was not “actively running round” to secure the nomination, saying as many as 20 to 25 names were being bandied around in what he described as a “mish-mash”. The only specific names he mentioned were former vice president Joe Biden and the former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, but added there was a lot of talent in the party. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/oct/08/trump-impeachment-investigation-letter-constitutional-crisis | US news | 2019-10-09T06:37:38.000Z | David Smith | White House refusal to comply with Democrat demands sets up bitter fight over impeachment inquiry | Donald Trump pushed the United States towards a constitutional crisis on Tuesday when his legal counsel said the White House would refuse to cooperate with Congress’s impeachment inquiry.
“Given that your inquiry lacks any legitimate constitutional foundation, any pretense of fairness, or even the most elementary due process protections, the Executive Branch cannot be expected to participate in it,” the counsel Pat Cipollone said in a letter to Democratic leaders in the House of Representatives.
The eight-page missive came after the Trump administration abruptly blocked a key witness in the Ukraine scandal from appearing before the congressional impeachment inquiry and sets up a clash between the White House and Congress – the executive and legislative branches – in the weeks ahead.
The letter appeared to put the emphasis on political rebuttal rather than structured legal argument – perhaps marking a new strategy to counter the impeachment threat with stalling and counter-attacking.
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Trump aides have begun honing their approach after two weeks of what some allies have described as a listless and unfocused response to the inquiry.
The inquiry was launched by the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, last month after it emerged that, in a July phone call, Trump had pressed the leader of Ukraine to investigate a political rival, Joe Biden. The president and his allies have sought to question the inquiry’s legitimacy.
In particular, the White House objects that the House did not formally vote to begin the impeachment inquiry, breaking with precedent set in the inquiries into Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton.
Pelosi has insisted the House is well within its rules to conduct oversight of the executive branch under the constitution regardless of a vote.
Refuse, block, stonewall – but Trump's strategy leaves little margin for error
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The administration is also sharply critical of the conduct of House intelligence committee chairman, Adam Schiff, whose committee is leading the inquiry, and it appears determined to stonewall Democrats for as long as possible.
In its most aggressive response yet, Cipollone wrote in the letter, released in the late afternoon on Tuesday: “Your unprecedented actions have left the president with no choice. In order to fulfill his duties to the American people, the Constitution, the Executive Branch and all future occupants of the Office of the Presidency, President Trump and his administration cannot participate in your partisan and unconstitutional inquiry under these circumstances.”
Cipollone’s letter threatens to end cooperation with Congress on important oversight matters, accusing members of formulating their investigation “in a manner that violates fundamental fairness and constitutionally mandated due process”.
It adds: “To comply with the Constitution’s demands, appropriate procedures would include – at a minimum – the right to see all evidence, to present evidence, to call witnesses, to have counsel present at all hearings, to cross-examine all witnesses, to make objections relating to the examination of witnesses or the admissibility of testimony and evidence, and to respond to evidence and testimony.”
In a statement responding to the letter, Pelosi said: “The White House letter is only the latest attempt to cover up his betrayal of our democracy, and to insist that the President is above the law. The letter is manifestly wrong, and is simply another unlawful attempt to hide the facts of the Trump Administration’s brazen efforts to pressure foreign powers to intervene in the 2020 elections.”
Earlier, the state department said the US ambassador to the European Union, Gordon Sondland, a Trump political donor, would not be allowed to appear, even though he had already travelled from Europe to testify behind closed doors. Trump decried the Democratic-led inquiry into whether he abused his office in the pursuit of personal political gain as a “kangaroo court”.
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Democrats condemned the move, calling it an attempt to obstruct their inquiry, and issued a subpoena for Sondland, seeking documents by 14 October and a deposition on 16 October.
Schiff said the ambassador’s no-show was “yet additional strong evidence” of obstruction of Congress by Trump and the secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, that will only strengthen a possible impeachment case.
Meanwhile, Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, has said he will not testify before the House intelligence committee unless committee members vote to remove Schiff. “I wouldn’t testify in front of that committee until there is a vote of Congress and he is removed,” Giuliani told the Washington Post. “Let them hold me in contempt. We’ll go to court. We’ll challenge the contempt.”
He added: “The position I’m stating is now the position of the administration.”
The House committees leading the fast-moving investigation intend to call and subpoena a number of Trump administration witnesses. The investigation could lead to the approval of articles of impeachment against Trump in the House. A trial on whether to remove him from office would then be held in the Senate, where Republicans have the upper hand.
Trump’s supporters in the House endorsed the letter. The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, said: “House Democrats have wanted to undo the results of the 2016 election for three years, and now they’re rushing a sham impeachment process.
“President Trump is right to call out this rushed process because Democrats refuse to protect the transparency and basic fairness that have been integral to previous impeachment proceedings.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/sep/04/teachers-national-education-service | Education | 2018-09-04T06:15:19.000Z | Liz Lightfoot | Let teachers sack heads … and other ideas for a National Education Service | Labour has published its plans for a “cradle to grave” National Education Service and will unveil further details of its policy at its annual conference in Liverpool this month. It wants the NES to transform education into a right instead of a privilege, so everyone expects the same standard, as with healthcare in the National Health Service. But what would any incoming government need to do to create a truly national service? We ask people involved in education what their priorities would be.
‘Lists of kings and queens don’t do it’
Diane Reay
“I want to see radical change, not short-term, piecemeal measures and I am not sure I am seeing it in the policy at the moment. There should be a commitment to a broad and balanced, engaging curriculum with creativity at its heart, rather than at the margins. All children should be being taught critical learning skills, problem solving and political and social awareness, rather than getting a different curriculum depending on whether they are advantaged or disadvantaged. Reciting lists of kings and queens just doesn’t do it. I also want to see a reversal of the academy and free school programme and schools brought back into democratically accountable public sector management.”
Diane Reay is emeritus professor of sociology of education at the University of Cambridge
End the super-sizing of privilege
Frank Cottrell-Boyce
“Anyone drawing up an NES should take a long, hard look at the way the super-sizing of privilege has become a cancer on the body politic. Eton, for instance, seems to have done more damage to our national life than any single institution since the heyday of South Yorkshire police.
“And end the whole craven notion that education should somehow be responsive to the demands of the world of work. No one has a clue what work will look like – or if there will be any – in 10 years, let alone 20.”
