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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/apr/05/cold-war-thinking-nuclear | Opinion | 2010-04-05T18:00:01.000Z | Johan Bergenäs | No more cold war thinking | Johan Bergenäs and Miles Pomper | Julian Borger recently reported that a Nato group of experts will reject some western European countries' suggestions that the 200 or so US tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) located in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey be withdrawn unilaterally.
Borger said that on 1 May the group – co-chaired by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright – will recommend to Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen that these weapons should only be removed as part of a deal with Russia that also tackles Russia's several thousand such weapons. While discussions with Russia on this issue are welcome, an extended negotiation on this issue is a recipe for continuing a dangerous status quo and solidifying a roadblock to fulfilling President Barack Obama's vision of a world free of nuclear weapons.
News that the Nato group of experts will favour the status quo comes after governments in Amsterdam, Berlin and Brussels declared that they would seek the removal of US weapons from their respective states. The ongoing political momentum for removal among the host European nations should not be ignored.
In addition, arguments for keeping these US gravity bombs in Europe have continued to lose relevance and strength since the end of cold war. During the superpower struggle, US tactical nuclear weapons (TNW) served to assure European allies that the United States would come to their defence in the event of a ground invasion by the Soviet Union.
TNWs also served as an effective tripwire to ward off that threat. No such threat exists today, and irrespective of tactical weapons deployment, Europe remains under the US strategic nuclear weapons umbrella. Tactical weapons are severely constrained as useful military weapons as they must be delivered by aircraft vulnerable to air defences and are based too far from Russia to offer real military utility in the highly unlikely event of a conventional clash with Russia. Moreover, conventional forces, missile defence and political mechanisms could serve as additional deterrents to any perceived threats against all US allies, including Iran.
Indeed, the weapons themselves pose a greater threat as they are susceptible to theft and use by terrorist organisations, which are known to seek weapons of mass destruction.
One member of the Nato group of experts, which is currently revising the transatlantic alliance's strategic concept due to be adopted later this year, suggested that: "You cannot get rid of [US tactical nuclear weapons] without [Russian] reciprocity." Yes, you can and should. Russia has made clear that any attempt to seek such reciprocity in extended negotiations would be a non-starter.
Moscow's position on non-strategic nuclear weapons has for many years remained inflexible and stagnant, largely due to internal political logjam. Russia has insisted that nuclear weapons must only be based within national territories, an idea that directly contradicts the current existence of US non-strategic nuclear weapons in Europe. Russia is betting that Nato, the custodian of the US nuclear weapons in Europe, will reject that idea, thereby allowing Moscow to sidestep any demands that it address its own weapons.
The key to meaningful progress could possibly be calling Moscow's bluff. In this sense, Washington can itself, or through an actor such as Nato, disclose basic information regarding its total non-strategic stockpiles (including those on US territory). Doing so unilaterally would place pressure on Russia to respond in kind. A willingness by the United States to withdraw its weapons from Europe could encourage Russia to act in a similar fashion and consider redeploying its own nonstrategic nuclear weapons to bases farther within Russian borders.
May marks the beginning of the 2010 NPT review conference where a US delegation will ask the world community to tighten the rules associated with the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The US agenda at this conference will carry significantly more clout if it demonstrates its commitment to the non-proliferation regime with the removal of its tactical weapons from Europe.
Now is not the time for continued cold war thinking, especially for a president whose transformational campaign promises are beginning to come to fruition. The political momentum in Europe, the new US-Russian agreement and the upcoming NPT conference all create an opportune moment to take an additional step toward further reductions in global nuclear weapons stockpiles. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/14/nadine-gordimer-dies-90-johannesburg-nobel-prize | Books | 2014-07-14T23:24:00.000Z | David Smith | Nadine Gordimer dies aged 90 | South Africa mourned one of its literary giants on Monday, with the death at 90 of Nadine Gordimer, a Nobel laureate praised for remaining politically and intellectually courageous until the end.
Gordimer, arguably the foremost chronicler of racial apartheid and the subsequent vicissitudes of democracy, died peacefully in her sleep at her home in Johannesburg on Sunday, her family said. Her son, Hugo, and daughter, Oriane, were with her at the time.
The daughter of a Jewish watchmaker from Latvia and middle-class woman from Britain, Gordimer started writing in earnest at the age of nine and produced 15 novels as well as several volumes of short stories, non-fiction and other works. She was published in 40 languages around the world. Her literary gaze was unsparing on both white minority rule and the governing African National Congress (ANC).
"She cared most deeply about South Africa, its culture, its people, and its ongoing struggle to realise its new democracy," the family said. Her "proudest days", they said, included winning the Nobel prize and testifying in the 1980s on behalf of a group of anti-apartheid activists who had been accused of treason.
During the liberation struggle she praised Nelson Mandela and accepted the decision of his ANC, of which she was a member, to take up arms against the regime. "Having lived here for 65 years, I am well aware for how long black people refrained from violence," she said. "We white people are responsible for it."
Gordimer worked on biographical sketches of Mandela and his co-accused to send overseas to publicise the Rivonia trial in 1963-64. In his autobiography, Mandela wrote of his time in prison: "I tried to read books about South Africa or by South African writers. I read all the unbanned novels of Nadine Gordimer and learned a great deal about the white liberal sensibility." She was among the first people he met on his release in 1990.
More recently she turned her crusading wrath on the ANC itself over proposed secrecy laws that threaten to curb freedom of expression and put journalists and whistleblowers in jail. Three of Gordimer's books had been banned during apartheid. She also remained socially active and was a regular at Johannesburg's Market Theatre until shortly before her death.
At her 90th birthday dinner in downtown Johannesburg last November, she sat next to George Bizos, part of the legal team at the Rivonia trial. He told her: "You are not only a writer, you are a pretty tough woman who stood up to the apartheid regime."
Another speaker paraphrased the cricketer Don Bradman in saying that now she had reached 90, there was no reason why she should not make 100. The petite author, an atheist, shook her head fiercely and proclaimed: "Enough!" The party was entertained by the jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, who said to Gordimer: "It's such a wonderful privilege for us to play for you tonight and when we grow up we hope we'll be just like you."
On Monday Masekela, currently in London, said: "She was a dear friend," but declined to comment further.
Tributes were paid from South Africa and around the world. Victor Dlamini, a writer and photographer, said: "I studied at the University of Natal during apartheid and was always struck by how, in the tradition of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, she was not afraid to tackle the issues of the day. She never had that idea that literature must be pure of the issues of society. She was able to look at the society and write hauntingly beautifully about it but at the same time unsparingly leave you in no doubt who was right and who was wrong."
She remained a critical friend of the ANC after it came to power. Dlamini added: "Unlike a lot of literary figures who gravitate towards power once they win awards, she resolutely avoided the ministers and stuck with her friends. She felt there was no separation between social justice and literary concerns."
Gordimer won the Booker Prize in 1974 for The Conservationist, a novel about a white South African who loses everything, and the Nobel Prize in 1991, when apartheid was in its death throes. But she never lost relevance, Dlamini said. "There was always this sense that once apartheid was dismantled, South Africans would have nothing to write about, but as she showed in No Time Like the Present, history takes a long time to dismantle. The past is in the present." No Time Like the Present, her final book, deals with contemporary South African talking points: its characters suffer brutal crime and complain about the quality of schools.
In October 2006, at the age of 82, Gordimer was attacked, robbed and locked in a cupboard in her upmarket home. She handed over cash and jewellery, but would not part with her wedding ring. Gordimer later said she felt no fear and it was merely her turn to experience violence like many of her compatriots before her.In recent years some black critics scorned her as a "white liberal" whose work was little read by the country's black majority. The ANC government in Gauteng province described her book July's People as "deeply racist, superior and patronising" and banned it from local schools.
Gordimer once said: "We were naive, because we focused on removing the apartheid government and never thought deeply enough about what would follow."
Maureen Isaacson, a literary journalist, said: "She was disappointed with the symptoms of corruption she was seeing. She remained optimistic because she had seen the change and she was hoping things would turn around. She was very positive about the media and felt it should continue doing an excellent job in exposing corruption."
Isaacson had known Gordimer for 30 years and became a close friend over the past 15. She added: "It was rewarding and challenging, She was not indulgent in any way. Her influence on me was focus and discipline. She was always pushing me to greater understanding and clarity. She was just an all round social being; she loved theatre and reading and new talent. She was interested and interesting."
Craig Higginson, a novelist and playwright, said: "She was incredibly generous and supportive to me. She would come to the Market Theatre and stand in a cold corridor at 10 at night to talk to you about your play."
Gordimer was a giant whose influence would be felt for generations, Higginson added. "She was never afraid to say the uncomfortable thing and risk being unpopular for it. She honoured what she believed to be right. She once said she'd made many mistakes in her life but the one thing she was not was afraid. For a small person, she was very powerful."
Gordimer married Reinhold Cassirer, an art dealer who had been a refugee from Nazi Germany, in 1954. He died in 2001 at the age of 93. She had two children, one from a previous marriage.
For Gordimer, art and activism were bound together since birth. "I used the life around me and the life around me was racist," she said in a 1990 interview. "I would have been a writer anywhere, but in my country, writing meant confronting racism." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/26/tories-and-the-dup-reach-deal-to-prop-up-minority-government | Politics | 2017-06-26T18:38:11.000Z | Anushka Asthana | Theresa May faces backlash from Scotland and Wales over £1bn Tory-DUP deal | Theresa May has faced a backlash from politicians in Scotland, Wales and parts of England after completing a £1bn deal with the Democratic Unionist party to prop up her Conservative minority government.
Political figures lined up on Monday to demand more money for their regions after Arlene Foster’s DUP agreed to a confidence and supply arrangement in return for the additional funding alongside relaxed spending rules relating to a further £500m previously committed.
The Guardian has learned that the DUP will be asking for more from the Conservatives to continue shoring them up later in the parliament, with a chance in two years when the parties will review the deal by “mutual consent”.
The Conservative/DUP deal: what it says and what it means
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The former permanent secretary to the Treasury, Nick Macpherson, tweeted: “DUP will be back for more ... again and again. They have previous in such matters.”
The Labour first minister of Wales, Carwyn Jones, called the agreement outrageous, describing it as a “straight bung to keep a weak prime minister and a faltering government in office”.
His Scottish counterpart, the SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, expressed anger that the money was being paid outside the Barnett formula, which is designed to distribute funds fairly between devolved nations.
“In concluding this grubby, shameless deal the Tories have shown that they will stop at nothing to hold on to power – even sacrificing the very basic principles of devolution,” she said.
But the Tory leader in Scotland, Ruth Davidson, accused the SNP of hypocrisy: “It’s absurd for the SNP to criticise UK government spending on top of Barnett in Northern Ireland, when the exact same thing happens in Scotland.”
And Nigel Dodds, a DUP MP and deputy leader of the party, said any outrage at the deal was “hypocrisy of the highest order”, saying the deal would deliver for all the people of the Northern Ireland – and the United Kingdom.
Under the terms of the deal, which will hand the prime minister the DUP’s support for a vote this week on the Conservatives’ Queen’s speech, May will also drop controversial plans to weaken the pension triple lock and means test winter fuel payments for older people across the country.
This shoddy DUP deal will ultimately cost Theresa May far more than £1bn
Martin Kettle
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Theresa May and the DUP leader, Arlene Foster, shake hands outside Downing Street. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images
One government source said the election result had made it almost impossible for the prime minister to pursue the policies, calling it a “happy coincidence” that the DUP made the same demand.
However the deal could be an embarrassment for Scotland secretary David Mundell after he promised to block any “back door funding” that meant other devolved nations missing out.
The extra cash will be spent on hospitals, schools and roads in the region, the DUP said, with the money to be distributed by the Northern Ireland executive if a power-sharing agreement is completed by Thursday night.
If the talks collapse, then sources said the British government would still distribute the additional money to Northern Ireland.
The agreement, which comes to just three pages, sets out plans for the DUP to support May on the Queen’s speech and any confidence motions, as well as on future budgets and tax and spending legislation.
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It confirms a Conservative agreement to meet the Nato commitment of spending 2% of GDP on the armed forces and commits both parties to the Armed Forces Covenant being implemented across Northern Ireland.
On Brexit, it says agriculture will be a critical policy area in negotiations.
The deal says “both parties will adhere fully to their respective commitments set out in the Belfast agreement and its successors”.
The Guardian view on the Tory-DUP deal: Theresa May is in denial
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But the deal may not be sufficient to see the government through a five-year term. In a strategy that will be seen by critics as a mechanism for the DUP to extract maximum concessions on every potentially close vote, it emerged on Monday that the Democratic Unionists will seek further concessions from the Tories within two years.
Aside from the extra £1bn-plus the Tories have agreed to inject into capital spending and other projects in Northern Ireland, the DUP will be looking for more deals as it continues to shore up the Conservatives, party sources in Belfast told the Guardian.
The abolition or radical cut to the air passenger duty tax for the region’s three airports would be a “post-Brexit ask” by the DUP, the sources said.
The other major concession the DUP would seek in its ongoing support for a Tory government depending on the backing of 10 Democratic Unionist MPs would be special corporation tax status for Northern Ireland.
There were also concerns from pro-choice MPs on both sides of the Commons that the deal could mean that the Conservative party had made a commitment to the DUP on abortion.
Amid claims in a heated House of Commons debate that the DUP’s influence could end hopes of extending the right to an NHS termination to Northern Irish women travelling to England, Conservative MP Anna Soubry said: “It isn’t fair that women seeking terminations from Northern Ireland should be charged by the NHS here.”
The deal comes just days before May has to put her Queen’s speech – with its heavy focus on Brexit – to a vote in parliament. She will need the support of the 10 DUP MPs to have any chance of getting the legislation through and allowing the Conservatives to govern without a majority.
Foster earlier spoke of her hopes of a deal with May Guardian
Speaking at No 10, May said the two sides “share many values in terms of wanting to see prosperity across the UK, the value of the union, the important bond between the different parts of the United Kingdom”.
She added: “We very much want to see that protected and enhanced and we also share the desire to ensure a strong government, able to put through its programme and provide for issues like the Brexit negotiations, but also national security issues.”
Foster said she was “delighted that we have reached this agreement, which I think works, obviously, for national stability”, and said she wanted Northern Ireland to have a strong voice, particularly on Brexit.
However, the decision led to criticism of the Tories after they attacked Labour’s spending promises, including for schools and the NHS, during the election campaign. Within hours “magic money tree” was trending on Twitter.
The anti-Brexit campaigner Gina Miller also criticised the deal, claiming Northern Ireland already had an advantage in public spending terms.
“Although the Conservative government has found a way of making sure the payment to the DUP isn’t ‘Barnettable’ – a bribe’s a bribe,” she said. “Even before the extra cash given to Northern Ireland, the province was already benefiting from £11,000 public spending per head of population, compared to just £8,800 for England – how is this fair?”
The Tory former deputy prime minister Michael Heseltine told the World at One he was reminded of a saying by Enoch Powell: “Once you have paid the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Danes.”
Is there a magic money tree? Yes children, there is. But that’s the wrong question
Ellie Mae O’Hagan
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Party leaders also criticised the deal,. Jeremy Corbyn said: “The government must immediately answer two questions. Where is the money for the Tory-DUP deal coming from? And, will all parts of the UK receive the much needed additional funding that Northern Ireland will get as part of the deal?”
The Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, said: “The nasty party is back, propped up by the DUP. “While our schools are crumbling and our NHS is in crisis, Theresa May chooses to throw cash at 10 MPs in a grubby attempt to keep her cabinet squatting in No 10.”
Meanwhile, the former chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne criticised the government by using the Evening Standard to mock her as being under the control of Foster. The newspaper he edits depicted May as the Austin Powers character Mini-Me:
And here's our second edition @EveningStandard ..... pic.twitter.com/Z2MRUISCDz
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) June 26, 2017
His intervention was followed by a tweet by David Cameron’s former director of communications Craig Oliver, who joked: “Not sure George Osborne got our former bosses ‘be supportive’ memo.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2017/jul/26/maintaining-the-momentum-for-the-sdgs-how-can-we-transform-societies-for-good | Working in development | 2017-07-26T09:54:21.000Z | Anna Leach | Maintaining the momentum for the SDGs: how can we transform societies for good? | The global goals looked challenging enough in 2015. Two years later, amid political earthquakes, tightening budgets and manmade disasters, there is a wide agreement that achieving the sustainable development goals (SDGs) will require nothing less than a transformative approach.
Where to begin? Join the Guardian for an afternoon of thought-provoking discussion and real world examples on Tuesday 19 September in New York. This will be the third edition of our annual side event to the UN general assembly focusing on the SDGs.
Keynote talks and panel discussions will explore these questions, among others:
How can we make progress on the goals despite financial constraints?
Taking climate change seriously in testing times: who is leading the way?
How can education prepare the youth bulge to have a positive impact on societies in the coming decades?
Details
Date: Tuesday 19 September
Time: 2pm-6pm
Location: 3 West Club, 3 West 51st Street, New York, NY 10019
Programme
2pm Registration, networking reception and documentary showcase
2.30pm Welcome address, John Mulholland, interim editor, Guardian US
2.45pm Keynote address, Jeffrey Sachs, director, UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network
A 'paradigm shift' is needed from governments to fight poverty
Read more
3.05pm Reducing vulnerability to environmental and humanitarian crises: what can technology and international policies do?
As there are increasing numbers of crises impacting mainly vulnerable populations in developing countries, the international community needs ways to mitigate against them.
How can the latest technology be employed at scale to support humanitarian relief and prevent disasters?
As urbanisation increases around the world, how can cities become smarter - more efficient, adaptable and environmentally friendly - so that they are more resilient?
What policies could respond to migration trends, droughts and food insecurity to minimise the humanitarian and environmental impacts?
Chaired by Liz Ford, deputy editor, global development, The Guardian
Panel
Chizuru Aoki, lead environmental specialist, the Global Environment Facility
Einar Bjorgo, manager, Unosat, @UNOSAT
Abby Maxman, president, Oxfam America, @abbymaxman
Alex Thier, executive director, Overseas Development Institute, @ODIdev
3.50pm They’re in school but are they learning: exploring the most effective ways to spend the global education budget
Significant gains have been made since the millennium development goal era on getting primary school children into school around the world. Now the work is to ensure that they stay in school until young adulthood, and receive a quality education which not only teaches the basics but ensures prosperous livelihoods.
Chaired by Liz Ford, deputy editor, global development, The Guardian
Panel
Teodora Berkova, director of social innovation, Pearson, @teoberkova
Wendy Kopp, chief executive, Teach For All, @wendykopp
Alaa Murabit, SDG advocate and UN high-level commissioner on health employment and economic growth, @almmura
Liesbet Steer, director, The Education Commission, @LiesbetSteer
4.40pm Keynote address
Lessons from the She Decides campaign: how to counter threats on women’s rights
Lilianne Ploumen, minister for foreign trade and development cooperation, the Netherlands government
4.55 pm Closing remarks
5pm-6pm Networking and documentary showcase
Due to an overwhelming response, registrations for this event are now closed.
For enquiries contact [email protected].
Sponsors
This event is supported by The GEF and Pearson. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/11/fossils-whales-swimming-style-species | Environment | 2019-12-11T19:00:45.000Z | Nicola Davis | Fossils suggest how whales found their swimming style | It sounds like a Rudyard Kipling story but fossil-hunters say they have new clues as to how the whale came to move.
Whales as we know them today evolved over millions of years from terrestrial creatures to semi-aquatic animals to fully aquatic species, with forelimbs becoming flippers, the fluked tail developing and well-developed hind legs – once used for swimming – lost over time.
Now experts say fossils of a previously unknown early whale are offering fresh hints as to how modern whales ended up propelling themselves.
“How do you go from a foot-powered swimmer to a tail-powered swimmer? That is the kind of intermediacy we have been looking for,” said Philip Gingerich, a co-author of the study and professor emeritus at the University of Michigan. “The new whale is too late to be in the direct line [to modern whales], but it gives us a sense of how the transition may have taken place.”
Writing in the journal Plos One, the team reports that both a partial and an almost complete fossil of the new creature were unearthed in Egypt in 2007 at a site known as Wadi al-Hitan or “Valley of Whales” – a nod to the large variety of other beasts that have previously been discovered there.
The new species, called Aegicetus gehennae, was about three and a half metres long and is likely to have lived about 35m years ago, towards the end of a period known as the Eocene, and is the youngest known member of group of four-limbed, semi-aquatic animals, known as a protocetids, that were splashing about from around 49m years ago.
The word Aegicetus refers to both the creature’s breast bone, which resembles a shield, and the Latin for whale, while gehennae, or “hell”, refers to the area in which it was found.
While most protocetids are thought to have propelled themselves in water using their feet, the new species shows features that suggest it might also have moved by undulating its body in the water, and was likely fully aquatic.
That shift in propulsion, the team say, is important as it could offer insights into how the movement of whale-like animals changed over millennia.
Among the telltale features of the new species, the team say the hind limbs are slightly smaller than in other protocetids, while both the hind limbs and pelvis unusually lack a direct connection to the backbone.
“This doesn’t have tiny hind limbs, it still has pretty good-sized ones,” said Gingerich. “[But] they are a little smaller than the hands, which is unusual for protocetids – usually the feet are quite a bit bigger because they swim with their feet, they push water with their feet,” he said.
Meanwhile the animal’s backbone is larger and more elongated than those of other protocetids, giving the creature more flexibility that could have allowed it to wiggle its body to help it move.
The new discovery does not directly answer the question of how modern whales came to be: the animals that eventually gave rise to modern whales branched off from protocetids long before Aegicetus gehennae swam about.
But Gingerich said it did suggest similar evolutionary changes might have occurred during that branching process, changes that led to ancestors of modern whales such as basilosaurids. These creatures had big teeth but tiny hind limbs and moved through the water in an eel-like fashion by undulating their bodies.
It seems the newly discovered creature would have been swimming the seas at the same time.
“I think basilosaurids are swimming with their bodies – not with their tails per se, because they don’t have much of a fluke – and what we see in this new protocetid is that it looks like it was swimming more like basilosaurids,” he said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2010/apr/01/feed-in-tariff-green-energy | Money | 2010-04-01T07:58:47.000Z | Lisa Bachelor | Feed-in tariff starts to generate cash | Householders with small-scale green energy systems such as solar panels and micro-wind turbines will receive up to £1,000 a year for the electricity they generate under a new government scheme that starts paying out today.
The level of payments for the Clean Energy Cashback scheme – or feed-in tariff – were unveiled by the energy and climate change secretary, Ed Miliband, in February and homeowners who participate can start earning money from today.
According to government figures a typical 2.5kW solar pv installation could offer a homeowner a reward of up to £900 and save them £140 a year on their electricity bill. A similar scheme that will incentivise low-carbon heating technologies could be introduced in April next year.
Despite the payback, the upfront cost will put off many householders, with the average price of the installation of solar panels around £10,000 to £12,000.
British Gas and a number of other industry partners are trialling a Pay As You Save scheme with the Energy Saving Trust, where householders will pay back the upfront cost through the monthly savings on their bill, but it involves just 500 households.
Despite the cost, energy company Solar Century said today it had seen a fourfold increase in sales enquiries since the tariffs were announced in February.
Friends of the Earth today welcomed the scheme as providing a "tremendous opportunity for people across the UK to play their part in the green energy revolution".
Its executive director, Andy Atkins, said: "The Clean Energy Cashback scheme will allow householders to earn tax-free cash by turning their homes into mini green power stations, cut fuel bills and play their part in tackling climate change.
"UK homes are responsible for over a fifth of UK emissions but by slashing energy waste, and fitting renewable electricity systems such as solar panels on our roofs and wind turbines in our gardens, they can be part of the solution to climate change." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jul/03/the-old-guard-review-charlize-theron | Film | 2020-07-03T15:00:47.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | The Old Guard review – Netflix immortality thriller won't live long in the memory | Asort-of-dull title for a sort-of-dull film. This is basically a two-hour dollop of action-movie product, teased out to look like a superhero origin story and touting (weakly) for the possible beginnings of a franchise property. DC Comics writer Greg Rucka has adapted his own graphic novel series of the same title and the director is Gina Prince-Bythewood, whose debut movie Love and Basketball from 20 years ago – about a young woman with a gift for basketball – I still remember fondly. That had a humanity and idealism that seems far away from this ponderous stuff, which is crucially lacking in the humour that might have sold the essential silliness of its premise.
Charlize Theron appears in the badass mode that is an important part of her screen persona: previously seen in Fast & Furious, Atomic Blonde, Aeon Flux and of course Mad Max: Fury Road. These days, she doesn’t appear comfortable unless she’s sporting an asymmetrical short haircut, dark glasses and a couple of Glocks. She plays Andy, the leader of a tough crew of mercenaries who get hired for large amounts of money to do dangerous stuff; helping her are Booker (Matthias Schoenaerts), Joe (Marwan Kenzari) and Nicky (Luca Marinelli). These soldiers of fortune have a secret: they are immortal. For decades and in fact centuries, they have been battling on the side of righteousness, standing up for the oppressed. There are some very ridiculous “olden-dayes” flashbacks showing Theron in ancient warrior headdresses solemnly galloping around on a horse.
Meet-cute mentoring ... Charlize Theron with KiKi Layne as Nile. Photograph: Aimee Spinks/Netflix
Over the years, they’ve also supposedly been doing good by saving the lives of people whose children or grandchildren will one day do stuff like cure polio, although how they have the foresight to do this is a mystery, because prophecy is not among their gifts. The script also briefly concedes that they have to work for the bad guys once in a while (although this distasteful necessity is not shown) in orde to stockpile cash for food, guns, ammo and so on. But immortality is their sole superpower: they don’t have super-strength, or the ability to fly or be invisible. They are essentially no stronger and smarter than any of the ex-special-forces people that they wind up getting into fights with. It’s just that when you shoot or stab them, the wound heals up and they start over. Their millennia-long existence comes to a crisis when a new immortal joins their vampiric ranks: USMC officer Nile, played by KiKi Layne (from Barry Jenkins’ If Beale Street Could Talk). And a certain shadowy CIA officer Copley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) approaches them with a deal, at the behest of creepy corporate kingpin Merrick (Harry Melling).
Theron always brings a certain hauteur and dash to her action and martial-arts sequences and Layne has real screen presence. It’s a pity that more of the movie could not have been about the meet-cute mentoring “soromance” between Andy and Nile. The adjective in the title is right. It gets old pretty quickly.
The Old Guard is available on 10 July on Netflix. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/apr/05/scarlett-johansson-dressed | Life and style | 2009-04-04T23:01:00.000Z | Eva Wiseman | How I get dressed: Scarlett Johansson, actress, 24 | First thing in the morning I think I look just like a little boy. It's only the boobs that give me away. My sister says that when I wake up I look exactly the way I did when I was 10. I'm all puffy, clean and morningy until I put a face on. I've worn make-up every day since I was 12. If I don't have mascara on, then that means I really don't expect to be seen and I'm planning a day vegging out on the sofa. I regret only one phase of my make-up life - a period when I always wore the brown "Spice" lip liner and tan lipstick look in the late 90s. Very Drew Barrymore. Or so I thought.
The one thing I know I'd never do is go out without a bra. I never understand full-chested women who are happy to do that. It's so important to have a good structure under your clothes. I don't wear one to sleep in, God no - all squished! I can't wait to throw it off at the end of the day.
I've gone through so many stages since high school, from wearing anything that would help me fit in, to giant hide-your-body sweaters, and then the stage where I wore only black. I went through a phase at 14 when I believed that wearing black was all it took to look sophisticated - in New York no one wore anything else. And being a young teenager lends itself to wearing black - you're so full of anguish and despair. Thank God I've grown out of that. If there's one thing that I never want to be, it's 14 again.
I always used to have a very specific sense of what I wanted to look like, but that's all changed with age. Now I'm aware of everything I wear being functional, at times exceedingly feminine, and often completely androgynous. If I'm going out at night, and not to a big event where I'd wear a gown, I'm in an androgynous look. I've always loved that Marlene Dietrich style. I loved David Bowie when I was in high school - he was a huge style influence growing up. And Lauren Bacall, Faye Dunaway and Lucille Ball.
Unless I'm all dressed up I don't think about how I look, and people don't comment to me on how I look any more than the average person. I live such a low-key lifestyle that it would be bizarre to hear "You're beautiful!" constantly. I don't want to think what that might do to a person. The way you look in film is not always about beauty - it's about projecting a personality. There's not as much pressure to be beautiful as there would be if I were in the fashion world. Of course it's nice to be told you look beautiful when it comes from your husband, or if you've put the effort in, but day to day it's not something I think about.
Costumes are an integral part of getting into character, because you're leaving yourself and literally slipping into someone else's clothes. On The Other Boleyn Girl, half of getting into the character was squeezing myself into those restrictive costumes. I could feel every muscle contracting, which really worked for the character. I wouldn't talk back to a great costume designer like Sandy Powell, but any costume designer will agree it's important to have the conversation with the actor about how you imagine the character. I have a particular way that I like to dress, which isn't inspired by the costumes I've worn. I've been in a lot of period costumes, and though I love 40s fashions and think those dresses suit my body, they rarely influence my real wardrobe. The designers I love are Roland Mouret, Yves Saint Laurent, Dolce & Gabbana, Lanvin and Chloé.
I'd say I'm pretty crafty. I've always liked to make jewellery, and always had ideas for designs. I don't draw very well, but it was fun working with Reebok to create a collection, and at times I've thought about how nice it would be to do a cocktail-attire line. It was great when the Marchesa girls started, because that look is all about the classic designers. And some men can't design for a woman's body. You see a dress that makes you ask who on earth is going to wear this - it'll be completely sheer and cut up to here, and will only fit a woman who weighs 120lb.
I don't have a fixed idea of what glamour is. I have friends who can't help but look really chic in jeans, completely effortless. I think it's mainly about being confident and comfortable, but I have this black velvet 30s cape that always makes me feel glamorous. I wear a lot of vintage because I love the hunt. You can really discover your own look in a vintage store. When I was a kid I'd wear only vintage. The smell of the old clothes didn't bother me. I don't think you care about what you smell like when you're 10 - that comes later.
Dolce & Gabbana make-up is available now exclusively from Selfridges London. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/dec/19/best-films-2019-us-no-2-the-irishman | Film | 2019-12-19T12:00:48.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | The 50 best films of 2019 in the US: No 2 – The Irishman | The richness, artistry and grandeur of Martin Scorsese’s film-making was revealed again in his epic mob corruption tale The Irishman, which returns him spectacularly to the wellspring of his greatest inspiration: the lives of working-class Italian Americans, and those from other US immigrant communities in the 20th century. They are mixed up with organised crime, deeply influenced by the protective codes and practices of the family, the church and respectable commerce, but their conformity exists alongside a half-acknowledged life of sin and crime. The family man cheats on his wife, the churchgoer murders and robs, the hardworking small businessman evades tax, uses his business as a laundering front for the wiseguys and pays (or demands) protection – and the loyal Cosa Nostra soldier secretly wears a wire preparing to turn state’s evidence.
The Irishman is based on the true-crime bestseller I Heard You Paint Houses about Philadelphia mob enforcer Frank Sheeran – whose nickname “The Irishman” was an important way of announcing his semi-detachment from the Italian gangsters – and Sheeran’s claim to have been the man who murdered Teamsters union boss Jimmy Hoffa at the behest of mafiosi nervous about what Hoffa might reveal about his mob links. Scorsese assembles a superstar repertory of players: Robert De Niro is the stolid, discreet Sheeran, Joe Pesci displays his charismatic menace in the role of soft-spoken mafia boss Russell Bufalino and Al Pacino brings his A-game to the part of Hoffa.
These are all actors in their 70s, and though the digital de-ageing techniques used to represent them in middle age are remarkably successful, they have the bodies of old men and move like old men. Or is it that the top players in those days did indeed have a natural predator’s discreet, unhurried stealth and stillness? Either way, there is a wintry poignancy to their performances and to the movie, which has led to a critical consensus that this is late Scorsese and that he is saying farewell to the mob genre.
Maybe. What strikes me now about this story is not that it is sadly closing the book, but actually opening the book – and a lot of wounds – about crime and its connections with corrupt politics. The film makes clear the connection between the Cuban revolution, the collapse of the mob’s casino business there and the subsequent creation of Las Vegas as the new gambling playground, built with money illegally loaned by Jimmy Hoffa out of the Teamsters’ pension fund in return for a taste of the interest repayment and the use of mob “muscle” – like Sheeran. It also touches on the mob’s complex rage at John F Kennedy for failing to show gratitude for their alleged help in getting him elected and Hoffa’s anger at attorney general Robert Kennedy for his anti-corruption crackdown. Not since Oliver Stone’s JFK has a movie returned to the conspiracist issue of political assassination. With calm, non-cranky deliberation, The Irishman proposes Hoffa’s death as a quasi-Kennedy murder, but with no grassy knoll, no book depository, no Zapruder footage.
Superstar repertory … Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci in The Irishman. Photograph: Allstar/Netflix
There is such intense fascination in Scorsese’s mastery of the big picture, the tiny detail, the flair and showmanship in the popular music on the soundtrack, and the unmistakable use of narrative voiceover, which gives his picture the intimacy of an anecdote and potency of myth. He talks of Bufalino’s’s wife, Carrie (played by Kathrine Narducci, who was Charmaine on The Sopranos) as a member of the blue-blooded Sciandra family from Sicily: “They came over on the Italian Mayflower!”
It is a very male film, and the absence of powerful women figures has been noted. I can only say that, yes, there is not much for Anna Paquin to do as Frank’s adult daughter, but the maleness and male toxicity is part of the point.
The geriatric melancholy of The Irishman is shown in the scenes in an old people’s home and in those prison facilities adapted for use by the very old (another point in common with David Chase’s The Sopranos). When the ageing Bufalino tells Sheeran he is going to mass in the prison chapel, he warns him not to laugh – and you don’t laugh, not even ironically at Bufalino’s expense. Then there is Sheeran himself, having run out of things to say at the last, and pitifully afraid of being left alone by us, the audience, and having the door shut in his own little room in the care home. The Irishman is the work by a master of cinema. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/nov/10/the-guardian-view-on-touring-opera-thwarted-in-its-mission-to-bring-music-to-the-people | Opinion | 2023-11-10T18:08:04.000Z | Editorial | The Guardian view on touring opera: thwarted in its mission to bring music to the people | Editorial | Unsurprisingly, given its national treasure status and the existential shock of finding that its very survival depended on uprooting itself, discussion of the body blow to opera caused by Arts Council England (ACE) funding cuts has focused on the fate of English National Opera (ENO).
The intention – to force ENO to move from a city that had two opera houses to one that had none – might seem fair enough, in the context of a central government command to shift resources out of the capital. But it backfired badly, by drawing all the attention to one big metropolitan player rather than to the art form it champions. Less headline-hogging cuts to two other leading players, Glyndebourne and the Welsh National Opera, simultaneously forced them to cut back on touring, leaving parts of the country with no opera at all.
So a survey from one of Glyndebourne’s former tour venues offers a useful corrective, and also a timely call to action. As one of the UK’s unsubsidised receiving houses, Norwich theatre relies on the willingness of a loyal audience to buy into a mixed programme in which opera features alongside other forms of theatre. Glyndebourne’s withdrawal from touring cut its opera offering in half, though it still hosts English Touring Opera for eight performances a year.
Since the pandemic, the theatre’s opera audiences have bounced back to 64% compared with 49% for drama. But research among more than 1,000 patrons contradicted this healthy picture. Nearly four in 10 said that opera wasn’t for them, blaming price, inaccessibility and a sense that it was an exclusive art form for the rich. In fact, a quarter of the theatre’s opera audiences came from areas identified as priorities for levelling up, while ticket prices were cheaper than for musicals.
The widespread discrepancy between perception and reality poses a threat to an art form that is not nearly as monolithic as people often assume. ACE itself addressed this by admitting two differently diverse new entrants to its National Portfolio, Pegasus Opera and OperaUpClose, both of which have touring as part of their remits. Part of Norwich theatre’s response is to venture into a coproduction of Georges Bizet’s Carmen next summer, in a classic scaled-down version by Peter Brook.
As one of the world’s most hummable operas, Carmen has long been a gateway for people who think they don’t like opera. It is one of two spectaculars that the commercial impresario Ellen Kent will be taking to Liverpool for one night each in January. But there’s no point in a gateway that leads nowhere. This is sadly the situation in Liverpool, a famously musical city region of 1.6 million people, after it lost its regular visits from both Glyndebourne and Welsh National Opera.
Liverpool will discover next month if its bid to become the new home of English National Opera has been successful. But competition is stiff, with Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham and Bristol also in the running. It should never have found itself in such an all-or-nothing situation. The wider value of Norwich theatre’s research is to highlight the danger that defunding will create a vicious circle in which opera is increasingly considered to be elitist, so only the elite will go. It would be a tragedy if such a vital and varied art form became the victim of this self-fulfilling prophecy, unable to provide evidence against the myth of its own obsolescence.
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/world/2023/may/31/indian-official-who-drained-paraklot-reservoir-looking-mobile-fined-500-pounds | World news | 2023-05-31T15:15:04.000Z | Hannah Ellis-Petersen | Indian official fined after draining reservoir in search of mobile phone | An Indian official who drained a reservoir to retrieve a mobile he dropped while taking a selfie has been fined 53,092 rupees (£520) by the government.
Rajesh Vishwas, a food inspector, had dropped his new phone worth about £1,000 into the Paralkot reservoir in Chhattisgarh state while taking a selfie during a picnic and swim with friends.