Frank Cottrell Boyce is a screenwriter and novelist
Return oversight of local schools to local people
Michael Wilshaw
“The differential in performance between secondary schools in the north, Midlands and south of England is far too great and shows little sign of diminishing. This can’t be explained by economic factors, because there is very little difference in performance at primary school level.
“The massive expansion of the academies and free schools programme has marginalised local authorities and the role of local politicians. I’m no fan of local authorities because many of them didn’t sufficiently support and challenge schools when they had full control of the system. My concern now is that local oversight of standards is just as patchy under the newly created regional schools commissioners, who seem to come and go with worrying frequency. We need local politicians, particularly the new mayors, to champion their schools and know what’s going on in their area.
“This country is failing half its future. Technical and vocational education for those youngsters who don’t progress to traditional A-level courses and university has not been good enough for many years and certainly not up to the standard of many of our international competitors. These young people are too often served up inadequate programmes of study and training at school, further education institutions and apprenticeships. This is compounded by inconsistent careers education and guidance.
“We urgently need a strong political figure at senior ministerial level to oversee the skills agenda and work across the departments of education, business and employment as well as the CBI and chambers of commerce to ensure key stakeholders work together.”
Sir Michael Wilshaw is a former head of Ofsted and professor of education at St Mary’s University, Twickenham
Let teachers sack senior managers, like at Oxford
Danny Dorling
“Nursery education must not be run for profit. It may take five years to ensure nursery education in the UK is profit-free but it is entirely possible. All children should start school on their fifth birthday to get rid of the summer-born problem. Every school in those counties that have kept selection should be renamed “grammar schools” and the 11-plus should go.
“Academy trusts must be disbanded after the fraud investigations are completed and school management returned to geographical areas. I would like to see groups of six or so neighbouring secondary schools with a single senior management team, democratically chosen. Teachers would be able to sack their senior managers. That’s how the governing body of an Oxford college works and it keeps them on their toes.”
Danny Dorling is professor of human geography at the University of Oxford
Examine the barriers to higher education
Shakira Martin
“The NES must ensure that students, whatever their background, are able to fully participate in education. This will mean examining the barriers faced by some students, such as the crippling cost of living, and finding solutions, such as the reintroduction of maintenance grants. We will also need a set of new initiatives to improve access for black students. The NES should pledge to tackle the attainment gap of black students in our further and higher education systems.”
Shakira Martin is the president of the National Union of Students
Tackle the gilded privilege of private schools
Robert Verkaik
“If Labour wishes to create a truly national education service it must deal with the private schools. A gilded class of privileged children help themselves to the best university places and top jobs at the expense of state school students. Abolishing the VAT exemption on private school fees is a good start.
“But a national education service must also make use of the big public schools and their wealthy endowments, which were established to educate the poor. Incorporating the 600,000 private school pupils into an NES would not only be cost-neutral but add value to the state school estate. Having these families cheering on their children shoulder to shoulder with other parents would help raise standards across the state sector while making our communities stronger.”
Robert Verkaik is author of Posh Boys
Stop education being driven by fear
Viv Grant
“Education should be about young people and adults finding their strengths and their potential – what it means to be their best selves. Now it is being driven by fear and all the emphasis on data and results is fracturing the system and working against the reason most people came into the profession. Children are being made to feel that education is about exam grades and headteachers are under enormous pressure from the completely flawed accountability systems.”
Viv Grant is a former headteacher who coaches other heads
Abolish tuition fees
David Green
“Abolishing tuition fees creates the opportunity for a fresh start. A new funding council for adults, apprenticeships, further and higher education should be created to provide vital investment in the people’s education and skills. Generously resourced, it must replace tuition fees pound for pound with government grants. Institutional autonomy, as well as academic freedom, must be strengthened and strictly respected as a vital ingredient in a democratic society. Legislation should be passed to ensure that education at all levels is provided by not-for-profit independent institutions, whose students and staff have a real say in their institution’s governance, alongside community representatives.”
David Green is the vice-chancellor of the University of Worcester
Fair funding formula sham
Jules White
“The 8% real-terms cut since 2010, the figure confirmed by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, must be reversed. Charitable status for private schools should end and the money saved re-directed to state schools. The DfE should stop wasting money on projects such as the Teaching and Leadership innovation fund and free schools. If we are to have a truly excellent national education system then all schools must be adequately funded. We can’t have the present ridiculous situation where some schools are funded 50% or even 70% lower than others. The new national funding formula is a sham.”
Jules White is headteacher of Tanbridge House School, West Sussex
Robots can help overthrow the factory model of education
Anthony Seldon
“I would like artificial intelligence to be taken more seriously, something the government has failed to do until very recently. AI will totally transform British schools and universities within a decade. It will assist them to overcome the many inherent problems with the factory model of education that has existed for so many years and provide a personalised ‘teacher’ for every student, who will be able to progress at their individual level of understanding in each subject.”
Sir Anthony Seldon is vice-chancellor of the University of Buckingham
Democratic control by local education authorities
Selina Todd
“We need a fully comprehensive, free, cradle-to-grave education system with provision for part and full-time learning. This should be democratically controlled by local education authorities and made available through neighbourhood learning campuses bringing together schools, adult education and associated services such as libraries.
“There should be objective teaching that uses scientifically accurate language on sex and gender and encourages students to understand the difference between biological sex and socially constructed gender roles. This is particularly important at a time when increasing numbers of young people are self-identifying as transgender.”
Selina Todd is professor of modern history at the University of Oxford and president of the Socialist Educational Association | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jul/01/john-lewis-to-close-several-stores-as-harrods-cuts-700-jobs-coronavirus | Business | 2020-07-01T19:27:45.000Z | Sarah Butler | Fears grow for UK high street as more than 6,000 retail jobs cut in a day | More than 6,000 retail jobs were cut from the UK high street on Wednesday as the full impact of the pandemic on the high street – combined with the wind-down of the government furlough scheme – starts to emerge.
The latest job losses – from retailers ranging from Harrods to Philip Green’s Arcadia group and SSP, the company behind hundreds of railway and airport eateries – bring the total cuts announced this week to more than 10,000.
New data showed the number of shops that have collapsed into administration in the first six months of 2020 is already more than the number that failed in the whole of 2019.