Local people spent two days attempting to dive down and retrieve the phone from the water, but their efforts proved futile. So Vishwas hired a diesel pump and emptied the reservoir of millions of litres of water.
Vishwas claimed his phone contained sensitive government information, which was why it needed to be retrieved, and alleged he had been given “verbal permission” to pump out the water into a nearby canal by the water resources department.
The water resources department later stated it had given permission for a few feet to be drained but “not that much”.
Indian official suspended after draining reservoir to retrieve phone
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Though Vishwas eventually did manage to find the phone, his efforts made local headlines and then gradually went viral. He was accused of misusing his position and triggered outrage at the scale of wasted water, which is a scarce and valuable resource in India during the hot summer months and was used locally from the reservoir by farmers to irrigate their fields.
His actions landed him in hot water with government officials. Vishwas claimed they had been “overblown”, but he was suspended from his job and put under investigation by the state authorities.
This week he was given a total fine of 53,092 rupees by the state’s irrigation department, which accused him of wasting 4.1m litres of water. His actions were described as illegal and he was told to pay a fine of 10,000 rupees as well as an additional 43,092 rupees to cover the cost of the wasted water.
Meanwhile, after three days at the bottom of the reservoir, Vishwas’s phone proved broken beyond repair. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2024/mar/21/romeo-and-juliet-review-shakespeares-globe | Stage | 2024-03-21T12:31:31.000Z | Chris Wiegand | Romeo and Juliet review – a fiery-footed, stunt-riding thriller | When Shakespeare’s star-crossed tragedy was at Manchester’s Royal Exchange last year, Romeo’s poison was pushed by a pair of dealers sinisterly wheeling around on bikes. Even more stage traffic can be found in Lucy Cuthbertson’s new production at the Globe, part of its Playing Shakespeare initiative for younger audiences, as three freestyling cyclists nimbly navigate the action. After some stunts in the graffiti-splashed courtyard, they continually stalk the characters. There are crowd-pleasing wheelies and bunny hops but the trio are seriously menacing, even interrupting the balcony scene, leading Juliet (Felixe Forde) to duck for cover while Romeo (Hayden Mampasi) hides behind a pillar.
Cuthbertson directs her own shrewd abridgement of the text, which runs at 90 minutes without interval at a pace to match the tracksuited actors. This is a thrilling, fiery-footed staging that cuts speeches reinforcing what we know (including Act 2’s prologue), retains Shakespeare’s imagery yet removes associated lines of embellishment, and bins some of the Friar’s fussier speeches. Most powerfully, as the Friar is outlining the poison plan, Cuthbertson hurtles ahead to show Juliet following his instructions and the discovery of her body.
Affecting … Hayden Mampasi (Romeo) and Felixe Forde (Juliet) at Shakespeare’s Globe. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the Guardian
It all adds to the sense of head-over-heels passion and unstoppable doom, although Juliet’s “Give me my Romeo” speech proves a cut too far. These lovers are convincingly dizzy from romance but could use just a little more time to reflect on emotions that, in Mampasi and Forde’s affecting performances, are barely contained.
In a production with very modern crime scenes – police tape, bodybags, medical gloves – the play’s violent ends are squarely placed in a succession of deaths caused by the families’ feud. The prologue is divided between protesters holding a vigil for slain loved ones; this is a tragedy shared not just by the two lovers but by all those killed on stage and off, as well as their families. The garden of the Friar (Marième Diouf) is entangled with bouquets memorialising the dead.
Breathtaking skills … Owen Gawthorpe, above, and Ashley Byam in Romeo and Juliet. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/the Guardian
The acute fight direction from Kev McCurdy includes brawls breaking out in some unexpected places, accompanied by the percussionists in Dave Price’s band. Rarely is the Nurse’s clash with Mercutio so explosive. Styling Juliet’s confidante (played by Miriam Grace Edwards) as an actual nurse gives a sense of medical emergency to some scenes, such as when she rushes to prevent Capulet (Gethin Alderman) from beating his daughter. Seeing her in an NHS uniform also adds believability to the Nurse’s lines about her bones and head aching.
The chief cyclist Owen Gawthorpe – a British champion professional trials rider – shows breathtaking skill at close quarters with cast and audience. There is even room for a wacky hallucination when Juliet takes the potion and finds herself amid a hellish hen party with a stripteasing Paris (Simeon Desvignes, cruel and controlling in other scenes).
It is well-performed across the board, including the physical bonding between Ashley Byam (Mercutio) and Saroja-Lily Ratnavel (Benvolio), plus Sharon Ballard as an unusually lairy Lady Capulet. The interaction with the young audience (principally over-11s) is consummately handled, with the text’s questions often posed directly to spectators. When Liam King’s Tybalt demands his rapier, some of the crowd cry out in shock. “What?” he asks them directly, as if to suggest: how else might we settle all this?
At Shakespeare’s Globe, London, until 13 April | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2018/oct/21/beastie-boys-book-memoir-interview | Music | 2018-10-21T08:00:17.000Z | Miranda Sawyer | Beastie Boys: ‘Being in a band… it’s an absurd comedy’ | To call someone a “boy” when they’re over 50 is disrespectful. Except that Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-rock” Horovitz, the two remaining Beastie Boys, are almost parodically boyish. They don’t look or act middle-aged at all. Diamond, 52, has slightly spiked dark hair and is so skinny, his waistline appears to be the same size as a normal man’s upper thigh. Horovitz, 51, is grey, but his hair sticks up any old how, and he also has a teenager’s habit of yanking his face about, pulling stupid expressions to make himself look ugly (which he is not). Both are dressed in leisure wear – T-shirts, loose-ish trousers, trainers – and both are defiantly, hilariously un-adult. This interview is like having a conversation with my 12-year-old son and his mate. Meaning it’s really fun (I’m often almost crying with laughter), but it’s scattershot, and rarely serious. Everything the Beasties say is true, but most of it is jokes.
We’re in a suite at the Bowery hotel in New York, to talk about Beastie Boys Book, a new memoir of their time in the band. The book opens with a lovely piece from Horovitz about Adam “MCA” Yauch, the third Beastie, who died from salivary gland cancer in 2012, aged 47. Yauch was, writes Horovitz, the kind of friend “that gets you motivated. The one that not only gets themselves going and doing great things but says: ‘We should all get together and do this’… The friend that makes it happen. The friend that inspires you to go big.”
Quick Guide
The best of the Beastie Boys, by Observer pop critic Kitty Empire
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Go big is what the Beastie Boys did. Against all expectations, three white middle-class New Yorkers with mixed, mostly Jewish, heritage and a punk-rock sensibility became, for a 1980s moment, the biggest rap band in the world. And after that – this is the really strange bit – they managed to continue making music and create a 30-year-plus career. “Lucky?” says Horovitz. “Yes. Our music is weird. It’s not pop. I don’t know why so many people buy our records.”
The book took them four years to complete and tells the Beasties’ story from pre-1981, when Diamond formed a hardcore band with friends, including Yauch. Packed with photographs, diagrams, maps, cartoons, recipes, lists (some great music ones), as well as some brilliant writing from them both, Beastie Boys Book is a delight. But, God, getting either Diamond or Horovitz to talk about it is nigh-on impossible.
Mostly, the interview goes like this: I mention an anecdote, or a particular time in their career, and then they mess around. So, when I ask about Diamond’s late-1980s habit of wearing a Volkswagen badge as a medallion (as he does on the book’s cover), he and Horovitz have a lengthy debate as to whether either of them actually wrote anything specifically about the VW badge/medallion thing. Then…
Diamond: “It was just one of those things that happened… Adam and Adam showed up at my apartment in the West Village with one and they were like: ‘Here, you’re wearing this.’”
Michael ‘Mike D’ Diamond and Adam ‘Ad-Rock’ Horovitz. Photograph: Mike McGregor/The Observer
Horovitz: “That’s not really how it happened. Didn’t you steal it? You kind of stole it.”
Diamond: “From you? I stole it from you? Is that what you’re saying?”
Horovitz: “Well, I stole it from… Maybe we should not talk about this.”
Diamond: “Just because there’s a lot of thievery involved.”
Horovitz: “And the down coat…”
Diamond: “I don’t even want to go into the down coat… Really, the VW thing is more about other people’s stories. Everybody, after I wore it, was just like [stupid voice, moving his arms stiffly]: ‘Oh, yes, this guy stole this one from duh-duh-duh.’”
Horovitz: “Who are you describing right now? Who is that?! What happened to your arms?”
Diamond: “This is my character. ‘I’ve got to tell you guys… In 1987, I stole this medallion, for you.’ [Moves arms again] Arms, not convincing, huh? No?”
Horovitz: “No.”
See? They’re like kids avoiding a have-you-done-your-homework question. Especially Diamond. His mind bounces between subjects like a well-flipped pinball. In any other profession, Diamond would be seen as an eccentric.
“Mike is the craziest person,” says Horovitz. “He’s scattered, he’s all over the place. When you hold him down and tell him: ‘This is what you’re doing,’ he’s fantastic. But you have to hold him down. Like when he had to write his verse for Hello Nasty, we had to take his phone away to get him to do it. That’s what he was like about writing this book. We hid his phone.”
Diamond: “I have a short attention span. It’s because I’m used to making records. That gratification. You press play, and you listen back and you’re like: ‘Oh I could dance to this,’ or: ‘God, really? I spent two days doing that?’ Immediate feedback. But when you just sit there on your laptop writing for two days…”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, although the writing is shared pretty equally at the beginning of the book, Diamond’s contributions drop away towards the end. He kept finding excuses. He has two teenage sons (he shares custody with his ex-wife Tamra Davis) and likes to spend time with them. He lives in Malibu and they all do a lot of surfing: “Surfing can actually monopolise all my time,” he says gravely.
The Beastie Boys in 1987: Mike Diamond, Adam Yauch and Adam Horovitz. Photograph: Andy Freeberg/Mediapunch/Rex/Shutterstock
“Look, getting my sons out of bed and out of the house every day is such an effort that I feel I’m done by 8.30am,” he says. This makes it seem as though he’s too exhausted to do anything else, but actually, Diamond is really busy. He’s into wine (he curated a wine list for a new LA restaurant), he’s designed expensive “grown man bags” (he shows me a leather wallet from his collection), he’s made music for fashion-house art events and has been a cultural ambassador for Mercedes-Benz. He produces other bands (Slaves and Portugal. The Man), he recently did a DJing tour, he has a weekly Beats 1 radio show, The Echo Chamber. Though he’s a master of distraction (he spends 15 minutes at the start of our interview wondering what to get for breakfast: “Order eggs, Mike,” says Horovitz wearily), Diamond actually enjoys being absorbed, transported by something that moves him creatively. When he’s excited, he’s all in.
In contrast, Horovitz enjoyed the writing (“It was very easy, I really liked it”), and has concentrated on completing a lot of the other legwork: sourcing photographs, tracking people down. Aside from all that, he has a little boy with his wife, Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna, and he and Hanna write screenplays together (they sold a pilot to Comedy Central). He’s played bass in Bridget Everett and the Tender Moments and he acts, much to Diamond’s amusement. “Did you know Adam was in a semi-pornographic movie in 1984?”
When I ask Horovitz how he spends his days, he bristles, a teeny bit. He’s naturally more private than Diamond. “Well, I don’t know about Mike, but I’ve been writing a book for the past three years,” he says. “I’m renting a house in Pasadena with a swimming pool, so take a guess… uh… I’m working on a soundtrack for a friend’s movie, which I don’t think he’s ever going to finish, so, if anybody needs like an hour’s worth of Casio music, I’ve got it.”
Diamond: “Adam makes it sound like he does nothing. But he’s on a caffeine-fuelled rampage at 6.30am with his emails.”
Horovitz: “First thing in the morning, boom. Get it done. Boom, boom, boom. After that, I like to hang out… Hey, you know what? We just got Jarvis Cocker to read for the audio book, the British section.”
Back to the book. Their first idea was to have the whole of it written by friends, but “for so much of our lives it was just us three,” says Horovitz. So he and Diamond thought of all the stories they wanted to tell, “and then we’d look at each other and be like, ‘I don’t remember any of this.’” Because of this, their friends’ takes still feature heavily. Director Spike Jonze gives extended photograph captions. Kate Schellenbach, from Luscious Jackson, a Beastie Boy herself from 81-86, writes a truthful and lovely essay. Fashion guru André Leon Talley analyses their style, very dismissively. It all adds up to what Mike calls “a chunky tome”: a scrapbook of experiences, a multilayered non-definitive history. Not like a usual rock biography.
“No,” says Diamond. “I read Graham Nash’s on holiday. You know, for research. He was embittered for like 7,000 pages… All these books are terribly serious. But when you’re in a band, so much of the time, honestly, it’s an absurd comedy.”
In New York City in 1994, around the time of the release of Ill Communication. Photograph: L. Busacca/WireImage
Horovitz: “That, and hanging around waiting for everyone to decide where they want to eat.”
All three of the Beasties grew up in New York, and all went to small liberal schools. (Horovitz’s was so liberal it was called the City-As-School.) Yauch was an only child; Horovitz and Diamond were youngest children. They all had a lot of freedom. “By the time I came along my parents had had enough,” says Diamond. “It was just like, ‘Go do what you’re doing, just don’t get into so much trouble that I hear about it.’” Horovitz: “Nobody said, ‘You need to be home before 3am on a Thursday.’”
New York at that time was rough, and most of the middle class moved out when they had kids. “We were the weirdos that grew up here,” says Diamond, who remembers being taught by his mum what to do when (not if) he got mugged. “She was always like, ‘Remember. Put the money in your sock.’ I was like, ‘Why? Won’t they check there too? Are feet just too gross even for muggers?’” No mobile phones back then, of course, but this, they feel, was key: everyone was more connected with their surroundings and Horovitz, Yauch and Diamond would hear music everywhere, coming out of cars, in shops, from boomboxes.
“The only way that we could have become the band that we became is because New York at that time had everything going on,” says Diamond. “Now, you can get every song that ever influenced us on this phone, but at that time, New York truly was the only place in the world that had this confluence of all this different kind of music. New-wave stuff, no-wave stuff, post-punk, then the beginnings of rap. Dub, jazz, salsa, whatever.”
The young teenage Beasties would go out downtown, meeting at gigs or clubs or a record store, the Rat Cage. “You’d cut school and go to the Rat Cage because you knew someone would be there,” says Horovitz. The next generation after the crowd containing Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring and Blondie, they were allowed into nightclubs such as the Mudd Club and Danceteria even though they were underage, just because people liked them. Inspired by hardcore bands such as Bad Brains, Diamond started a punk-noise band when he was just 14 that morphed into the Beastie Boys (Diamond, Yauch, guitarist John Berry, Schellenbach on drums). Horovitz was also in a band, the Young and the Useless, but replaced Berry in the Beasties in 1983. Soon after, hip-hop hit downtown, the Beasties saw Afrika Bambaataa DJ at a club, and, writes Diamond: “All we wanted was to be our own version of the Treacherous Three.”
Watch the video for Sabotage.
As they became more enchanted by rap, they realised that they needed a DJ. Through a friend, they became involved with Rick Rubin, a strange, long-haired Long Islander who was a student at New York University. Rubin had turntables, and a big record collection; they all chose breaks and the Beasties began to rap over the top. Gradually, Schellenbach was eased out (Rubin didn’t like female rappers: all the Beasties later acknowledged that this was “shitty”), Rubin became their producer and onstage DJ, and the new Beasties persona began to emerge: a bratty, fratty mickey-take of adolescence, their nasal raps backed by big rhythms and noisy guitar riffs.
Rubin introduced them to Russell Simmons, brother of Rev Run of Run DMC. Simmons and Rubin formed a new label, Def Jam, and brought out the Beastie Boys’ first album, Licensed to Ill, in 1986. With its single (You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!), the LP was like a call to arms for amped-up teenagers. The jokes became bigger and more stupid. The Beasties’ tour boasted an enormous hydraulic penis and go-go dancers in cages; they were banned from a hotel chain; the British tabloids wrote that they were the “world’s nastiest pop group” and that they made fun of children in wheelchairs (they didn’t). Horovitz was arrested for throwing a beer can at fans (he didn’t). The silly fun turned sour. Horovitz: “All of sudden we were the Sex Pistols.”
They had thought that everyone was in on the joke, but the line between parody and truth is a tricky one to walk. Diamond: “At first, it’s really funny and totally sarcastic. And then it becomes reality and you become part of that. It never dawned on us that it would become our job. To be these guys throwing beers over each other night after night…”
Chicago, 1987. Photograph: Paul Natkin/WireImage
The Licensed to Ill era came to a sticky end in 1987, with all three of the Beasties unhappy and barely speaking to one another. Not only were they sick of being a no-longer-funny punchline, they were skint – whereas Rubin and Simmons had made a lot of money. Simmons tried to use this as a bargaining tool to get the Beasties to make Licensed to Ill Part Two.
“Russell was like, if you don’t go in the studio, then I’m not paying you,” says Diamond. “His calculation was that we would all be like, ‘Oh we want our millions. OK, Russell we’re going to do it.’ But we were all immediately, ‘Fuck you.’”
Now they have no hard feelings towards Rubin and Simmons. “But that’s because it all worked out,” says Horovitz. “Had it not worked out, had we broken up in ’87 – and we never got paid by Rick and Russell and Def Jam – it wouldn’t be fine.”
It was a rough time. Yauch started another band. Diamond did too. And Horovitz went to Los Angeles, to make a film (Lost Angels). While there, he came across some musicians/producers called the Dust Brothers. It was their music that got him excited and brought the others over to the west coast.
The subsequent LA years were crucial ones for the band. Their follow-up album, the immensely expensive and now-much-loved Paul’s Boutique, was a flop, and Capitol, their record label, was no longer bothered. They were left to their own devices. “Paul’s Boutique was a bust, right?” says Horovitz. “That was a bummer. We didn’t pause on it for a long time, we didn’t go through therapy, but it was weird. And because it was a bust, we didn’t go on tour. So we just started making Check Your Head (their third album) at my apartment.”
For a time, all three Beasties lived in a crazy Hollywood mansion, complete with swimming pool and a room full of 1970s clothes, which they wore to celebrity parties. But after a while, they split off: Yauch lived solo in an art deco-style apartment block, Horovitz in the Hollywood hills with his then-girlfriend Ione Skye, and Diamond in the Silver Lake neighbourhood with Davis. They all made music, but they also all skateboarded, and everyone smoked a lot of weed. I was vaguely friendly with Diamond in the mid-90s, and I remember going over to his home one afternoon after lunch. I had two tokes on a joint he rolled and couldn’t use the phone. “Oh yeah, that was the crazy strong pot, the one that we grew in the yard,” says Diamond. “Hippie Steve, our pot dealer, gave me the seeds and I just threw them in the ground.”
Somehow, despite the omnipresence of weed, the Beastie Boys got things done. They wanted to be “entrepreneurial, but not exploitative”, and set up all sorts of side projects. Diamond created a clothing line, X-Large, which offered cargo trousers and logo T-shirts; it had a spin-off for women, X-Girl, designed by Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon. All three Beasties started a record label, Grand Royal, which released albums by Luscious Jackson and Atari Teenage Riot. And they also put out a brilliant, though shortlived magazine, also called Grand Royal, which featured articles on Bruce Lee, Lee Perry and the joy of the mullet haircut. Yauch became involved in the Free Tibet movement and staged several fundraising concerts. All of this creativity was germinated in an old plumbing factory they called G-Son (the “e” and “l” had fallen off the original Gelson sign). It had a big room with a skateboard ramp and half a basketball court, and lots of smaller ones that led off a corridor.
During the LA years, the Beasties became more than just musicians. “We never thought we were musicians,” says Horovitz. “We just thought we were in a band.”
What’s the difference? “Well, everyone in downtown New York was in a band,” says Diamond. “Nobody could play, but everyone was in a band.”
Mike D in the studio in Atwater Village, Los Angeles, 1990. Photograph: Courtesy the band
Jean-Michel Basquiat came by when he was in LA, wanting to produce Paul’s Boutique. He wasn’t the only one. You could link the Beasties of that era with Q-Tip, Spike Jonze, Sofia Coppola and more. An interview at the time said: “It appears as though everyone under 35 who is doing anything creative in New York or LA is at some point sucked into the Beasties’ vortex.” During the 90s, the Beasties’ downtown New York creative mix – music, clothes, film, magazines – came to fruition. New York created the Beasties, but LA let them flourish.
And that way of life – working on music, but also other interesting side projects and political causes – became how the Beasties lived. After Check Your Head, there was Ill Communication, which gave the world the hit Sabotage, and then the blockbuster album Hello Nasty. The Beasties were, once more, one of the biggest rap acts in the world. The band became, as Horovitz puts it, “something that we could all come back to when we wanted and needed it”.
Their last album, Hot Sauce Committee Part Two, came out in 2011. A year later, the death of Yauch changed everything, as you’d expect. They don’t write about this much in the book.
Horovitz: “There’s a lot of personal shit that we just don’t talk about. I don’t talk about my mom dying and Mike doesn’t talk about his dad dying, or his brother. Because it’s nobody’s business, except who we choose to make part of that business. Do you know what I mean?”
Diamond: “Also… it’s really hard. It’s a tremendously sad thing. We never anticipated experiencing this incredible loss of our friend and partner dying, and dying the way he did. It’s still sad. What can you possibly write beyond that? What can you write about that period of time? It’s this weird transition. They’re that person but they’re not the person they were... All you can say is, yes, you miss this person.”
Our time is up. The Beasties are due to have their pictures taken. They delay, goof around, pretend to make themselves pretty.
“Hey Mike, I have our whole record planned out for next year,” says Horovitz. “Our battle of the bands record.”
“My people will get back to you,” says Diamond. “You know, there’s a real growing sector for middle-aged cop buddy movies right now. Or maybe a TV show. Fifteen-minute episodes.”
Horovitz: “Do I have a really tiny head? I was walking here and I saw my reflection in a window and it looked like it was oddly small. I think I have a pinhead.”
Diamond: “Maybe you need to wear more form-fitting clothes. To make your head proportionate.”
We all look different as we get older, I say.
“Ah, but you’re wrong there,” says Horovitz firmly. “I’m never going to get old.”
Beastie Boys Book is published on 30 October by Faber Social (£32). To order a copy for £27.52 go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
This article was revised on 22 October 2018. Jean-Michel Basquiat had wanted to produce Paul’s Boutique not (as originally stated) Check Your Head | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/01/luvvie-actors-dramatic-heritage-judi-dench | Opinion | 2017-05-01T13:37:53.000Z | Michael Simkins | Maybe I’m a grumpy old luvvie – but I think young actors have a lot to learn | Michael Simkins | Iremember the occasion as if it were yesterday. I’d been chatting to a top theatrical agent, a woman in her mid-30s who spends her evenings watching plays featuring both her own glittering client list and potential candidates.
During our conversation I mentioned a much-loved actor, once a household name and still regarded as one of the finest of his generation. “I’m so sorry,” she interrupted. “Who’s Michael Hordern?”
Who’s Michael Hordern? Once upon a time an admission such as that would have caused howls of derision in every green room in the country. But times have changed. No one under 30 seems to have heard of anyone over 30 any more.
Michael Hordern (left) and Antony Sher in ‘The History Man’. Photograph: BBC
Well, now Dame Judi Dench (heard of her?) has crystallised the anxiety felt by many of us old stagers by publicly lamenting the lack of knowledge about – or even interest in – our theatrical heritage among young actors. For many, it seems, acting was invented in 2004.
Dame Judi’s sentiments, expressed during a speech to celebrate the unveiling of a blue plaque outside the home of Sir John Gielgud (no, he didn’t play inside right for Arsenal) may seem like the foolish, fond lament of a seasoned pro yearning for the good old days, but they describe a cultural disjunction many older actors have felt for some years.
Time moves on, of course it does; but having a working knowledge of the titans on whose shoulders we stand should still matter. One top theatre director admitted to me recently that he finds it “difficult” to watch black-and-white movies. Fair enough, except you’re missing out on most of Alec Guinness, Robert Donat, Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson et al. Not all younger stars are culpable of course. When current stage star Tom Burke (recently seen in The Deep Blue Sea at the National Theatre) informed me he was celebrating his 30th birthday by staging a private screening of his favourite film and his favourite actor (The Green Man with the incomparable Alastair Sim), I nearly bought a round of drinks. But such enthusiasm for our rich dramatic heritage is an increasing rarity. Yet how can you become a better actor if you don’t study and learn from the greats?
Equally worrying for Dame Judi was the lack of clear enunciation and diction among many of those strutting their stuff. Naturalism is master of all it surveys just now, and with modern plays mirroring the language of our time, the fashion is for short, fractured sentences and jagged exchanges, often mumbled under your breath. Otherwise, it’s presumed, how can it be truthful? But there’s a thin line between realism and incomprehensibility.
I’m currently appearing in Alistair Beaton’s new comedy Fracked!, playing to packed houses on tour from Brighton to Bath. The two leads, James Bolam and Anne Reid (both of whom have been acting for seven decades), deliver their lines with economy, clarity and precision. No single element is sacrificed at the expense of another. Job done.
Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard in ‘Brief Encounter’. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext
Of course many young actors possess great technique, range and much else besides; but even then they’re often defeated by theatre layouts. Modern auditoria, designed by folk who know a lot about integrated leisure complexes but far less about acoustics, are often high on chrome and steel but short on plaster and wood, traditional materials that act as a natural sounding board.
Add to that the current fashion for super-realism in TV and films (hands up how many of you turn up the sound or switch on the subtitles), and you see the tide against which we sometimes find ourselves swimming. In any case, good enunciation (“speaking clearly” in old money) still matters, whatever your occupation and whatever your natural dialect. At least, it should do.
Perhaps I’m just a grumpy old luvvie. Perhaps Dame Judi is too. But the art of stage acting is to convey truth and sentiment in that most contrived and artificial of environments, namely a venue in which (possibly) hundreds of people are attempting to read your innermost thoughts, some from as far as 50 metres away. As George Burns famously said: “Acting is all about honesty. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.”
If you don’t believe him, just ask Michael Hordern. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/17/zadie-smith-national-short-story-award-shortlist-lionel-shriver-rose-tremain | Books | 2014-09-17T18:45:03.000Z | Alison Flood | Zadie Smith and Lionel Shriver head National short story award shortlist | Zadie Smith’s tale of the quest for a new corset on New York’s East Side – “Rome says: enjoy me. London: survive me. New York: gimme all you got” – has been shortlisted for the BBC National short story award.
The all-female shortlist – the third for the award in nine years – pits Smith against her fellow Orange prize-winners Lionel Shriver and Rose Tremain, as well as Tessa Hadley and new talent Francesca Rhydderch, whose debut The Rice Paper Diaries won the Wales book of the year award for fiction. Over 550 stories were submitted for the BBC’s £15,000 prize.
Smith, who has said that she has “only recently become comfortable with the form” of the short story, makes the cut with Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets, in which her protagonist is forced to “haul ass across town to buy a new corset” amid the “crappy old buildings higgledy-piggledy on top of each other, ugly students, shitty pizza joints, delis, tattoo parlours” of the East Side. “New York just expects so much from a girl – acts like it can’t stand even the idea of a wasted talent or opportunity,” writes Smith. “And Miss Adele had been around.”
“About a month after the story was published I was walking down Broadway and a six-foot middle-aged black drag queen not unlike Miss Adele shouted over: ‘Liked that story, Miss Zadie!’ That’s about the best review I’ve ever had,” Smith has said.
Tremain’s The American Lover is “an intensely moving story of a life lost to love”, said the BBC, while Shriver’s Kilifi Creek sees a gap-year traveller – “another dewy-eyed Yank who confuses a flight to Africa with a trip to the zoo” – brush up against death as a swim turns out to be more than she bargained for.
Hadley’s Bad Dreams opens as “a child woke up in the dark. She seemed to swim up into consciousness as if to a surface, which she then broke through, looking around with her eyes open”, and according to the judges, “elegantly and precisely captures the moment when a child’s unexpected awakening exposes the unease and isolation lurking beneath the surface of her home life”. The Taxidermist’s Daughter, by Rhydderch, sees a young girl in postwar Wales become aware of her sexuality, and of an older man.
The shortlist was announced on Front Row on Wednesday evening. Chair of judges Alan Yentob, creative director of the BBC, praised the “rich and varied” selection of stories, adding that the form “has a unique ability to capture a single defining moment”.
“It invites us to dive headfirst into another world and to savour an experience which can remain with us for a very long time to come. In their very different ways these five stories do just that,” said Yentob, who is joined as a judge by the authors Laura Dockrill and Adam Foulds, editor Philip Gwyn Jones and BBC Radio editor of books Di Speirs.
Speirs added that the shortlist “shows just how varied and how revealing a few thousand words can be”, with the five contenders featuring characters who “move from innocence to experience and in their own very particular circumstances, reflect moments of universal truth for all of us”.
The winner of the prize, which is run in partnership with Booktrust, will be announced on 30 September, and will join former winners including James Lasdun, Julian Gough and Sarah Hall.
This year’s shortlist:
Bad Dreams by Tessa Hadley
The Taxidermist’s Daughter by Francesca Rhydderch
Kilifi Creek by Lionel Shriver
Miss Adele Amidst the Corsets by Zadie Smith
The American Lover by Rose Tremain | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/oct/17/saturday-night-live-rami-malek-daniel-craig | Television & radio | 2021-10-17T13:47:11.000Z | Zach Vasquez | Saturday Night Live: host Rami Malek gets upstaged by 007 himself | Saturday Night Live opens with a message from the National Football League. Universally despised commissioner Roger Goodell (Colin Jost) addresses the scandal that’s enveloped the league following the leak of Las Vegas Raiders’ head coach Jon Gruden’s emails, which contained numerous racist, misogynistic, homophobic and transphobic comments. Goodell is horrified and offended by the content of the emails, not least of all because he factors heavily in many of them, with Gruden referring to him as “the F-word, the P-word, the C-word, the R-word, the F’ing-R-word, and the F’ing-R-word-P-word. And once, weirdly, I was called a DILF.”
Saturday Night Live: host Kim Kardashian West struggles to keep up
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He then hands the mic over to a series of speakers, including Gruden himself (James Austin Johnson), who plays innocent (“I hope you won’t judge me on one email I sent ten years ago … or the 20 emails I sent last Tuesday”); Raiders owner Mark Davis (Alex Moffat), aka, “the botched circumcision”; new chairman of women’s relations for the NFL, a cheerleader from the Washington football team ([Heidi Gardner], “I, just like my team, don’t have a name”); a new, mascot, Giuseppe, the Stinky Italian (Mikey Day); Colin Kaepernick (Chris Redd), who sarcastically wonders if anyone had recently raised warnings about racism in the NFL; and, finally, the Raiders’ new head coach, LaVar Burton, who sings everyone off with a new, football-themed rendition of the Reading Rainbow theme.
Another week, another SNL cold open built around a seemingly endless stream of brief, walk-on impersonations, most of which leave us wanting. Still, there’s some decent stuff to be found here – Johnson does a good (if not particularly memorable) impression of Gruden, Day is funny as a conscience-stricken stereotype, and the show makes good use of Jost’s inherent smarminess by casting him as Goodell.
Tonight’s host is Oscar winning actor and new James Bond villain Rami Malek. Speaking of Bond: the last episode of Saturday Night Live before the Covid-19 pandemic went into full swing saw host Daniel Craig promoting his latest (and last) entry in the 007 franchise, No Time to Die. Obviously, that film would be shelved for 19 months, during which time SNL would go on hiatus, before transition to remote and limited capacity tapings for a long while. With the film now finally out in theaters and the show pretty much back to normal, this episode marks something of a milestone for both institutions. The only question now is: can Malek rise to meet the occasion?
He admits right off the bat that he’s not too practiced at comedy, his “resting villain face” making him gravitate towards playing bad guys in serious dramas (although a quick perusal at the actor’s filmography puts the lie to this claim). He proves his point by hurrying through an annoyingly mannered stand-up routine about how villains are always misunderstood: “Jaws is hungry; Dracula is thirsty, Frankenstein is horny … Darth Vader is just trying to reconnect with his son … Freddy Krueger is just encouraging kids to dream.”
Malek mostly sticks to the background in his first sketch, playing one of a group of awkward middle schoolers dressed as insects for a bug assembly. (“It’s sort of like Burning Man for the weird kids,” their teacher explains.) This is all Bowen Yang’s show, as he vamps it up to the nth degree in his daddy long legs costume, dancing to techno music and playing the diva (“I’m hot, I party, I walk into the room and I’m respected – NO MORE QUESTIONS!”). Yang’s fans should find a lot to enjoy here, although there is a palpable theater kid energy to the whole thing that many will likely find off-putting.
You figured SNL wouldn’t pass up the chance to satirize Netflix’s latest cultural juggernaut, and indeed, the show delivers a parody of the hit South Korean dystopian drama Squid Game, by way of a modern pop-country ballad as sung by Davidson and Malek: “Yes I’m broke and it’s a damn shame/Guess I gotta play the Squid Game.”
If (like me), you’re one of the handful of people who hasn’t seen an episode, you’ll likely by lost by the highly specific jokes and visual references (so specific that they apparently spoil the entire arc of the series), but there’s some solid laughs to be mined from it regardless – particularly Malek and Davidson’s traumatized reactions to watching their teammates get gunned down by a giant robot schoolgirl and a closing stinger aimed at the New York Jets.
The casting process for a new biopic of Prince – to be directed by Jordan Peele – comes down to between Malek and Kenan Thompson, resulting in a “Prince-off” (a series of brief, monosyllabic twists and grunts that repeat way too many times). Ultimately, despite Malek looking way more like Prince, the job goes to Thompson, since he’s black. “My parents are from Egypt! That’s in Africa,” Malek protests, but the producers aren’t biting. Before things wrap up, we’re treated to a surprise appearance from Daniel Craig, who barges in demanding to audition for what he believes is the part of a royal prince. His game energy gives the sketch – and the show as a whole – a brief shot in the arm.
On the game show Celeb School, the famous faces that make up the guest panel include John Oliver (Mikey Day), Jennifer Coolidge (Chloe Fineman), Adam Driver (Johnson), Kristen Wiig (Melissa Villaseñor), George Takei (Yang), Lil’ Wayne (Redd), and bug-eyed doppelgangers Rami Malek and Pete Davidson (each playing the other).
Oliver bungles a question with one of his rote rants, Coolidge rambles her way into a correct answer, Weezy ghosts it, Wiig goofs around, Driver immediately flies into rage mode and Takei whines about his former Star Trek co-star/rival William Shatner’s recent trip into outer space. The impressions are all pretty spot-on, including Malek and Davidson’s. It would have been easy enough for the show to simply acknowledge their resemblance, but credit to both, they do a pretty good job actually aping one another.
On Weekend Update, Jost shares a recent picture of Timothée Chalamet in costume as a “twink Willy Wonka” for a forthcoming prequel film about the character. He then introduces – and accidentally outs – his first guest, A Proud Gay Oompa Loompa (Yang). The green haired, orange skinned munchkin, who planned to discuss an upcoming worker’s strike at Wonka’s candy factory, worries what his family will think of him (“They live in Loompa Land. It’s not as progressive as here, they, like, just got Will & Grace.”), while also using his newfound freedom to unload on his idiot boss: “Point blank, the man doesn’t know how to make chocolate! He’s an ideas man who’s never touched a machine. He just tumbles into the inventing room and says something like, ‘Oh, what about a gumdrop that makes children dream silly dreams?’, and it’s like, yeah, bitch, what about it? Meanwhile, we’re up all night rehearsing the little song and dance we do when a child DIES.” Yang’s appearances on Update can often feel very one-note, but this one evades that by switching back and forth between two different, and enjoyable, premises.
Next up, Chris Redd joins Michael Che to address his controversial comments during his last Very Important Unimportant News segment back in February of 2020, in which he signed off by saying “Black people can’t get coronavirus!” Redd defends himself by noting that “I was just saying something crazy! I’m not a scientist – I went to community college, which is like high school, but you can have sex with your teacher!” He also devotes a couple of funny minutes to questioning the existence of blimps and defending “Superman’s son in the comics being a little bi-sex boy now”. Redd is always good on Update, and hopefully he becomes a mainstay of the segment this year.
Then, a married couple shopping for a new mattress test some of the models by acting out their nightly routine: an ultra-venomous back-and-forth that sees Aidy Bryant’s wife viciously laying in to Malek’s henpecked husband (“You reek of vermouth and WHORES!”), while he angrily masturbates under the covers. A funny, inspired send-up of psychosexual stage dramas like Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – Yang’s horrified salesman even accuses the couple of “doing a little play” at one point – this sketch unfortunately loses the thread, devolving much less enjoyable slapstick mugging during its back end.
In the final sketch of the night, Craig and Cecily Strong play a couple out on a date at a nightclub. They’re there to see a musician named Angelo – newcomer Aristotle Athari, getting his first big moment in the spotlight (literally) – who improvises songs based on words suggested by the audience. Craig’s suggestions – “bicycle”, “banana” and “road trip” – earn the same confused query from the soft-voiced French singer: “Say for me?”
Eventually, Angelo is joined by Malek’s equally enigmatic dancer, Todd, who awkwardly sashays about the stage. The specificity of these bizarre characters earns some bewildered laughs from the audience, although Craig’s befuddled everyman and Strong’s increasingly annoyed date make for the more engaging characters.