On Wednesday John Lewis confirmed it would not reopen some of its department stores that closed because of the lockdown. In a letter to staff, the group’s chairman, Sharon White, said it would close a number of stores and one London office, and was unlikely to pay its annual staff bonus next year. The annual payout – which is the same percentage for everyone from the chairman to Saturday shelf stackers – is regarded as a key part of the employee-owned group’s culture.
The shops likely to close were not named but industry insiders said those being considered for closure included Watford, Newcastle and Newbury. John Lewis said details would be shared with staff by the middle of July.
According to the data collected by the Centre for Retail Research, 2,123 stores operated by 38 large- and medium-sized retailers fell into administration in the first six months of this year. They employed 49,200 staff.
Some 2,051 stores operated by 43 such retailers, with 45,500 employees, went into administration in the whole of 2019.
While not all the jobs will disappear, because parts of many businesses are rescued by a new owner, the figures indicate the seriousness of the blow to high streets from weeks of enforced store closures to curb the spread of the coronavirus.
On Wednesday SSP, the owner of Upper Crust and Caffè Ritazza, said it would axe 5,000 jobs out of its 9,000 UK workforce, after suffering heavy losses during the lockdown. The company, which operates around the world, said its cuts were in the UK because the economy and travel industry had been slower to bounce back from the pandemic.
“The reality is that passenger numbers still remain at very low levels,” SSP said. UK rail passenger numbers are 85% lower year on year, while UK air travel has been largely non-existent, it added.
Harrods told its staff that one in seven of its 4,800 employees would be affected by job cuts arising from the “ongoing impacts” of the pandemic.
In a note to Harrods staff, the chief executive, Michael Ward, blamed the cuts on social distancing and a lack of tourists. “The necessary social distancing requirements to protect employees and customers is having a huge impact on our ability to trade, while the devastation in international travel has meant we have lost key customers coming to our store and frontline operations,” he said.
Jobs in parts of the store that remain closed, including beauty services and cafes, are expected to be among those to go.
Arcadia, Sir Philip Green’s troubled fashion group – which owns Topshop, Miss Selfridge, Dorothy Perkins, Burton, Evans and Wallis – said 500 head office jobs out of 2,500 would go in the coming weeks.
Further job losses, particularly in retail and hospitality, are expected as the government winds down its furlough scheme.
From the beginning of next month employers must start to contribute towards the cost of the furlough scheme, which has supported more than 9 million workers with 80% of their salaries, up to £2,500 per month, through the lockdown.
In the first month employers will have to pay only pension contributions and national insurance, but by October they will also have to pay 20% of staff wages.
Harveys and TM Lewin fall into administration with loss of 800 jobs
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On Tuesday the prime minister, Boris Johnson, acknowledged that many jobs that existed before the pandemic would soon disappear and that his government planned to “deliver jobs, jobs, jobs”.
The Bank of England has warned the UK is at risk of returning to the high unemployment levels of the 1980s and the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, is expected to set out substantial jobs creation plans in his summer statement next week to help offset the growing wave of redundancies.
The collapse of shirt maker TM Lewin and the Harveys furniture chain on Tuesday has added another 800 job losses and put a further 1,300 at risk.
Other retailers to have failed in recent weeks include the department store Debenhams and the fashion retailers Cath Kidston, Laura Ashley, Go Outdoors, Monsoon, Oasis and Warehouse.
There are also widespread store closures planned by high street names including Marks & Spencer, Next, New Look and the owner of jeweller H Samuel.
On Thursday, creditors to Poundstretcher will vote on a rescue deal under which more than 250 outlets could close affecting more than 2,000 jobs if landlords do not agree to swingeing rent cuts.
Many retail firms were already weak at the dawn of 2020, as rising costs combined with low consumer confidence and a switch to online shopping, which has required expensive investment in home delivery networks. But weeks of enforced closure during the pandemic have been the nail in the coffin for many brands.
White had warned previously the group might not reopen all of its stores. She confirmed the plans in the letter to staff, first reported by the Evening Standard.
The group, which also owns the Waitrose chain, has reopened 22 of its 50 department stores since non-essential retailers were given the green light to restart trading on 15 June. Plans to open a further 10 were announced on Wednesday, including in Oxford Street in London on 16 July.
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In the letter, White said: “The difficult reality is that we have too much store space for the way people want to shop now. As difficult as it is, we now know that it is highly unlikely that we will reopen all our John Lewis stores. Regrettably, it is likely that there will implications for some jobs.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/mar/16/ross-county-inverness-rangers-scottish-premier | Football | 2013-03-16T19:17:20.000Z | Nial Briggs | Scottish round-up: Billy McKay's goal edges Caley win over Ross County | Billy McKay's penalty sealed a 2-1 home win for Inverness against Highland rivals Ross County, lifting them above the Staggies into third place in the Scottish Premier League.
The Northern Ireland striker's 24th goal of the campaign ended County's 11-game unbeaten run and pushed Inverness closer to their first ever top-six SPL finish. McKay scored the winning goal in the 59th minute after the referee Iain Brines pointed to the spot when Charlie Taylor went down, but there were strong suggestions that the full‑back had dived.
It came after Andrew Shinnie's close-range opener after five minutes for Caley Thistle was cancelled out by a 30-yard equaliser from County's Paul Lawson. The defeat left County fourth, two points behind Inverness. Dundee and Dundee United face each other in the derby at Tannadice tomorrow.
Hearts face St Mirren in the Scottish Communities League Cup final against St Mirren at Hampden tomorrow. St Mirren could field the captain Jim Goodwin, Lee Mair and new signing Sander Puri, who are all in contention. Darren Barr returns from suspension for Hearts and Dylan McGowan is winning his fitness battle to overcome an ankle injury.
James Forrest will miss Scotland's World Cup qualifying double-header against Wales and Serbia, Celtic boss Neil Lennon has confirmed.
The winger missed the 4-3 SPL win over Aberdeen at Parkhead with a back problem. "He is going to see a specialist on Tuesday, he may need an injection in his back which might keep him out for another couple of weeks," Lennon said.
In the First Division Dunfermline are moving towards a supporter-led ownership model following "positive" talks , according to the steering group set up in a bid to keep the club in business. Talks between the club and the Pars Community (TPC) broke down in acrimonious fashion on Friday after the fans' group failed to secure acceptance of their offer to the majority shareholder Gavin Masterton. The club also received confirmation from Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs over a winding-up order, which gives them until 26 March to pay a £134,000 tax debt.