After a bit of a rocky start, Malek ended up acquitted himself just fine as host, although the contrast between him and the far more charismatic and comedically inclined Craig didn’t do him any favors. Here’s hoping Craig comes back for another hosting gig sometime in the near future. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/oct/08/molly-manning-walker-how-to-have-sex-interview-cannes-london-film-festival | Film | 2023-10-08T06:00:34.000Z | Miranda Sawyer | ‘Stuff happened, you know?’ How to Have Sex director Molly Manning Walker on wild youth, Magaluf and storming Cannes | In a cinema cafe in London’s King’s Cross, Molly Manning Walker is showing me some pictures on her phone. They’re of a young woman, on holiday in Magaluf; a teenager with long brown hair and fake tan, laughing in her fake eyelashes and “out-out” clothes (belt skirt, stretchy top). Here she is on a bar crawl, falling off her mates; here, rotten hungover with a towel wrapped around her head. She looks as if she’s having the time of her life.
“I was,” says Walker. “I went on four of those holidays, when I was 16 to 18. You run away from your parents, you’re free. You can do whatever you want. The first time I went, there were 16 of us in four rooms on the same corridor. Sitting by the pool, talking absolute nonsense all day long, going out drinking all night, nonstop partying for a week. Nonstop. You pay €25 to get into the club, you get unlimited drinks all night.”
Walker’s Magaluf trips gave her “some of the greatest memories of my life”. But she also remembers the difficult parts, mostly ignored back then. “Stuff happened, you know?” she says. “Bad stuff happened. And we didn’t even recognise it as bad. Because we were too busy bigging each other up. ‘You slept with someone! So good!’”
Mia McKenna-Bruce as Tara in How to Have Sex. Photograph: Mubi
Now 30, with cropped hair and a more relaxed wardrobe, Walker has transformed all those teenage experiences – the good, the bad, the ugly – into her new must-see film, How to Have Sex, which follows three 16-year-old girls from London on a post-GCSE summer blowout in Malia, Crete. Tara (Mia McKenna-Bruce), Em (Enva Lewis) and Skye (Lara Peake) – screeching all the way, good vibes set to 11 – spend their time getting plastered, making one another laugh, bouncing from hotel room to pool to bar to club to beach to club to, sometimes, bed. They join forces with a group of three slightly older party-harders from Bradford and they all have “the best holiday ever!” At least, that’s what they keep telling one another. “You have to, don’t you?” says Walker. “That’s the deal.”
How to Have Sex won the Un Certain Regard award at Cannes this year, an overwhelming experience for the not easily overwhelmed Walker. It was the first time she’d seen anything she’d directed in front of an audience. Her first two short films came out during Covid and an unfinished script of How to Have Sex won her a place on the prestigious Cannes Next Step programme, where a tutor (director Marie Amachoukeli) helped her develop it into a full-length movie. Filming took place in Malia last November – “It was freezing!” – and it was a scramble to get everything finished in time for Cannes itself. So when Walker saw her film on the big screen in the packed Debussy theatre with an in-the-know audience, it was… a lot.
At the end, there was polite applause. Walker thought: “Oh, they like it, but they don’t love it, fair enough.” But when the lights came up, she was given an eight-minute standing ovation. “Bizarre,” she says. “Like going to 12 weddings in a row, when you’ve been living in a dark room, editing for six months.”
All the real girls: Lara Peake, Enva Lewis and Mia McKenna-Bruce in How to Have Sex. Photograph: MUBI
The awards ceremony was even weirder. She’d had to go to Italy for work and her flight back was delayed. As her name was read out as the winner, she was still in a taxi. Jury head John C Reilly filled in for time – he sang a song – and eventually Walker belted to the stage and picked up her award, panting, in a T-shirt and Adidas shorts. “I don’t think it sunk in that we’d won until much later,” she says. “I was just so stoked that I’d made it!”
Perhaps this all sounds like an easy ride – Walker herself has a tendency to downplay events: she’s open, but quite cool and unfazed – but directing How to Have Sex was a big step. Up until now, she’s been an in-demand cinematographer, working her way up through pop videos (A$AP Rocky’s Sundress), fashion shorts, documentaries (City of Children, about kids on a Bradford housing estate) and features. She was the director of photography on Scrapper, made by her friend Charlotte Regan. And Walker loved wielding a camera. She hadn’t been sure about moving into directing, though several producers had asked. It was lockdown that gave her the time – and the financial motivation – to come up with the script for How to Have Sex.
When filming began, she had a few panicked moments, but decided to just enjoy herself and, in the end, loved the whole experience. And it was an experience: she uses the word “embedded” to describe it. She did workshops with the young actors to establish their relationships; spent two weeks in Malia in high season, going to clubs and listening in to mad-smashed conversations; and worked out a hugely detailed storyboard that she often shelved when a better idea came along.
Her cinematographer, Nicolas Canniccioni, came from documentaries, and the film feels so realistic I’d presumed it had been made among genuine club crowds. The club scenes are so convincing, you feel drunk watching them. In fact, they cast every single person, from the wonderful McKenna-Bruce to all the extras. “And everyone on the crew was young and party animals as well,” says Walker. “The thing that resonated with me in Malia was that there wasn’t any silence. You had to take yourself away from it, into a hole, in order to find any silence. There’s this constant beat.”
That beat is present throughout the film, but it isn’t a pop video. It’s dreamy, cinematic, poetic (it’s been likened to Aftersun). There’s joy, experimentation, subtle shifts of mood, sweet gestures of friendship, delight and uncertainty and silliness: the full, wild gamut of teenage life.
Sound is used to deft effect to show when main character Tara is enjoying herself, when she’s fading or fully present. As the story gets a little darker, Walker explains, the sound of crickets gets quicker, the music bassier and heavier. When Tara feels alone, you hear her breath. And at a couple of points, it cuts out altogether.
Because the thing is, although How to Have Sex is packed full of “best holiday ever” good times, there are also difficult situations. As the film progresses, events start to spin slightly out of whack and Tara, the bubbliest but least sexually experienced of the three, has a couple of hard-to-manage sexual encounters: uncomfortable, clumsy, not good for her, not right... And the boys they meet end up in weird sexual circumstances, too. One, the daft but sensitive Badger (played by The Selfish Giant’s Shaun Thomas), labels his (very public oral sex) as “the best moment of his life”, though he can’t remember it, and we know it isn’t.
I was just football kit until I was 12. When Frank Lampard left Chelsea, I cried for two days. I wanted to be a footballer
“Yeah, how we’re taught and pressured into thinking that this is how you should have sex,” says Walker. “That’s the whole concept of the film. The blowjobs on stage, I saw that, in a club in Magaluf. I was standing on a pool table watching it…”
Really, this is a film about consent. “For me, consent has become too black and white in terms of: ‘She said yes’, so it’s fine,” says Walker. “That doesn’t always work – it’s not enough. And afterwards, you don’t have the words. You’re young. So you’re like: ‘I said yes, but I know it was wrong.’ But also: ‘I don’t want to be called a victim.’”
Complicated emotions are pushed down, because to voice them is too much. How can you talk about such situations when you’re 16 and the only language available would send you to the police? Walker knows about this. She was sexually assaulted in London when she was 16, her drink spiked while she was on a night out: “And I find that when I say that, all the oxygen is sucked out of the room.”
She adds: “No one knows how to deal with sexual assault. Especially if you’re young, because everyone just goes: ‘Fuck!’ and stops talking.” But Walker thinks we should talk. Not about the details, necessarily, but about how such situations come about.
W
alker grew up in London. Her parents were creative – her dad’s an animator and her mum is a director, whose credits include the seminal fake spooks TV programme Ghostwatch. Walker describes their work lives as artistic but precarious, especially her mother’s. “Her career was stunted because she had me and my brother,” she says. “I’ve inherited their passion and their drive. They’re both still hustling now.”
Before she was into making films, when Walker was a young girl, her passion was football: she was captain of her school team, played in summer camps run by Chelsea FC. “That was me,” she said. “I was just football kit, shaved head, until I was 12. When Frank Lampard left Chelsea, I cried for two days. I wanted to be a footballer.”
Photograph: David Vintiner/The Observer
And perhaps she would have been, but for some bad luck. When she was 15, messing about with her friends at school, she fell down some stairs and broke both her legs. She was in a wheelchair for a year. It was a turning point, she remembers – “a moment. From then, it was partying or football, and partying won.” Despite their young age, her friends hid vodka in her wheelchair and “rammed me into clubs”, wheeling around the dancefloor, drunk as a skunk. Her dad is an alcoholic in recovery and she thinks she has some of his addictive tendencies. “I was all in on football and then I was all in on drinking,” she says.
After she was walking again, she carried on partying. Even after she was sexually assaulted, she continued to go out. In fact, she was even more determined to enjoy herself. “I was like: ‘Don’t tell me what to do, it’s not going to restrict me – fuck you, guys.’” But then she decided to stop – bang – like that. She was sober for six years straight, from when she was 19, went to Arts University Bournemouth to study cinematography, then the National Film and Television School to do a master’s “and got addicted to film-making”.
Walker has a full-tilt approach to life. When she left uni, she cropped her hair to her skull: “A bit of a Britney moment.” She adds: “I was in a bad relationship. I was like: ‘Fuck this. If I shave my head, he won’t be attracted to me any more. And then I’ll have to dump him and start dating women.’ And it worked.”
Long hair gone now for almost a decade, she found almost immediately that her more masculine look led to an easier life. “Much easier,” she says. “I don’t get aggression on the street. I don’t get whistled at. If you go to a bar, you’re not going to get touched up. I looked like this when I was a kid, then went hypersexualised for 10 years and then went back… It’s a response to the world, for sure. It opens up the world for me in a way that I feel safe.”
I know that I’m affected culturally by the world. I’m told how to hit on women by films. You absorb it
On set, too, it has helped. She was young when she started as a cinematographer, but because she liked football, looked boyish “and could chat the lad chat”, she found she could arrive on set, “go to a gaffer and be like: ‘All right, mate. Can you just move that light over here, please?’ And he’d be like: ‘Yeah, all right, geeze.’ Which is useful, but obviously problematic, because you should be able to be whoever you want to be and still get things done.”
She doesn’t really care about gender presentation: she’s often mistaken for a young man and it doesn’t bother her. But other aspects do, often within relationships. She dates women now and “as a masc-presenting female, I know that I’m affected culturally by the world. I’m told how to hit on women by films. You absorb it.”
It’s made her sympathise with men and she was careful that her film doesn’t pass judgment on the boys’ characters. “Not taking away all blame or guilt, but I know that it’s not all their fault,” she says. “It’s the way that society has brought them up. ‘Be a strong man. You’ve got to take the lead, and you’ve got to know what you’re doing.’ I feel it so much, trying to go on dates, even as a woman dating a woman.”
Watch a trailer for How to Have Sex.
We carry so much nonsense in our heads around sexuality and sexual attractiveness, especially when we’re young. Walker laughs when she remembers how judgmental she and her friends could be when they were teenagers, how they invented reasons why a perfectly nice person might not be good to go with (socks and sandals), telling one another: “You could do better.”
She’s hopeful that How to Have Sex will be seen by young people – it’s rated 15 – and is in the process of arranging discussions after some screenings for teenagers and young twentysomethings. In workshops carried out before shooting, some reactions to the script from teenagers were revealing.
“They said things like: ‘He asked her, she says yes – she’s up for it,’” says Walker. “And: ‘It’s not an assault, because she’s already slept with him – he can do what he wants.’ So now we’re talking about taking it into schools with sex ed. Just making it less of a legal conversation and more of a human conversation.”
Such conversations are not easy, even among adults. In audience Q&As after the film, there have been difficult moments. Women have talked about their own sexual assaults. One man said: “This film has taught me not to let my daughters go out dressed in short skirts.”
So what would Walker want teenagers to take from How to Have Sex? “That sex should be two people having a moment and enjoying it together,” she says. “Discussions about consent can turn into ‘He said, she said’… Let’s make it about human interaction. And let’s make it a rule that sex should be: ‘Oh, we’re both having a great time.’ Great.”
How to Have Sex screens at the BFI London film festival on 10 and 12 October and is in cinemas in the UK and Ireland from 3 November | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/apr/30/newcastle-southampton-premier-league-match-report | Football | 2023-04-30T15:11:00.000Z | Louise Taylor | Wilson seals Newcastle comeback win to push Southampton closer to drop | It is safe to assume Callum Wilson does not regard April as the cruellest month. At the end of March the England striker looked thoroughly out of sorts but eight goals in seven games over the past four weeks have confirmed that a World Cup slump exacerbated by a lingering virus is well and truly over.
Wilson’s introduction as a half-time substitute transformed a match which began badly for Newcastle but concluded with the home No 9 having scored twice and Eddie Howe’s third-placed side apparently set fair for the Champions League. Southampton, meanwhile, remain well and truly stuck to the bottom of the Premier League.
“What an impact from Callum; he changed the game for us,” said Howe. “Callum doesn’t always start but he lives to score goals and he’s a brilliant player to have in your squad. He was exceptional today. We looked a bit tired, a bit off, a bit flat in the first half but we regrouped, tweaked a couple of things and blew Southampton away in the second half.”
It was the sort of grey, wet, rather chilly, Tyneside day which felt more like November than the eve of May but, initially, the weather proved the least of Howe’s problems.
Liverpool 4-3 Tottenham: Premier League – as it happened
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Newcastle may have scored 10 goals in their previous two games against Tottenham and Everton but they were a goal down at half-time after Stuart Armstrong lashed Kamaldeen Sulemana’s low cross beyond Nick Pope from six yards at the end of a smart counterattack.
Carlos Alcaraz’s advances had caused Howe’s team sporadic problems from kick-off and, following Bruno Guimarães’s dispossession in the wake of a brilliant Roméo Lavia tackle, Alcaraz played a prominent role in initiating that visiting break. Albeit temporarily, relegation no longer necessarily seemed inevitable for Rubén Sellés’s side after all.
Wherever Southampton end up it will be no surprise if Lavia remains in the Premier League. The midfielder was Sellés’s best player and it was not his fault that his departmental sidekicks were ultimately overwhelmed by Joe Willock and co.
Very shortly before that breakthrough Howe had instructed his wide forwards, Jacob Murphy and Anthony Gordon to swap wings in a rejig also involving Joelinton and Willock exchanging midfield positions.
Whether or not this revamp prompted the “systems failure” prefacing Southampton’s goal, Howe restored Murphy to the right at the outset of the second half while also replacing Gordon with Wilson.
Although Gordon had frequently enjoyed waltzing past Lyanco, the former Everton winger’s final ball consistently let him down; not to mention irritated certain teammates. Such frustration was only compounded when an unmarked Gordon missed Newcastle’s best chance of the first half, directing a shot against the outside of a post after being sent clear courtesy of Alexander Isak’s fabulous through ball.
Wilson equalises for Newcastle during the second half. Photograph: Serena Taylor/Newcastle United/Getty Images
With Wilson introduced at centre-forward Isak switched to the left where the Swede’s devastating change of pace and intelligent crosses proceeded to unnerve a hitherto impressively resilient and ambitious Southampton.
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It was perhaps no coincidence that it was Isak’s low cross which precipitated the onrushing Wilson flicking the equaliser beyond Alex McCarthy with the accomplishment of a striker scoring his seventh goal in seven games. Wilson had another “goal” disallowed for offside following his connection with another Isak cross and, then, a lengthy VAR review before an own goal from the substitute Theo Walcott after Sven Botman had nodded a Kieran Trippier corner on gave Newcastle the lead.
By now though Southampton were dropping dangerously deep and Newcastle seemed to be limbering up nicely for next Sunday’s date with title-challenging Arsenal here. Sure enough when the increasingly influential Willock forced Ainsley Maitland-Niles into forfeiting possession Wilson delighted in pouncing and rounding McCarthy before sliding his 15th goal of the season into the empty net. In stoppage time alone the crossbar twice came between Wilson and the completion of a hat-trick.
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After seeing his side collect just one point from six games in the past month, April has proved particularly cruel for Sellés. “I’m still very positive we can stay up,” said Southampton’s defiant interim manager, whose side travel to Nottingham Forest for a potentially definitive relegation six pointer next Monday .
“We knew what to do in the first half but we didn’t react to Isak moving to the side quickly enough and couldn’t connect with each other in the second half. We have to be stronger in difficult moments but we’re still alive. We’ll fight to the very end.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/jun/07/fiorentina-west-ham-europa-conference-league-final-match-report | Football | 2023-06-07T21:12:03.000Z | Jacob Steinberg | Jarrod Bowen strikes at the last to earn Conference League glory for West Ham | After waiting 43 years to stop those bubbles fading and dying, West Ham could not have timed it better. There were 90 minutes on the clock at the Eden Arena when Jarrod Bowen’s shot slithered past Pietro Terracciano and, after 1,097 games of management, absolutely nothing was going to stop David Moyes from enjoying his crowning moment.
Fortune wasn’t hiding any more. Off Moyes went, charging down the touchline, only stopping when he was in front of the fans celebrating behind the Fiorentina goal. He stood there with his arms aloft and drank in the adulation.
Declan Rice delivers pulsating final act to push West Ham over the line
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Here was the Scot’s reward for recovering from the tough times and trusting that one day it would be him standing on a podium after leading a team to glory. West Ham, without a major trophy since winning the FA Cup in 1980, had a new legend: Moyes had followed in the footsteps of two of the greatest figures in the club’s history, Ron Greenwood and John Lyall, in bringing silverware to east London.
This has not been an easy campaign for the 60-year-old. Moyes has been a game away from the sack on several occasions and West Ham have struggled in the league. Europe has been the saving grace. West Ham have embraced the Europa Conference League and, while they were second best for long spells, the anxiety growing as Fiorentina pushed for a winner after cancelling out Saïd Benrahma’s penalty with a lovely goal from Giacomo Bonaventura, in the end it was the resilience instilled by Moyes that helped his team clamber over the line.
Playing in their first major European final in 47 years, West Ham refused to be denied. Declan Rice, captaining the side in what will surely be his final game for the club, never stopped leading in midfield. Rice was immense and will leave as a hero while his teammates can look forward to playing in the Europa League next season. It was fitting that the 24-year-old emulated Bobby Moore, who wore the armband when West Ham lifted their other major European trophy after beating 1860 Munich in the Cup Winners’ Cup final 58 years ago.
It was a slog at times and West Ham, who resorted to too much long-ball football during a bad-tempered contest, could not have complained if they had been defeated by Vincenzo Italiano’s clever passing side.
David Moyes celebrates after Jarrod Bowen’s goal put his West Ham side 2-1 up. Photograph: Chris Brunskill/Fantasista/Getty Images
Yet West Ham found a second wind. Out of nowhere, with extra time on the cards, space emerged. Tomas Soucek managed to flick the ball to Lucas Paquetá, who had been waiting all night for a chance to lift his head and play a killer pass.
So lacking in creativity, West Ham had been crying out for a moment of inspiration from their £50m Brazilian. Paquetá’s pass was a beauty, weighted to perfection, piercing the Fiorentina defence, and Bowen came alive. Darting in from the right, the winger beat the offside trap, raced clear and slid a composed finish into the net.
They were all off the bench when Bowen, who was such a smart signing by Moyes three years ago, made it 2-1. West Ham had put their fans through the wringer and some of their followers had marred the occasion by repeatedly throwing plastic cups on to the pitch during the first half. One missile struck Fiorentina’s captain, Cristiano Biraghi, leaving the left-back with blood pouring from his head.
Fiorentina’s Cristiano Biraghi receives medical attention after being hit by an object thrown from the West Ham end. Photograph: Radovan Stoklasa/Reuters
At least West Ham kept their composure on the pitch. Fiorentina, whose only European success came in the Cup Winners’ Cup in 1961, played the slicker football and West Ham were too quick to fall into defensive mode during the first half.
The game had started in a deafening atmosphere – what a shame that Uefa had underestimated its own competition, deeming a ground with a capacity of 19,370 a worthy venue for a final – West Ham’s concern would grow as Sofyan Amrabat, Bonaventura and Rolando Mandragora kept the ball away from them in midfield.
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There was too much focus on set pieces and counterattacks. West Ham’s approach felt lumpen, their threat limited to Rice dragging a shot wide, and were not helped by the refusal of the Spanish referee, Carlos del Cerro Grande, to protect Michail Antonio against some rough challenges from Fiorentina’s centre-backs.
‘This is fantastic’: Conference League triumph is career high, says Moyes
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Moyes, who came into this game still unsure if he will have a job next season, had to rethink. West Ham were fortunate not to fall behind when Christian Kouamé headed Nicolás González’s cross against a post and Luka Jovic turned the rebound in from an offside position.
It was far from a classic. Fiorentina’s first shot on target came in the 57th minute and the encouragement for West Ham was that their centre-backs, Kurt Zouma and Nayef Aguerd, looked solid. Vladimir Coufal, preferred to Thilo Kehrer at right-back, was diligent.
The mood changed just before the hour. Coufal found Bowen with a long throw and Biraghi handled. It was a clear penalty, even though it required a check of the pitchside monitor, and Benrahma stepped up. The Algerian’s nerveless spot-kick had West Ham dreaming.
Could they hold out? There was worry when Zouma limped off for Kehrer. Fiorentina responded and were level in the 67th minute. Amrabat found González, who beat Emerson Palmieri in the air. Aguerd and Rice could not get across in time and Bonaventura fired past Alphonse Areola. Fiorentina pushed again, Mandragora bending a shot inches wide. West Ham responded by bringing Pablo Fornals on for Benrahma. They continued to go long, Soucek going close. Extra time beckoned. Bowen had other ideas. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/14/impartialitys-the-bbc-goal-but-saying-my-tory-friends-dont-like-foreigners-is-off-side | Politics | 2023-03-14T19:18:26.000Z | John Crace | Lineker saga sends Tory headbangers into meltdown | John Crace | The telephone conversation hadn’t entirely gone as planned. The perfect end to the perfect weekend at WIA.
Richard Sharp: Gary. Dear boy!
Gary Lineker: What?
Sharp: Umm. The thing is … We’d quite like you to apologise …
Lineker: What for?
Sharp: This impartiality business...
Lineker: It’s not me who donated £400K to the Tory party...
Sharp: Yes, yes. But if you could find some way of saying you are sorry on the Twitter for having suggested the government doesn’t much like foreigners...
Lineker: Well, it doesn’t...
Sharp: I know, but if you could just pretend that you didn’t mean what you had Twittered...
Lineker: No...
Sharp: Well this is awkward. You see, it’s fine to support the government like Alan Sugar and Michael Portillo. That’s the definition of impartial. But to criticise is just not on.
Lineker: No...
Sharp: Then, could you perhaps make sure Southampton gets a bigger time slot on Match of the Day? Or show them scoring more goals so that it appears they have won? Rishi would be ever so grateful if they weren’t relegated...
Lineker: No...
Sharp: Then how about I apologise to you and you are free to go back to presenting Match of the Day and Twittering what you like?
Lineker: Sure. That works for me.
BBC 0, Lineker 1. A scoreline that sent many Tories into a meltdown during an urgent question into the government’s role in the BBC’s impartiality from Lucy Powell, the shadow culture secretary. Powell shook her head sadly. Linekergate was a sorry saga. One that had the government’s fingerprints all over it. First BBC bosses said Lineker could say what he liked; the next day they suspended him. It was clear they had been nobbled by the government. Just like Putin’s Russia. Made a change from 1930s Germany, I suppose.
Replying for the government, the junior culture minister Julia Lopez – her boss, Lucy Frazer, had made herself unavailable – looked bewildered. She was certain no senior Tories had had a word with any BBC bosses. At least, no more so than it was usual for ministers to chat with Sharp and the director general, Tim Davie. After all, they were all good mates. And sometimes people get to change their minds after speaking to friends. It’s how the world works. Journalists at the BBC might all be bleeding-heart liberals, but the boss class was a Tory cabal.
Lopez garbled this out, reading from a prepared script. So most of it was barely intelligible, let alone coherent. She definitely wasn’t going to talk about Lineker. Because that would somehow breach the BBC’s impartiality rules. And if anyone had been leaning on anyone’s throats it had been the rightwing press. She had got an earful from the Daily Mail. An outrage that a football pundit might have a mind of his own and be critical of the government. You could have too much of this free speech business. Except when it came to deporting foreigners.
As for Sharp, he had been appointed in an entirely transparent manner. It was quite customary for any BBC chair to help pave the way for an £800K loan facility for the prime minister just before applying for the job. And it was perfectly normal for Sharp to have been Sunak’s boss at Goldman Sachs. Dicky had always said that Rishi showed a great deal of potential. So he was happy to have been proved right. But these connections were just coincidence – the wheels of the old boy network in motion – and no one could possibly say Dicky-boy hadn’t been appointed on merit.
There was no sign of perennial BBC bashers Nadine Dorries and Lee Anderson in the Commons. Perhaps they were too busy with their day jobs of being impartial on TalkTV and GB News. And John Redwood scarpered out the Commons before coming into contact with the enemy.
So it was left to the absurd John Hayes to lead the attack on Lineker and the BBC. The station was full of “smug, arrogant and avaricious” football pundits, he insisted. He could have been describing himself. Hayes is what passes for Suella Braverman’s brains – she runs her policy by him to check it’s unpleasant enough – and earns £120K a year in side hustles.
Tom Hunt reckoned Gary was a tax avoider, while Alun Cairns reckoned he was a member of a privileged and overpaid elite. Er... a word in your shell-like. Being a tax avoider, privileged and overpaid are supposed to admit you to the Tory inner circle. What they really can’t forgive Gary for is having a conscience.
Predictably, there were a couple of headbangers who reckoned there was only one solution to L’Affaire Lineker. Get rid of the licence fee. If the BBC couldn’t be trusted to support government policy unquestioningly then the game was up for it. Scott Benton, a man who wrestles with Hayes for sole possession of a brain cell, even reckoned Match of the Day had been much improved without its cast of commentators and pundits. At least we got to see the goals. It wasn’t clear what he thought normally happened on MOTD.
Less than an hour earlier, junior transport minister Huw Merriman had been having a nightmare of his own as Mark Harper had hung him out to dry by leaving him to answer an urgent question on HS2. Everything was going terribly well, he insisted. Apart from the bits that weren’t. Remember how high speed rail was once going to Manchester. Well, everyone should maybe chill about that. It would now only go to Birmingham. And only then in a parallel universe. If it did ever go father north, it would be a mistake.
But not to worry. Because it wasn’t even going to London either. It would now stop at Old Oak Common instead. Forty-five minutes from Birmingham to Old Oak. Forty-five minutes from Old Oak to Euston. Genius. £100bn to make the journey slower. But at least people would now be able to drop in on the new Primark in Old Oak. This was a regeneration opportunity.
Predictably, Merriman got it in the neck from almost everyone. His own side especially. Horrified at the overspend. Horrified at the delay. Horrified that the great levelling up agenda had once again been exposed as a chimera. Huw became ever squeakier as he searched in vain for a friendly face. It would definitely get built. Just not this century. The service from platform 4 had been cancelled. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/mar/27/world-cup-fiver-stereotyping-locals | Football | 2014-03-27T11:26:20.000Z | Tom Bryant | World Cup Fiver | Cultural Learnings of Fifa for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Brazil | THROWING STONES FROM A GLASS HOUSE
O Fiverão – your weekly samba-listening, bikini-wearing, rainforest-dwelling, carnival-dancing, capoeira-practising, churrascaria-guzzling, beach-footballing, caipirinha-time take on Brazil 2014 – is pretty confident that it has never lent on cheap stereotypes for a gag. Which puts it firmly in the clear to point out when Fifa does it. The world body, whose dedication to comedy means it has elected a clown as president since 1998, was recently forced to apologise after handing out advice on travelling to Brazil that poked fun at the locals' customs. Fifa maintains its "10 tips for avoiding any cultural misunderstandings" were meant to be humorous – again putting O Fiverão in the perfect place to pass judgement, since it has never knowingly been that either – but it turns out that certain sensitive people in Brazil object to the inference that they are impatient, lazy and dishonest.
"'Yes' means 'maybe', so if somebody says to you, 'Yes, I'll call you back', do not expect the telephone to be ringing in the next five minutes," Fifa hooted in its weekly magazine, the only sound audible being that of the readers rolling in the aisles. Soon after, local hospitals had to stock up on needles and thread with which to sew up split sides as the gags continued: "Punctuality is not an exact science in Brazil." Another zinger ran: "In Brazil, things are largely done last-minute and if there is one thing above all that tourists should remember, it is not to lose patience and to keep hold of your nerves." Although, thinking about it, in the week that Brasília's Estádio Nacional was put on standby in case other World Cup stadiums are not completed, that one probably is good advice.
Nevertheless, Fifa has said sorry for its comedy routine. "The material was light-hearted and at no time was meant to criticise Brazil. The objective was to show the laid-back characteristics of the Brazilian people," it parped, stereotyping the locals once more for good measure. "At any rate, we have withdrawn the content from the internet and apologise if it was interpreted as criticism of the country."
Coming so soon after Adidas were forced to withdraw World Cup T-shirts which featured a heart designed to look like a pair of buttocks in a thong and another that hinted at the availability of Brazilian women, it's almost as if nobody views the country seriously. Given the fuss various Brazilian politicians have made about such treatment, you would never catch Brazil's football clubs linking $ex and football. What's that? Ah. Well, in that case … erm … certainly you would never catch Brazil's tourist board doing something similar to Fifa and reverting to stereotypes like, say, Brazilians playing football on the beach, to lure people to the country. Eh? Oh.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"We could have used the time better" – Brazil's sports minister Aldo Rebelo accepts that World Cup preparations that have led to four stadiums still being unfinished three months before the tournament starts have not gone perfectly.
BITS AND BOBS
Ronaldinho, Brazil's latest rap 'sensation', looks set to miss out on a place in Brazil's World Cup squad after the side's assistant coach Carlos Alberto Parreira claimed he lacked dedication. "It hasn't been clear that the fire is still there," he sniffed in a comment that would have been accurate if uttered at any time since 2007.
Nigeria's footballers will be allowed to bring their wives to Brazil but not their girlfriends. "In any civilized country, Wags are always allowed to accompany their husbands to the World Cup. Married men in the Eagles can go with their wives but there will be no room for girlfriends," chaperoned manager Stephen Keshi.
$tevie Mbe, meanwhile, has risked being considered a savage in Nigeria by banning his wife and three daughters from coming to Brazil. "The last thing I want to be doing is getting dragged here, there and everywhere by three young girls," he roared.
The mayor of Porto Alegre has said that, unless someone stumps up more funds, the city's new stadium will not be finished in time. "It's simple to understand. There's no Plan B," he cheered.
And Come to Brazil! dept: the country's military will set up camp in several Rio de Janeiro favelas during the World Cup in an attempt to guarantee security in areas currently controlled by drug gangs. "The state will not back down," table-thumped president Dilma Rousseff.
O FIVERÃO LETTERS
"I was pleased to see that you predicted that Japan would be drawn against Argentina (last week's Bits and Bobs), mostly because – since they are in different groups – the first time they can possibly meet is in the semi-finals. Either you have access to Mr Blatter's secret special plan, or you have nicked Mystic Meg's crystal ball again" – Matt Byron (and 1,056 others).
"Get your facts straight" –Alborz Bozorgi.
"Surely if Mr Roy's contact with the grass at the Amazonia had 'mirrored his Reverse Midas Touch', the two mirrors would cancel each other out and the grass would be golden? Oh. Maybe that's the problem" – Lauren Gore.
"With Pelé offering his services as a global ambassador/walking billboard to so many companies in the run-up to this year's World Cup, I do wonder if Crestfield Wax Paper have also approached the former Viagra salesman too" – Tim Grey.
Send your letters to [email protected], with 'O Fiverão' in the subject line. Or just 'World Cup Fiver' if that's easier. And if you've nothing better to do you can also tweet the Fiver. The winner of our prizeless letter o' the week is: Tim Grey.
STILL WANT MORE?
Football mourns the death of Bellini, the captain of Brazil's first World Cup-winning side.
The official England World Cup song: one giant shrug of 'will this do?', reports Michael Hann.
Barry Glendenning pens the latest of our stunning World Cup moments. This week: the tragedy of Andrés Escobar.
James Riach flew to Brazil the other day. Here's what he did on his holid … sorry, work travels.
BELGIUM'S WORLD CUP SONG: SPECIAL | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/oct/19/laird-issues-profit-warning-on-downturn-in-smartphone-production-apple | Business | 2016-10-19T10:15:33.000Z | Angela Monaghan | Laird issues profit warning on downturn in smartphone production | Apple supplier Laird has warned annual profits will fall sharply following a sudden downturn in its smartphone components business and unprecedented pricing pressures.
Shares in the group almost halved to 165p as it said it may be facing “a new reality” in the mobiles market after an expected pick-up in smartphone production failed to materialise.
Tony Quinlan, Laird chief executive, said the company was looking into whether there may be a permanent shift in the way the consumer devices market operates.
“What we have to accept is that this might not be a one-off. It might be a new way of working. We’ve got to look more forensically at this stuff.
“Are we looking at a sector that is reaching maturity? We don’t have the answers yet.”
The profit warning comes at a difficult time for Samsung, one of Laird’s key customers. Last week Samsung suspended production and sales of its Galaxy Note 7 after devices caught fire.
In a gloomy third-quarter trading update, Laird said it now expects underlying full-year pre-tax profit of around £50m. That compares with analysts’ expectations of £75m, and £73m profit in 2015.
“This is not good news,” Quinlan said, “but we hope that once the dust settles people will see we have a specific challenge in one part of the business at a time when other parts continue to perform well.”
He added pricing pressure during the third quarter had been “truly relentless”, and that it was taking a number of “self-help” measures to improve operations and stabilise the business. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/feb/21/heterosexual-couples-should-not-be-allowed-civil-partnerships-court-rules | UK news | 2017-02-21T13:33:24.000Z | Owen Bowcott | Court rules against heterosexual couple who wanted civil partnership | A campaign aimed at overturning the ban on heterosexual couples entering into civil partnerships has gained ground despite defeat at the court of appeal, equal rights supporters have claimed.
By a narrow two-to-one decision, the three judges decided to allow the government more time to review the law that prevents opposite-sex couples from taking advantage of civil partnership arrangements.
Should heterosexual couples be allowed to enter into civil partnerships?
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The ruling is a setback for the case launched in 2014 by two Londoners, Rebecca Steinfeld, 35, and Charles Keidan, 40, who reject traditional marriage on the grounds that it is a “sexist” and “patriarchal” institution.
But Steinfeld and Keidan said they planned to take their challenge to the supreme court if the law was not changed by the government or amended by MPs in parliament.
Denying them the right under the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 to enter into a civil partnership – a choice open to same-sex couples – is discriminatory, they have argued.
All three court of appeal judges – Lady Justice Arden, Lord Justice Briggs and Lord Justice Beatson – agreed that the discrimination against heterosexual couples could not last indefinitely.
Only Arden, however, said the government needed to change the law immediately. The other two judges in effect said ministers could have longer to review the situation.
All three judges agreed that the ban constitutes a potential violation of the appellants’ human rights under article 14 (prohibition of discrimination) taken with article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European convention on human rights.
In the ruling, Lord Justice Briggs said he could “well understand” the frustration felt by many over what they might regard as slow progress by the government.
“Some couples in their position may suffer serious fiscal disadvantage if, for example, one of them dies before they can form a civil partnership,” he said. But he did not regard “micro-management” of government thinking about the policy to be part of the business of the courts.
Louise Whitfield, of the law firm Deighton Pierce Glynn, who represented the couple, said: “This is very frustrating. It was such a narrow win for the government. The judges all agreed that the government was living on borrowed time and that there had been a potential violation of their rights.
“Lady Justice Arden said the government had run out of time already. The other two judges, however, allowed the government a bit more time to consider the issue.”
Outside the court, Steinfeld said: “We are deeply disappointed by the ruling and very sorry to not be able to share good news, but there’s so much in the decision that gives us reason to be positive and keep going.”
Keidan added: “We are determined to go on with our battle. There are 3 million mixed-sex couples who are cohabiting in this country. We want to challenge this ruling in the supreme court but we hope it won’t be necessary. Defeat is hard to accept today but it gives us a chance to regroup and move on. There’s cross-party support for us now.”
The couple, who are both academics, live in Hammersmith, west London, and have a 20-month-old daughter.
Tim Loughton, a Conservative MP and former children’s minister who supported the couple, was also at the hearing. His private member’s bill introducing equal civil partnership rights is before parliament but unlikely to make it into law.
He said he believed up to 40 Tory MPs and the main opposition parties backed opening up civil partnerships to heterosexual couples.
“We will see what bills there are in the Queen’s speech and I hope there will be one where we can stretch it to put in some equality amendment,” Loughton said.
Peter Tatchell, who has campaigned for equal rights, was in court. “I’m hugely disappointed with the ruling since the judges agreed with 90% of Charles and Rebecca’s case,” he said.
“They accepted the points of law but believed the government should have extra time. Millions of different-sex couples will feel that their rights have not been upheld by the court. The judgment goes against the principle that we should be equal before the law.”
Rebecca Steinfeld and Charles Keidan (centre) with supporters including Peter Tatchell (second right) outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
Jeanne Rathbone, a celebrant for humanist ceremonies, said opposition to extending civil partnerships came from the “marriage industry and the church”.
“The legal process should be separated from the ceremony,” she said. “People don’t want the pressure of a big white dress and all-suits wedding.”
The campaigner and journalist Fiona Millar, partner of the former Labour spokesman Alastair Campbell and who has supported the campaign, said: “I am one of thousands and thousands of people in the UK in a mixed-sex relationship who will now be looking at the government and waiting for them to close the civil partnerships loophole by making them available to all.
“In 2004 the Labour government, albeit unwittingly, created a new, positive institution with a history, life and future of its own. Now that that institution exists, offering a progressive and new way for couples to gain legal recognition of their relationship, it is only right and fair that that institution be available to all. I hope the government acts soon.”
The Isle of Man is the only part of the British Isles that offers heterosexual couples the opportunity to enter into civil partnerships.
Matt Hawkins, of the Equal Civil Partnerships Campaign, said: “Regardless of the decision made in court today this campaign has generated an incredible momentum of its own. Pursuing our legal case has always been one part of a much broader campaign and the number of people backing this cause continues to rise week on week.”
Sarah Champion, Labour’s shadow secretary of state for women and equalities, said: “Now that same-sex marriage has been legalised, it is an anomaly that civil partnerships are not available to all couples regardless of their gender and sexuality.
“Civil partnerships should be extended to heterosexual couples who wish to have a legal union in accordance with their individual beliefs and values.”
Nigel Shepherd, chair of Resolution, the family law organisation, said: “As family lawyers committed to the constructive resolution of issues on family breakdown, we see that the real injustice is the lack of legal rights for cohabiting couples – the fastest-growing household type in the country.
“Our lawmakers must also look at introducing safety-net legislation that will provide protection and fair outcomes when cohabiting couples separate.”
In an article published on Tuesday, Europe’s most senior human rights official, Nils Muižnieks, also backed the cause of equal rights. The Council of Europe’s human rights comissioner said: “Genuine commitment to full equality would at least require states to seriously consider opening up civil marriage to same-sex couples.”
Since Keidan and Steinfeld first appeared in court more than 72,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling for civil partnerships to be open to all.
The case was taken against the secretary of state for education, Justine Greening, who is also the minister for women and equalities. Her department’s position is that she will not propose any change to the Civil Partnerships Act 2004 until she has more statistical data about whether the number of same-sex couples choosing or remaining in civil partnerships rises or falls following the introduction of same-sex marriage.
Ministers initially believed demand for civil partnerships might disappear once same-sex marriage rights were granted by David Cameron’s government.
Responding to the court of appeal ruling, a government spokesperson said: “We welcome the court’s ruling and are pleased that they have found the government’s approach to be lawful. We will carefully consider this judgment and will take it into account as we evaluate the take-up of civil partnerships and same-sex marriage.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2024/mar/22/england-flag-shirt-nike-gareth-southgate | Football | 2024-03-22T20:00:02.000Z | Barney Ronay | England flag furore shows football is a muster point for discontent | Barney Ronay | Flag. noun. A piece of bunting used as an emblem for military or naval purposes, signalling decoration, display, propaganda.
Flag. verb. To droop, to flap feebly, to grow spiritless.
Yep. That just about covers it. As the current England shirt flag-desecration lesbian conspiracy-rage shemozzle (imagine explaining all this, in fine detail, to a time traveller from 1993) edges into its third day, both dictionary definitions of the four-letter word at its centre seem about right.
Perhaps with a little foresight the Football Association could have avoided the unhappiness over the recoloured George Cross on its latest overpriced scratchy nylon replica shirt by suggesting this design detail was related to the fact England v Brazil takes place on the weekend of Palm Sunday, when the cross is traditionally hung with purple, thereby out-sanctifying even the most patriotic of brocade-fondlers.
FA defends multicoloured cross on England shirt as tribute to 1966 team
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Not that this would have helped anyone get any closer to the objective truth here. Which is that the flag (and this isn’t The Flag. It’s a flag) is not a protected symbol. Nike’s decision to go with a purple, blue and pink version of the beloved cross may be pointless, gimmicky, and even quite cynical – nobody here does anything without focus-grouping every last chevron and flash: if the response really was unforeseen then the FA and Nike need to sack their entire marketing teams.
But the fact remains there are no laws or rules about desecrating the flag, because it isn’t sacred in the first place. Were England to play a match at sea wearing a giant version of this shirt they could in theory be accused of committing an offence under the Merchant Shipping Act by displaying an incorrect ensign (ask yourself, has Gareth Southgate even considered this? Is Ben White’s absence related to potential maritime malfeasance?).
The FA’s statement struck a baffled, airy tone, as though this was all a little beneath it
More to the point, the fact no laws or rules are being broken here is significant in its own right if we’re talking culture, heritage and values. The freedom not to give two hoots about fabric colours, or saluting the right way, or browbeating notions of patriotism is, in fact, very British. Men and women have fought to defend this freedom. What could be more worthy of preserving?
Otherwise, it is worth pointing out the flag has often been endlessly chopped up and repurposed down the years. Did Geri Halliwell’s iconic mini-dress mean nothing at all? The flag is embedded in the rear headlights of a new-shape Mini Cooper. The flag is currently available as a graffiti-style T-shirt in your local Next. The flag is a brand. Traditionally it wasn’t even much of a football thing, was a Union Jack in the stands until Euro 96, was absent entirely from the 1966 shirt. It is simply a part of the pageantry around the edges.
England lift the World Cup at Wembley, without the national flag on their shirts. Photograph: Keystone/Getty Images
And yet here we are all the same, edging once again through the familiar cycle of England football rage (late Southgate era). At which point two familiar questions present themselves. Does any of this actually matter? And is there any way of stopping it?
The answer to the second of these questions is clearly no. Early on there was a small, tantalising chance that annoyance over the “playful” (this is also disingenuous) reworking of the George Cross might have passed off as just another routine expression of localised internet brain-rage.
That possibility was extinguished by Keir Starmer’s calculated and essentially untruthful contribution into the debate. Starmer, it can be 100% guaranteed, does not actually care about this issue. His decision to call for the shirt to be scrapped, thereby amplifying people’s unhappiness over it for political gain, comes at the traditional point in an election year when Labour’s campaigning is geared towards not looking like Labour, which is, it seems, the best way to be elected as Labour. Way to go, UK party politics.
Starmer has been joined by the usual cast of people who stand to profit by fanning division. Nigel Farage has a view. Joey Barton is dropping truth warheads on X, rolling out a too-scared-to-actually-say-it-aloud riff on the great replacement theory, which was also a key propaganda tool of the Nazi party during the rise of Adolf Hitler. Rishi Sunak has come up with a hedged statement of his own, expressing not actual coherent views or feelings – don’t be ridiculous – but the semiotics and word clouds and facial expressions his data-crunchers decide to go with.
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The relentless politicising of Gareth Southgate is absurd on so many levels. Photograph: James Manning/PA
And so this will rumble on across the last friendly international double-header of the season, with a sense there is no other time outside of international football where England feels quite so much like a strange, small, damp angry island marooned at the jumping-off point between the continents.
There are still two things worth saying about all this. First, while it may be tempting to trivialise people’s feelings of rage at a discoloured flag, in part because it just seems really trivial, that urge is also part of the problem. Even the FA’s statement on Friday afternoon in response to the public furore struck a baffled, airy tone, as though this was all completely unforeseeable, even a little beneath it.
In reality the response was entirely predictable. Thousands of people have signed a petition to scrap the new shirt and boycott Nike. Football has become the amplifier, the echo board for feelings that are undeniably real, for ambient reserves of discontent and rage, the feeling that always emerges around England football, the sense that something is being diminished, lessened, taken away.
This may seem like a uniquely English thing. No other nation talks quite so insistently about its feelings (there is no equivalent Dear Portugal smash-hit play currently running in Lisbon theatreland about the struggles of being Portuguese in the Fernando Santos era). But the presence at Wembley of both Brazil (coup talk, riots, national shirt hijacked) and Belgium (farmers currently spraying riot police with manure) is a reminder that there is an epidemic of unhappiness and alienation out there. Football is simply the muster point for these feelings. And it has a responsibility to take care.
1:31
'It isn't the St George's flag': Gareth Southgate downplays England Nike kit controversy – video
Finally, none of this is likely to smooth the way to success on the pitch. The relentless politicising of Southgate is absurd on so many levels, not least around the issue of flags. Southgate is a patriot, a cap-laden servant of the national game and a kind, tolerant, definitively English kind of person. It still seems absurd that there should be such a constant dirge of toxic noises around this team.
There are clearly public voices, angry supporter subsets and people with a media platform who would now prefer England and Southgate to fail from this point, because positions are so entrenched, because it is better to be right, because success would now be hard to digest.
Clearly some part of this lies behind the more extreme and thunderous reactions to the flag shemozzle. For decades England teams struggled under the weight of underperformance. This version seems to have found a novel and highly distinctive method of increasing its chances of failure. Toxicity, distraction, outside pressure, it will all take a toll at some point.
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/business/2020/apr/28/uk-delivery-drivers-how-have-you-been-affected-by-coronavirus | Business | 2020-04-28T09:41:34.000Z | Guardian community team | UK taxi and delivery drivers: how have you been affected by coronavirus? | Whether you deliver packages for online retailers, drop off supermarket home deliveries, or drive people from A to B, we’d like to hear how your work has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic.
How have things changed since lockdown started? Do you have any concerns? Do you feel supported by the company you work for?
Share your experiences
You can get in touch by filling in the form below or via WhatsApp by clicking here or adding the contact +44(0)7867825056. Your responses are secure as the form is encrypted and only the Guardian has access to your contributions.
One of our journalists will be in contact for publication before we publish, so please do leave contact details.
If you’re having trouble using the form, click here. Read terms of service here. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/jan/16/kathryn-bigelow-torture-la-times | Film | 2013-01-16T12:19:34.000Z | Ben Child | Kathryn Bigelow on Zero Dark Thirty: 'It's illogical to ignore torture' | The Oscar-winning director of Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow, has defended her controversial film about the hunt for Osama bin Laden against continuing allegations that it endorses the use of torture in an article for the LA Times.
Describing herself as a "lifelong pacifist", Bigelow said she supported "every American's First Amendment right to create works of art and speak their conscience without government interference or harassment". She added: "I support all protests against the use of torture and, quite simply, inhumane treatment of any kind."
Bigelow and her screenwriter, Mark Boal, have come under intense pressure from media commentators, politicians and even members of the body that organises the Oscars, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, since Zero Dark Thirty was first screened for critics. The US Senate intelligence committee is currently probing whether the pair were granted "inappropriate access" to classified CIA material. Last week the actor Martin Sheen and the former head of the Screen Actors Guild, Ed Asner, came out in support of a proposed Oscars boycott of the critically acclaimed film, which documents the hunt for Bin Laden and includes several scenes of torture early on. Zero Dark Thirty is nominated for five Academy awards but Bigelow missed out on a best director nod last week – a decision some believe was fuelled by the current furore over the film's depiction of waterboarding and other controversial practices during CIA interrogations.
The director, whose previous film The Hurt Locker won six Oscars in 2010, made clear in her LA Times article that she feels critics should target their ire elsewhere. "I do wonder if some of the sentiments alternately expressed about the film might be more appropriately directed at those who instituted and ordered these US policies, as opposed to a motion picture that brings the story to the screen," her piece continues. "Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no film-maker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time.
"This is an important principle to stand up for, and it bears repeating. For confusing depiction with endorsement is the first step toward chilling any American artist's ability and right to shine a light on dark deeds, especially when those deeds are cloaked in layers of secrecy and government obfuscation. Indeed, I'm very proud to be part of a Hollywood community that has made searing war films part of its cinematic tradition. Clearly, none of those films would have been possible if directors from other eras had shied away from depicting the harsh realities of combat.
"On a practical and political level, it does seem illogical to me to make a case against torture by ignoring or denying the role it played in US counter-terrorism policy and practices."
Earlier this week the Pulitzer prize-winning author of a book on Bin Laden, Steve Coll, became the latest figure to criticise the depiction of torture in Zero Dark Thirty. "Boal and Bigelow have offered two main responses to the criticism they have received," he wrote in an essay for the New York Review of Books. "One is that as dramatists compressing a complex history into a cinematic narrative, they must be granted a degree of artistic licence. That is unarguable, of course, and yet the film-makers cannot, on the one hand, claim authenticity as journalists while, on the other, citing art as an excuse for shoddy reporting about a subject as important as whether torture had a vital part in the search for Bin Laden, and therefore might be, for some, defensible as public policy."
The controversy surrounding Zero Dark Thirty, which stars Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke and Joel Edgerton, has not hurt its prospects at the US box office, where it reached first position at the weekend with $24m. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/13/labour-why-lost-jeremy-corbyn-brexit-media | Opinion | 2019-12-13T10:51:01.000Z | Gary Younge | Labour won’t win again until it works out why it lost | Gary Younge | This changes everything. The fourth national vote in four years has broken the parliamentary logjam with devastating effect. It was a rout. Labour’s vote in its traditional strongholds finally collapsed. The demographic, geographic and social ties that bound its coalition together have unravelled. We have yet to see if they can be put back together again. Britain has elected the most rightwing government for decades, handing the least principled leader in living memory such a massive majority that it could take a decade to get rid of him. Last night was bad. The worst is yet to come.
The left must now find the space to grieve and think simultaneously. Because it’s not about us. It’s about the more hopeful society we want to create, the people we want to create it with, and the dystopia that the Tories are in the process of creating. And we won’t be in a position to win again until we work out why we lost. The easiest answers here are also the least adequate. To blame it all on Jeremy Corbyn, Brexit, the media, the manifesto or a failure of tactical voting is to deny a bigger, more complex picture. Of course Brexit played a significant role. Labour had three years to come up with a coherent offer to counter Tory bluster and failed. Given that its biggest losses were in leave areas, the notion that it should have cast itself as an unequivocal party of remain and a second referendum makes no sense. That certainly didn’t do the Liberal Democrats any good.
Devoid of agility, charisma and credibility, Corbyn has led Labour into the abyss
Polly Toynbee
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Labour knew Brexit would dominate and aimed to shift the conversation to public services and the environment. It failed there too. The problem was not the manifesto. Labour’s plans for nationalisation, public spending and wealth redistribution were popular, achievable, and would not have left Britain in a radically different place from many other European nations. But if you’re going to promise something that ambitious, you have to first of all prepare people politically for it and then reassure them you can actually do it. Labour did neither effectively, instead promising more things each day, displaying a lack of message discipline that felt like a metaphor for potential lack of fiscal discipline.
Corbyn was deeply unpopular. On the doorstep most couldn’t really say why they didn’t like him. They just didn’t. Some either thought he was too leftwing, antisemitic or the friend of terrorists. Obviously the media, which did not come out of this election well at all, have a lot to do with that. How could you like someone when you never hear anything good about them? The rightwing-dominated press too often framed the narratives for television and radio, which fed them back on a loop that could be broken only by events.
But they did not invent it all. Corbyn was a poor performer. Time and again he had chances to nail Boris Johnson for his lies and duplicity, but he refused to do so. He’d say it’s not his style. But his style wasn’t working. His refusal to apologise to the Jewish community for antisemitism when interviewed by Andrew Neil was baffling, not least because he had apologised several times before – and did so again afterwards with Phillip Schofield. And the media are not going anywhere soon. They attacked Gordon Brown, Edward Miliband and Neil Kinnock too – though never as ferociously – and whoever runs the party next will have to deal with them.
3:55
UK election 2019: how the Tory triumph unfolded – video report
Those who think that Labour’s leftward shift was just about Corbyn frankly never understood it. Corbyn was simply the unlikely, unprepared and in many ways inadequate vessel for a political moment that is not yet over. He emerged in the wake of wars and at a time of austerity when social democratic parties across the western world were failing and flailing. His election did not produce the crisis in the Labour party; it was the product of it, and this election result has now exacerbated it. His strong performance in 2017 is why we are not further down the Brexit path already, and why the Tories have promised to increase public spending and effectively end austerity.
There are ways of contextualising this result that could provide solace in a moment of despair. Labour, under Corbyn, won a higher vote share than both Miliband and Brown. He lost fewer seats than Brown and has more than the Tories did in 2005, from which they bounced back to form a coalition government in 2010. Such rationalisations should be avoided. We lost, and lost badly. Self–criticism does not come easy from a defensive crouch. In the words of the great African American writer and activist WEB Du Bois: “Our worst side has been so shamelessly emphasised that we are denying we have or ever had a worst side. In all sorts of ways we are hemmed in.”
Corbyn is right to announce his departure. His decision to stay and lead a discussion about the future of the party makes no sense. He cannot lead a conversation that is in no small part about him. His presence will be a diversion from the task at hand. The left should not fetishise this position. It matters who runs the Labour party, but it’s not the only thing that matters. For the past four years nearly all of the left’s energy has been poured into defending it. Given Johnson’s majority, many of the key struggles to come will take place outside parliament.
Corbyn’s departure creates a problem for centrists. They have been predicting this moment since before he was elected leader. When events failed to comply – when the party reelected him with a greater majority or the country gave him more seats and votes – they waited for the next event. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The trouble is, with him leaving they will now have to produce an agenda and a candidate of their own, and then offer those up to a party that has grown in size, even if it is momentarily diminished in confidence.
They will have to face the fact that the electorate did not abandon Labour for the centre. They went either to the far right, in England and Wales, or to the social democratic nationalist alternative, in Scotland. They did not go to the Liberal Democrats or back Change UK. Chuka Umunna, Dominic Grieve, David Gauke, Anna Soubry, Jo Swinson and Luciana Berger all lost.
I did not hear a single voter ask about Owen Smith or pine for Yvette Cooper. Whatever comes next, it won’t be a return to abstaining on the welfare bill or backing the hostile environment policy. They will want Labour to be more effective in opposition, but they will want it to mount an opposition.
The centrists will have to face the fact that the thousands of people who travelled the country during these past few weeks to canvass in the cold and rain are not about to abandon their ideals or the party. And those who invested so heavily in this particular iteration of Labour will have to face the fact that their conviction alone was not enough to convince others of their ideals.
Gary Younge is a Guardian columnist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/oct/27/rich-countries-fossil-fuels-africa-renewables-gas-climate | Opinion | 2023-10-27T13:00:47.000Z | Vanessa Nakate | Rich countries should stop pushing fossil fuels on Africa – don’t we deserve a renewable future too? | Vanessa Nakate | It’s official: we’re about to reach peak fossil fuels. New figures from the International Energy Agency (IEA) show that the shift to renewable energy is now unstoppable – and that demand for oil and gas should begin to decline by the end of this decade. This decline is not fast enough to prevent our climate warming irreversibly, but it is a death knell for fossil fuels.
In response, leaders of rich countries will be showing off wind turbines on their coasts and pointing to shiny electric cars on their streets. But they’ve spent the past few years persuading African countries to increase their gas expansion instead. There’s $245bn of gas infrastructure planned in Africa, and gas-rich countries such as Mozambique have faced an onslaught of foreign companies fishing for contracts to extract their gas.
Rich countries have always had their eyes on Africa as a new source of gas, but since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove up prices, their thirst for African gas has increased as their own energy security has wobbled.
These projects were pushed as a huge opportunity to boost our economies. But they were never in our interests, because burning or selling fossil fuels is a terrible deal for Africa. First, because the gas extracted from African countries won’t generate electricity for their populations, even though 600 million of us in sub-Saharan Africa have no access to it. Instead, it’s for export to rich countries. Second, because burning more gas worsens climate breakdown and brings catastrophic droughts and famines – especially in African countries. In addition, fossil fuel plants have often meant disaster for the communities living around them. In Cabo Delgado, in Mozambique, the gas industry destroyed the lives and livelihoods of the locals but delivered few of the promised jobs and compensation. In Nigeria, oil drilling contaminated air, land and water, exposed people to toxic chemicals and lowered life expectancy.
Oil and gas giants have sold African leaders big promises that gas is the key to development. But this week’s analysis by energy experts at the IEA makes those seem even more dubious. It predicts that beyond 2025 there could be too much natural gas in the global energy system, causing a “gas glut”.
For fossil fuel corporations, that means a marginal hit to profits – and their bets are spread. For African countries persuaded into gas projects, a dwindling market for gas could mean an economic crisis that could lead to cuts in national spending and difficulties repaying national debt. We’ve been burned like this by fossil fuels before: African countries that export oil saw revenue halved at the start of this decade. As we enter the dying days of fossil fuels, gas infrastructure in Africa could go out of date almost as soon as it’s built.
That leaves us behind in the renewable energy transition that rich countries are leaping on for themselves. Money spent on building gas supply infrastructure is money that can’t be used for investment in the industry of the future: clean, secure, renewable energies such as solar and wind.
Africans know where the world is heading, and we’re determined not to be left behind. In October our governments held the first ever African Climate Summit and called for global support to quintuple our renewable energy capacity.
There’s no need to double down on failing fossil fuels in Africa when we have never-ending wind and sun. We are the world’s youngest continent, full of entrepreneurs ready to deliver a manufacturing revolution in global renewables. Nobody is more motivated to tackle the climate crisis than Africans: the continent hit hardest that the did least to cause it. We can deliver a world powered by wind and solar – with the calmer climate, cheaper bills and reliability that come along with it.
Africa must forgo gas exploration to avert climate disaster, warn experts
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When African people get to choose, we choose renewables. But will rich countries finally allow us to determine our own future? They need to meet us halfway instead of tying our hands behind our back with gas pipelines. Right now only 2% of investment in renewables goes to Africa. That must change: development banks should prioritise renewables, better grants and financing for Africa and an end to subsidies for fossil fuels. The money can and must be found in a historic effort by public institutions and private money to prioritise a just energy transition.
This year at the UN Cop climate talks, world governments can finally choose to support Africa to become a renewable energy powerhouse, so we can produce the renewable energy, minerals and technology that the whole world needs. As leaders talk about tripling global renewables, they must discuss funding Africa to quintuple our renewable energy generation and agree national plans to phase out their own fossil fuel use. And they need to pay for the damage they have done to Africa through climate breakdown by finally contributing to the loss and damage fund.
It’s time to decide. Will rich nations’ governments keep holding Africa back by making us a dumping ground for the dying fossil fuel industry? Or will they finally let us lead the world in delivering a secure, just and clean future?
Vanessa Nakate is a Unicef goodwill ambassador and youth climate activist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2012/sep/25/yorkshire-birmingham-bbc-peaky-blinders-jedward | UK news | 2012-09-25T17:45:00.000Z | Martin Wainwright | Yorkshire nicks the Midlands' gangsters, and their flat caps | You may have thought that flat caps were as dead as cobbled streets and mass whippet-keeping, but don't be too sure. The BBC is going to unload six hours of them on to us all next year via its big-budget TV drama Peaky Blinders.
This excellent name comes from a gang of thugs in Birmingham and the story is centred on the capital of the Midlands in the dangerous confusion which followed the end of the First World War. As the BBC publicity says, we are in for 'Gangs, Guns, Communists, Returning Soldiers and Revolutionaries….' The thing which binds them together is flat caps.
Peakies then... How the Birmingham police saw the real thing.
The 'peaky blinder' tag makes this essential to the plot because, as the producers say, the name comes from the gangs' "practice of sewing razor blades into the peaks of their caps" to enforce their protection rackets and the like. Interestingly, the Birmingham Mail has a different explanation to do with a peculiar hair style (there is nothing new about Jedward), and it also places the original Blinders firmly in the late 19th century.
The sturdy vicar of St Jude's in Tonk Street set up a mission to win them over from the dark side and had largely succeeded before the First World War began.
Such freedom with chronology is no great deal in art, and especially when you hark to the joyful whoops of Screen Yorkshire. The series is their first investment of money from the new Yorkshire Content Fund which is using £7.5 million from the EU's European Regional Development Fund to promote film, games and digital enterprises in the county.
...and now. Joe Cole, Cillian Murphy and Paul Anderson in the coming series. Photograph: BBC
Hence we are getting eight weeks of Peaky Blinders filming here in the broad acres this autumn, to add to our own, home-grown gangsters (Red Riding), strippers (The Full Monty and The Calendar Girls) and other alluring cinema types.
Sally Joynson, Screen Yorkshire's chief executive says:
This is the type of production we are looking to attract to Yorkshire - big budget, epic storyline and with immense talent involved across the project. Peaky Blinders shows how our new fund is attracting productions of scale to the region.
Will Headingley stand in for Edgbaston and Leeds town hall for its Brummie equivalent? We shall see. No doubt Birmingham is going to have some of the pie, but this seizure by Yorkshire of other people's cultures can only be welcome. That's what the Northerner thinks. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/nils-pratley-on-finance/2023/jan/03/2023-uk-economy-financial-gloom-energy-prices | Business | 2023-01-03T18:03:05.000Z | Nils Pratley | Will 2023 be a year of muddling through for the UK economy? | Typical. After a round of new year prediction punditry that made one think that 2023 could only be bleaker and weaker than 2022, the FTSE 100 index charged off in the opposite direction. It was up 180 points after two hours of trading to a shade over 7,600, enough to bring the all-time high (7,877, in the faraway pre-Ukraine, pre-Covid days of 2018) into view, a prospect that did not feature heavily in most “what to expect” checklists.
By the close, the gain was a more modest 102 points but still out of tune with the general diagnosis that a third of the world would be in recession this year (the IMF) and that the UK’s downturn was likely to be the worst and longest in the G7 (a Financial Times poll of 101 UK economists). Never mistake share price for the real economy, but it’s worth asking the question: is it possible that 2023 could be a tale of muddling through, as opposed to a story of unmitigated financial gloom?
If there is a case for relative optimism, it lies in the demonstration over the holiday period that wholesale energy prices can fall as well as rise. A UK month-ahead gas of 179p a therm still looks horrible against a 10-year average of roughly 50p but it’s a lot better than the terrifying 500p seen back in August. Even a few weeks ago, few would have bet that we would enter 2023 with gas prices lower than before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The real test of Europe’s energy resilience lies ahead, it should be added quickly. Blackouts are still possible this winter and, as virtually every energy analyst points out, the biggest challenge is replenishing storage for next winter without Russian supplies. The current lull in wholesale prices could be highly misleading.
Alternatively, one can see how lower energy prices may start to ease financial pressure on governments and business. The cost of protecting consumers via price caps falls; bills become lower for companies versus what they were expecting. Central banks’ freedom to hold off on interest rate rises also improves if the energy shock is believed to have passed its most shocking phase.
None of which should be taken as a prediction of cheer. The debate is not about the fact of recession – just its severity. But a notable feature of the final few months of 2022 was the number of chief executives in consumer-facing companies who sounded more hopeful about medium-term trading than bald big-picture economic forecasts said they should be.
Retailers’ Christmas reports over the next fortnight could puncture that picture in an instant, by delivering a hard reminder of how far cost-of-living pressures reach up the income spectrum. But, for the time being, the muddle-through thesis is intact. The second half of 2023 should be better than the first, which was about as upbeat as the new year forecasts came. One big swing factor – the price of energy – is currently behaving. A lot hangs on whether it continues to do so.
Tit-for-tat point-scoring at Cineworld must feel irrelevant to many
Recovery in any form is not on the cards for poor old shareholders in Cineworld, however. The once-mighty London-listed cinema group is in chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US and financial realities must be spelled out in every utterance to the stock exchange. Any debt restructuring or sale “will result in a very significant dilution of existing equity interests”, according to Tuesday’s announcement, which has been the refrain since September.
So what was the point of the latest statement? Well, it seems that Cineworld has been fuming over its rival AMC Entertainment’s claim to have held talks over cherry-picking a few cinemas in the US and Europe. There were no talks with us, said Cineworld, adding that it “understands” that its ad hoc group of lenders did not talk either. Such is the messy business of chapter 11. Nobody can agree on what constitutes proper talks.
The tit-for-tat point-scoring must feel irrelevant to outside shareholders in Cineworld. Rather than listen to the chief executive Mooky Greidinger’s digressions on AMC, they would surely rather hear an explanation as to why a deal with lenders was not attempted last spring when Cineworld still had a share price that offered some negotiating clout.
Instead, Greidinger gambled on a strong bounce-back in revenues that never quite materialised. For the investors, it doesn’t matter terribly if Cineworld is sold in pieces or as a whole. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/dec/27/cyclist-deaths-rise-recessions | Life and style | 2011-12-27T18:47:30.000Z | Mark King | Cyclist deaths rise during recessions, figures suggest | The number of cyclists killed in the UK has risen during three of the last four recessions, according to figures from the Department for Transport (DfT). The data suggests that, when commuters swap expensive train, tube and car travel for cheaper bicycles during periods of austerity, the death toll rises.
The DfT's 2011 annual report on UK road casualties shows that cyclist deaths across the UK rose by 7% last year, up from 104 in 2009 to 111 in 2010, just as many of the government austerity measures were kicking in. In the first half of this year the number of cyclists killed or seriously hurt on UK roads rose 12% year-on-year. Cycle deaths also rose by 58% between 1930 and 1935 and by 14% between 1980 and 1984. After both the 1930s and the 1980s recessions, the number of cycle fatalities fell back once again.
Tom Jones, of Thompsons Law, said: "In the last 12 months we have seen a marked increase in the number of personal injury claims brought by people involved in accidents related to cycling. We monitor London and the south-west, particularly Bristol, and we are seeing a definite trend of increasing claims."
The combined number of cyclists involved in fatal and serious accidents also increased by 10% between 2007 and 2010, from 2,698 to 2,962. But the rise in cyclist deaths contrasts with the number of fatalities falling for all other types of road user – the number of car occupants killed fell by 21%, and 19% fewer pedestrians and 15% fewer motorcyclists died on the roads.
Charlie Lloyd, of the London Cycling Campaign, said: "Cycling fatalities in general are not getting any worse. It is likely that any increase in the number of fatalities during a recession is related to an increase in the number of cyclists. More people get on their bike or spend more time on a bike during a recession."
The DfT report says that 60% of pedal cycle casualties occurred between 7am–10am and 4pm–7pm, and were likely to include people travelling to and from work.
Paul Codd, a new media communications specialist who is a regular cyclist, said one of the biggest risks to a cyclist in London was poor urban planning.
"Cycle lanes in some cases can be part of the problem, the seemingly random lanes imposed on older roads. These lanes encourage cyclists to 'ride in the gutter' which in itself is a very dangerous riding position – especially on busy congested roads as it places the cyclist right in a motorist's blind spot.
"I also feel that the provision of a cycle lane encourages a cyclist to undertake or worse, remain stationary in a blind spot." While cyclists in London were vocal in their opposition to the now-retired bendy buses, there is no definitive proof that they were responsible for an increase in cyclist deaths. Of the more recent high-profile fatalities in the capital, poor navigation at hotspots, such as Bow roundabout and Blackfriars bridge, as well as irresponsible driving by lorry drivers have been cited as key contributors.
DfT statistics reveal that the biggest single contributory factor on the part of the bicycle in accidents involving bicycles is the cyclist failing to look properly (25%, in accidents involving a bike), followed by failing to judge the other person's path or speed (10%), the cyclist entering the road from the pavement (8%), and careless or reckless behaviour (8%).
The largest number of cycle deaths in urban areas involved cars (25 deaths), followed by heavy goods vehicles (nine). On rural roads it was a similar story with 28 deaths involving incidents with cars, nine involving heavy goods vehicles, and eight involving light goods vehicles.
A 2009 report by the Transport Research Laboratory found that almost three-quarters of all cyclists killed or seriously injured in Great Britain were injured on urban roads, and almost half of cyclist fatalities occurred on rural roads; indicating that while the frequency of injuries is greater on urban roads, their severity tends to be greater on rural roads.
Lloyd said improved awareness of cycling safety training might help reduce the number of deaths, along with better education for younger cyclists. "Cycle proficiency used to be taught in schools but that disappeared. There is now a government-supported Bikeability scheme but it is not universally delivered in schools. The government abolished Cycle England, which used to monitor take-up of the scheme as well as the National Cycle Training Standard for adults, though it has promised it will continue to monitor it in some form."
However, Bristol-based Sam Howard said cycling had never been safer: "I feel far more safe cycling now than I did five or six years ago. I'm lucky enough to live in Bristol, a city that received significant funding to increase levels of cycling five years ago. I really feel there are far more cyclists on the roads of Bristol these days, especially during commuting hours. The money that has been spent on cycle provisions; cycle routes, parking, cycle training and promotion has really made a difference in this city."
Cyclist Codd said: "The cycle lane can sometimes be the worst possible place to be. If the traffic's stationary or you're travelling faster – always overtake like a motorcyclist. Never undertake a large vehicle, either wait or overtake when safe to do so. Get a decent set of lights and use your ears - yes you might be in a continuous stream of traffic, but your ears will let you know in advance of any aggressive manoeuvres from an overtaking vehicle - the surging engine's a dead giveaway.
"Inexperienced and previously unconfident cyclists are taking to the streets in numbers and there is a real feeling and atmosphere of social cohesion between cyclists. Cyclists in numbers, more importantly perhaps, makes them far more respected and noticed by motorists. This is heightened by the huge economic savings made from cycling compared to driving especially in such times of austerity. Cycling is no longer a thing for the brave."
This article was corrected on 3 January and 14 February 2012 because it said "DfT statistics reveal that the biggest single contributory factor in cycle deaths is the cyclist failing to look properly." In fact the figures cover accidents per se, without reference to casualties or fatalities. And contrary to a subsequent correction to the article above, the DfT statistics cited in the story (a sub-set within Table RAS50005 of the department's Reported Road Casualties in Great Britain: 2010) pertain to the contribution made by the bicycle to any accident involving a pedal bike – not the contribution of other vehicles. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/may/31/labour-policy-paper-leak-jeremy-corbyn-uncontrolled-migration-theresa-may-daily-mail | UK news | 2017-05-31T19:37:31.000Z | Rowena Mason | Labour paper leak: Corbyn denies wanting 'uncontrolled migration' | Jeremy Corbyn dismissed Theresa May’s claim that he wants “uncontrolled migration” after a leaked Labour policy paper proposing a visa route for unskilled workers found its way to the Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph.
The document indicates that Labour could create a US-style green card scheme and suggests the party does not consider cutting net migration a priority.
According to the document, policy advisers suggested: “We envisage a requirement to make continued use of the current five-tiered visa system, including the currently unused tier applicable to those seeking low-skilled, unskilled or seasonal work.”
Election debate: reaction and analysis after Jeremy Corbyn and party leaders spar – as it happened
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The document proposes scrapping a means test that requires a UK sponsor to have a minimum gross annual income of £18,600 before they can apply for spouses or partners from non-European Economic Area states to join them.
Drawn up by Lachlan Stuart, Corbyn’s domestic policy adviser, it said: “We envisage a requirement to make continued use of the current five-tiered tiered visa system, including the currently unused tier applicable to those seeking low-skilled, unskilled or seasonal work.”
At an event in London, Corbyn said the paper was not party policy and Labour was simply exploring options.
“What you have been reading is a document that was being discussed between researchers in our teams, as happens every day of the week in every party and all around parliament. Our policy is in our manifesto, that is the policy that we will be carrying forward,” he said.
The Labour manifesto promises to “develop and implement fair immigration rules” and create “a new system which is based on our economic needs, balancing controls and existing entitlements”, without specifying how this would work.
In response to the leak, Theresa May told reporters Labour wanted “uncontrolled migration”.
“What we need to do is have proper control of our immigration and, of course, we are going to be able to put in rules for people coming from the EU to the UK once we leave the European Union,” she said.
“There’s a very clear choice at this election – there’s a very clear difference between myself, and Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party.
“I want to ensure we are controlling migration because too-high uncontrolled migration puts pressure on our public services, but it also lowers wages at the lower end of the income scale.
“I want to ensure we control migration. Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party want uncontrolled migration.”
Corbyn has long been a supporter of free movement of people from the EU, but the Labour manifesto acknowledges that this would come to an end after Brexit. He has also vigorously defended the benefits immigrants bring to the economy and declined many times to say he believes immigration should be reduced.
A tougher line was written in to the manifesto following concerns from many of the party’s MPs whose constituencies voted to leave the EU, as well as some of the biggest unions such as Unite and the GMB.
An end to EU immigration was a major concern among leave voters and forms a key part of May’s negotiating priorities.
In a Channel 4/Sky election special on Monday night, Corbyn said he would not put a target on immigration levels, but the numbers coming to the UK would “probably” fall.
“I would have thought that under a managed migration system it certainly would not go up any more. It would probably – I don’t want to be held to this – probably come down. It is a probability,” he said.
The Conservative manifesto promises to cut net migration below 100,000 a year. The party says it would “reduce and control immigration” while ensuring that businesses can recruit “the best and brightest” from around the world and universities can attract overseas students.
May’s party would double to £2,000 a year the immigration skills charge on companies employing migrant workers, with revenues invested in skills training for UK workers. The immigration health surcharge would rise to £600 for migrant workers and £450 for international students, to cover their use of the NHS.
May has come under sustained criticism from political opponents for sticking to her promise to cut net immigration to 100,000.
The former chancellor George Osborne, the new editor of the London Evening Standard, has claimed that none of the other senior ministers in the cabinet support such a measure.
May sacked him from the cabinet when she took over from David Cameron as prime minister after the EU referendum vote in favour of Brexit in June 2016.
A report released last month by the Institute for Government (IfG) thinktank warned ministers it would be “unfeasible” to create a new immigration system by April 2019, the point at which Britain plans to leave the EU.
During the referendum campaign, David Davis – now Brexit secretary – said Britain must end its “disastrous” immigration policy.
The scale of the administrative challenge is too great and the current immigration system should be kept until a replacement is ready to avoid disruptive changes to labour markets, the thinktank has concluded.
The report was released a month after May angered some Brexit campaigners after conceding that there might have to be an “implementation” phase on the free movement of people once an exit deal has been struck. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jan/30/the-world-of-wong-kar-wai-ica-bfi-retrospective-4k-restoration | Film | 2021-01-30T08:00:03.000Z | Guy Lodge | Streaming: the world of Wong Kar-wai at the ICA | Anyone who has spent any time in Film Twitter – that strange social media subdivision where critics, cinephiles and industry folk are united by a medium, but little else – knows that it doesn’t take much to spark a heated argument there. Earlier this month, revered Hong Kong film-maker Wong Kar-Wai was at the centre of one, as stills from a new Criterion restoration of his 2000 film In the Mood for Love were passed around. The new images, it seemed, had a greener tint than in previous editions: had the colour grade been altered? And given that the restoration had been supervised by Wong himself, was this an experiment on his part or an assertion of his original vision? Back and forth the tweets went, with no one much the wiser.