In the Third Division, Lee McCulloch's second half penalty earned Rangers a 1-0 win at Elgin. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/feb/29/children-reading-less-says-new-research | Education | 2020-02-29T16:55:50.000Z | Donna Ferguson | Children are reading less than ever before, research reveals | Children today read less frequently than any previous generation and enjoy reading less than young people did in the past, according to new research.
How I managed to raise a little bookworm in the age of smartphones and tablets
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The work, to be published by the National Literacy Trust in the run-up to World Book Day on Thursday, shows that in 2019 just 26% of under-18s spent some time each day reading. This is the lowest daily level recorded since the charity first surveyed children’s reading habits in 2005.
It also found that fewer children enjoy reading, and that this dwindled with age: nearly twice as many five to eight-year-olds as 14 to 16-year-olds said they took pleasure from reading. Overall, just 53% of children said they enjoyed reading “very much” or “quite a lot” – the lowest level since 2013.
The poet and former children’s laureate Michael Rosen said the findings should act as a wake-up call for the government. “We have countless examples of research showing that children who read for pleasure widely and often are best able to benefit from what education offers. Berating parents, children or teachers for ‘failing’ will solve nothing. It [improving reading levels] needs full government backing, with as much money and effort as they put into compulsory phonics teaching, to support schools and communities in this.”
The survey found a marked gender divide when it comes to reading for pleasure: less than half (47%) of boys were keen readers, compared with 60% of girls. A third of children surveyed reported being unable to find things to read that interested them.
World Book Day, a charity event held annually in the UK and Ireland, will this year call on readers of all ages to “share a million stories” by reading aloud or listening to a story for at least 10 minutes a day with friends and family.
World Book Day chief executive Cassie Chadderton said this activity can turn a reluctant reader into a child who reads for pleasure. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/23/munich-shooting-why-kids-kill-surveillance | Opinion | 2016-07-23T17:54:48.000Z | Josef Joffe | It couldn't happen here, until it did – now Germany has joined the mass killing club | “I
t can’t happen here” – relief laced with smugness has been the standard German reaction to mass murder abroad, especially in the United States. Not here because our gun laws are among the toughest in the world. Nor do we have those dreadful banlieues ringing French cities where young men from Africa and the Middle East find neither jobs nor respect. Not here, with our perfect welfare state that takes care of each and all.
'It's disturbing': author of book found in Munich shooter's home sees pattern
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Now, it has happened here. Without assault weapons, as on a train in Bavaria where a young refugee went on a rampage with an ax from the corner hardware store. With a Glock automatic and 300 rounds in Munich on Friday, a massacre left 10 people dead including the assailant. Germany, once blissfully insulated, has now joined the “club” of mass murder extending from the US to France.
Our standard reflexes leave us thrashing around in the dark. No, no Islamic State connection in Munich. No rightwing conspiracy, either. No oppressive racial discrimination. No screaming social injustice – not in Germany, with its full employment and lavish social benefits. No trigger-happy police, as in American cities where mayhem claims the lives of black citizens and white police officers alike.
So one by one, our facile theories have evaporated in the face of unspeakable horror, forcing us to revise the classic nomenclature of terror. Beginning with PLO attacks in Europe in the 70s and continuing with al-Qaida and Isis, terror was imported and staged by trained killers dispatched from the Middle East.
The bloodbaths in Brussels and Paris (Charlie Hebdo, Bataclan) mark a new phase. These killers were not recruited by Isis: they recruited themselves, drawn to mass murder by a demented interpretation of the faith. Add, most recently, San Bernardino and Orlando in the US.
Compare such do-it-yourself terror with the months-long orchestration of 9/11, flight training and all, by Mohammad Atta and his 17 henchmen.
The 9/11 attacks – call them Terror 1.0 – were organized warfare. Terror 2.0 – such as San Bernardino or the bombing of the Boston marathon – has been the work of self-recruited freelancers. Isis did not seek them out; they sought out Isis for self-justification. The most recent iteration of violence, seen in Nice and Munich, is Terror 3.0.
The perpetrators were not jihadis looking for a swift ascent to heaven, but small-time criminals with a history of mental illness: sociopaths, if you will.
Are we to guard every McDonald’s? Or search the baggage of millions of train travelers? We might, but at what price?
The Munich massacre fits the model. The authorities have unearthed no Isis ties. But the man identified as the shooter, Ali David Sonboly, an 18-year-old dual citizen of Germany and Iran, did undergo psychiatric care. And he took an intense interest in reports of mass killings. In his bedroom, investigators found a German language version of the book Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters.
Sonboly was no victim of racism or poverty. He wasn’t a refugee. He lived with his family in a nice middle-class neighborhood near the center of Munich. But he was a loner who loved violent video games such as Grand Theft Auto, according to neighbors.
He invites comparison with another lone-wolf killer: Anders Breivik, the Norwegian man who precisely five years before the Munich shooting murdered 77 people in Oslo and on the island of Utoya. Possibly, this anniversary delivers a clue as to the why and wherefore. Like Breivik, Sonboly targeted young people. His may have been a copycat killing spree.
It took a while before German chancellor Angela Merkel went before the cameras. When she did, she delivered the usual boilerplate in measured and reassuring tones. She could feel everybody’s pain, she soothed listeners, as Bill Clinton did 17 years ago, after Columbine. And she pledged that the government would “do everything to protect the freedom and the security of the people in Germany”.
Germany and gun laws: a chequered history
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Not very inspiring, but what else could she have said? Preventive law enforcement needs patterns: who is likely to do what, where and why? Lone wolves, such as Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel in Nice, who killed 84 with nothing more sophisticated than a truck, leave traces that stick out only after the fact. By definition, such freelancers cannot be caught beforehand, especially when they are as smart and circumspect as Breivik and Sonboly. They may be crazy, but they are not stupid.
Are we going to post a guard at every McDonald’s? Or search the baggage of millions of train travellers? We might, but at what price? Our hearts go out to the families of the victims. But realism invites sobriety. Not even police states such as Russia can eradicate terror, be it ideological or the deed of the unhinged.
Surveillance will undoubtedly intensify: lots more cameras in public places, redoubled digital snooping, battalions of police in the streets. Israelis have lived for decades with organized terror in cafes and discos and on buses. But the world’s most experienced terror fighters have not been able to nab beforehand the kid with the knife, the lone killer with a hijacked bulldozer.