His very best films invite not simple viewing, but complete inhalation
Happily, we can see for ourselves this week, with a streaming event that offers much more to savour than technical debate. Seven of Wong’s films have been given glistening new 4K restorations for the World of Wong Kar-Wai retrospective, which also includes a number of unrestored titles. Launching on the ICA’s new online Cinema 3 platform on Monday, the retrospective extends to the BFI Player from 8 February.
Cinema screenings at the ICA and BFI Southbank will follow whenever the pandemic permits – but for now, in the midst of a wintry lockdown, a Wong feast feels just right. Whatever the precise grade, his work is reliably hot with colour and sensual detail – be it the steam rising off a pot of noodles, or the slick of sweat between entangled limbs. His very best films invite not simple viewing, but complete inhalation.
The ICA’s programme effectively offers a Wong a day for the coming week, with all the films available to stream there for a fortnight after their debut. Monday kicks things off, obviously enough, with his 1988 debut As Tears Go By. It’s his most conventional film, given its hoary narrative throughline of a Chinese triad gangster torn between love and honour, but enlivened with nascent, skittering flashes of his woozy signature style.
Brigitte Lin and Takeshi Kaneshiro in Chungking Express (1994) by Wong Kar-Wai. Photograph: Courtesy of Janus Films
Tuesday brings Days of Being Wild, the film that christened Wong’s key partnership with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, and it’s a clear step up – a dazzling whirl through the bright lights of 1960s Hong Kong, tracking a reckless playboy through personal and familial crisis. The glittering Chungking Express, his spiky, neon-soaked, multi-stranded tangle of crime romp and romcom, follows on Wednesday. On Thursday, his hour-long, Gong Li-starring erotic miniature The Hand. Fallen Angels, another seductive torrent of lowlifes and impossibly high style that almost plays as the dark-mode version of Chungking Express, is on Friday.
But my own favourites land on the weekend: very different individually, Happy Together and In the Mood for Love make for a swoonsomely romantic pair. The former’s portrait of a vacationing gay couple drifting, in more than one sense, through the unfamiliar playground of Buenos Aires is streaked with a raw grime you won’t find in the latter, which is a viable candidate for the most purely ravishing film ever made.
Returning to 1960s Hong Kong, its story of two neighbours who oh-so-slowly fall for each other upon realising their spouses are lovers contrasts Brief Encounter levels of contained heartbreak with intoxicatingly saturated imagery and music. Together with its heady, oblique follow-up 2046 (the final title to hit the ICA platform on 9 February), it’ll make for a dreamy lockdown Valentine’s Day treat a few days later. Not that this kind of indulgence needs any occasion at all.
Also new on streaming and DVD
Jennifer Ehle and Morfydd Clark in Saint Maud. Photograph: Film4/Allstar
Saint Maud
(StudioCanal, 15)
British writer-director Rose Glass’s debut has been heaped with plaudits and superlatives since its cinema release last year, but its brittle, jittery shoulders can carry them. Low-key and slow-burning until its great gasp of a finale, this stylishly spooked chiller about an obsessively pious carer out to save the soul of her hedonistic patient enriches its smoky claret atmosphere with actual philosophical curiosity.
The Capote Tapes
(Altitude)
You’d expect a really substantial documentary about Truman Capote to have been made by now – he had a brace of biopics 15 years ago, after all – but Ebs Burnough’s slick film surprisingly has that turf to itself. Which isn’t to say that it contains many revelations for Capote-heads, but its exploration of his unfinished novel, Answered Prayers, via archival interviews with many of the high-society friends it was about, is lively, gossipy stuff.
Muscle
(Dazzler, 18)
For those of us whose January self-improvement plan already lies in tatters, Gerard Johnson’s grimly comic psychodrama provides a warning against such goals, as a schlubby office drone (the superb Cavan Clerkin) finds his hyper-macho new personal trainer (Craig Fairbrass, slyly sending himself up) taking over every facet of his life. The setup is stronger than the resolution, but it’s a clever, bracing new angle on toxic masculinity.
Possessor
(Signature, 18)
The poisoned apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree in the case of Brandon Cronenberg, who shares his father David’s dark fixation with bodily invasion, but his icily accomplished second feature announces him as a dark artist in his own right. Andrea Riseborough and Christopher Abbott are astonishing as, respectively, a hired assassin who works through the bodies of others, and her latest hapless avatar – their fight for corporeal control going to bloody, breathtaking extremes. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/15/javier-marias-obituary | Books | 2022-09-15T14:03:38.000Z | Margaret Jull Costa | Javier Marías obituary | Javier Marías, who has died aged 70 of a lung condition, was widely recognised as Spain’s greatest contemporary novelist. His work, which included 16 novels, three volumes of short stories and several collections of his newspaper articles, has been translated into 44 languages and has, altogether, sold nearly 9m copies worldwide.
Marías’ constant themes – in novels such as Corazón tan blanco (A Heart So White, 1992) and Los enamoramientos (The Infatuations, 2011) – were secrets and betrayal, the latter coming perhaps from his father’s experience in the civil war, when – as described in Marías’s spy trilogy, Tu Rostro Mañana (Your Face Tomorrow, 2002-07) – he was betrayed by his best friend.
Marías also wrote movingly about old age, and cast an unflinching eye on male-female relationships. The novels often begin with a shocking scene – an unexplained suicide, the sudden death in bed of a lover, a complex love triangle – plunging reader and narrator into the plot-to-be.
The main characters are often translators or interpreters – or, latterly, spies – people who have renounced their own voices, but who are also, in a sense, interpreters of people, which is, of course, precisely what any good novelist aspires to be. In Your Face Tomorrow, the narrator, Deza, is recruited to become exactly that, “an interpreter of people”, whose job it is to write detailed reports on the people he has seen only in videos or via a two-way mirror.
Marías was also a notable translator, believing translation to be the best possible apprenticeship for a writer. He translated, among others, Thomas Hardy, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thomas Browne and Isak Dinesen; his version of Laurence Sterne’s Tristram Shandy won a national Spanish translation prize in 1979. He was a great anglophile and lover of Shakespeare, and several of his books – A Heart So White, Dark Back of Time (Negra espalda del tiempo, 1998), Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me (Mañana en la batalla piensa en mí, 1994), Thus Bad Begins (Así empieza lo malo, 2014) – take their titles from Shakespeare plays, and abound in Shakespearean references.
His sentences are long and winding, much like those of Proust and Henry James, following the sinuous flow of a thought, always searching for the most precise way to express a complex, possibly contradictory idea. I was fortunate enough to be Marías’s main translator for 30 years. I would translate his books sentence by sentence (each sentence could sometimes be a page or more long) and took pleasure in rearranging the sentence to suit English syntax, while never losing the original thread or rhythm, and guiding the reader safely to the end, just as Marías did in Spanish.
He was also very funny. In A Heart So White, the narrator, another interpreter, wilfully mistranslates the words of a British politician who bears a striking resemblance to Margaret Thatcher. In The Infatuations, a mediocre writer is so convinced he will one day win the Nobel prize that he has already written his acceptance speech in execrable Swedish.
Born in the Chamberí district of Madrid, to Julián Marías, a philosopher, and Dolores Franco Manera, a teacher, writer and translator, Javier was the youngest of five sons. His father was briefly imprisoned by Franco’s Nationalists, and, on his release, was unable to take up a post at a Spanish university because he refused to swear allegiance to the so-called fundamental principles put in place by the Franco regime.
Fortunately, he received invitations to teach at Harvard, Yale and Wellesley College in the US, where the whole family spent the academic year when Marías was just one and, later, when he was four. Back in Madrid, Marías was educated at the liberal (and secular) Colegio Estudio.
He wrote his first novel, Los dominios del lobo (The Domains of the Wolf, 1971), aged 17, after running away to Paris. His friend and mentor, the novelist Juan Benet, found a publisher for that first novel, which was swiftly followed by Travesía del horizonte (Voyage Along the Horizon, 1973), written while Marías was at the Complutense University in Madrid, where he studied English literature.
Following graduation in 1973, Marías took a break from writing to focus on translation. From 1983 to 1985 he taught Spanish literature and translation theory at Oxford University, spending a term at Wellesley in 1984. From 1987 to 1992, he taught translation theory at his alma mater, the Complutense University.
His Oxford experience provided the basis for his 1988 novel Todas las almas (All Souls), the first of his novels to be translated into English. One of the minor characters in the book was the real-life writer, poet and anthologist John Gawsworth, who, as MP Shiel’s literary executor, inherited the throne of the non-existent Kingdom of Redonda, styling himself Juan I. In 1970, the independent publisher Jon Wynne-Tyson became Gawsworth’s literary executor, thus becoming Juan II, but, on reading All Souls, he abdicated in favour of Marías, who became Xavier I. Marías used his status as king to bestow mock-titles on friends and others he admired: for example, William Boyd became the Duke of Brazzaville and John Ashbery the Duke of Convexo.
In 2000, with Carme López Mercader, he set up a publishing imprint called Reino de Redonda, which specialised in translations (often by Marías himself) of neglected works such as Charlotte Riddell’s ghost stories (Marías was a fan of ghost stories), the film director Michael Powell’s only novel, A Waiting Game, and Joseph Conrad’s The Mirror of the Sea.
A Heart So White’s huge critical success, both in Spain and abroad – bringing him, among other prizes, the 1997 Dublin IMPAC award – allowed him to devote himself exclusively to writing, alongside his regular columns for various Spanish papers, which he continued to write until last month.
Marías was distinctly unmodern in some respects. He never used a computer (latterly his friend and assistant Mercedes López-Ballesteros fielded emails for him) and always wrote on an electric typewriter, correcting on paper, then retyping. The women in his novels all wear skirts and high heels, and everyone smokes.
His weekly column in El País often raised hackles, and he loathed kneejerk political correctness, but he was always on the side of the truth and true to his own beliefs.
Needless to say, he won countless prizes and, in 2006, was elected a member of the Real Academia Española. His last novel, Tomás Nevinson, will be published in English next year.
He is survived by Carme López Mercader, his long-term partner whom he married in 2018, and by three of his brothers, Fernando, Miguel and Álvaro.
Javier Marías Franco, writer, translator and publisher, born 20 September 1951; died 11 September 2022 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/mar/24/indie-supergroup-boygenius-phoebe-bridgers-lucy-dacus-julien-baker-stuff-of-life | Music | 2023-03-24T06:00:12.000Z | Laura Barton | Indie supergroup Boygenius: ‘Anything that starts a fire in you is the stuff of life’ | Earlier this year, the three members of Boygenius – Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers and Lucy Dacus – signed up for a run of group therapy sessions. The year ahead was freighted with the band’s debut album release and extensive touring, and it seemed wise to guard against the dangers that had undone so many other bands before them. “Prophylactic therapy,” as Baker calls it.
As solo artists, Baker (27), Bridgers (28) and Dacus (27) inspire a level of devotion that borders on zealotry – drawing frenzied audiences, spawning memes and tabloid gossip. They are queer-identifying, vocal about issues from abortion to trans rights to colonialism, while their songwriting, which tends to be smart, introspective and somewhat melancholic, has handed each of them the peculiar charge of articulating the feelings of a generation.
As Boygenius, the “supergroup” they formed in 2018, the intensity of adoration has only magnified. Perhaps not since Emmylou Harris, Dolly Parton and Linda Ronstadt united for 1987’s Trio has a songwriters’ supergroup incited such anticipation. The expectation around their debut album, The Record, is fevered. “I want people to like it because we like it,” says Dacus, sitting beside her bandmates in a photo studio in lower Manhattan. The day before we meet, they released a new single, Not Strong Enough, and Dacus has been anxiously checking the response. “Did we throw it into the dark abyss?” she wonders. “Will the dark abyss throw back positive reinforcement?”
‘We get to not feel isolated’ … Julien Baker, Lucy Dacus and Phoebe Bridgers. Photograph: Stylist: Lindsey Hartman. Stylist assistants: Susan Walsh, Hannah Nixon, Amber Simiriglia, Sergio Mejia. Makeup: Gianpaolo Ceciliato. Makeup assistant: Vadee Chun. Hair: Josue Perez. Hair assistant: Ben Martin/Photograph: Matt Grubb/The Guardian
Back in January, the band chose a therapist who might help them navigate the strange combination of gratitude and anger they have developed towards fame, the infringement of boundaries and the sense of constant surveillance. They also wanted someone who might help protect their friendship as it becomes something more like a job.
“My favourite thing about this band is that it’s fun for me, it’s a respite for me,” says Baker. “My real-life friendships with you both are among the dearest relationships in my life,” she tells Dacus and Bridgers. Releasing an album feels “like you’re at the top of a big rollercoaster that everyone keeps hyping because they’re excited about you being good at what you do. I was super-anxious there wouldn’t be time to cultivate our friendship. I was precious and protective of it.”
But to spend time in Boygenius’s company is to be constantly reminded of the intimacy between them. Their sentences braid together and they make room for one another’s opinions. And while there are in-jokes, disagreements and diversions, they treat one another with palpable admiration. In their first session, the therapist told the trio she liked to get to know her clients through the eyes of those who already know and love them, asking that they describe the traits they appreciated in one another. “Phoebe and I looked at each other,” says Dacus sliding her eyes to Bridgers again now, “and immediately started crying.”
Boygenius began with Dacus and Baker. In 2016, sharing the bill in Washington DC, Baker came backstage and found Dacus reading Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady. They fell into conversation quickly, ranging from reading to religion, to their shared experience of growing up in the American south (Dacus in Virginia, Baker in Tennessee). When they parted, Dacus tore a blank page out of her book and wrote down her email address.
What followed was something between an epistolary friendship and a roving book club. Both were in their early 20s, touring their debut albums, feeling the strange isolation of their position. Baker then suggested Dacus meet Los Angeles-born Bridgers – another friend from the road going through the same thing. The email book club widened to three, and still stands today. On her bookshelves back home in LA, Bridgers keeps a “Lucy section”.
“So when I come visit her, I can pick out my own books,” Dacus says.
When they were booked for a triple-bill tour in late 2018, they decided to record a 7in single to sell on the merchandise table. It was the first time they had all been in the same room, but over a handful of days in the studio they turned out six songs. The idea of becoming a band took shape. They called themselves Boygenius – a nod to how often male egotism is recast as creative brilliance – and released their self-titled EP that October.
The trio subsequently re-focused on their solo careers. Baker and Dacus released their respective third albums to great acclaim; Bridgers became a near-household name through the success of her second record and a relationship with Irish actor Paul Mescal. (They are said to have split, but I am warned not to ask questions about the band’s personal lives – a press officer and management hover during our interview.)
Throughout, they stayed in touch, book talk giving way to finding relief in their common experiences. “I feel like what we talk about the most is the shitty parts of this amazing thing that we get to do, we get to not feel isolated,” Bridgers says.
“Or ungrateful,” Dacus adds.
Bridgers nods. “I’m the most grateful I’ve ever been in my life. And my anger at the ways that fame is set up has only made me more grateful to be able to articulate those things – the ‘Beatles getting out of a car trope’ [footage of the band surrounded by screaming fans]. Personal space. Surveillance.”
‘I feel grateful that people care’ … Baker, Bridgers and Dacus. Photograph: Matt Grubb/The Guardian
All have spoken previously about invasions of privacy, secretly being filmed or photographed when out in public. “I think the imperative thing is [people liking us] with distance and respect,” Bridgers says. “There are sinister manifestations of it that we don’t need to get into, because we have before, but loving something that somebody made is cool and I feel grateful that people care. Shit that lights a fire in you is the stuff of life.”
They all remember being teenage fans screaming at Broken Social Scene shows, and nerding out over Elliott Smith; they understand the excitement their band inspires. “Honestly, we are our own biggest fans,” says Dacus. “I can relate to people who like Boygenius because I do, too.”
During their respective last solo album press cycles, they batted back questions about whether Boygenius would ever record again. In secret, they were saving up lyrics and half-songs that seemed to belong only to their band. During the pandemic, Baker opened a Google Drive, and the three began sharing tunes. “Phoebe sent us a song and then I was like, ‘Holy shit, this fucking rocks’ and she was like, ‘We could be a band again …’”
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What is it they admire about each other’s songwriting? “I have this certain reticence at looking under the hood of this band,” Bridgers says, after some consideration. “I know what I love about you both as solo artists, but I think it changes in the band, and it’s just alchemy. There’s a secret fourth thing happening so it’s hard to articulate.”
The Google Drive was followed by two in-person writing sessions. They each brought songs that they had struggled to complete alone: Bridgers had a memorable lyric about kicking someone’s teeth in. “I’d been trying to sneak a curb-biting lyric into a song for years,” she says. “That was one of my darlings that I hadn’t killed. It’s nice to try to shake something loose that you’ve tried very laboriously to fit into your solo shit.”
“I love figuring out y’all’s puzzles,” says Dacus. “I tend to come up with a bunch of options – you know when the eye doctor’s like ‘This, or that? This or that?’ And then it’s knowing which thing is better and closer, and not being satisfied until it communicates the feeling we’re going for.”
Bridgers’ mind works differently, Dacus notes. “I’ll write a whole song and she’ll be like: ‘Change this one word.’ And it does something.” In the song We’re in Love, she had written about a white carnation; Bridgers insisted she change it to pink “because of a Marty Robbins song where he gets left alone at the prom because his date ditches him. ‘A white sports coat, and a pink carnation / I’m all alone in romance …’” Bridgers sings. “Also because Elliott Smith wanted to wear a pink carnation at the Oscars with his white suit, and they were like: ‘This flower looks stupid, take it off.’”
You can hear these conversations on The Record: there are songs that are distinctly Dacus or Bridgers or Baker, but skewed somehow – a punch that lands a little to the left, an arrestingly new image. They are sometimes funny – hanging Leonard Cohen out to dry for writing “horny poetry” – or defiant. “It’s a bad idea, and I’m all about it,” they sing on $20. It makes for a diverse and stylistically singular record; the sweetness of an Andrews Sisters-style three-part harmony giving way to spirited guitar and squalling vocals; songs that slow-drift, songs to weep or drive to.
Our friendship was so precious to me that I couldn’t possibly go there in a performance context
Julien Baker
If there is a quality that marks all three songwriters, it is the frankness with which they write. As Boygenius, that trait is more pronounced than ever. “This project gets to be really earnest in a way that I think we each undercut in our solo shit a little bit,” Bridgers says, though Dacus makes the case that she’s always “pretty earnest” in her music.
Baker, though, agrees. Weary of the way that “the sincerity of the thing that you’re making then becomes the quality that people define it by”, she has found it liberating to perform with the band, rather than solo. “Because I can be one step removed from the identity, and I can contribute something creative where the whole stakes aren’t on me and my decisions,” she says. “That’s freeing, and it enables you to be a little bit more earnest because you don’t feel so uncouth about it.”
Baker thinks she acquired self-deprecation as a protective mechanism. When she looks back through her old songs, there are some that now make her cringe. She acknowledges that they probably inspired a question she is often asked, essentially: “How does it feel to just talk about the worst shit that ever happened to you every single day of your life on stage for money?” she recalls.
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Dacus has taken a different approach. “I’ve tried to save myself from feeling bad on stage, repeating to myself things that I hate, because I don’t want to tell myself bad stories about myself. I learned it early on – that I shouldn’t share anything that I wouldn’t want to live through every day since that’s what tour is.”
Baker exhales: “That’s a good idea,” she says. “Damn!”
Learning how to exist in the public eye has been a hard lesson for all of them. Bridgers and Baker speak about points of dissociation: checking out of wherever they are just to get through it; singing emotionally gruelling songs while also “thinking about what I’m going to get from this grain bowl place once I get off stage …” says Baker. It is more unusual, Bridgers says, for her to feel “like I’m with my friends and in my body” rather than floating some way above herself.
Arguably the most earnest track on The Record is We’re in Love, a song Dacus wrote in tribute to her bandmates. Writing it was easy, she says, but making it proved hard. It felt exposing to share, to speak so openly about what they had come to mean to her.
Photograph: Matt Grubb/The Guardian
When she played it to them, Bridgers welled up. Baker recoiled.
“I was like, we should not have this song on the record,” she says. “It was too earnest for me. I was feeling really reluctant to engage with earnestness because it felt like our friendship was something that was so high-stakes, that was so precious to me, that I couldn’t possibly go there in a performance context. I didn’t know if I could engage with it as music that I’m a part of singing and making.”
She “spiralled out about it” for a while before coming around to the idea that it deserved its place. “I don’t know,” she says. “I’m a slow processor!”
It isn’t the only song that captures their bond. The track Leonard Cohen recalls the time they took a road trip in northern California, and Bridgers was so distracted by the urgency of playing her Iron and Wine’s 2004 song The Trapeze Swinger to her bandmates that she took a wrong turn. Baker and Dacus were too polite to point this out until the song had finished playing, by which time their journey had veered some way off course. “You felt like an idiot adding an hour to the drive,” the lyrics run. “But it gave us more time to embarrass ourselves, telling stories that we wouldn’t tell anyone else.”
The song ends like a love note – Dacus’s voice, soft over acoustic guitar: “I never thought you’d happen to me.” It’s an earnest line in a funny song, one that reveals the appreciation these three songwriters have for one another: a way to get to know Boygenius through the eyes of those who already know and love them.
The Record is released via Interscope on 31 March. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jun/08/coombeshead-farm-cornwall-restaurant-review-grace-dent | Food | 2018-06-08T12:00:10.000Z | Grace Dent | Coombeshead Farm, Cornwall – restaurant review | Grace Dent | When the spiritual teacher Heather Small from M People sang of One Night in Heaven, she demonstrated, I feel, that “heaven”, if we reach it, is a subjective concept. She indicated that it would be a place of romantic bliss, orbiting like a “love satellite”. For me, though, heaven would look and feel a lot like one neverending overnight stay at Coombeshead Farm in north Cornwall: a self-sufficient, gaspingly tasteful, food-forward, wunderkind-chef-led passion project set in 60 acres of rolling, remote British rural splendour. For me, it’s our answer to Fäviken in northern Sweden or Dan Barber’s Blue Hill Farm in the Pocantico Hills, New York.
This five-bedroom B&B is a place to pull out of the bag when you need to save your marriage, because not only is it exclusive and exquisite, but both of you will have to be so much on your best behaviour in the communal drawing rooms, while eating ornate, wafer-thin Stithians cheese tart amuses bouches with the other eight guests, that you’ll remember why you fell in love in the first place.
My heaven, where I will go for my good deeds in keeping your hearts alive with mirth and joy, will be waking eternally in pristine, quality bed-linen, with no phone signal – ergo no deadlines – to the smell of fresh, plump, Aga-hewn sticky lardy cakes and exemplary sourdough served with homemade rhubarb compote. A place where I can float through the working farmyard like a rested Sleeping Beauty, festooned in birdsong and sunlight.
But this is not agriculture as I know it from my northern childhood, full of shit, death, afterbirth and inbred young men on quad bikes looking for a fox den to dig up. No, in my heaven – as it is at Coombeshead – all the unseemly bits of land management will take place out of my eyeline, and I will instead snack on polytunnel sunflowers dipped in fresh curds, be at one with the piglets, geese and bees, and my soul will feel as if it’s just had a bloody good jetwash, much like Coombeshead’s yard.
‘Whopping’: scallop with seaweed mustard and smoked scallop roe broth. Photograph: Ben Mostyn/The Guardian
I felt all of these emotions, and even weirder ones, for every breathing moment of my 17 hours as an inmate ... sorry, guest. I certainly remember shedding a bizarre and quite unexpected involuntary tear when I left. In fact, the more I think about it, I’m not entirely sure that Tom Adams hasn’t started a cult. You arrive around 4pm, but there is no reception desk. Tom, or someone else lovely, will wander over to your car, lure you into the kitchen, fix you a drink and show you your room, which will make Babington House feel gauche. Tom will waft an arm across the vast honesty bar, then tell you that pre-dinner snacks will begin around 6.30pm.
On the May evening we ate there, dinner, served in an adjoining barn, and no longer communally and B&Bers-only, as it was in the operation’s early days, started with said sourdough with Guernsey butter, a robust, no-holds-barred porky “country” terrine, a skewered lamb kidney with paprika and a plate of faultless green asparagus made devilish with brown butter.
A whopping Looe diver scallop appeared in a seafaring, kelp-laden broth. We ate alongside Californians who had made a 600-mile detour from Europe, bankers and bespoke furniture makers. If the night had been written by Agatha Christie, one of us would have disappeared after every plate of fermented vegetables, puffed breads, cured pork belly or paper-thin fennel, each time leaving one foodie fewer to muse over Noma’s new summer vegetarian menu, until there were none.
The main event was Waterloo Farm lamb with spring onion and wild garlic, or ramsons, as they call it at Coombeshead. Or weeds, as some readers would probably call it while wondering where the potatoes to go with the lamb were, or the carrots, red cabbage or mint sauce for that matter. But Coombeshead is not for that type of person.
‘The main event’: Waterloo Farm lamb with wild garlic, new season onion, and spinach. Photograph: Ben Mostyn/The Guardian
Even so, those people would adore the breakfast here. Yes, it is served communally. And yes, you do have to talk to other people about your day’s plans. But while the cooked breakfast of the freshest eggs, griddled home-cured pork belly bacon and sausage is prepared, the table just off the kitchen heaves with homemade bircher muesli, hazelnut granola, warm breads, and an embarrassment of gut-healing kombuchas and fruit smoothies.
After breakfast, you will wander the farm’s many acres in a jocund manner, pointing at pleasant views, snuffling pigs and bumptious cockerels. You will pay your bill, hug people goodbye and go back to the real world. Your hire car will smell a little of sick and old Costa cups. The real world will feel cold, unkempt and distinctly non-heavenly.
Coombeshead Farm Lewannick, Launceston, Cornwall; 01566 782 009. Open dinner 7pm Thurs-Sun; 1pm Sun lunch. Five-course set meal £65, Sunday lunch £35 for three courses, all plus drinks and service.
Food 9/10
Atmosphere 10/10
Service 10/10
Grace’s week in other dishes
1 Tom Brown’s potted shrimp crumpet at Cornerstone in Hackney Wick, east London, is one of 2018’s hottest dishes. You could probably make this modern classic at home, but let’s face it, life’s too short.
2 House sesame labneh, fresh flatbread, charred green chilli zhoug at Caravan in the Bloomberg Arcade, City of London. The zhoug is one of the greatest I’ve ever had in the UK. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2020/sep/18/victoria-and-albert-museum-and-glastonbury-festival-to-launch-new-digital-archive | Music | 2020-09-18T05:01:16.000Z | Ben Beaumont-Thomas | V&A and Glastonbury festival to launch new digital archive | Most festivalgoers’ memories after Glastonbury are a little hazy – or not fit for public consumption – but London’s V&A museum is preparing to publish some of the more tangible and presumably family friendly ones as part of a new online archive project.
The V&A has held archive material from the festival since partnering in 2014, including “posters, stage designs, costumes, interviews, films and other memorabilia”. This initiative will make it available online along with contributions from the public, to mark Glastonbury’s 50th anniversary this year. Following funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the aim is for a fully searchable, open source public database to launch in 2021.
Senior curator Kate Bailey said she was “incredibly excited” by the project: “It will allow us to increase public, digital access to the festival’s performance history, and to create research opportunities that trace the extraordinary creativity and impact of the festival’s past, present and future.”
Festival co-organiser Emily Eavis said: “The memories and experiences enjoyed and shared by festivalgoers are what makes Glastonbury so special, and I’m so pleased that such a wealth of fascinating content will now be accessible to everyone.”
The museum made a public call for festival memories in June, and festivalgoers can continue to contribute.
Jean and Michael Eavis cheer from the Pyramid stage, 1992. Photograph: Brian Walker/V&A
No new memories were made in the festival’s 50th year, of course – it was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, having previously announced a heavyweight headliner lineup of Paul McCartney, Taylor Swift and Kendrick Lamar.
In August, Eavis’s father Michael said they might have to wait until 2022 for the festival to restart. There were also rumours of a September 2021 date. But Emily later stated: “We have no plans to move next year’s Glastonbury to September 2021. We’re still very much aiming for June.”
Visit the V&A’s Glastonbury archive here. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/jul/02/sailing-the-whitsundays-white-sand-snorkelling-and-a-blissful-digital-detox | Travel | 2017-07-01T22:27:39.000Z | Janine Israel | Sailing the Whitsundays: white sand, snorkelling and a blissful digital detox | Waking up on a Saturday morning with no phone reception would usually be cause for alarm or a strident march to the Apple store. Today, however, as I rise with the sun on a catamaran anchored in the Coral Sea in the remote Whitsunday islands, off the Queensland coast, our skipper, Cuzzy, has engineered other distractions.
The unflappable Kiwi with a castaway’s beard ushers our small group aboard a motorised dinghy and whizzes us ashore to the uninhabited Whitsunday Island. Landing on an empty beach, we hike 500 metres up through forest filled with stately hoop pines to Tongue Point, where we’re greeted with the “hero” vista of the Whitsundays – the swirling sands of Hill Inlet. The lookout receives an average of 350 visitors a day, but Cuzzy wants us to experience it without crowds – just the ospreys and Lewin’s honeyeaters for company – and to witness the spectacular natural phenomenon of white sand swirling through turquoise water as the tide goes out. It’s well worth the early start.
The view of the swirling sands of Hill Inlet from the Tongue Point on Whitsunday Island. Photograph: Janine Israel/The Guardian
My group is in the Whitsundays to experience bareboating, which isn’t quite the lewd pastime its name suggests. While the islands’ isolated bays and year-round balmy weather would indeed delight nudists, bareboating is not so much about getting the wind on your birthday suit as it is chartering a vessel with your friends and sailing wherever the wind (and engine) takes you. A boat license isn’t necessary, but some sailing experience is. However, with the ocean here sheltered by the Great Barrier Reef, and over 150 protected anchorages to call it a night, the Whitsundays is as close as you get to smooth sailing, making it an ideal place for a rookie to clock up some knots.
We’re fortunate enough to be undertaking our bareboating experience aboard a brand new eco-accredited $1.3m catamaran named Nordic Dream. It’s the kind of boat you imagine supermodels swanning about on in billowing sundresses, glasses of bubbly frothing over as they sprawl mid-laugh on the front-deck lounge.
Sail away ... in a $1.3m catamaran. Photograph: Reuben Nutt
Because we are opting for the laziest holiday possible (and let’s face it, none of us knows a starboard from a stern), our group has hired Cuzzy, an experienced skipper who comes with the boat for an extra $250 a day. He knows all the secret snorkelling and anchoring spots away from the backpacker party boats. He coaches us on raising the sail, steering the catamaran through narrow passages and the physics of putting down an anchor. At night he explains how to listen through the hull for the sound of dugongs swimming around the boat and for whales singing . He points out the constellations in the clear night sky. He even divulges the best location to propose (“It’s a tidal island of sand that appears for only 20 minutes once every six months.”)
Due to very patchy phone reception out by the islands, this long weekend is essentially a digital detox. And with the Whitsundays being right in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef (and in the section that hasn’t been decimated by coral bleaching), our bareboating sojourn will be both an above-board and underwater adventure.
After our early morning start and breakfast back on the boat, Cuzzy sails us to Whitehaven beach, a 7km stretch of dazzling-white sand lapped by aquamarine sea. It is just around the corner from Hill Inlet and consistently tops lists of Australia’s best beaches. He leaves us there to spend a good couple of hours swimming, sunbathing, playing beach cricket, standup paddle-boarding, strolling, and photographing the near-deserted expanse of island paradise from every conceivable angle. Whitehaven is backed by thick forest, which took a nasty battering during Cyclone Debbie in March, but it doesn’t detract from the beach’s perfection.
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Water is the only way of reaching Whitehaven beach, the picture-postcard jewel of Whitsunday Island, which at 275 sq km is the largest in the group of 74 lush, wild, mountainous islands that make up the Whitsundays. In the past 6,000 years – since the end of the last ice age saw this section of Australia’s Great Dividing Range submerged by a 100-metre sea level rise, effectively creating these islands – boat has been the preferred way to get around.
The Ngaro people, whose presence in the area can be traced back almost 9,000 years, adapted to the radically changing landscape by constructing canoes to paddle between the mainland and the islands, where they hunted dugong, turtles and the abundant sea life.
After our chilled-out morning on Whitehaven beach, our group returns to Nordic Dream to slip into our finest snorkelling attire. For me, that includes a black stinger suit with gloves, a bank robber’s hood and flippers to protect me from irukandji (poisonous jellyfish), which are most active during the humid summer months, but I’m too chicken to take any chances. Jumping in the dinghy, Cuzzy takes us out to a calm cove and little-known snorkelling spot where he gives us galeophobes a few tips. It is extremely rare to encounter the shy and well-fed reef and tiger sharks that lurk in the Great Barrier Reef, he says, but “they can detect our heartbeat and think we’re massive fish”.
What lies beneath ... Photograph: Keiran Lusk/Tourism and Events Queensland
“It’s the splashing about that attracts them. So while you’re snorkelling, don’t thrash about on the surface making noise or doing a wounded fish impersonation. If you see one, keep calm and carry on. It’s a philosophy that works for everything.”
Sliding calmly, flippers-first, into the water, a new world materialises through my snorkelling mask. As I swim along the edge of a coral-covered rock shelf, I spy colourful moon wrasse (the aquatic equivalent of an exotic parrot) and black-and-white-striped banded humbug (the zebra of the underwater community). A fluoro yellow damselfish dives for cover as I hover over it, but then decides I’m no threat and emerges fearlessly with a classroom-sized school of friends.
As well as harbouring 1,500 species of fish, the Great Barrier Reef is home to a third of the world’s soft corals, and I spend an inordinate amount of time mesmerised by what looks like a gigantic animated lamington. The fish seem particularly attracted to twin coral sculptures in shades of violet and green tea, replete with the kind of flamboyant frills that suggest a bygone encounter with an amorous pirate.
That afternoon we sail past the swanky resorts on Hamilton Island en route to the western side of Whitsunday Island. We anchor in Cid Harbour in time to watch the sun set behind silhouetted mountains.
These same tranquil waters are where the allied navy ships anchored during the second world war before the battle of the Coral Sea. Sitting here, you can imagine Queensland as it was thousands of years ago, or at least as it appeared to Captain James Cook, who sailed through on the Endeavour in June 1770 on the festival of Whit Sunday (although unbeknown to him it was actually Monday – the international date line wasn’t a thing back then).
One of the ubiquitous Whitsundays locals. Turtles lay their eggs on the islands’ beaches from November to February. Photograph: Ben Southall/Tourism and Events Queensland
We decide to have Saturday night dinner and card games on our sister ship, the Hakuna Matata, where the rest of our party are sinking beers and doing a spot of fishing. That boat’s skipper, Jimmy, chats away as he turns the steaks on the barbecue. He waxes about his favourite week of the year – Airlie Beach Race Week (falling 10-17 August in 2017) – the highlight of which he says is the Great Whitsunday Fun Race, a fancy-dress sailing contest complete with a Miss Figurehead competition. Every boat must have a real topless woman at its bow, Jimmy explains. “It’s all fun and games till yer mum’s up there,” he says with a knowing laugh.
Learning to sail on the Côte d’Azur
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On Sunday morning we sleep in, awakening to a 25C brilliant-sunshine June day and a serene stillness that is only broken by the sound of bacon sizzling on the barbecue and the hypnotic rhythm of the ocean licking at the hull. A few metres from the boat a green turtle surfaces, craning its long neck towards us as it takes four big gasps before diving back under.
Everyone in our group chooses to spend their final morning differently – one of us takes off in a kayak to explore the nearby coves; another dives off the boat and swims over to Hakuna Matata; a book lover curls up in the sun with her latest read.
I opt to go ashore to stroll through coastal rainforest. Cuzzy takes me in the dinghy to Sawmill beach and I walk alone along a 1.5km bush track dotted with pines and white cheesewood trees. Birds and butterflies flit between palms and tangled vines through which I glimpse Nordic Dream bobbing in the sea.
Where the rainforest meets the sea on the walk between Sawmill beach and Dugong beach. Photograph: Janine Israel/The Guardian
Half an hour later I arrive at Dugong beach, where a few national park campsites are concealed by trees, before Cuzzy picks me up in the dinghy, zigzagging through the shallow waters where dugongs and turtles come to feast on seagrass.
On our way back to the ship, I wonder out loud how I could relocate my entire life out here. Cuzzy smiles, running through the benefits of “living in a bubble” on the ocean.
“You have no idea what’s happening in the outside world for weeks at a time,” he says. “I try and have as little phone reception as I can because you feel a lot less present when you’ve got that distraction. There’s no Trump out here. When you go back, it can be a shock. You get three weeks of news in a day, and you’re like ‘What’s happening to the world? It’s crazy!’
Cuzzy pulls into Dugong beach in the motorised dinghy. Photograph: Janine Israel/The Guardian
Later that morning, sailing back to Airlie Beach and the world of 4G and Trump and normal-sized lamingtons and a wintery Sydney, I sit in my billowy sundress in the catamaran’s supermodel lounge, the warm wind in my hair, a succession of magnificent islands parading past. For now at least, I’m in my happy place.
Guardian Australia travelled to Whitsundays courtesy of Tourism & Events Queensland and Go Bareboating. Chartering a boat costs from $$780 a night for a sailing yacht that sleeps up to five people and goes up to $2,400 a night for a Nautitech Open 46 catamaran that sleeps up to 12 people.