To revive Nineteen Eighty-Four in a liberal democracy is too high a price to pay for total safety. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/dec/07/galal-yafai-olympic-boxing-gold-tokyo-interview-faces-of-year | Sport | 2021-12-07T16:00:16.000Z | Tim Lewis | Galal Yafai: ‘Being an Olympic boxing champion is something I can live with for ever’ | The seed for Galal Yafai’s gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics was planted five years earlier. At the Rio Games in 2016, the British flyweight boxer lost in the second round. The defeat really hit him on the flight home: while Team GB’s medal winners, the likes of Nicola Adams and Mo Farah, were treated to first-class and business seats, the other athletes were “brushed to the back of the plane”. It was a feeling that Yafai did not want to relive.
“I was devastated,” he recalls. “I was devastated losing and then when I got on the plane, no one wants to take photos of you, no one wants to speak to you. And I remember thinking: ‘This is absolutely horrible. If I go to another Olympics, I need to be sitting at the front.’”
The 28-year-old Yafai arrived in Tokyo far from fancied, but over five contests in the Kokugikan Arena, he was precise, stylish and explosively powerful. In the gold-medal match, after he dropped his opponent, Carlo Paalam of the Philippines, to the canvas in the first round, the result was never in doubt. “On my day, I knew I could beat anyone in the world,” he says. “And I peaked at the right time.”
I thought: ‘I’m praying to God this pays off. Because if it doesn’t, I’m going to look like a real nitwit here’
Yafai’s gold was one of six medals for Team GB’s boxing team, making it Britain’s most successful Games in that sport for more than 100 years. “I’m seeing my friends live out their dreams right in front of me,” Yafai says. “And I’m living out my dreams in front of them and yeah, it’s just surreal and really motivating.”
Turning right on to the aeroplane after Rio isn’t the only hardship that Yafai, born and raised by his Yemeni parents in the West Midlands, has had to endure. For most of his sporting life, he has been in the shadow of his older brothers, Kal and Gamal, both highly decorated boxers: Kal was a longtime super-flyweight world champion; Gamal has won European and Commonwealth titles. While this was happening, their younger brother Galal was working the night shift at the Land Rover factory in Solihull for three years in his early 20s.
Yafai tests his gold in Tokyo. Photograph: Luis Robayo/AP
“I remember thinking: ‘God, I hate this job!’” laughs Yafai. “No disrespect to Land Rover, they are a brilliant company, but I just thought: ‘I want to be a superstar in boxing.’ Those were my words: ‘I want to be a superstar.’ I’m stuck in this dead-end job and my brothers are getting the limelight on the telly and they’re in all the newspapers and I’m nowhere to be seen.”
Yafai could have turned professional after losing in Rio, but he decided he had unfinished business at the Olympics. When Tokyo 2020 was delayed because of Covid, he was close to pulling out of the Team GB system. “I was gutted and I wasn’t sure I could do another year,” he says. “I thought: ‘I’m praying to God this pays off. Because if it doesn’t, I’m going to look like a real nitwit here.’”
Tokyo validated his decision to be patient. Yafai is planning to turn professional now, and he hopes to be fighting for a world title within two or three years. Even still, he doesn’t think that anything he does in the ring will surpass the gold he won this summer. “I can go anywhere in the world and say to someone I’m an Olympic champion and automatically get their respect,” he says. “Being a world champion, it might financially be better in the long run, but being Olympic champion is something I can live with for ever.”
There have been other perks from his success. At the GQ Men of the Year awards, he met Ed Sheeran and Idris Elba. Liam Gallagher has tweeted him: “Yes eye Yafai.” He couldn’t get hold of a PlayStation 5 before Tokyo, and now he’s been sent one for free. When asked in Tokyo what he was most looking forward to after winning gold, he replied “Five Guys”, and the burger chain gave him a stack of vouchers. “I think I’ve had one too many Five Guys,” Yafai admits.
Mainly, though, Yafai seems pleased that he has finally got bragging rights in his family. “I’m at the top of the tree now with the brothers,” he says. “I think so, I won’t tell them that though!” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/nov/07/sunday-with-david-olusoga-i-feel-this-urge-to-check-for-major-disasters | Life and style | 2021-11-07T06:45:11.000Z | Michael Segalov | Sunday with David Olusoga: ‘I feel this urge to check for major disasters’ | Describe your Sunday morning… I tend to get up early and work. I’m incapable of sleeping past 7am – I lost that skill in my 20s – and see no point in just lying there. I used to write late into the night, but now I find I’m more productive before breakfast and my daughter appearing.
How do you relax? Taking my dog, George, for a walk or my daughter to the playground. After a very urban life, enjoying being in nature has been a discovery from my first experience of semi-rural living. And I try to play my guitars, although I’m out of practice. I dream of a retirement returning to, and building on, my young self’s musical abilities.
The perfect Sunday lunch? Food doesn’t play a huge part in my life. I like to eat, but don’t watch Bake Off or enjoy cooking. I sometimes feel today that’s barely allowed: Eighty per cent of television is of no interest to me – it makes you something of a social pariah.
Sundays growing up? I had lots of siblings. We were always together, playing out on our estate, climbing hills and trees, or watching television. And then came the point when the fun had to end – I was never a child to do my homework before the last minute. It’s funny, back then my relationship with work was probably healthier.
Sunday night? Once my daughter is in bed I’m back in the office preparing for Monday. I don’t drink, so I unwind in the garden with my partner. And then I’ll sit and read: right now that’s Orwell’s The Lion and the Unicorn, Afropean by Johny Pitts, and Peter Mitchell’s Imperial Nostalgia.
Last thing you check on your phone? The news, just to make sure there’ve been no terrible global developments. It’s not hugely relaxing, but I’m trying to reduce my screen time before bed, because I have chronic insomnia. I just feel this urge to check for major disasters. It’s a hangover, I think, from the days of Donald Trump.