If you’ve got the arms, Salty Dog Sea Kayaking run multi-day kayaking trips in the Whitsundays.
There are 11 locations to camp in the Whitsundays national park; cost is $6.15 per person per night.
Hamilton Island has a number of hotels and resorts and is serviced by its own airport.
Travelling around Australia? To find discount codes for local hotels, visit discountcode.theguardian.com/au | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/04/liz-truss-pm-laura-kuenssberg-panel-john-crace-sketch | Politics | 2022-09-04T14:17:32.000Z | John Crace | Truss for PM really is a laughing matter, finds Laura Kuenssberg panel | John Crace | Half the battle in launching a new Sunday politics TV show is booking the right guests. You don’t want your opening programme to be interviews with Jacob Rees-Mogg and John Redwood. So the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg pretty much nailed it by getting Liz Truss as the star attraction.
There was a small downside, mind. We are all obliged to pretend that Truss isn’t a certainty to become the new leader of the Tory party on Monday, so she is still umbilically linked with Rishi Sunak. Which meant that the show also had to find time for Ready for Rish! despite him being last week’s story.
Still, it was probably a trade off worth taking. In any case, come the end it would be the comedian Joe Lycett, one of a panel of three random commentators along with Cleo Watson, Boris Johnson’s former deputy chief of staff, and Emily Thornberry, who would be giving Kuenssberg sleepless nights.
The credits opened with Kuenssberg standing in front of what looked like a half-finished cartoon of Tower Bridge, the Houses of Parliament and the Angel of the North, while promising this show was going to be different from all the others. It was going to be about conversation rather than confrontation. Er … some hope. This was a politics show after all. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. You can change the graphics and you can change the studio, but you still can’t make a politician answer a straight question.
Kuenssberg then joined the panel. What qualities did Truss and Sunak have, she asked. Watson declared that Sunak had a sweet tooth – a bit random, but OK – and that Truss had had a number of cabinet posts. Hardly insight. Thornberry shrugged and said Radon Liz was thick skinned. Lycett merely said that he had come to hear the truth. Which suggested he had come to the wrong place.
We then moved to two Ikea chairs and an Ikea table which formed the set for the main interview. “Can you believe that you’re going to be prime minister?” Kuenssberg asked Truss. A decent first question because it’s one that most people are asking themselves. The more we all get to see of her, the less competent she appears to be. Weirdly affectless, robotically monotone and scarcely even able to talk in joined-up sentences.
The cost of living crisis wasn’t a crisis, Radon Liz insisted. It was just a very serious thing. One that the UK was actually very well placed to deal with. I’d hate to think of the state we’d be in if Britain wasn’t so prepared. Listening to Truss you’d almost imagine spiralling energy bills were all part of the plan. And even though she had once said she wouldn’t be offering handouts, she would now be doing so after all within a week but couldn’t say what or how much. Partly because it would be wrong. But mainly because she didn’t know.
That was pretty much Truss’s highpoint of coherence. She went on to insist that cutting taxes was important because it was necessary to reward the most well-off in society; that it would be wrong for her to worry about inflation as that was the Bank of England’s problem; that she was waiting for the health secretary, whom she hadn’t yet appointed, to tell her what to do about the NHS. She even managed to imply that fracking would sort out the UK’s energy supplies this winter. She is an enigma of her own making. Either she’s a secret genius who is going to astonish us. Or she really isn’t that bright.
As the interview came to a close, you could hear applause coming from the panel. Though it soon became clear that all the clapping was coming from just one source. “I loved it,” enthused Lycett. “I feel thoroughly reassured.” “Really?” asked Kuenssberg. Of all the potential disasters she had feared, sarcasm clearly hadn’t been one of them.
Lycett just kept going. “She’s going to sort everything out!” he declared. By now Laura had realised that Lycett had gone rogue and was making a mental note to herself to tell the bookers not to get another comedian. Perhaps she should have settled for a house band instead. She moved on to a lightning newspaper review – every Sunday politics show has to have one of these – but Lycett still wasn’t done.
If he was a leftwing comedian, he said, he might conclude that Truss was just the backwash we’d been left with after 12 years of Tory governments. But he wasn’t leftwing! He was incredibly rightwing! And wasn’t it brilliant of Liz to ignore the predictions of all the economists who said the UK was heading for the worst economic crisis in decades.
“Er, yes,” said Kuenssberg, remembering she was supposed to be having a conversation. Could we talk about the Artemis space launch? Or the Foo Fighters benefit gig for Taylor Hawkins? Um, we could have done if anyone had shown the slightest interest in either subject. But everyone just shrugged. Space and drumming were all right they supposed. If you liked that sort of thing.
The rest of the show passed less eventfully with a moving interview with Olena Zelenska in Kyiv and then a polite if inconsequential eight-minute exchange with Sunak. Truss had got a full 20 minutes. It was as though Kuenssberg and Sunak both knew they were filling time. That there was no point discussing his plans as they were never going to happen. Though even an abject, beaten Rish! somehow seems more plausible than Truss. The Tory party members have played a sick joke on the rest of us.
“Please do come back on the show,” Kuenssberg said to Sunak. Though not any time too soon. She reluctantly turned to the panel for their verdict. “You might as well have got Peter Andre,” said Lycett. Turning the screw to the last. Harsh but fair. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/13/syria-assad-trump-military-action-britain-killing | Opinion | 2018-04-13T16:35:21.000Z | Jonathan Freedland | There’s no good option in Syria. But there’s a way to make Assad pay | Jonathan Freedland | We are caught between a rock, in the form of the recklessness of Donald Trump, and a hard place, shaped by the cruelty of Bashar al-Assad. This is the choice that now confronts citizens and their representatives in Britain, France and the US. The reasons to resist signing up for any project led by Trump should be obvious, with the newly published testimony of James Comey, the FBI director he fired, providing a fresh reminder.
Look at Syria, and you can see all the elements that have led to world wars
Simon Jenkins
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Trump is a congenital liar who is devoid of empathy, a narcissist with a nihilist’s view of the world. These are not mere character defects; they have a bearing on the decisions the de facto leader of any action in Syria would take. Among the reasons I opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq was my fundamental distrust of George W Bush and his circle, especially on the matter of motive. Trump, with his tweeted mood swings – first, vowing to withdraw from Syria altogether, then threatening an imminent missile bombardment, then signalling a delay – makes Bush look like a statesman.
But even if a moral paragon were sitting in the Oval Office, there would be grounds for restraint. The record of past western military interventions in the Middle East is bloody and shaming, as the peoples of both Iraq and Libya can testify. Barack Obama, no gung-ho cowboy, was the commander-in-chief in the latter case. And yet what was originally billed as a discrete military action to prevent an impending civilian slaughter in Benghazi escalated into a bombardment that led to regime change and mayhem. It stands as a textbook illustration of western bombs’ ability to make a bad situation worse.
Those warnings from the past gain extra force in the current case, because standing in the way of any allied operation would not just be Assad, but also the military might of a nuclear superpower. That makes the task this time all the more delicate, for any action would have to avoid triggering a military confrontation with Russia, whose forces are present on the ground and in the air in Syria. The notion of entrusting such a task to a man as reckless as Trump would itself be reckless, criminally so.
The natural response is to steer as fast as we can away from that rock, but before we know it we are crashing into the hard place. The notion of inaction, of standing by and watching as Assad kills and kills and kills, racking up a death toll in Syria of 500,000 and turning millions into refugees – that prospect too should sicken us. And yet that’s what we’ve done. For seven slow years, Assad has been allowed to play butcher, uninterrupted in his work as he cuts down the people of his own country, with barely a hand raised to stop him.
For the parent of a murdered Syrian child, the current western focus on the exact method of murder must feel strange. As if Assad was well within his rights to slaughter innocents using regular bombs, and his only offence was to use chlorine or sarin, inflicting a death so painful the footage is unbearable to watch.
It is indeed strange, but the extra revulsion at the use of chemical weapons is not groundless. The taboo on the use of such weapons held, with exceptions, for nearly a century. It meant there was a limit. If Assad’s crimes go unpunished it means a new norm will have taken its place, one that says dictators can gas their own citizens with impunity. Who wants to live in such a world?
So this is the spot we find ourselves in, caught between giving a blank cheque to Trump and giving a free pass to Assad. What other options are there?
Labour calls for the attack on Douma to be “fully investigated”. That sounds unarguable. But then what? Jeremy Corbyn issued the same call after the chemical attack that killed at least 74 at Khan Sheikhoun a year ago: demanding there be a “UN investigation and those responsible be held to account”. The UN duly investigated and in October concluded unambiguously that the Assad regime had used sarin gas. But Corbyn greeted that verdict with silence. So unless there’s a plan for action once guilt is established, demanding an investigation sounds a lot like an excuse to do nothing in the hope that soon we’ll all be talking about something else.
Assad’s guilt is clear. Yet some treat each new attack as if it were the first
Besides, how much evidence do we need? Even before Douma, Assad’s use of chemical weapons had been documented seven times this year alone. To all but the most committed denialists and conspiracists, Assad’s guilt is clear. Yet some treat each new attack as if it were the first.
Nor will it do simply to call for diplomatic efforts or a political solution – though, of course, such calls sound admirable – as if there haven’t been years of diplomatic efforts, round after round of Geneva talks, the UN now on its third special envoy, all thwarted at every turn by Assad and his protector Vladimir Putin, wielding Russia’s UN veto. Calls for talks or investigations might sound like cries for peace: in this context, they are pleas for Assad to be allowed to keep on killing in peace.
Are there no good options then? I can’t see any. But perhaps the least bad comes from a voice we hear rarely, that of the democratic Syrian opposition and the groups which represent Syrian civil society, now scattered and in exile. The Syrian Negotiation Commission has called for action to deter Assad from killing civilians. What they envisage is that each time Assad launches a deadly attack on noncombatants, allied forces reply by taking out one of the strategic assets he uses to kill civilians. It could be an airfield, it could be a command centre. If the target were aircraft, that would simultaneously inflict a cost on the regime and deprive it of the means of dropping its barrel bombs and toxic, yellow cylinders. The objective would be to make Assad pay a price for killing his own people, a price he has not paid until now. Eventually, or so runs the hope, he would be deterred.
In other words, not an all-out bombardment, not an invasion, not regime change, not a re-run of Iraq or Libya. A methodical, tightly focused attempt to deter the Assad regime from killing civilians and robbing it of the ability to do so. Given Russia’s presence, it would not be easy. But this is what Theresa May should be proposing to Trump and to Emmanuel Macron. Indeed, she should make UK support for any military action conditional on it being the right kind of action. In a parliamentary debate – which Labour MPs have every right to demand on a question of this gravity – MPs should impose the same conditions on May.
Two decades ago, the world watched in horror as slaughter unfolded in the Balkans. In the end, thanks in part to western bombs, the perpetrators were forced to stop the killing and come to the peace table. Once backed by the threat and use of force, diplomacy was able to work – but only then.
Of course, a bigger memory has eclipsed that one. The deadly cost of Iraq haunts us, as it should. We saw the havoc western action could wreak. Perhaps that was why, five years ago, the House of Commons voted to leave the Assad regime untouched. Back then the death toll in Syria stood at around 100,000. More than 400,000 have died since that day. The proof is there if we can bear to look at it. Inaction, too, can be deadly.
Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/29/townsville-mayor-troy-thompson-military-service-army-109-signs | Australia news | 2024-04-29T07:22:54.000Z | Eden Gillespie | Townsville mayor Troy Thompson’s military service claims under investigation by watchdog | The military history of Townsville’s controversial new mayor is under investigation by an independent local government watchdog that assesses complaints about Queensland councillors.
The former One Nation candidate and Townsville mayor, Troy Thompson, laid out his military history on Facebook earlier this year. He said that he joined “109 sigs” as a signalman – an army member responsible for military communications – in 1989 when he lived in Perth, before joining “105 sigs” and later “152 sigs” prior to leaving the army.
Since being sworn in as mayor earlier this month, Thompson’s Facebook posts about his military history, as well as other posts made during his campaign, have been deleted from his page.
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In an interview with the North Queensland Freedom Network in February, Thompson said he spent five years in the military in Perth serving in signal units in Karakatta, Fremantle and “SAS Swanbourne”.
Thompson posted a video on Facebook last week after he was approached by the media at an Anzac Day ceremony and asked to provide his service number to prove his military service.
“I am actively looking to get this number to put the questions about my service to bed,” Thompson said.
“When I have this, I’m happy to make this available or talk to people. I’ve addressed questions about my personal life ongoingly. I’ve answered these questions respectfully and will continue to do so, until I’m shown disrespect.”
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Backed by 5G truthers, exiled from One Nation, banned from parliament – now Troy Thompson looks set to be Townsville’s mayor
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Thompson told the North Queensland Freedom Network he got his “fighting style” from his mother and father, who he said served for 20 and 25 years in the army respectively.
A spokesperson for Queensland’s local government department said it had referred the matter to the Office of the Independent Assessor for investigation.
“The [office] is an independent statutory body that has significant power and discretion under the Local Government Act,” the spokesperson said.
“[It] undertakes the initial assessment of all complaints about councillor conduct in Queensland.”
A spokesperson from the office of the Townsville mayor told Guardian Australia that Thompson had “made a personal information request to the Department of Defence to obtain his service information”.
“Mayor Thompson has committed to making information available, once received,” the spokesperson said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/may/07/vince-cable-attacks-ruthless-tories | Politics | 2011-05-07T14:00:00.000Z | Amy Fallon | AV referendum: Vince Cable attacks 'ruthless' Tories over poll defeat | Vince Cable has lashed out at the Conservatives for being "ruthless, calculating and thoroughly tribal", after the Lib Dems' massive defeats in Thursday's elections and the AV referendum.
However, the business secretary said the coalition can still continue in a "businesslike" fashion.
"Some of us never had many illusions about the Conservatives, but they have emerged as ruthless, calculating and thoroughly tribal," Cable said.
"But that doesn't mean to say we can't work with them. I think they have always been that way, but you have to be businesslike and professional and you have to work with people who aren't your natural bedfellows and that is being grownup in politics."
The referendum on changing how Britain elects its MPs was a major concession secured by the Lib Dems when they formed the coalition with the Tories last year. But in Thursday's poll it was rejected by 13,013,123 votes to 6,152,607.
During the campaign there was much animosity between the "yes" and "no" camps.
Speaking on the BBC today, Cable conceded that the main purpose of the coalition was to sort out the "economic mess", and not bring about electoral reform.
But he made it clear that the Lib Dems would not accept future policies which go beyond last year's agreement with their coalition partners, including proposals on NHS reform.
"We have a coalition agreement, which is a very good agreement and which is balanced and which we have to deliver, and that is the text around which we should operate in future while not losing sight of the central purpose of the coalition, which is to sort out this economic mess," he said.
"The health service reforms went some way beyond what was in the coalition agreement and that is going to be a major issue as we go forward." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/feb/27/queensland-policy-of-paying-developers-fees-already-failed-in-new-zealand-expert-says | Australia news | 2024-02-26T14:00:02.000Z | Andrew Messenger | Queensland policy of paying developers’ fees already failed in New Zealand, expert says | The Queensland government’s new policy of paying council taxes for developers is “probably not a particularly effective policy” and has already failed in New Zealand, an expert says.
But the overall “pro-housing” policy direction of new housing minister, Meaghan Scanlon, has won praise from some.
One of the most controversial elements of Scanlon’s Homes for Queenslanders scheme is a policy to “incentivise infill development”, including by paying council charges levied on new developments to pay for infrastructure. It would cost the state taxpayer up to $350m and includes other elements.
Australia’s youngest housing minister happy to pay developers’ fees as Queensland races to boost supply
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The development industry often claims the taxes add to the cost of housing.
The research economist Matthew Maltman, from the e61 Institute, said it’s “probably not a particularly effective policy – if you’re not going to change zoning restrictions”.
Developer infrastructure contributions do add to the cost of building housing – which is typically passed on to renters or purchasers – but they’re not the most significant factor, he said.
Maltman recently published a paper on planning reform in the New Zealand community of Lower Hutt, which attempted to reduce house prices by slashing taxes on development in 2012 until 2018.
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It had little effect on construction rates or housing prices.
It was only later, when the local council implemented a radical program of reform to their planning system, removing bans on apartments in much of the city, that anything changed.
“That’s when you saw a massive increase in housing supply,” Maltman said.
“So much so that they actually raised the rate of developer contributions for infrastructure in 2021 – and that was their highest year on record for dwelling consents.
“Because, essentially, zoning restrictions were the barrier towards new housing being built.”
Like other experts the Guardian spoke to, Maltman said the more “yimby – yes, in my back yard” policy under the new minister was a broadly positive one.
Scanlon also plans to roll out a pilot “inclusionary planning” scheme – trading away planning rules like carparking for a proportion of dwellings set aside to be rented below market rate – and mandatory housing targets for local councils.
Queensland Yimby group Greater Brisbane said Scanlon was charting a course for the right direction – though adopting less ambitious policies than other states or New Zealand.
Organiser Travis Jordan said the mandatory targets didn’t come with any clear stick if local governments failed to meet them. But he said there was a good reason for a softer approach – avoiding backlash.
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“There may not necessarily be social licence immediately to deliver those sort of scale of reforms,” he said.
Jordan said the government’s inclusionary planning approach was a good one.
“This is a good way of making these exemplar developments that show people that mixed use medium-density, sustainable housing is possible without car parking,” he said.
The Queensland Greens accused the minister of “running a protection racket for developers” with a “huge tax cut”. The party has a bill before parliament which would permit councils to raise infrastructure charges, which are capped by the state government.
“Queensland is in a housing crisis caused in large part by private developers holding back supply to keep prices high, and the first thing the Labor government wants to do is give them a huge taxpayer funded handout,” the Greens MP Michael Berkman said.
“This taxpayer funded handout isn’t even designed to make any new housing cheaper, and has no guarantees of a single new public home or any affordable homes.”
The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute’s managing director, Michael Fotheringham, said the plan was ambitious, and backed by sufficient funding to make it a reality.
He said the developer levy would help unlock already-approved projects, which are no longer financially viable due to a rise in construction costs during a period of inflation after the end of the pandemic.
Fotheringham said the plan was “getting close” to the scale required to solve the housing crisis.
“It’s got a range of well thought-out measures in it.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2006/jun/02/1 | Film | 2006-06-02T00:28:31.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | United 93 review | What other subject is there? What other event is there? Nothing is so important, so inextinguishably mind-boggling as the terrorist kamikaze flights of 9/11. Al-Qaida gave the world a situationist spectacle that dwarfed anything from the conventional workshops of politics and culture. Since then, Hollywood has indirectly registered tremors from Ground Zero, but here is the first feature film to tackle the terrible day head on, and Paul Greengrass has delivered a blazingly powerful and gripping recreation of the fourth abortive hijacking. It is conceived in a docu-style similar to Bloody Sunday, his movie about the 1972 civil rights march in Northern Ireland. He does not use stars or recognisable faces, and many of the characters in the air traffic control scenes are played by the actual participants themselves.
This is an Anti-Titanic for the multiplexes - a real-life disaster movie with no Leo and Kate and no survivors: only terrorists whose emotional lives are relentlessly blank, and heroes with no backstory. Greengrass reconstructs the story of the hijacked plane that failed to reach its target (the Capitol dome in Washington DC) almost certainly owing to a desperate uprising by the passengers themselves, who were aware of the WTC crashes from mobile phone-calls home, and who finally stormed the cabin, where terrorists were flying the plane. With unbearable, claustrophobic severity, Greengrass keeps most of his final act inside the aircraft itself.
The director is able to exploit the remarkable fact that the sequence of events, from the first plane crashing into the World Trade Centre at a quarter to nine, to the fourth plane ditching into a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at three minutes past 10, fits with horrible irony inside conventional feature-film length, and he is able to unfold the story in real time. It is at this point that a critic might wish to say: caution, spoilers ahead. But we all know, or think we know, how the story of United 93 comes out, and this is what makes the film such a gutwrenching example of ordeal cinema. When the lights go down, your heart-rate will inexorably start to climb. After about half an hour I was having difficulty breathing. I wasn't the only one. The whole row I was in sounded like an outing of emphysema patients.
Every last tiny detail is drenched with unbearable tension, especially at the very beginning. Every gesture, every look, every innocent greeting, every puzzled exchange of glances over the air-traffic scopes, every panicky call between the civil air authority and the military - it is all amplified, deafeningly, in pure meaning. And the first scenes in which the United 93 passengers enter the plane for their dull, routine early-morning flight are almost unwatchable. These passengers are quite unlike the cross-section of America much mocked in Airplane! - with the singing nun and the cute kid - neither are they vividly drawn individuals with ingeniously imagined present or future interconnections, like the cast of TV's Lost. They are just affluent professionals from pretty much the same caste, with no great interest in each other, and nothing in common except their fate. And all these people are ghosts, all of them dead men and dead women walking. When they are politely asked to pay attention to the "safety" procedures, ordinary pre-9/11 reality all but snaps in two under the weight of historical irony.
But what does happen at the end of the story? In his memorial address, President Bush implied that the passengers committed an act of tragic self-immolation, rather than see the Capitol destroyed. Is that what happened? Greengrass evidently disagrees. In his vision, the passengers have a quixotic idea of using one passenger, a trained pilot, to wrest control and bring the plane down safely to the ground - a Hollywood ending, perhaps. But there is something very un-Hollywood in Greengrass's refusal to confirm that without the passengers' action they would have hit the Capitol. On the contrary, his script shows the terrorists making a miscalculation of their own.
United 93 is growing, in popular legend, into the tragic and redemptive part of the 9/11 story: America's act of Sobibor defiance. It is a myth-making which is growing in parallel with jabbering conspiracy theories that the plane was shot down by US air-force jets and the whole passenger-action story is a cover-up. On that latter point, Greengrass's movie shows us that it is easy to be wise after the event; it is a reminder of how unthinkable 9/11 was, of how all too likely it was that the civil and military authorities would not have mobilised in time, and that any action would indeed have to come from the passengers themselves. The film is at any rate fiercely critical of Bush and Cheney, who are shown being quite unreachable by the authorities, desperate for leadership and guidance.
United 93 does not offer the political or analytical dimension of Antonia Bird and Ronan Bennett's 9/11 docu-drama Hamburg Cell; there is no analysis or explanation. The movie just lives inside that stunned, astonished 90 minutes of horror between one epoch and the next - and there is, to my mind, an overwhelming dramatic justification for simply attempting to face, directly, the terrible moment itself. The film might, I suspect, have to be viewed through an obtuse fog of punditry from those who feel that it is insufficiently anti-Bush. It shouldn't matter. Paul Greengrass and his cinematographer Barry Ackroyd have created an intestinally powerful and magnificent memorial to the passengers of that doomed flight. It is the film of the year. I needed to lie down in a darkened room afterwards. So will you. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/apr/24/drawing-a-blank-my-stationery-hell | Books | 2012-04-24T13:08:37.000Z | Roma Tearne | Drawing a blank: my stationery hell | The first time I confronted my stationery addiction was 10 years ago, after a trip abroad. I had been away for six weeks and on my return I noticed the small shop at the top of my road had closed. Standing on the pavement, staring in dismay at the whitewashed window, I could have wept. I put both hands up against the glass and peered in.
"They went last week," the waiter watching in the doorway of the cafe said.
"But I've run out of notebooks," I told him, stricken.
"Try the post office, luv."
How was he to know I had used the very last page of my favourite book – series 3, 2006, notebook number 12 – on the flight back from Genoa? That the deliciously hand-bound, 'rough not' (cold-pressed, to you, the uninitiated) paper, with deckled edges and matching green covers, were only available here? The post office would not have any. So began my quest for notebook number 13.
I was in the middle of a new novel at the time, and, like a superstitious actor, I panicked. I needed to find another notebook. Fast. The task was immense, as any stationery addict knows. I had standards to maintain. Not for me those fat little, stiff white paper things. Or the terrible ruled numbers with spiral spines and horrid pearlised card covers. No, no, I couldn't be seen dead with one of those in my hand, for heaven's sake. Nor did I want the tasteful artist's books as suggested by some, their rationale being that just because I sketched, I would automatically want to use one. What's the matter with people? The last straw came was when some idiot suggested I use A4 books, a remark I naturally discounted instantly. Wasn't it obvious I had very specific requirements?
The paper had to be off-white.
It could not be too thick. Or too thin.
A point 4 G-Tec (sepia) had to look good on the page.
The book needed to be small, but not ridiculously so.
Roma Tearne's notebooks
And there was the matter of the cover.
What d'you mean, you don't know about covers?
Roma Tearne's notebooks
Clearly I was taxing everyone's patience; shopkeepers, family, my editor, the GP whom I bumped into in town. But luckily I happened to have another work trip lined up, to Genoa, and later on in the month, Paris. Right, surely I would find a stock of the right stuff on one of these trips? Think positive.
"Do!" said my family, yawning.
Alas it was not so and although I trawled every stationery joint in both cities, though I tested my pigeon Italian and French to their limits, I found nothing remotely of interest. I had, as it were, drawn a blank.
Returning home on Eurostar, watching the French countryside flashing past, I didn't know what to do. If only I had had the foresight to buy up all those lovely green books, I thought sadly. If only I had had more forward planning, not taken such things of beauty for granted. I could see them, now, reflected in the train window and in my mind's eye. Here I was, for the first time ever, sitting on a train more or less stationery-less. Neither recording my deathless prose nor the snatches of conversation going on around, nor drawing caricatures of fellow passengers. Gloom settled over me as we entered the tunnel. Twenty minutes of it. But then, just as we broke free on to rain-swept Britain, I had an idea. What if I bought a leather covered black notebook, the sort available everywhere. Those books were hardly going to run out, were they? Everyone since Bruce Chatwin has been buying them. I had discounted them in the past because all the artists and writers I knew owned one.
"You're a stationery snob," someone once said to me.
OK, so what if I ripped the covers off one of those little black numbers and made my own? I'm on to series 8, now. 2012, number 7. I may celebrate National Stationery Day today by starting work on the next one.
Roma Tearne's new novel The Road To Urbino will be published by Little Brown this summer. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/feb/27/quiet-conspiracy-afoot-give-ftse-100-executives-pay-rise | Business | 2024-02-27T05:00:16.000Z | Nils Pratley | A quiet conspiracy is afoot to give FTSE 100 executives a pay rise | Nils Pratley | It seems the UK financial and corporate establishment is agreed. The London stock market is in a funk, with too many companies hopping off to re-list in New York. Therefore the UK executive class must be given US-style pay packages to keep ‘em loyal.
That’s a slight exaggeration since, so far, it’s only a handful of companies – the likes of AstraZeneca, HSBC, LSEG (the owner of the London Stock Exchange) and the medical devices group Smith & Nephew – that have revealed, or signalled, that they want to boost executive rewards to keep up with US rivals. And none of them have threatened to quit London. All the same, it’s remarkable that an intense debate about the woes of the London stock market has morphed into a refrain about executive pay in the UK.
For the past year, we were told that the lack of buzz in London was caused by the decline of UK pension funds as core owners of the market, or perhaps by stamp duty, or perhaps by the fragmentation of local authority schemes. Now, just as pay season approaches, there’s a new culprit: the perception that chief executives of FTSE 100 firms aren’t paid enough.
At LSEG, its chief executive, David Schwimmer, could be looking at a rise from £6.25m to £11m in his potential pay, and he should probably give thanks to the head of the actual London Stock Exchange, a small part of the overall global group these days, for preparing the pitch. It was as recently as last May that Julia Hoggett, the LSE CEO, called for a “big tent” conversation about boardroom pay in the UK versus the US, and she has definitely succeeded in shifting consensus opinion.
Big fund management houses, such as Legal & General Investment Management, are talking approvingly about giving companies “necessary flexibility” on pay. In the same spirit, the Investment Association, the trade body for UK asset managers, wrote to remuneration committees last week to repeat its usual arguments about aligning pay to performance but also to add a significant line about ensuring that “the UK is a competitive place to list and remain listed as well as do business”. Translation: if you make a case for higher executive pay, especially if you’re up against US competitors, we will listen.
It was only three years ago that 40% of shareholder votes at AstraZeneca were cast against proposals to award larger potential bonuses to the chief executive, Pascal Soriot, even though the company was already a UK corporate star. This year’s proposal is to go further. The company’s modelling shows that Soriot’s “maximum” annual rewards could rise to £18.9m but the actual value, once a rise in the share price is factored in (because most of the bonus comes via shares), could be £25.2m. The current pay policy, said the remuneration chair, Sheri McCoy, “does not provide sufficient headroom to deploy appropriately leveraged pay for performance compensation across our most senior leadership roles”. Prepare for more in that vein from others.
Some UK companies, we should probably concede, will be making factually accurate comparisons. UK executives are not underpaid versus peers in the rest of Europe, but boardroom pay in the US is an entirely different league. Soriot has received between £10m and £17m every year since 2016, but many less successful counterparts at US pharma firms will have had substantially fatter wedges. And the same is probably true lower down the company.
But it’s not hard to sense where this script could go. About 75% of the earnings of FTSE 100 firms are made outside the UK, with the US obviously being the biggest source. So the list of companies that could consider themselves to be “exceptions” to UK executive pay norms may turn out to be long. Once the door is ajar, everyone will want to rush through.
Since it is almost impossible from outside to tell precisely which pleas of competitive pressures from the US are genuine and which are simply self-serving grabs, the ratchet game will begin. A new US benchmark is being quietly legitimised. One doubts the London stock market will be saved in the process. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/dec/04/world-cup-2022-doha-metro-qatar | Football | 2022-12-04T07:30:07.000Z | Paul MacInnes | The heart of the World Cup: Doha Metro brings fans together | The Gold line at 10 to eight on Thursday night in Doha. A crowded metro train is heading west towards the Khalifa International Stadium for Japan v Spain. A quick stock take of the carriage reveals the following: one Filipino woman from Hong Kong in a Spain shirt and baseball cap; two Japanese women in face masks talking to two Nepalese friends (one of whom flew to Qatar just for the game), both wearing Japan kits; three Korean-Americans searching for tickets; a family of Mexicans (a sombrero gives it away) rooting for Spain; three rowdy Saudi Arabia supporters; and above the door a calling card from the Argentinians who are never far away – a Panini sticker of Diego Maradona from USA 94.
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It was an unlikely combination, but not an unusual one in the city these past few weeks and here’s the argument: the Doha Metro is the place to be at this World Cup. If you want to spend time talking to people from across the world, if you want to learn about their hopes and fears (mainly football-related), if you want to laugh, to sing and be reminded how much human beings have in common, then take the train. Or march up and down the escalators, or congregate in the concourses. Really, honestly, it’s where it’s at.
Argentina fans arrive at the Lusail metro stop before their group game against Saudi Arabia; South Korean fans have a selfie with a woman on the platform at Education City metro station; A South Korean fan wearing a mask like the hero on his flag, Son Heung-Min; Japan fans heading on the metro to their game against Spain at Khalifa International Stadium.
There are a number of reasons why, starting with a substantial feat of engineering. The Doha Metro has three lines: the Gold or Historic line, which runs east to west through the older parts of the city; the Red or Coast line, which heads north to south linking the heart of Doha with the new development of Lusail, about 40km away; and finally, the Green or Education line, which takes in Qatar University, the National Library and, well, the Mall of Qatar.
It serves 37 stations along 75km of track and, 12 years ago, not a single bit of it existed. A venture involving Qatari planners, German rail operators, Japanese train manufacturers, American engineering and construction, French IT systems and British insurers, the project cost about $36bn and was delivered in nine years from the time the first tunnel boring machine activated its thrust system. It opened in 2019, in time for the Club World Cup, and around 60 more stations are planned to be added by 2026.
The main concourse at Msheireb station where all three lines of the Doha metro system converge.
The experience of riding the trains is just as impressive. As an experience it is unfailingly pleasant. Driverless trains glide between stations with nary a bump. They arrive every three minutes (maybe five at 2am) and give you enough time to get on without rushing. “Event team members” on the platforms prevent overcrowding.
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For the duration of the tournament, travel on the metro has been free to anyone with a Hayya card, the visa-turned-ID card obligatory for visitors. The gold-class carriage, a pretty pointless first-class section (you’re rarely on the train for more than 20 minutes), has also been democratised for the month. The gold-class lounges, however – tiny waiting rooms at the station where rich customers can sit in a stiff-backed chair – remain subscriber-only.
Saudi Arabian fans watching a match on their phones while sitting in a Gold Class carriage.
If all this sounds a bit train-spottery, it was certainly of interest to Hassan, a man in charge of a group of Morocco fans heading to the Canada game on Thursday. He, like anybody else who would talk on the subject, was a big fan of the metro but he had his complaints.
“The carriages are too small, you have to break the group in two,” he said.
“And the signage is confusing – you don’t know which direction you’re going in sometimes or which side the door is going to open. It is important that you agree a place to meet before you travel, otherwise you might get lost.”
Croatians work out how to get to Ahmad Bin Ali Stadium on the green line at Msheireb metro station before heading to their game against Belgium; Squeezing Brazil fans onto a train on the Gold line at Msheireb station before their World Cup match with Switzerland at Stadium 974; Fans take the stairs and escalators at Education City metro station before the South Korea v Ghana match.
All relevant information, but Hassan, who travelled with a 40-strong gang from Casablanca, was also indulging in the more important activity of in-train banter. His Moroccans had been joined in the carriage by two Canada fans, one wearing the desirable (and sold-out) furry headdress that mixes Arab tradition with the smiling features of the World Cup mascot La’eeb. The other wore a Canada baseball cap with a Ghana paper party hat on top.
Hassan was straight into them: “Canada? Go home!” he said. “Don’t you know it’s Christmas time? It’s time you went back for your presents!”
When the Red line train arrived at Oqba Ibn Nafie station, the Canada fans got their own back, (below) waving an enormous maple leaf flag in the faces of the Moroccans as they passed down the escalator, singing a chorus of “Olé Olé Olé”.
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One Moroccan fan, Osama, also from Casablanca, insisted on giving an interview. He did not have much to say, describing the metro as “very well organised”, but he was certainly memorable. Skinny as a rake and wearing rose-tinted John Lennon spectacles, he also had a pair of inflatable moose antlers on his head, given to him by a Canadian.
A crowd, mainly consisting of Brazil fans, make their way to a match at Stadium 974 on the gold line at Msheireb metro station.
At this point it is perhaps important to pause. On 28 February 2016, a construction worker from the Philippines, Juanito B Pardillo, died while working on the metro project. In April of that year the Building and Wood Workers’ International union said that his family were still waiting for an official explanation of what happened, though media reports suggested Pardillo had been helping to excavate a tunnel while it was raining when it collapsed, something that went against safety rules. Four other workers were injured. They were part of an estimated 18,000 workers working for a construction contractor on the project at the time.
For most users of the metro, however, any contact with migrant workers is likely to be with a Kenyan. They are the men who, exclusively it seems according to the foibles of the subcontracting process, fulfil the role of directing tourists in and out of the stations. Working long days, monitoring crowds that manifest only at certain times, it’s a tough gig, but these “customer service executives” have taken a mundane job and made it into something more.
It started with Abubakr Abbass, the 23-year-old whose job it was to direct crowds at the busy Souq Waqif station. Instead of issuing instructions in the time-honoured officious manner, he turned his directions into a chant: “Metro? This way! Metro? This way!” In a city full of people looking for a communal experience, it caught on.
Crowds would start the chant as they arrived at stations or stepped off trains. Abbass became a hit on TikTok and was a guest on the pitch during the England v USA group-stage match. Other young Kenyans then took the idea on, creating dance routines (complete with pointy finger foam hands) and writing longer songs. “Dear customer. Where are you going?” went one example. “You can go for the metro, or the tram, you can go this way, this way, this way.” Some who heard that version reported it being still stuck in their heads days later.
Mobility marshalls at Education City metro station direct fans, including singing and dancing Ghana fans, on their way to see their side play South Korea.
What the Kenyans tapped into was something that can be lacking in the official spaces of the Fifa World Cup in Qatar 2022: a sense of humour. And that they were able to practise it in and around the metro was perhaps not a coincidence.
Not only is the train network one of the few places free to use in Doha, it’s also a space where you can stand still and just be. Even better, you might be able to sit down on a comfortable chair (rather than, say, the tarmac of the official Fifa fan park). It’s a space that is occupied by the public, where people all over the world gather in unexpected combinations.
Morocco fans gather at the red line at Msheireb metro station before heading to their game against Canada.
I have watched matches there, discussed politics, compared prices and sought tips. I have sung and I have danced and most of all I have laughed. The metro has been an actual pleasure. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jan/04/sainsburys-to-pay-at-least-11-an-hour-for-127000-lowest-paid-workers | Business | 2023-01-04T12:34:05.000Z | Sarah Butler | Sainsbury’s to pay at least £11 an hour for 127,000 lowest-paid workers | Sainsbury’s is giving its lowest-paid workers their third pay rise in a year, taking hourly wages to at least £11, amid fierce competition for shop workers and soaring living costs for employees.
The supermarket chain said it was awarding the 7.3% rise to 127,000 workers, up from £10.25 an hour previously, which will be implemented early in February. It puts Britain’s second-biggest supermarket chain on a par with the discounter Aldi – which also raised pay to £11 this month – and well ahead of rivals Tesco, Asda and Morrisons.
The pay increase, which is now above the voluntary “real living wage” of £10.90, comes five months after Sainsbury’s last raised starting pay and just under a year after a previous rise.
As part of the latest package Sainsbury’s will also extend an offer of free food during shifts for store and depot staff – first introduced by the company in October – by a further six months, after it was due to end in March.
Workers will also be able to get extra payday discounts of 15%, up from the usual 10%, for an extended period, and also received £15 vouchers to spend over Christmas.
Simon Roberts, the chief executive of Sainsbury’s, said: “We really get how tough it is for millions of households this winter with the rising costs of living and we know that particularly after Christmas, budgets will be tighter than ever.
“As well as doing all we can to keep prices low for customers, it’s our job to also support our colleagues as they face rising costs. That’s why we are bringing forward this year’s pay increase.”
He said Sainsbury’s had not struggled to recruit the 20,000 extra workers it took on over Christmas, and hoped that the retailer could hold on to some of them.
“There is a business reason to do this [pay rise] as we want to give customers the best service and fundamentally believe that colleagues deserve to be paid the best rate we can afford,” he said.
The pay increase comes amid fierce competition between retailers for staff. Aldi has raised pay three times in a year, while employers including Tesco, Asda and Marks & Spencer have all offered mid-year pay increases amid a tight jobs market.
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Dave Gill, a national officer for the shop workers union Usdaw, said successive substantial pay increases at Sainsbury’s made a big difference for its members.
“With the cost of living continually rising, we have kept open our dialogue with Sainsbury’s and we are pleased the business has responded so positively. These unprecedented additional pay awards, along with free food and additional discount, will be appreciated by our members.
“The scale of the financial challenges facing all workers is immense and there still needs to be significant interventions from government. Even under their plan, energy prices will have still doubled in six months and look set to go higher. Along with other prices sky-rocketing, the cost of living is simply unaffordable for far too many workers.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2017/mar/15/2vcs-how-do-we-win-back-anxious-international-students | Education | 2017-03-15T09:00:26.000Z | Anna Fazackerley | 2VCs: How do we win back anxious international students? | Last October Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, pledged a major crackdown on international student numbers at UK universities, linking the right to recruit foreign students to the quality of courses. The public consultation has yet to materialise, and how the government will evaluate courses remains unclear.
In the first of a new monthly series in which two vice chancellors discuss the big issues facing their institutions, Professor Colin Riordan, vice-chancellor of Cardiff University, and Professor Dominic Shellard, vice-chancellor of De Montfort University (DMU), reflect on what the future holds for the all-important overseas student market.
Research-intensive Cardiff University and modern, Leicester-based De Montfort may be very different types of institution, but they are both heavily dependent on international student recruitment, and fiercely proud of the multicultural nature of their campuses.
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There are currently more than 7,100 overseas students at Cardiff, making up almost a quarter of the student body. The university’s 2016 intake saw students arrive from more than 130 countries and key markets outside the EU are China, Malaysia, India, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, the US, Iraq, Pakistan and Kenya.
The picture at De Montfort is similar with 4,391 international students from 135 countries, making up 20% of the total student population. The university’s biggest markets outside Europe are China, India and Nigeria.
Can we win back the confidence of international students?
I ask the two vice-chancellors whether they are on a charm offensive abroad, given the uncertainty hanging over the international student market.
We’ve decided we’ve got to try and shore up some of our existing markets and reach out to new ones
Dominic Shellard
Dominic Shellard kicks off with a cautionary tale about travelling to China to do an event for Universities UK in October, shortly after Rudd’s speech. China remains a relatively buoyant market judging by sector-wide recruitment figures, and he wasn’t prepared for the “extraordinary hostility” of the journalists he met there.
“They used a phrase about Theresa May being ‘an international student slayer’,” he says. “They were using a vocabulary I’ve never experienced before as a vice chancellor. But I think there’s a lot to be gained by actually going out to countries to face up to some of this stuff.”
And that’s exactly what he’s doing. “I’m just doing masses of travelling,” he explains. “Looking at this turbulent environment, we’ve decided we’ve got to try and shore up some of our existing markets and reach out to new ones. We launched a campaign straight after the referendum called Love International, because so many staff and students were pretty bereft about the result. I’ve been doing a series of trips to European capitals, and wider.”
This June, around two months after Theresa May has indicated she will trigger Article 50, Prof Shellard will take 1,500 De Montfort students to Germany. “We’re basically saying: ‘Look, we’re here, and we’re going to do lots of engagement.’ We’ve got to find a way through this even if, at the moment, at the very highest level – the rhetoric on international students and migration being a good example – the government is just not pressing the best buttons for higher education.”
Is the government softening its stance?
A sign at a demonstration in support of guaranteeing the rights of EU citizens in the UK, post-Brexit. Photograph: Barcroft
Colin Riordan is hopeful the government may be quietly back-pedalling on some of the aggressive talk about cuts to international students numbers. “This may be excess optimism, but I’ve detected a bit of a change of tone in the government’s approach towards international students and the whole question of what it means to immigration,” he says.
I’m hopeful there may be recognition that international students are not the only lever to make changes to net migration
Colin Riordan
“I do agree that it is probably the biggest danger we face. But I have noticed that since the Prime Minister’s visit to India [in November], the rhetoric has been largely absent – we haven’t really heard much about international students.”
I ask him whether the Home Office, which has locked horns with higher education ministers in recent years over its determination to class overseas students as migrants, has suddenly decided that this is a market that needs protecting. After all, international students bring more than £10.7bn a year to the UK economy according to Universities UK, the umbrella organisation of university leaders.
But Prof Riordan’s reasoning is more political. “I’m hopeful there may be some recognition that the world has now changed, and international students are not the only lever available to make changes to net migration,” he says. “It’s quite clear students from Europe won’t have the same access to student loans or be treated like domestic students after Brexit. In other words, the government will have levers over migration from other EU states they don’t have now. To my mind, that means international students become less of this single big issue. It might allow us to have a more sensible debate.”
“I’m also more optimistic in the longer run than I was six months ago,” agrees Prof Shellard. “But most universities’ international recruitment at the moment is under a degree of strain. My concern is that there is going to be a lot of short-term damage which will take time to recover from.”
Can Indian recruitment recover?
Recruitment from India has been one of the markets to slump most dramatically in recent years, almost halving over five years following the removal of the post-study work visa by the coalition government in 2012. Previously, non-EU students were allowed to remain in the UK after finishing their studies, but under the new rules they must leave the country and apply for a work visa if they wish to return.
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The latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that new Indian student numbers are continuing to fall - down 10% in 2015-16 on the year before. I ask the VCs whether India is a particular concern for them.
“There has certainly been a slump, but we are seeing a steady recovery,” Riordan says. “ If we live up to this talk about being open to the world, and if we can get back a post-study work visa of some sort, there’s absolutely no reason why the Indian market shouldn’t recover. We have seen a bounce because of the big drop in the value of the pound, which makes us better value for money.”
Shellard has made promotional trips to India three times in the last year. He tells us that his university has done a huge amount of work to boost this market – a natural one for an institution in Leicester, which has a large Indian community. They went from 168 Indian students to 306 last year, and are hoping for nearly 400 in 2017-18.
“It’s exactly what you’re saying Colin, you go to India and say: ‘Look, we’re the value proposition, we’ve pretty much got the best universities in the world and we’re 20% cheaper than we were six months ago’,” he says.
“Indian students really want to come to the UK. Institutions like DMU just need to be getting on planes to these countries and offering positive reasons for coming to the UK, beyond their lingering and understandable resentment about the abolition of post-study work visas.”
University students outside Cardiff University’s student’s union. Photograph: Alamy
Shellard was one of the VCs on the Prime Minister’s delegation to India in November. “It was clear that Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s feeling was that our government wanted their business, but they didn’t want their people. I think that was such a catastrophic line for us to take,” he recalls.
So are they both confident that the government will listen to the sector’s lobbying – and that of the Indian prime minister – and reinstate post-study work visas after Brexit?
“I think confident would be going too far,” Prof Riordan says. “But we do have much better arguments now, particularly as the whole visa system is clearly going to have to be looked at as part of the repositioning of the UK after Brexit. I would hope we’d be able to find some way of reinstating if not exactly what we had, then something which offers many of the same advantages.”
“I’m actually quite bullish on this,” Shellard chips in. “From the nadir of the visit, I think there emerged a real sense – particularly in the Department of International Trade – that this is ridiculous. You can’t just turn around to a market like India and say: ‘Great opportunities for us to engage with you now after Brexit,’ and offer absolutely nothing.
“And the clear thing they request is a recognition that for Indian students to be able to afford to undertake an international education, they need some work opportunities, even if just for six or 12 months.”
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He adds: “Look at what Canada and Australia are doing. They are advertising nakedly in India now, basically saying come to us and not the UK to study as we will give you the opportunity to work afterwards.”
Is Theresa May viewed in the same light as Donald Trump?
“Are we coming across as a country that truly wants to be welcoming?” I ask. “Or is there a danger that Theresa May has seemed more like President Trump when it comes to international students?”
“Well, we look more welcoming than we did before Trump!” Riordan laughs. “What’s going on over there is breathtaking in terms of the impression it makes internationally about America’s openness and willingness to welcome students – as much as anyone else – across the world.”
Shellard agrees. “I think Trump and his executive order has given us an ethical, moral and commercial opportunity. As soon as it was passed, we agreed to have a 24-hour vigil on our campus as our students were just so outraged. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything which has so galvanised our staff and students.
“It all demonstrates that basically we are still an open and tolerant society. I think that’s one of the really sad things, that we’ve allowed ourselves to convey overseas that we are not. But look at the tolerance to minorities in this country, and look at the way our universities are such special communities. It’s a massive asset, and I think its something we could really capitalise on.”
Colin Riordan
What was your first degree and where did you study?
German at Manchester University
What did you want to be when you were 18?
An officer in the Green Howards
Which football team do you support?
Liverpool if pressed, but I don’t really follow football these days
Name three things you love about your university city
Bute Park - you can walk down to Cardiff Bay or up to the Brecon Beacons along the Taff Trail
Milgi for its vegan dishes
The atmosphere in the Principality Stadium just before a rugby international
What book is on your bedside table?
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh - a gripping account of life as a neurosurgeon
Best way to spend a Sunday?
A long country walk (12 miles is about right) then a film at home in the evening
Dominic Shellard
What was your first degree and where did you study?
English and German, St Peter’s College, Oxford
What did you want to be when you were 18?
Stan Bowles’ successor
Which football team do you support?
QPR (I’m a season ticket holder)
Name three things you love about your university city
Leicester’s diversity - we have 140 nationalities on campus and the city is famous for its United Nations feel
Leicester City - for the elation and angst they bring their fans
The revitalised city centre - full of bars, theatres and good shops
What book is on your bedside table?
John Bew’s biography of Clement Attlee
Best way to spend a Sunday?
Roast dinner with my partner, then lying on the sofa watching a good football match
Join the higher education network for more comment, analysis and job opportunities, direct to your inbox. Follow us on Twitter @GdnHigherEd. And if you have an idea for a story, please read our guidelines and email your pitch to us at [email protected] | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/oct/21/poltergeist-review-out-of-the-box-80s-scarer-can-still-knock-the-furniture-over | Film | 2022-10-21T05:00:15.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Poltergeist review – out-of-the-box 80s scarer can still knock the furniture over | The 80s classic gets a Halloween re-release for its 40th anniversary: a supernatural chiller and anti-gentrification satire that came out the same year as ET – Mr Hyde to that film’s Dr Jekyll, perhaps – and one of the most Spielbergian films not actually directed by Steven Spielberg. It is also a movie with its own particular flavour of sadness, owing to the early deaths of two of its stars: Dominique Dunne, daughter of author Dominick Dunne and niece of Joan Didion, killed in the year of the film’s release by her violent ex-boyfriend, and Heather O’Rourke, who died in 1988 at 12 years oldafter suffering cardiac arrest and septic shock connected with a bowel condition.
It was directed by horror maestro Tobe Hooper, who claimed to have had the basic story idea himself; nonetheless, the credited lead screenwriter and producer is Spielberg. Spielberg’s auteur fingerprints are all over Poltergeist, but some of the residual creepiness and brashness must be Hooper’s – particularly the scene in which one of the “ghostbusters” rather gratuitously claws his own face off. Yet there is a key moment where these two film-makers’ sensibilities fuse.
The story takes place in a new suburban housing estate in California, a classic Spielbergian habitat of kids Edenically riding around on their bikes, making mischief with their remote-control toy racing cars. Steve Freeling, played by Craig T Nelson – later to be the voice of Mr Incredible – is an employee of the property company that has been putting up these homes on the site of a former 19th-century settlement. He has evidently been rewarded with living in one of these state-of-the-art houses. Go-getting salaryman Steve is bit of a Ronald Reagan fan (he’s seen reading the president’s biography in an early scene). His fresh-faced wife, Diane, played by the excellent JoBeth Williams, has maybe has more of a Carter-era hippyish background, and is seen smoking a joint while the couple loll around on the marital bed. (Post-coitally?) They have a smartmouthed teen daughter Dana (Dunne), a younger son Robbie (Oliver Robins) and a blonde-haired angelic infant daughter Carol Anne (O’Rourke).
It is young Carol Anne who is to sense something strange in the TV which (in that distant broadcasting era) stops transmitting after the national anthem is played last thing at night and the screen goes to a fuzzy white noise. Reassuring patriotism is replaced by evil. Approaching the TV screen, putting her face right up close to the set, she senses something there, something which only she can see and which invades their happy home.
There are some classic moments in Poltergeist. When Steve invites the three paranormal specialists to his home and shows them up the stairs to the closed door of his haunted bedroom, he listens dumbly to one of these experts frowningly explaining how some objects can move by millimetres over hours – then opens the door to reveal furniture flying wildly around the room. And it gives us one of the great creepy moments of 80s film history when Diane takes her eye off the kitchen for a second, then looks back to see all the chairs suddenly piled in a heap on the tabletop.
The keynote of the film is O’Rourke’s eerie, ethereally pale face, illuminated by the unearthly light of the haunted TV. Her expression, with its faint and worrying smile, gives us a very Spielbergian close-encounters-type awe. But there’s something else as well: a disturbing hint that she has in some sense been seduced by the forces in the TV. There is a tiny, ambiguous touch of the devil child in her toothpaste smile: a coming together of Spielberg and Hooper. Poltergeist would be nothing without O’Rourke. The movie builds to two separate outrageous exorcism climaxes and a horrible disclosure about how Steve’s property company has been ruthlessly maximising profit from the land and cutting costs. Poltergeist’s special effects may look a little hokey now, but this film can still throw the furniture around.
Poltergeist is in cinemas from 21 October.
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This article was amended on 21 October 2022 to replace the main picture, which was from the 2015 remake. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/12/activist-investor-ups-stake-in-wh-smith-backs-management-causeway-capital | Business | 2021-09-12T13:15:55.000Z | Zoe Wood | Activist investor ups stake in WH Smith but backs management | The activist investor calling for a shake-up at Rolls-Royce has upped its stake in WH Smith but insisted it iswas supportive of management at the struggling high street chain.
Causeway Capital Management is the retailer’s biggest shareholder and owns 9% after buying shares in the wake of a recent profit alert. Analysts suggested the California-based investor was betting on a recovery in international travel rather than agitating for change.
WH Smith, whose products include sandwiches to books, newspapers and stationery, has been battered by the coronavirus pandemic as trade in its previously successful stores in airports and railway stations collapsed on the back of travel restrictions and remote working. It had also acquired the US travel retail chain Marshall Retail several months before the first lockdown.
WH Smith shares lost almost two-thirds of their value at the onset of the pandemic and the company’s response to the crisis included cutting 1,500 jobs. It has a global workforce of 14,000 and shares have since recovered to £15.07, which is 37% below their pre-Covid level.
It is not out of the woods yet. At the start of September, Carl Cowling, the WH Smith chief executive, told the City the “trajectory of the recovery in travel remains uncertain” and that profits in the year to August 2022 would be at the low end of market expectations.
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Last month, Jonathan Eng, Causeway’s portfolio manager, called for boardroom change at Rolls-Royce, where it is the biggest shareholder. At the time, Eng said the company needed some “fresh thinking”. However, a source close to WH Smith said it had a friendly relationship with the investor, which first bought in during last year’s emergency cash call.
Eng issued a statement in response to a Sunday Times report that suggested Causeway’s stake-building in WH Smith could presage demands for change there, too.
He said: “We are firm believers in the strategy and management team of WH Smith, which is why we first invested last March and why we have continued to add to our shareholding. We have confidence in the long-term growth potential of the business and are happy to be the company’s largest shareholder.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/feb/13/tory-mp-david-duguid-failed-to-declare-wifes-bp-shares-before-oil-and-gas-debates | Politics | 2024-02-13T10:55:42.000Z | Henry Dyer | Tory MP failed to declare wife’s BP shares during oil and gas debates, standards commissioner finds | The Conservative MP David Duguid failed to declare his wife’s £50,000 shareholding in BP while speaking in debates about windfall taxes on the oil and gas industry, the parliamentary commissioner has found.
The parliamentary commissioner for standards carried out an investigation into the MP for Banff and Buchan and former Scotland Office minister after the Guardian revealed Duguid’s wife’s shareholdings.
Parliamentary rules require MPs to declare while speaking in debates the financial interests of a spouse or other family member, where there could be considered a conflict. MPs have to register shares they own worth £70,000 or more than 15%, and any other interests that might “reasonably be thought by others to influence a member’s actions”. Duguid has never disclosed his wife’s financial interest in the House of Commons register.
The Guardian’s analysis of BP’s share register suggested Duguid, who worked for 25 years in the oil and gas industry, including 10 years with BP, had moved his shares into his wife’s name five years before his election as an MP.
The commissioner found three debates in 2023 in which Duguid ought to have declared an interest, noting that in these debates the shareholding “might reasonably be thought by others to influence [his] words or actions as a member”.
Duguid told the commissioner that he did not believe “anything I could have, let alone actually, said or did as a member of parliament could have had any bearing on the BP share price”.
The commissioner decided that Duguid’s repeated failures to declare the interest were “inadvertent” and the result of a misunderstanding about the rules. The commissioner required Duguid to apologise and to attend training on the parliamentary rules on declaration of interests.
Tom Brake, the director of Unlock Democracy, said: “The commissioner has underlined the importance of transparency when participating in debates, not just in relation to financial matters that require registration by MPs, but also a broader range of interests, such as sizeable shareholdings held by a family member.
“Both MPs and the public will benefit from this ruling. It promotes greater openness and more effective scrutiny.”
In January, prior to the conclusion of the investigation, Duguid spoke in a debate on the expansion of offshore oil and gas licences.
He acknowledged for the first time in parliament his wife’s shares in BP, saying he wanted to note “in the interests of transparency” that he had a “close family member who has a financial interest in that industry, although I feel keen to point out that that interest is below the threshold required for registering interests”.
He added: “I can also assure the house that that interest has never had any bearing, and will not have any bearing, on my contributions in this place.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/may/08/conservatives-to-keep-tens-of-thousands-immigration-pledge | Politics | 2017-05-08T17:34:37.000Z | Anushka Asthana | Conservatives to retain 'tens of thousands' immigration pledge | Theresa May has confirmed that the Conservative pledge to cut net migration to the tens of thousands will be in her party’s manifesto, despite having missed the target after making the same promise in 2010 and 2015.
“We do want to bring net migration down to sustainable levels. We believe that is the tens of thousands,” the prime minister told journalists at an event in the constituency of Harrow West to launch the campaigns of Conservative candidates in London and the south-east.
May could meet net migration target – by crashing the economy
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The comments triggered an immediate response from a liberal Conservative pressure group that claimed it was unlikely the target would ever be reached.
“Keeping the net migration target is a mistake. Controlling migration should not be centred on an arbitrary, indiscriminate and unrealistic figure. The prime minister should introduce realistic, effective and popular ways of controlling migration,” said Ryan Shorthouse, director of Bright Blue, which has the support of 140 Tory parliamentarians.
Senior party sources have told the Guardian that sticking to the policy was largely about perception so that voters see the government working towards the goal even if it is internally thought to be difficult to achieve.
They said the prime minister would also want to keep student numbers in the overall net migration figure, despite cabinet ministers such as Boris Johnson thinking they should come out, because taking them out would look like trying to “rig the rules”.
May, who oversaw immigration policy during more than six years at the Home Office, claimed that Brexit would help her achieve the aim. “When we leave the European Union we will have the opportunity to make sure we have control of our borders – leaving the EU means we won’t have free movement as it has been in the past,” she added.
She made the comments at an event centre on an industrial site in Harrow to scores of south-east and London candidates, including cabinet ministers Damian Green and David Gauke, the former justice secretary Michael Gove and former MPs Nick de Bois and Mary Macleod, who hope to win back their old seats. The group was joined by journalists and surrounded by banners that read “Theresa May’s team”, with the word “Conservatives” in much smaller print.
The prime minister also suggested that the victory of Emmanuel Macron in France would boost the EU27 in Brexit talks.
“Yesterday a new French president was elected – he was elected with a strong mandate which he can take into a strong position in negotiations. In the UK we have to make sure we’ve got an equally strong mandate. And every vote for me and my team will strengthen my hand in those negotiations,” she said, triggering a huge round of applause from the gathered candidates.
In a personal attack on the Labour leader, May added: “And the alternative is to risk making Jeremy Corbyn prime minister, and try to picture him sitting at that negotiating table with the collective might of the European commission and 27 other European countries against him.
“A vote for any other party is a vote to be a step closer to Jeremy Corbyn sitting at that Brexit negotiating table – we must not let that happen.”
She was also asked about Macron’s previous comments about ripping up the Le Touquet agreement, a bilateral treaty that allows British border officials to be stationed in France, but has been controversial because of migrant camps in Calais.
May suggested the issue would be high on the agenda in June. “It works for the benefit of the UK and France, and obviously the government that is elected on 8 June will be sitting down and talking to Monsieur Macron and others about how that system has worked both for the benefit of France and benefit of UK,” she said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/06/somalia-nullifies-port-agreement-between-ethiopia-and-somaliland | World news | 2024-01-06T20:43:03.000Z | Faisal Ali | Somalia ‘nullifies’ port agreement between Ethiopia and Somaliland | Somalia’s president signed a bill on Saturday voiding a preliminary agreement for Somaliland to provide landlocked Ethiopia with port access to Somaliland’s coast, in a largely symbolic move intended to rebuke both parties over a deal that has inflamed tensions across the Horn of Africa.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, on Saturday Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said the bill was an “illustration of our commitment to safeguard our unity, sovereignty & territorial integrity as per international law”.
Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 amid a civil war in the country’s south and has operated autonomously since. Hargeisa, Somaliland’s capital, claims the borders of the former British protectorate of Somaliland in northern Somalia.
The memorandum of understanding, signed between Somaliland’s president, Muse Bihi, and Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, last Monday, outlined the broad sketches of a possible future pact between Addis Ababa and Hargeisa.
Though the details of the memorandum remain contested and have not been made public, officials have said Somaliland would grant Ethiopia access to the Gulf of Aden with a naval base, in exchange for shares in Ethiopian Airlines and Ethiopian recognition of Somaliland’s independence from Somalia.
Somalia vows to defend sovereignty after Ethiopia-Somaliland deal
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In an interview with Ethiopia’s state broadcaster, EBC, Redwan Hussein, security adviser to prime minister Abiy Ahmed, said his country would be granted 20km of land across Somaliland’s Gulf of Aden coast for a period of at least 50 years, with Ethiopia granting Somaliland an equivalent value of shares in Ethiopian Airlines to the land acquired.
Senior Somaliland officials have said the memorandum, which at this point isn’t legally binding, would also involve diplomatic recognition for Hargeisa, a long-sought goal for the self-declared republic.
Ethiopian officials have given mixed messages on this aspect of the deal, with several making arguments for Somaliland’s recognition, but none committing Ethiopia at this stage. A communique released by Addis Ababa said it would only make an “in-depth assessment” on taking a position on the issue.
The deal has faced significant international condemnation and has infuriated Somalia, which has described the move as an act of “aggression”.
Urging Ethiopia and Somaliland to reverse course, Somalia’s president said a “Somali territory cannot be exchanged for a [share] in a company like Ethiopian Airlines, Ethiopian Telecom, GERD … even if you combine them we cannot swap for a territory”.
Somalia also recalled its ambassador from Ethiopia and has appealed to the international community for support.
The US state department spokesperson, Matthew Miller, told reporters at a press conference on Wednesday that the US, a significant aid and security partner of Somaliland and Somalia, recognises Somalia within its 1960 borders, which include Somaliland, and called on all parties to resolve their issues through dialogue.
On Thursday, the UK released a statement calling for “full respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity”, urging “restraint and dialogue” to resolve issues. The spokesperson for Turkey’s foreign ministry also expressed its support for the “unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Somalia.
The EU, Organisation of Islamic Cooperation and Arab League have also made appeals to Ethiopia not to proceed with the deal, which has further increased tensions in an already volatile region.
I had a phone conversation with President @HassanSMohamud
I reaffirmed the full support of the EU to the unity, the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of #Somalia.
The Horn of Africa doesn’t need more tensions. @TheVillaSomalia
— Josep Borrell Fontelles (@JosepBorrellF) January 4, 2024
Somaliland appears undeterred by the pushback from Mogadishu, saying it would go ahead with a preliminary pact it agreed with Ethiopia.
The deal has divided public opinion across Somalia and Somaliland, sparking several demonstrations and counter-demonstrations against the handover of territory to Ethiopia, with which Somalia has a history of conflict. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/24/rochdale-failures-child-abuse-gang | UK news | 2013-05-24T13:04:04.000Z | Mark Smith | Rochdale council chief says systemic failures prevented capture of child abuse gang | The paedophile gang jailed last year for sexually exploiting girls in Rochdale would have been caught sooner were it not for systemic failures in the borough council's former leadership, according to the council's new chief executive.
Jim Taylor expressed disbelief that the nine men were able to operate for so long and said he was profoundly sorry for the failures revealed in a 137-page report into the council's handling of child sexual exploitation cases.
Taylor said five council social workers had been suspended pending disciplinary investigations. Eight former employees have also been referred to the Health and Care Professions Council, the regulator for health and care professionals.
Taylor, who succeeded Roger Ellis as Rochdale's chief executive in April last year, when the gang was on trial, pledged at a press conference on Friday to ensure the errors would never be repeated.
But he said the council was powerless to act against former employees, or to act on Rochdale MP Simon Danczuk's proposal to claw back payoffs and pension pots paid to the former senior managers who were blamed for the culture of complacency outlined by consultant Anna Klonowski in the report.
The report found Ellis "did not appear to be interested in children's social care issues" and said there was no evidence that he had any intention of investigating the events that led to the jailing of nine men in May last year for offences including trafficking, rape and sexual assault.
Ellis presided over a council with "a lack of consistent senior leadership, or a lack of vision and direction in relation to child sexual exploitation", the report said.
Taylor said his overriding emotion in response to the report was disbelief: "Why the issue was never given greater importance is inexplicable – and completely unacceptable.
"The report demonstrated that children were not listened to, and significant action was not taken. Therefore, the connections between cases were never made. If the pieces of the jigsaw were put together sooner, then I am sure it would have led to an earlier criminal trial."
Taylor rejected suggestions from a reporter that the nine men – most of whom were British Pakistanis – were not caught sooner because there was a desire within the council leadership to be seen as being "politically correct". "There is no evidence of a politically correct motivation to ignore what was going on," he said.
Taylor said disciplinary options open to the council in relation to the five current staff under investigation included dismissal.
Danczuk said: "The council now needs to tell us what package Roger Ellis and other implicated senior officers left with. If Roger Ellis has one iota of decency, he will return this money." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/09/which-weird-australian-fuzzy-mammal-you-are-possibly-unfamiliar-with-is-your-favourite-lets-find-out | Opinion | 2020-10-09T05:59:01.000Z | First Dog on the Moon | Which weird Australian fuzzy mammal you are possibly unfamiliar with is your favourite? Let’s find out! | First Dog on the Moon | null | Partial |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jul/01/volvo-admits-its-self-driving-cars-are-confused-by-kangaroos | Technology | 2017-07-01T02:23:58.000Z | Naaman Zhou | Volvo admits its self-driving cars are confused by kangaroos | Volvo’s self-driving car is unable to detect kangaroos because hopping confounds its systems, the Swedish carmaker says.
The company’s “Large Animal Detection system” can identify and avoid deer, elk and caribou, but early testing in Australia shows it cannot adjust to the kangaroo’s unique method of movement.
The managing director of Volvo Australia, Kevin McCann, said the discovery was part of the development and testing of driverless technology, and wouldn’t pose problems by the time Volvo’s driverless cars would be available in 2020.
“Any company that would be working on the autonomous car concept would be having to do the same developmental work,” he said. “We brought our engineers into Australia to begin the exercise of gathering the data of how the animals can move and behave so the computers can understand it more.”
Earlier this month, Volvo’s Australian technical manager, David Pickett, told the ABC the troubles had arisen because their cars’ object detection systems used the ground as a reference point.
This meant a kangaroo’s hopping was making it difficult to judge how close they were.
“When it’s in the air, it actually looks like it’s further away, then it lands and it looks closer,” he said.
McCann added: “Autonomous cars are a continuing development. A driverless car does not yet exist, and developing technology to recognise kangaroos is part of that development.
Volvo’s Trent Victor runs through some of the features of the self-driving XC90 during a trial in Adelaide. Photograph: Rick Goodman/AAP
“We are developing a car that can recognise kangaroos,” he said.
Volvo’s detection system was designed in Sweden, where it was tested in areas populated with moose, before trials at a nature reserve in Canberra revealed the problem with kangaroos.
Kangaroos cause more accidents than any other animal in Australia – the marsupials are responsible for about 90% of collisions between vehicles and animals – although most are not serious.
A spokeswoman for Robert Bosch Australia, which develops component technology for driverless cars, said their system could theoretically recognise kangaroos.
“Although it hasn’t been tested in a kangaroo-specific environment, there was an instance where black swans were interfering, and so they had to build into the car the ability to recognise animals,” Amy Kaa said.
Volvo plans to release its first autonomous cars by 2020 and has pledged zero fatalities or serious injuries from all its cars by that time.
“The whole development process has to take in as many variations of conditions as possible,” McCann said. “It’s a fairly drawn-out process. We don’t even refer to it specifically as kangaroo detection, it’s what we call small animal detection.”
The carmaker offers now semi-autonomous features in its S90 and XC90 models, which it says give “a taste of the future of autonomous driving”.
The cars can automatically maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front, and spot potential collisions in urban environments. McCann said a feature called “run-off road assist” would keep passengers safe in near-collisions. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/30/joe-biden-first-100-days-in-office-panel | Opinion | 2021-04-30T10:22:31.000Z | Kate Aronoff | Were Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office a success? Our panel’s verdict | Kate Aronoff: Biden can play nice, or he can tackle the climate crisis – not both
The bar for climate leadership set by the Trump administration was low enough to trip over. Joe Biden hasn’t tripped in its first hundred days. He’s cleared the bar decisively with a new emissions target and a pledge to spend roughly $1 trillion on climate priorities over the next eight years, and by a bigger margin than just about anyone would have expected from a career centrist. But with a world “on the verge of the abyss,” as UN Secretary-General António Guterres summarized recently, that bar is the wrong one to be watching.
That Biden has consistently framed climate action as an engine of job creation and a massive investment opportunity is a welcome corrective to rhetoric about shrinking personal carbon footprints and technocratic tweaks. Yet spending just 0.5% of GDP each year to reduce emissions, as the American Jobs Plan intends, is nowhere near enough to take on an existential threat. It’s also worth remembering that, for now, even those modest commitments are just rhetoric: nothing has passed.
Neither will the climate crisis be solved by simply throwing money at the industries of tomorrow. For a decent shot of capping warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius, the 2020 Production Gap Report finds that global fossil fuel production will have to decline 6% each year through 2030. It’s currently on track to increase by 2% annually. US natural gas production – which pours prolific amounts of heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere – could grow to record levels in 2022 as fuel demand surges back.
Biden can play nice with deficit hawks and the fossil fuel industry, or he can tackle the climate crisis at the speed and scale required. Not both.
Kate Aronoff covers the climate crisis for The New Republic
Simon Balto: Biden’s efforts are laudable but insufficient
Inheriting the US presidency from the most incapable person to ever hold the office was never going to make for an easy job. That would be true under any circumstances, let alone under circumstances defined by the overlapping crises of a global pandemic, entrenched racism and a climate on the brink.
Joe Biden’s administration deserves credit for its work in inching the country toward managing the Covid-19 crisis. While much remains to be done – particularly in ensuring equitable vaccine access – the US is inarguably in a better position on the pandemic front than it was on 19 January.
Biden’s 100 days: bold action and broad vision amid grief and turmoil
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The results of Biden’s presidency elsewhere are, so far, significantly more mixed. Rolling back some Trump-era immigration restrictions is a good thing, but maintaining Trump’s catastrophically inhumane limits on the entry-access to the US of refugees and asylum – seekers isn’t magically more humane just because Biden isn’t Trump. On matters of racial justice, in particular surrounding the policing crisis, Biden seems more or less satisfied to return to the timidly liberal approach of former president Barack Obama, offering justice department investigations and further investments into policing when the only solution to epidemic and racist police violence is to reimagine public safety entirely. Finally, Biden’s approach to the climate crisis is the most significant presidentially supported climate plan in US history, but, as supporters of the Green New Deal have made clear, it’s still insufficient to meet the magnitude of that crisis.
Biden’s successes in steering the country toward a post-pandemic reality are laudable. His embrace of some aspects of the Green New Deal demonstrates the ability of progressives to reframe policy debates in important ways and see them adopted into the mainstream discourse. And yet, his refusal to be more ambitious in tackling many of our other shared crises demonstrates the work still to be done.
Simon Balto is assistant professor of African American history at the University of Iowa. He is the author of Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power
Moira Donegan: We need to raise our expectations
Expectations were low. When Joe Biden entered the White House in January, the nation was still reeling from the 6 January insurrection. For a moment, it was unclear whether the transition of power could be carried through without more violence. Just getting him sworn in seemed like a success.
Once he was in office, Biden offered Americans, weary from the Trump years, some much-longed-for stability. His Covid stimulus bill was of a size appropriate to meet the scale of need. Vaccine distribution and administration, a logistical nightmare under Trump, ramped up rapidly once adults were in charge. Shots went into arms, and the end of the pandemic has become thinkable, at least in the US. Meanwhile, Biden spoke to the nation in calm, coherent sentences, and didn’t seem to hold Americans in contempt. This was an improvement.
But for all the talk during the transition of Biden’s hope to be a transformative president, his policy agenda still faces substantial obstacles. His ambitious American Jobs Act was laughed at, even by members of his own party, for classifying traditionally feminized labor as “infrastructure”; his American Families Act, geared toward helping women in the workforce, has sparked backlash from cultural conservatives, even as it falls far short of the universal childcare proposals that were put forth during the primary season. He has made nice comments about climate change and gender justice, but it remains unclear how much force he is willing to put behind those sentiments. Fortunately, the administration has shown itself amenable to pressure from the left and public shaming: they backed off a decision to maintain a Trump-era cap on refugees after public outcry from the Democratic rank and file.
Understandably, Americans have so far been grading Biden on a curve. Now it’s time to raise our standards.
Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Jill Filipovic: A return to Clintonism isn’t progress
Joe Biden’s first 100 days in office illustrate the sharp distinctions between the president and his predecessor, and why politics is so dangerous when played as a game of personality and not a competition of competence. Since taking office, Biden has secured a $2tn Covid-19 relief package; recommitted the US to the Paris climate accords; planned a tax hike on the wealthiest Americans; announced a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan; revealed an ambitious infrastructure package; and rolled out a startlingly successful mass vaccination program. Trump, by contrast, spent nearly one in every five of his first 100 days on the golf course.
But the issues Biden has prioritized also hint at who he is trying to keep (or get) on his side: the white working-class voters who defected from Obama to Trump, some of whom then came back to Biden. Left out are many of the issues most important to the Democratic base, including immigration and reproductive rights. With the stroke of a pen, Biden could allow many more refugees to be resettled in the US; instead, his administration initially said they would stick with the Trump numbers, before quickly walking that back and saying they’d raise numbers by May. In the meantime, though, the world’s most vulnerable people have spent unnecessary months languishing in wait, often after years or even decades of waiting. And while Biden swiftly overturned some of Trump’s worst policies on US funding of reproductive healthcare overseas, that puts his administration in the same position as Bill Clinton in the 1990s – it’s better than under Trump, but could hardly be called progress.
Biden deserves much praise for all the good he has done. But he’s also made clear where he’s willing to spend his political capital – and so far, it’s not on women’s rights, immigration or racial justice.
Jill Filipovic is the author of OK Boomer, Let’s Talk: How My Generation Got Left Behind
Geoffrey Kabaservice: Consensus still eludes Biden
In more normal political times, Biden’s record during his first 100 days in office wouldn’t have inspired comparisons to FDR. But in the wake of Trump’s malignant incompetence, Biden’s success in returning government to something like functionality seems, to his supporters at least, almost worthy of Mount Rushmore.
In fact, Biden has kept his administration focused on his principal goals of overcoming the pandemic and reviving the economy, while also issuing a slew of executive orders reversing his predecessor’s policies. The acceleration in vaccine distribution under his watch has been the envy of other nations, and congressional passage of the $1.9tn Covid-19 relief package has helped to supercharge the economy by flooding it with cash.
But Biden’s early days have also emphasized the intractability of most of the country’s problems. Covid relief passed without a single Republican vote, and the upcoming infrastructure bill seems likely to do the same. Biden’s professed love of bipartisanship hasn’t changed the underlying reality of hyper-partisanship and culture war. He can hardly claim to have restored public faith in government when a sizable fraction of that public persists in believing Trump the true winner of the 2020 election (and refusing vaccination). Friendly media coverage can’t hide the growing crisis at the border, and there’s no widespread agreement on an approach to the forces driving mass immigration (including global heating). Nor has the administration even begun to rally mass opinion behind a systemic approach to the interlinked problems of guns, crime and police violence.