Black & British: An Illustrated History is available from the guardianbookshop.com for £14.78 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/oct/09/riccardo-chailly-leipzig-gewandhaus-conducting-interview | Music | 2015-10-09T11:00:15.000Z | Fiona Maddocks | Riccardo Chailly: ‘I want to do things differently, to put life on hold’ | “T
he sound knocked me back like a great crashing wave. It was a shock, a terrible blow to my body, to my head, to my soul. But in a nice way.” Riccardo Chailly, 62, has never forgotten his first rehearsal with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra nearly 30 years ago, at the Salzburg festival. The work was Richard Strauss’s early tone poem Don Juan, which bursts forth with strings soaring up like a fleet of rockets, brass detonating in mad retort. Those opening bars intoxicate and overwhelm, even from a safe seat in the audience. How much more electrifying to be on the podium, knowing a single flick of your baton has created this bolt of energy.
Back then, Chailly was a fervent, 33‑year-old Italian with reddish-chestnut flowing hair, a slightly unruly beard and a glittering career ahead of him. He was already music director of the Radio Symphony Orchestra Berlin, an ideal training ground for a fast-rising young conductor. His unlikely rival in the same, western half of a still-divided city was Herbert von Karajan, nearly 80, silver-haired and impeccably tailored, with most of his achievements as music director of the illustrious Berlin Philharmonic already in the past. Karajan remained, nevertheless, the most powerful figure in classical music and an unexpectedly generous mentor.
“It was Karajan’s idea to put us together,” Chailly chuckles. “This young Italian and this oldest of European orchestras with a glorious tradition dating back to the 18th century.” Its past music directors include Felix Mendelssohn, Arthur Nikisch and Wilhelm Furtwängler. “And you know Richard Strauss conducted the Gewandhaus, too. People ask how you can have a heritage of sound. But players might be in the orchestra 40 years. They talk, rehearse, travel together. Living traditions are passed on and grow.” It was the start of a long relationship that led to Chailly’s appointment, in 2005, as music director of the Gewandhaus (the name means “textile hall”).
Next week Chailly returns to the Barbican with the orchestra for their third residency (with one concert in Birmingham). This is his last such collaboration. In June 2016, after 11 years, 220 concerts and 40 tours, he will leave Leipzig to concentrate on his new jobs at the helm of both La Scala, Milan and the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. His Leipzig successor, from 2017, will be Andris Nelsons.
As Chailly dislikes guest conducting, he will be a less regular presence in the UK – hurry while stocks last. The London and Birmingham concerts will combine Strauss’s epic tone poems with concertos by Mozart (with Maria João Pires and Radu Lupu, piano, Christian Tetzlaff, violin and Martin Fröst, clarinet as soloists). Following a family concert, the full orchestra’s series opens, fittingly, with Don Juan.
“This Strauss/Mozart project is close to my heart. Strauss admired Mozart deeply, it makes sense to bring their works together. I’ve never done these six tone poems as a complete series.” Chailly is an enthusiast for complete cycles, of Beethoven, Mahler, Bruckner. His recent Brahms Symphonies, reissued this month as part of a seven-CD set, won almost every recording prize available. “These Strauss works span 12 years of his life, and are unimaginably hard. We have to study from scratch, to rehearse anew each time. They are so difficult.”
This is hard to grasp. With the exception of the early Macbeth, this is all mainstream repertoire. A gauge of popularity is the BBC Proms: Till Eulenspiegel has been played 102 times, Don Juan 89 (compared to 119 for Beethoven’s Ninth).Chailly is one of the tiny cluster of unrivalled maestri in the world, now at his peak. Before Leipzig he was chief conductor of the illustrious Amsterdam Concertgebouw (1988-2004). Can Strauss really be such a challenge?
“You have a huge orchestra, but it must sound transparent, controlled, almost neoclassical. And then your ideas about it change. I’ve been studying Ein Heldenleben again. It always used to take me 41 to 42 minutes. Last night we played it and it took 46 minutes!”
How so? “The consequence of new interpretative ideas. Some of the writing embraces violent extremes and is virtuosic; the conductor has to have a terrific technique!”
Fortunately he has. Born into a musical family in Milan in 1953, Chailly was able to witness great conductors at close quarters. His father, Luciano, was a composer and administrator, first in charge of music programmes for RAI television, then artistic director of La Scala, Milan. Aged 10, Riccardo heard Zubin Mehta rehearse Mahler and knew that he, too, was destined to become a conductor. By 19 he was assistant to Claudio Abbado at La Scala, learning so much of his right-hand technique from the maestro that he worried he was merely imitating him. Typically, Chailly went back to basics and reconstructed his technique to suit his own style.
“In the right hand – for most people – you hold the baton. That hand keeps complete control of rhythm and tempo. The left hand is for colour, flexibility, expression.” He makes it sound quite straightforward. Then he shifts gear. “But conducting is, above all, a gift of nature, your body’s constitution, how you feel the movement of the music. That’s what counts. It’s almost mystical, alchemical, what happens between you and your players and the music. You can’t talk in a concert, after all, except with gesture.”
Chailly studied composition and piano but never had any doubt about his chosen path, taking conducting courses in Milan and Siena. His father, knowing the formidable gifts needed, was not at first encouraging, once telling an interviewer that his son’s piano playing “was not particularly sensational”, but that he wasn’t bad at the drums (he played in a free-jazz group called the Nameless). Despite these supposed shortcomings, Chailly gave his first public concert in Padua, when 14, and by 25 he had become the youngest person to conduct at La Scala. “In a way my father was protecting me. He hated the idea of any kind of nepotism. He wanted me to engage with other studies, and also learn languages.” He is fluent in four, including Dutch. “We never fell out, just battled a bit. But he was proud when he saw that I was succeeding.”
Riccardo Chailly conducts Maria João Pires
Mild-mannered and soberly dressed, Chailly is self-possessed, not liable to be cajoled into gossip. He is too sage, and one suspects too generous, to resort to any bad-mouthing of colleagues. Despite his chosen career, and his affability, he has an air of introversion. He won unexpected fame on social media for footage of a public rehearsal in which Pires arrived expecting to play one Mozart concerto, only realising once she heard the orchestral introduction that it was in fact a different one being performed. Chailly coaxed her into a perfect performance with his reassuring comments, trusting her fine musicianship.
His “good guy” reputation might be tested to its limits at La Scala, where politics, strikes and out-of-date working practices are rife. As principal conductor, he will open the season with Verdi’s Giovanna d’Arco, starring Anna Netrebko, in December. Under his predecessor Daniel Barenboim the repertoire has been heavily Germanic; Chailly aims to restore Italian opera to the forefront. Ever committed to new music, he also plans at least one contemporary opera each year, and he wants to develop the scope of the Filarmonica della Scala orchestra, with concerts and touring. The completist in him will be satisfied with a projected series of all 12 Puccini operas, to be relayed by RAI and issued on DVD by Decca.
In an almost literal passing of batons, Chailly will also succeed Abbado, who died in 2014, as music director of the Lucerne Festival Orchestra, opening next summer’s festival with Mahler’s Eighth Symphony, “the only one Claudio, a wonderful Mahlerian, didn’t do. We will dedicate the concert to his memory.” Many assume Lucerne was the reason he decided to leave Leipzig before the end of his contract in 2020. There was also a cancelled Rachmaninov recording series with the Gewandhaus that may have caused tension.
Chailly denies all this.
“No, not at all. I am pleased to be succeeding Claudio but this will only take up a few weeks a year. I wanted to leave [the Gewandhaus] because of my age and because I have had so many, many high points in my years here. But I have also had to sacrifice so much of my private life.” He has been married to Gabriela Terragni since 1982. She has a son, and he a daughter, from previous marriages. There are two young grandchildren. “I want to do things differently. It means a lot to be working in my home country. I am an uncharacteristic Italian, an awkward Milanese.”
Chailly certainly shows no signs of Italianate fire – except on the podium, where he is exhilaratingly explosive. “I have lived in Berlin eight years, Amsterdam 16, Leipzig 11. This way of life is fascinating, but intense and demanding. Now I must find the energy to say ‘no’, to stay healthy, have time to think and study, live at home with my wife.”
He used to be addicted to extreme sports: motorbikes, speedboats, parakiting. No longer, he says. If you ask him about speed he prefers to talk about metronome markings. He has a new and more elusive plan. “I want to stop the engine. To sit still and be silent.” A noble ambition, but scarcely a speck on the horizon right now.
Chailly and the Gewandhaus Orchestra are at the Barbican, London, 17-23 October and Symphony Hall, Birmingham, 19 October | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2017/sep/23/how-sci-fi-sitcom-timewasters-subverted-time-travel-genre | Television & radio | 2017-09-23T09:00:12.000Z | Homa Khaleeli | Back to black: how ITV2’s Timewasters is subverting the time-travel genre | Do we still need Doctor Who? Time travel in the internet age
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Does the Tardis ever get stuck in traffic? The space-time highway suddenly seems more congested, with our TV schedules clogged up with time-travelling shows – from the period drama-with-a-twist Outlander to DC’s superheroes in Legends of Tomorrow, and action-adventure shows such as Timeless. Not all of them have the longevity of Time Lords. Making History, in which a bungling time traveller’s love life threatens to disrupt the past as we know it, has disappeared into a black hole after just one series. And time has also been called on Time After Time – a series that coupled sci-fi pioneer HG Wells and Jack the Ripper, in modern-day Manhattan. Frequency – where the time machine was an amateur radio that allowed a daughter to communicate with her dead father – was also cut short.
Yet none of this has put off the creators of a new UK sitcom, Timewasters, from adding their own spin on the time-travelling trope. In the ITV2 series a south London jazz quartet find themselves stranded in the 1920s after getting into a lift in a rundown block of flats – a set-up that writer Daniel Lawrence Taylor says originally inspired the cheeky title Black to the Future, before Universal ruled it out.
So what is behind the enduring appeal of leaping through the ages – and why is it suddenly surging in popularity? Lorna Jowett, the author of Time on TV and reader of television studies at the University of Northampton, says our fascination lies in our own mortality coupled with our obsession “with youth and putting off the passing of time”. But the pace of our time-pressed modern life might play a part in an increasing enthusiasm for the genre. “Often it is mundane things that appeal to people about time travel – you probably wouldn’t [go back in time to] try and kill Hitler; you would stop yourself being late.”
Travel, but not as you know it ... watch the trailer for Timewasters.
The recent spawning of shows, she suspects, reflects our current anxieties about the state of the world. “Some of the more modern ones are about people coming back from the future to try and fix things,” which, she says, could be linked to the fact “the global political scene feels a little apocalyptic” – sending us scurrying towards what we assume was a simpler time.
This would explain why time-travel programmes, which once focused on future societies, today seem to heavily focus on the past – such as Outlander. “The nostalgic trend gives people something to fondly reminisce about,” Jowett points out. “It’s a period drama by another name. The conservative underpinning is the fact that people feel their comfortable lives are being threatened by changes.” Yet, she says, time-travel shows can also interrogate or subvert such assumptions. Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes, where police officers go back in time a few decades “unpick” this view of the past “suggesting that if we went back to the 1980s we would remember how bad it was”.
Timewasters, too, plays with our preconceived ideas of the 1920s, created in TV shows such as Downton Abbey or House of Elliot, one character wistfully suggesting: “People like us never get to time travel – it’s what white people do, like skiing or brunch,” before his friend offers a reason why. “Any time before the mid-80s wasn’t good for black people.”
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I meet the cast on their last day of filming in a beautiful Georgian house in Liverpool complete with 1920s furniture. In one scene, Nick, the quartet’s trumpet player (played by Taylor), is leaving his friends to live with a girl he has just met. Impeccably dressed in a roaring 20s-style three-piece suit, his friend and fellow musician Lauren, played by Adelayo Adedayo, is ranting at him. “Maybe you make her breakfast, or lie about keeping in touch on Facebook,” she fumes. “But who proposes to a one-night stand?”
Saxophonist Jason (Kadiff Kirwan) is taking a more romantic view. “She gave you her heart despite the social stigma of interracial relationships in this age of ignorance,” he sighs. The scene neatly ties up the show’s promise to extract the silliest comedy from the collision of the past and future cultures, and the ethnicity of its characters at a time when slavery was still in living memory. Jowett says this is another reason why the genre has been so durable and can easily be slotted into a sitcom setting. “All time-travel shows involve a culture and ideology clash – because we have different ideas now,” while “often the time-travel device throws people together in close quarters.”
Holding back the years ... the cast of Timewasters. Photograph: Big Talk/ITV
The Timewasters premise also offers a sly dig at the lack of diversity in period dramas such as Downton Abbey – whose first recurring black character was a US jazz musician played by Gary Carr. Samson Kayo, who plays singer Horace, jokes that playing in a period drama is “like playing a Russian as a black man. It’s one of those things you never see happening.” Kirwan points out that this reflects a lack of awareness of the history of BAME (black, Asian, minority and ethnic) people in the UK. “Lots of the period dramas give off the impression that black people weren’t invented yet or something,” he says. “There’s never a nod to black culture or the existence of black people in Britain. Which is heartbreaking because so many different ethnicities were responsible for building the British empire.”
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But Taylor says this was not exactly intentional. “At the time I was learning how to play the trumpet and I just thought it would be funny to write about a jazz band. Then I thought it would be cool to set it in a different time period – the 1920s – but there still wasn’t enough going on and I thought, what if they went back in time?”
Researching the period, he says, naturally led to jokes about attitudes to race. “In the 1920s there was racism, but also negrophilia [a craze for black culture, when to collect African art, to listen to black music and to dance with black people was a sign of being modern and fashionable]. In Timewasters there are people chucking things at the quartet in the street, while others want a black jazz band in their house or a black lover – it’s ripe for comedy.”
Film studies professor and author of Time Travel in Popular Media, Matthew Jones isn’t surprised that identity politics and nostalgia are becoming recurrent themes in recent time-travel shows. “We are clearly in a moment of anxiety about identity politics, and I think there is something about the nostalgia for a simpler past and the problems of what that means in identity terms. The past being hankered for is [essentially] a patriarchal, white past, so playing out the problematisation of what that means comes up time and time again.”
Daniel Lawrence Taylor says writing about the past certainly helped him to “reflect on where we are now – in terms of racism and prejudice. They are still here and still run deep but someone described [racism today] as more ‘sophisticated’ because it is not thrown at you in the street, but it might be embedded in the way you work, in education and so on.”
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The distance of time also allowed him to discuss difficult issues such as “negrophilia or cultural appropriation”, which if he had included in a modern context might have got a different reception. “It’s like the way people feel about America – if there is police brutality or #OscarsSoWhite, Brits find it easier to talk about it or be outraged about than when things happen here. Having it set in the 1920s means there is some distance. It was quite a lovely thing to be able to put things that we find uncomfortable talking about into comedy. Because that’s often where we talk about things we find uncomfortable.”
Yet Taylor says jokes are prioritised above political and period details. “It is foremost a comedy and you need to be laughing – anything else is a bonus. We changed storylines that were too close to the bone. The minute you start preaching to people, they turn off.” And while he understands the risk of launching another time machine in a crowded field – “the tricky thing about high-concept shows is they are prone to dying a horrible death” – he thinks it is one worth taking. “When one works, it is amazing.”
Timewasters starts on Monday 9 October on ITV2 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/oct/23/most-pressing-issues-next-tory-pm-rishi-sunak-penny-mordaunt-boris-johnson-conservative | Politics | 2022-10-23T14:45:08.000Z | Rowena Mason | From the economy to NHS waiting lists: the most pressing issues facing the next PM | Whoever becomes prime minister this week – most likely Rishi Sunak or Boris Johnson – will face the most daunting in-tray of anyone in No 10 for decades. These are the pressing issues they will have to make decisions on in the coming months ahead.
Fiscal plan
Sunak has declared that fixing the economy is his priority. The Treasury is facing a £40bn black hole and the interim chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, is working on a plan to make the sums add up by 31 October but this will mean swingeing cuts. A new prime minister will have to make a call on how big the cuts will be – or whether to opt for tax rises instead.
Benefits
One of the biggest decisions on this front is whether to uprate benefits in line with inflation. Most of the centrists within the party believe this is essential and that any attempt to swerve this would not get through parliament.
Public sector pay and strikes
Public sector pay is similarly problematic when it comes to inflation. Nurses, healthcare staff, ambulance drivers, teachers, train drivers, civil servants, university lecturers and many others are considering strikes this winter in the face of real-terms pay cuts. The government may have to reconsider their settlements if it wants to avoid large-scale disruption to society.
NHS winter crisis and waiting lists
The NHS is in a dire situation heading into winter with the threat of a “twin” Covid and flu season, demoralised staff and long waits for operations, GP appointments, A&E services and ambulances. A new prime minister will have to take a decision on whether NHS spending should be ringfenced from cuts, as well as how to deal with the existing pressure on services.
Energy
The government has provided energy bill support until April but now will not say how much if any subsidy it will give people after that point. There is also the threat of winter blackouts if gas supply remains tight across Europe as a result of Russia’s war in Ukraine. One of the first actions of a prime minister could be to announce a major energy-saving campaign – a move resisted by Liz Truss previously.
The Northern Ireland protocol
The protocol issue remains unresolved, though Liz Truss made progress towards new talks. Although a different tone has been set, Eurosceptic Northern Ireland minister Steve Baker warned on Sunday that his faction would not hesitate to bring the next government down if they reneged on promises to protect free trade within the United Kingdom.
Pensions triple lock
The government committed to maintaining the triple lock – raising pensions by the highest of inflation, wages or 2.5% – at the last election. However, if cuts need to be made, a new prime minister could look at phasing this out, but that would make many Tory MPs dependent on the votes of older people deeply unhappy.
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Defence spending
Defence spending had been due to rise to 3% of GDP by 2030, but scrapping this pledge is one option under consideration as the government seeks to balance the books. Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, has made clear he is committed to the policy.
Planning
Liz Truss had wanted to undertake broad planning reforms as part of an overhaul of supply-side measures to boost growth. Her government was looking at loosening planning restrictions for large infrastructure and in investment zones but also more widely. This would be very controversial among Tory MPs.
Immigration
A row over immigration was raging in the hours before Truss’s departure as prime minister. She had wanted to relax restrictions to boost growth, but this was being resisted in the Home Office. A pro-growth prime minister is likely to want to loosen curbs to try to improve the economy.
Foreign aid
Foreign aid spending is due to return to 0.7% of national income but a prime minister intent on cuts could delay that date. That would infuriate the one nation wing of the party, many of whom have supported Sunak over Johnson.
Inquiry into Boris Johnson’s conduct
Johnson as prime minister would face a huge headache over the impending parliamentary inquiry of the privileges committee over whether he misled the House of Commons. Sunak is also likely to find it problematic given the attention it will take up, though less so than Johnson. The inquiry is due within weeks to sit up to four hours a day for three to four days a week hearing evidence about the Partygate scandal – a spectacle that is likely to dominate the headlines and reignite anger. | Full |
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