Biden’s first 100 days will merit comparison with FDR’s only if he can forge an FDR-like consensus. So far there is little sign of that happening.
Geoffrey Kabaservice is the director of political studies at the Niskanen Center in Washington, as well as the author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party
Bhaskar Sunkara: Biden repudiated neoliberalism. But more is needed
Government can change lives for the better. For years the American public was told that the economy stood alone and state intervention in it would only backfire. Now the Biden administration has repudiated that key tenet of neoliberalism in its first 100 days.
The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 provided $1.9tn in stimulus for the US economy. More than half those funds were allocated for direct aid, including housing, unemployment and nutrition assistance, as well as childcare allowances for families.
Biden also harnessed the Defense Production Act of 1950 to help with vaccine and protective equipment production. As commentator James Medlock said: “The era of ‘the era of big government is over’ is over.”
But while Biden has shown a surprising willingness to partner with leftwing politicians like Bernie Sanders and respond to the demands of the moment, despite his previous deficit hawk positions, we shouldn’t overstate the transformation. The world economy is in deep crisis due to coronavirus and measures to slow its spread; there is consensus from most actors about the use of the state to revive demand and keep businesses and workers afloat. Even Trump and congressional Republicans were willing to pump money into the economy.
What will happen, however, when things return to normal?
Biden has not shown a willingness to prioritize the measures that could more permanently alter the unequal US economy – a $15 minimum wage failed to win support among 50 Democratic senators, and the Pro Act, which would make it easier for workers to form unions, has dim prospects of passage.
We might look back at the first 100 days of the Biden administration as featuring a brief moment of budgetary liberalism only to be followed the old, failed policies. That won’t only be bad for working families, it could pave the way for future demagogues of the populist right.
Bhaskar Sunkara is the founding editor of Jacobin magazine and a Guardian US columnist. He is the author of The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/jul/14/black-holes-bathtubs-vortex-simulating-nottingham-university | Science | 2023-07-14T16:24:25.000Z | Hannah Devlin | Eureka! Scientists explore mysteries of black holes with hi-tech bathtub | At the end of a nondescript corridor at the University of Nottingham is a door labelled simply: Black Hole Laboratory. Within, an experiment is under way in a large, hi-tech bathtub that could offer a unique glimpse of the laws of physics that govern the real thing.
The lab is run by Prof Silke Weinfurtner, a pioneer in the field of analogue gravity, whose work has demonstrated uncanny parallels between the mathematics describing fluid systems on Earth and some of the most extreme and inaccessible environments in the universe.
“It is easy to get intimidated when thinking about black holes. All the effects predicted to occur around black holes seem so bizarre, so weird, so different,” she says. “Then it helps to remind yourself, ‘Wait a second, it happens in my bathtub. Maybe it’s not so strange after all.’”
Previously, Weinfurtner’s team has used the bathtub setup to investigate Hawking radiation, a process by which black holes are predicted to “evaporate” and eventually disappear. She and colleagues are now working on a more advanced simulator, which they believe will provide even more sophisticated insights into the behaviour of black holes.
The flow of fluid down a plughole mimics, in a mathematical sense, the curving of space-time by the extreme gravitational field of a black hole. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian
“All these effects are tremendously beautiful and of fundamental importance,” she says. “For example, does a black hole evaporate or will it just stay there for eternity?”
The basic idea is that the flow of fluid down a plughole mimics, in a mathematical sense, the curving of space time itself by the extreme gravitational field of a black hole.
“Physics repeats itself in many places. It’s a set of mathematical models that are very universal. And if the maths is the same, the physics ought to be the same,” Weinfurtner says. “To me, the analogues are a gift from nature. There is a whole class of systems that possess the same physical processes.”
Weinfurtner believes the parallels between the two situations be exploited to explore what happens when gravitational fields and quantum fields interact. This has been arguably the central quest in physics for the past century. Gravitational and quantum theories work well individually – and this is often sufficient to describe the world around us because at large scales gravity tends to dominate, while at atomic scales quantum effects rule.
But in black holes, where a lot of mass is crammed into a very small region of space, these worlds collide and there is no theoretical framework that unifies the two.
The superfluid helium setup for the black hole simulator. Photograph: Fabio de Paola/The Guardian
“We have a great understanding of both individually, but it turns out extremely hard to combine these two theories,” says Weinfurtner. “The idea is that we want to understand how quantum physics behaves, on what we call a curved space time geometry.”
In the new setup, the black hole is represented by a tiny vortex inside a bell jar of superfluid helium, cooled to -271C. At this temperature, helium begins to demonstrate quantum effects. Unlike water, which can spin at a continuous range of speeds, the helium vortex can only swirl at certain fixed values. Ripples sent across the surface of the helium, tracked with nanometre precision by lasers and a high-resolution camera, represent radiation approaching a black hole.
Weinfurtner is planning to use the setup to investigate a phenomenon known as superradiance, a seemingly paradoxical prediction that radiation that comes into the vicinity of a black hole (without straying over the event horizon) can be deflected out with more energy that it had on the way in. Through this process, energy can be extracted from a black hole, causing its rotation to gradually slow down.
This phenomenon has been predicted theoretically, but never observed. And it is possible, Weinfurtner says, that a rotating black hole could display quantum effects something like those seen in superfluid helium.
‘Quantum hair’ could resolve Hawking’s black hole paradox, say scientists
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The simulator could also be used to make predications about Hawking radiation and gravitational wave signals sent across the universe from merging black holes that can be detected by the LIGO gravitational wave detector.
Analogue gravity experiments were, until recently, considered a fringe element of the physics community, but are now growing in popularity, according to Weinfurtner. The helium black hole simulator was funded by a £5m grant, shared across teams at seven top UK institutions (including Weinfurtner’s). Collaborators at the University of Cambridge are simulating the first moments after the big bang.
The approach has critics, who question whether, despite remarkable mathematical parallels, fluid systems can really provide fundamentally new insights into cosmological processes. Weinfurtner is unfazed, noting that gravitational wave physics had detractors until the breakthrough detection was made and that her work also has value in the field of superfluids.
“Many things have been controversial in the past, which we now take for granted,” she says. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/oct/12/may-energy-price-cap-ofgem-electricity-gas-tariffs | Money | 2017-10-12T13:39:21.000Z | Adam Vaughan | Theresa May's energy price cap could last until 2023 | The energy bills of 11m households will be capped for as long as five years under legislation put forward by government, which the Conservatives have claimed could save people up to £100 a year.
The draft energy bill compels regulator Ofgem to change the licence conditions for energy suppliers so that they are forced to cap electricity and gas prices.
The measure will apply to anyone on a standard variable tariff, the expensive plans that customers are moved to when cheaper, fixed deals end.
E.ON chief: Theresa May's energy price cap will hurt competition
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Analysts believe the cap is unlikely to take effect until the start of 2019 at the earliest, because of the legislative process. It will be in place until at least the end of 2020, but Ofgem will be able to extend it until the end of 2023, if competition is not deemed to be working.
The draft legislation published on Thursday does not spell out at what price the average dual fuel bill will be capped.
An existing, limited cap for 3m vulnerable households on standard variable tariffs – due to be extended to a further 1m in February 2018 – is set at £1,031, based on typical energy use.
By comparison, the average standard variable tariff offered by the big six suppliers is £1,142, so the wider cap is likely to be below that and above £1,031.
Ofgem will need to consult energy companies on how the cap is calculated, the government said.
Ministers confirmed that Ofgem would be compelled to implement the cap once the law had given it new powers. Labour had previously raised doubts as to whether the legislation would force Ofgem to act, or simply empower it.
The draft legislation also reveals that the cap will be an absolute one. A relative cap, for which some MPs have been pushing and which would limit a supplier’s most expensive tariff to a percentage above their cheapest deal, has been ruled out.
The prime minister reiterated her claim that she had to act because the market is broken, a charge the big energy companies reject.
“I have been clear that our broken energy market has to change – it has to offer fairer prices for millions of loyal customers who have been paying hundreds of pounds too much,” said May.
“Today’s publication of draft legislation is a vital step towards fixing that, and in offering crucial peace of mind for ordinary working families all over the country.”
Share prices in SSE, one of the UK’s biggest energy companies, were up by 1.76%, while British Gas owner Centrica climbed 2.6%. Hundreds of millions of pounds have been wiped off the firms’ market value since May announced the cap in her Conservative party conference speech.
Citizens Advice, a charity which has a statutory duty to protect energy customers, welcomed the government’s move to legislate.
Gillian Guy, the Citizens Advice chief executive, said: “The runaway costs of default energy tariffs need to be tackled, and this draft bill is an important step towards an energy market that works better for consumers.”
However, Which?, a consumer organisation which was enthusiastic about the limited cap for 1 million people, said ministers needed to be careful the wider one did not backfire.
Alex Neill, the group’s managing director of home products and services, said: “For millions of consumers worried about their energy bills, a cap might sound like a positive move. However, the government must guard against any unintended consequences that undermine customer service and push up prices as a whole.”
One comparison site strongly condemned the government for pushing ahead with a wide-ranging cap.
Richard Neudegg, head of regulation at uSwitch.com, said: “The proposal for a widespread price cap verges on negligence by the government. They are sending out completely the wrong message by suggesting that a price cap will improve the retail energy market.”
The Liberal Democrat MP and former energy minister, Ed Davey, said competition would be harmed and prices would climb up to the cap. The Lib Dems were the only main political party to oppose price caps during the last election.
One of the big six suppliers was critical of the government pushing ahead with a broad cap.
Michael Lewis, chief executive of E.ON, said: “A price cap will not be good for customers. It will reduce engagement, dampen competition and innovation.”
However, smaller suppliers such as First Utility said the big six had only themselves to blame for the cap, because they had kept millions of people on standard variable tariffs. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/nov/05/ellie-goulding-delirium-review | Music | 2015-11-05T15:00:04.000Z | Alexis Petridis | Ellie Goulding: Delirium review – gimlet-eyed mainstream pop with few surprises | Ellie Goulding condemns London councils' treatment of homeless people
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There comes a point in every artist’s life when they decide their career has thus far taken too linear and undeviating a path. The moment has come to shake things up, to do something radically different. Some simply spring their new approach on their audience. Others offer fans fair warning. So it is with Ellie Goulding, who felt obliged to issue an accompanying statement when the release of her third album was announced back in September. “Part of me views this album as an experiment – to make a big pop album,” she said. “I made a conscious decision that I wanted it to be on another level.”
A big pop album obviously marks a revolutionary departure for the multi-platinum singer, whose previous releases famously carved out their own, hugely challenging musical niche somewhere between black metal, punishing atonal electronics and free improvisation. The dramatic nature of the change between Delirium and its predecessors, Lights and Halcyon, is starkly illuminated by Goulding’s choice of musical partners. In come pop songwriting behemoths such as Greg Kurstin and Ryan Tedder, clearly a major shift from the past, when she collaborated with names including Biff Stannard, best known for his work with fearsome Japanese-noise artists the Spice Girls, and the self-styled Gruppenführer of True Fucking Satanic Metal, Calvin “Baphomet” Harris. And Greg Kurstin and Ryan Tedder. Evidently, everything has changed beyond recognition.
But leaving aside the pressing question of precisely what kind of music Ellie Goulding thinks she has been making for the past six years, it’s hard to argue with her description of Delirium. It is indeed a pop album, and it is indeed big: 16 tracks in its standard edition, a staggering 25 tracks and 90 minutes in its deluxe format – longer than Prince’s Sign O’ the Times, Bob Dylan’s Blonde on Blonde or indeed Yes’s Tales from Topographic Oceans – with a certain grandiosity signalled by its introduction, which goes heavy on the operatic vocals. It takes as its starting point Goulding’s two most memorable hits to date: her EDM-inspired 2013 chart-topper Burn and the Max Martin-produced Love Me Like You Do, the latter a song that even a dedicated abhorrer of pop – self-styled Gruppenführer of True Fucking Satanic Metal, Calvin “Baphomet” Harris, for example – might be forced to agree is an extremely elegant illustration of the blue-chip songwriter-for-hire’s art. Indeed, so keen are Goulding and her team to replicate Love Me Like You Do’s impact that a track here called Something in the Way You Move has a virtually identical chorus.
You can see how this happened, but including a song that audibly rips off Love Me Like You Do on the same album that features Love Me Like You Do feels a little careless, and elsewhere Delirium isn’t a careless album at all. It’s punchily produced, and filled with smart, nagging little touches: the Police-like guitar figure that weaves through On My Mind, or Holding on for Life’s charming combination of faux-gospel chorus and the kind of jubilant piano line found on old house tracks.
It also does absolutely everything you might expect a mainstream pop album in 2015 to do, to the extent that you start feeling as if there might have been some kind of checklist in the studio: knowing musical reference to Uptown Funk? Tick. Certainly no one’s going to complain that there aren’t enough vogueish influences from 90s dance music, including yet another bassline inspired by Robin S’s Show Me Love on Don’t Need Nobody, and what sounds like a shiny update of UK garage on Devotion. We Can’t Move to This, meanwhile, features both a winding sample of cut-up vocals in the image of MK’s remix of the Nightcrawlers’ Push the Feeling On (she has already employed MK to remix On My Mind) and a nod to Major Lazer’s pop take on dancehall and moombahton in its beat. The taut, new wave-inspired pop-rock of Around U and Lost and Found’s saga of small-town escape and glossy 80s AOR chorus suggest Goulding has been keeping watch on Taylor Swift’s path to global domination, and perhaps her headline-grabbing habit of writing songs about her high-profile love life, too. Goulding was recently forced to deny that her single On My Mind constituted an answer record to Ed Sheeran’s Don’t, a heartbroken number apparently about her. You can see why people thought that – “you wanted my heart but I just liked your tattoos” suggest the lyrics, before offering the winning get-out clause: look, I was a bit pissed, alright? – and the ensuing debate can’t exactly have hurt either’s sales.
When the production and the songwriting coalesce, you would have a hard time arguing that Delirium isn’t a winning example of gimlet-eyed mainstream pop: while nothing else approaches the classiness of Love Me Like You Do, the sugary rushes of Holding on for Life and Around U are hard to resist. But there’s an awful lot of it, and the less distinguished moments begin to blur. In fairness, you could imagine virtually everything here on Radio 1, but too much sounds like the stuff you hear on Radio 1 and then struggle to remember a thing about the second it’s over. In fact, you could have said the same thing about its two predecessors: contrary to its curious advance billing, Delirium feels like more of the same. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2019/nov/04/balotelli-returned-to-italy-with-hope-it-has-been-crushed-again-by-racism | Football | 2019-11-04T12:24:30.000Z | Nicky Bandini | Balotelli returned to Italy with hope. It has been crushed again by racism | ‘You can’t delete racism. It’s like a cigarette. You can’t stop smoking if you don’t want to, and you can’t stop racism if people don’t want to.”
Six years have passed since Mario Balotelli spoke those words in an interview with Sports Illustrated. He was on top of the world, Italy’s No 9 and fresh from a triumphant half-season at Milan. Signed from Manchester City during the January transfer window, he had scored 12 times in 13 games, carrying Milan to third place.
Mario Balotelli walking on water for Sports Illustrated: pic.twitter.com/guZhyYxnhO
— footballitalia (@footballitalia) August 20, 2013
The magazine’s front cover depicted him walking on water. Yet even when so much seemed possible for the striker whose goals had obliterated Germany at Euro 2012, Balotelli acknowledged his powerlessness to stop football fans in his home country from abusing him for the colour of his skin.
Returning to Italy this summer, after stints away at Liverpool, Nice and Marseille, he wondered if things had changed. “I hope with all my heart there won’t be any repeat of the things that happened when I was last here,” he said after signing for Brescia. “I hope Italy has taken some steps forward.”
He was destined to be disappointed. The Serie A season has witnessed several instances of players being racially abused, from Romelu Lukaku at Cagliari to Dalbert at Atalanta and Ronaldo Vieira during a home game for Sampdoria against Roma.
On Sunday, Balotelli was the target for monkey chants during Brescia’s game at Verona. In the 55th minute, he responded. Fighting to keep the ball in play down by the corner flag, Balotelli turned suddenly and lashed it up towards supporters.
Mario Balotelli hits out at Verona fans after suffering racist abuse
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Chaos ensued. The referee, Maurizio Mariani, booked Balotelli for unsportsmanlike behaviour. Balotelli threatened to walk off. Players from both teams intervened, talking Balotelli down while also informing officials of the abuse he had received. Mariani waved off the yellow card and suspended the game, instructing the stadium announcer to warn fans it would be abandoned if the chants continued.
Mario Balotelli scored a fabulous late for for Brescia in a 2-1 defeat at Verona. Photograph: Filippo Venezia/EPA
After a delay of almost five minutes, play resumed. Verona, already leading through a goal from Eddie Salcedo, extended their advantage through Matteo Pessina. Balotelli responded with a spectacular strike from the edge of the D, struck first time off his right instep into the top corner. It was not enough to rescue Brescia from a 2-1 defeat.
The situation only got worse after the final whistle, when the Verona manager, Ivan Juric, flatly denied any racist abuse had taken place. “I’m not afraid to say that nothing happened,” he said. “There was loud whistling and mockery but no racist chant. There was nothing. I am a Croatian and I hear ‘Gypsy piece of shit’ sometimes because unfortunately that is the tendency in Italy but today there was nothing.”
What possessed him to take such a hard line only he can know. In any case, he was wrong. Juric might not have heard the monkey chants but several of his players did and they were plainly audible on a fan-shot video that circulated on Sunday evening.
Niko Kovac leaves Bayern Munich after Eintracht Frankfurt thrashing
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This has too often been the default mode for clubs whose fans stand accused of racist chanting: to mount an aggressive defence first – often calling into question the integrity of the victim – and ascertain the facts of what happened later. The Verona president, Maurizio Setti, supported his manager’s line, claiming his team’s supporters were simply “sarcastic, not racist”.
Verona will likely be punished. The independent observer sent to monitor this game heard the racist chants and included them in the official report – something that did not happen when Lukaku and Dalbert were verbally abused and which should allow the sporting justice greater scope for punishment.
Still, there are ambiguities that make the verdict hard to predict. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the observer only ascribed the monkey chants to a group of about 15 fans. Balotelli was booed and whistled by many more but we are into murky territory. What constitutes racist abuse rather than jeering of an opponent?
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Regardless of the outcome, the discouraging thought is that once again nothing will change. This was a weekend when Roma’s game against Napoli was also suspended in response to territorial discrimination from Roma’s ultras. The initial warning from the stadium announcer was roundly ignored. Only the intervention of Edin Dzeko, encouraging fans to drown out the chants with cheers, seemed to get things back on track.
Balotelli’s assessment that you cannot force people not to be racist rings as true as ever. On the other hand, Italian football cannot absolve itself of responsibility. Clubs in other countries do a far more effective job of identifying individuals who engage in racist chanting and keeping them out of the stands.
This is a slow process and even with maximum commitment could not be achieved overnight. It is hard to see how it will ever happen at clubs whose first instinct is to accuse a victim of making it up.
Talking points
Defeat for Brescia meant the sack for Eugenio Corini – the manager who steered them to promotion. His team have taken one point from their past six games, but to me this still felt premature. This has been a gruelling run, including games against Juventus, Inter, Napoli and Fiorentina – none of whom beat them by more than a single goal.
Roma leapt up to third by beating Napoli in a hugely entertaining game, and Paulo Fonseca really does seem to have his team moving on a positive trajectory despite a long injury list. Nicolò Zaniolo opened the scoring with a wonderful left-foot finish – marking his fourth straight game with a goal – and even Javier Pastore is playing well now that he’s back in his preferred home at No 10. Chris Smalling once again played his part, too, with an acrobatic clearance off the line.
When is a handball not a handball? Don’t ask Matthijs De Ligt, who was not punished in the Turin derby when the ball struck his arm in almost identical pose to that in which it had done so when he gave away a penalty against Lecce. This time: no spot-kick – a contrast that only looked sharper after Juventus edged to a 1-0 victory over their city rivals, courtesy of a volley from the defender himself.
Is it time to start viewing Cagliari as serious contenders for the Champions League? They won 2-0 away to Atalanta, drawing level on points with the Bergamo club and Lazio in fourth place. The Sardinians were aided by a first-half red card to Josip Ilicic but the 23-year-old Uruguayan Christian Oliva was magnificent in midfield. His only previous start came away to Napoli, where Cagliari also won, 1-0.
Two more goals for Romelu Lukaku, who rescued Inter after they fell behind at Bologna. He has nine in Serie A already, placing him second only to Ciro Immobile – who is already on 13 for Lazio.
Quick Guide
Serie A results
Show
Pos Team P GD Pts
1 Juventus 11 10 29
2 Inter Milan 11 13 28
3 Roma 11 8 22
4 Lazio 11 13 21
5 Atalanta 11 12 21
6 Cagliari 11 8 21
7 Napoli 11 6 18
8 Fiorentina 11 2 16
9 Verona 11 0 15
10 Parma 11 1 14
11 AC Milan 11 -4 13
12 Udinese 11 -10 13
13 Bologna 11 -2 12
14 Torino 11 -6 11
15 Sassuolo 10 -2 10
16 Lecce 11 -8 10
17 Genoa 11 -12 8
18 Brescia 10 -6 7
19 SPAL 10 -10 7
20 Sampdoria 10 -13 5 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/jan/23/invisible-no-longer-women-in-film-on-the-female-directors-the-oscars-must-celebrate | Film | 2018-01-23T11:16:17.000Z | Guardian readers | Invisible no longer': women in film on the female directors the Oscars must celebrate | Award season has not been kind to female directors in 2018. There were no women directors nominated at the Baftas, nor at the Golden Globes, where Natalie Portman introduced “the all-male nominees” when taking the stage, and stars have lined up to blame a wider gender imbalance in the industry for the discrepancy.
Quick Guide
The 2018 Oscar nominations
Show
Ahead of the Academy Award nominations, we asked you to tell us which female directors had impressed with their work this year, and why they deserved to be nominated for awards. Here are four of the films and their directors that seemed to resonate most with readers, along with your reasons for choosing them.
Mudbound, directed by Dee Rees
Judith More, film costumer, Savannah, Georgia
Not only a beautifully directed and acted film but an important film about a dark time in Americas history. What resonated with me was the terrible social stigmatism that was prevalent in the South at that time (and for decades after.) What Dee Rees did so skillfully was to portray the leading characters as ordinary people trapped in a situation not of their making. She opens the audience’s eyes to the cruelty of racism. It deserves to be awarded an Oscar because it made us think and feel for a group of people who lived 70 years ago and maybe to help us prevent those dark times from coming back.
In my department, women dominate, but in general, women have to work twice as hard just to be heard in the industry. There is too much gender harassment, which happens every time a man in charge looks over the head of a bright woman to talk to the man behind her. We can only change that by teaching the next generation of men to respect a woman’s brain as well as her body.
Detroit, directed by Kathryn Bigelow
Hilary Thomas, actor, London
John Boyega in Kathryn Bigelow’s Detroit, about the 1967 Detroit riot. Photograph: Francois Duhamel/Entertainment O/PA
This is a powerful and uncompromising indictment of racism in a forgotten piece of history, totally relevant in America and elsewhere today. It is brilliantly acted (particularly by an understated John Boyega) and directed, gripping the viewer from start to finish. It is beyond me why it has not been nominated. In a year where inequality and sexual harassment has been exposed, it is shocking that Bigelow is not rewarded for her committed and original work.
Lady Bird, directed by Greta Gerwig
Adina Glickstein, film student, New York
I loved Lady Bird for its doing the trope-y coming-of-age film better than anyone.
Gerwig’s directorial expertise shines as she negotiates the conventions of a film like this – an outsider’s flirtation with popularity, kitschy prom decorations, and the ambivalence of leaving a reluctantly beloved hometown to move where the culture is – effortlessly, expertly pacing her film so as to cover all the key senior-year milestones, never rushed but never dwelling too long.
The film’s success is a welcome corrective to the underrepresentation of female directors in popular cinema. While independent film may fare slightly better than Hollywood in this regard, the gendered inequity in film production is extremely disheartening. As a young woman in film studies, it’s easy to feel discouraged when the majority of prominent voices in directing, programming, and criticism all so little resemble my own. The Intro to Film Studies course that I took as a first-year at Barnard College – Gerwig’s alma mater, where I’m currently pursuing my degree – didn’t feature a single woman on the syllabus.
Wonder Woman, directed by Patty Jenkins
Johanna, drama student, London
Patty Jenkins did win the award for best action movie for Wonder Woman at the Critics’ Choice Awards in January. Photograph: Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Patty Jenkins’ Wonder Woman has received critical acclaim and smashed Box Office records proving that people do in fact want to see films made by women, and about women, in which they have actual relationships with each other, about mothers and daughters, warriors, and children. It is necessary to not only celebrate the work but the women who did it. They must be invisible no longer. If the Academy value the industry they are supposed to honour, they must and will nominate directors like Jenkins and give them visibility and then in a decade’s time, we might have got somewhere.
As a student award ceremonies are my inspiration: they inspire me to watch more genres, pay attention to certain things, find out why other artists are in the business and why exactly I want to be a film maker. If we want female representation in directing (and producing etc.) to be even reasonably proportional we need to honour the women who are already there, so my generation, and the next generation of female film fanatics, can believe in the possibility of becoming film makers. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/weather/2023/jul/25/british-tourists-in-rhodes-on-their-holidays-from-hell | World news | 2023-07-25T16:27:24.000Z | Rachel Hall | ‘Like Squid Game’: British tourists in Rhodes on their holidays from hell | “H
ave you ever watched Squid Game? This is how it feels.” The words of one British tourist, among the last remaining of 700 holidaymakers put up in an evacuation centre in Rhodes after fleeing the raging wildfires, summed up the chaos and panic that many had experienced as dream holidays had gone up in smoke.
Susan Johnson, 64, from Salisbury, had arrived in Rhodes on Saturday night for a luxurious stay in a five-star hotel, but after landing she had been bussed to Venetokleio sports hall, where she had spent the following four days. She was growing increasingly tired and frustrated and was in pain. “We’re still not sleeping at night,” she said on Tuesday morning. “You don’t sleep properly.”
Tuesday briefing: The latest from Greece, as wildfires rage and thousands are evacuated
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Most other evacuees had found alternative accommodation, often without expecting reimbursement from their tour operators, or had secured early flights home or boarded pre-booked departure flights.
Wildfire burns near the village of Gennadi, Rhodes on 25 July. Photograph: Nicolas Economou/Reuters
Meanwhile, other holidaymakers tentatively started to go back to the evacuated resort towns of Gennadi and Pefkos, where some early returners dined at tavernas and lounged on the beach surrounded by scorched earth and dusted with ash. Many buildings remained intact, though some were blackened, damaged or ruined.
Deeper inland, firefighters continued to battle fresh blazes igniting across the mountainside, which spread rapidly as they were fanned by strong winds. Propeller planes flew overhead to dump seawater over billowing plumes of smoke.
How bad are the wildfires in Greece – and what caused them? A visual guide
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Johnson felt angry that her tour operator, Tui, had continued to fly visitors in on the evening the wildfires were raging, and felt that its response since had been “absolute rubbish”. Tui has since cancelled all flights to Rhodes until Friday.
Johnson and her partner had been offered a flight back to Manchester but its arrival time was 2am and Tui had suggested she pay for a taxi back to Wiltshire, which would have cost hundreds of pounds. “We haven’t got that type of money,” she said.
Abby Masters-Bourne, Fran Sambrook and Eleanor Campbell have clocked up three nights so far of their holiday in the Venetokleio sports centre. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
Also in the evacuation centre were Abby Masters-Bourne, Francesca Sambrooke and Eleanor Campbell, all 19 and from Bournemouth. They had spent three nights there after receiving phone alerts warning them to evacuate.
The trio had grown increasingly concerned by a “massive cloud of smoke” building over the day, culminating in being so close to the blaze that they saw the flames flickering, despite assurances from reception that it wouldn’t be a problem. “We thought, OK, this is getting a bit serious now,” Campbell said.
They spent the night on the floor of a school hall before they were moved to the sports centre, where a local family donated them a mattress.
They were moved by the efforts of volunteers. “Any meal you could think of, they would walk through the door and offer it to you,” said Masters-Bourne, adding that when they were invited into a local home, she was taken aback to see “they were watching their town on the telly burn while they were being nice to us. We are going to our home and they are losing theirs. I cannot fathom how nice everyone is.”
Volunteer Theo Hatziioannou in the Venetokleio sports centre where she has been helping tourists with accommodation and transportation. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
One of those volunteers was Theodora Hatziioannou, who is originally from Rhodes but on holiday from New York. She had been taking down names and working out how to help tourists with accommodation or transport to airport.
“A lot, I feel, were stranded here, they got no response from their travel agencies,” she said. “So we’re trying to step in and help them in any way we can. Everything from people being told in hotels that were very close to the fire up until the last minute: ‘Don’t worry you’re not affected, stay where you are it’s going to be fine,’ and having the police turn up and say: ‘We need to evacuate the area,’ and they’re scrambling to get in buses. Travel agencies not showing up, not reimbursing them.
“Sending people here that were destined for hotels the night they knew the hotels were affected, people were told when they boarded they were going to a five-star resort and they were brought here. I can’t explain it. Then telling them this was an act of God so we’re not going to reimburse you. People were in tears.”
Fighting the fires in the Kiotari area of Rhodes. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
Hatziioannou said most local people caught up in the fires had been evacuated and many were staying with friends and relatives elsewhere in the island, though she understood that there were some in evacuation centres as well.
She said many residents felt let down by their government, both in terms of the support effort, which was largely community and volunteer-driven, and in how slow firefighters had been to tackle the blaze.
Dimitris Angelika in front of what had been his restaurant. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian
Local people who spoke to the Guardian shared this frustration. Dimitris Angelika was examining the wreckage of his restaurant, Angelika Taverna, which had been destroyed by the fire. “Not only my restaurant, my house burned,” he said. “I don’t have anywhere to sleep. My mum has slept for four days on the beach. Her house is burned.”
He estimated it would cost £300,000 to repair the restaurant, which had been completely refurbished during the winter, but that he would probably only be able to access £10,000 from the government – although he said some holidaymaker fans had launched a crowdfunder.
He believed that the spread of the blaze was related to the fact that fire services had been cut. “The local government and the government in Greece doesn’t have experience in fire, and don’t spend money to buy some things,” Angelika said. “Before we had two fire trucks per village, now there are not so many.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/apr/10/saturday-night-live-jake-gyllenhaal-hosts | Television & radio | 2022-04-10T13:44:59.000Z | Zach Vasquez | Saturday Night Live: Jake Gyllenhaal hosts a mediocre episode | Saturday Night Live opens at the White House, where President Biden (James Austin Johnson) congratulates Ketanji Brown Jackson (Ego Nwodim) on her historic confirmation to the supreme court. Justice Jackson is happy to do her part, ie, “work twice as hard as a white man my entire life, and then spend a week listening to Ted Cruz call me a pedophile”.
Saturday Night Live: Jerrod Carmichael hosts an inevitably slap-heavy episode
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Biden leaves her alone in the Oval Office and encourages her take in the weight of the room’s history. She calls upon historical barrier breakers for advice and guidance, including the late Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg (Kate McKinnon) and Thurgood Marshall (Kenan Thompson), “conductor of the underground railroad” Harriet Tubman (Punkie Johnson), and Jackie Robinson (Chris Redd).
This cold open plays like a high school history presentation with slightly more jokes, but little in the way of actual laughs. The problem is the premise itself: the culmination of these figures’ struggles in Jackson’s appointment to the court is cause for celebration, not satire. But since SNL is a satirical show, you have to question what the sketch’s purpose is.
Jake Gyllenhaal hosts for the second time in 15 years. The actor reflects on how much he’s changed in that time, before launching into a rendition of Celine Dion’s It’s All Coming Back to Me Now with backup from Nwodim, Cecily Strong and Chloe Fineman. Gyllenhaal gives the song his all, but the result is little more than a karaoke performance.
Why’d You Like It? is a game show that asks people to explain why they “liked” certain Instagram posts. Pressed to explain why he “did the double tap” for a picture of a hot woman when he could have just looked at it, Gyllenhaal’s nervous contestant eventually admits, “I guess some part of me thought that if I liked it she would see that I liked it, and then she would follow me back, and then we’d DM, and then maybe at some point she’d want to have sex with me.” (This does not amuse his girlfriend in the audience.) The other two contestants are initially confident that they’ll escape a similar humiliation, since the posts they liked initially seem harmless, but they eventually break down and reveal they’ve fallen into the exact same thirst traps. A sharp dissection of the shallowness of social media and the way it’s warped all of our brains.
Dream Home Cousins is a show on HGTV in which the design for a young couple’s dream home turns into a nightmare after the husband’s aged mother decides to move in with them. Instead of an “oasis of relaxation,” the house becomes cluttered with medical equipment, “large, ceramic statues of ducks in 1930s gangster outfits” and black and white photographs of “stern looking ancestors.” As the creepy, suffocating matriarch, McKinnon hits several of her most overplayed beats while failing to bring anything new to the table.
The Singers Four are a cabaret group (Gyllenhaal, McKinnon, Strong and Bowen Yang) who reunite on stage to sing a ballad about celebrating life’s small victories, such as meeting Z-list celebrities, not scaring or upsetting sexual partners, hating Hamilton “before it was cool” and owning a TV. It’s fitting that a sketch about accepting mediocrity should be so, well, you know.
Next, a group of flowers are excited for Spring, until they’re visited by a number of horrors, including horny bees, perverted weeds, urinating dogs and violent decapitation. This never plays as dark or shocking as it wants to be, and the high-pitched voices the cast use make it all very annoying.
This is followed by another high concept sketch in which possessed child’s doll Chucky (Sarah Sherman) attempts to stab several coworkers at the corporate office he works at, resulting in an HR intervention. A Sarah Sherman special, this feels a bit too random and rushed, although the effects work is effectively uncanny.
On Weekend Update, Colin Jost comments on the 10-year ban handed down by the Oscars to Will Smith, asking “Is that a punishment?” He suggests that Smith should be forced to humiliate himself by hosting next year’s ceremony. A little later, he describes Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s televised speech at Sunday’s Grammy Awards as heartfelt and impassioned but notes that he missed “an opportunity for a legendary GI Jane joke”.
The show Lights, Camera, Achoo! looks back at “some of the sickest performances in film history”. Tonight’s episode focuses on the tubercular cowboy Doc Holiday, as played by Val Kilmer in the western Tombstone, as well as a different actor in a lesser known movie from the previous year called Cough, Cough, Bang, Bang. A clip from the latter see’s Gyllenhaal’s Holiday interrupting a showdown between gunslinging rivals only to utterly disgust everyone by coughing, sneezing, farting and spewing blood and vomit all over the place. Gyllenhaal gives his best performance of the night as the “Patient Zero” of the old west in this slight, but enjoyably gross sketch.
A couples therapy session quickly goes off the rails when the therapist (Johnson) takes a phone call from her significant other and immediately goes on a furious rant, daring her partner to make good on her threats of gun violence, yelling “Come through bitch! It’s on sight!” The danger of the situation continues to escalate, with the therapist dragging the couple into the conflict against their will. The sketch is all over the place, but Johnson’s deranged outbursts and Gyllenhaal’s reading of sexually explicit text messages (which make use of lots of fish metaphors) in an ill-advised black female voice are the highlights of the episode.
Not half an hour after Colin Jost made several jokes about Will and Jada Pinkett-Smith, their daughter Willow joins Camila Cabello on stage for a performance of Psychofreak. This must have made for an interesting afterparty for the cast.
The final sketch of the night sees Bryant play a redneck trucker pitching truck-themed CDs featuring country standards, romantic ballads, spooky folks songs, and children’s classics, about peeing, running other cars off the road and picking up a hitchhiking El Chapo. It’s admirable that Gyllenhaal was so keen on musical comedy, but this isn’t any funnier than the other song-based sketches that preceded it. A thoroughly mediocre episode, the highs weren’t ever very high, but at least the lows weren’t egregiously low. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/nov/19/housing-crisis-damp-cot-death | Society | 2012-11-19T20:10:22.000Z | Maggie O'Kane | Housing crisis: did damp and crowding contribute to cot death? | The life and death of Telan Stone, 11 months. guardian.co.uk
The first thing Kia Stone did when she got back to the flat was dismantle the cot in which her 11-month-old baby daughter Telan had been found dead the week before.
Above the cot in the crowded bedroom where Kia, her partner Simon and their two children had slept, a large mushroom continues to grow out of the damp plaster. The wallpaper is a violent shade of bright green, edged with black lines of damp. Wet with condensation, it hangs limply from the wall.
Kia, 24, does not know how Telan died. Neither do the doctors. Kia wonders if the damp in her single-bedroom flat on the Chapelfields housing estate in York was a contributory factor in the death of her baby girl. The autopsy report found no cause of death. But experts say that damp and overcrowding is a risk factor in cot death.
Just days after Telan's death, on 6 October, three health officials – a doctor, a health visitor and a paediatric nurse – wrote to York council warning of the increased risk of cot death to another child, Isla Jackson, who was born prematurely and spent six weeks in a special baby care unit, and was then living with a family of five in a damp, two-bedroom flat.
The letter from the health visitor Russell Dowson reads: "This property is not suitable and specifically puts Isla at an increased risk of suffering cot death."
Film-maker Peter Gordon had, by chance, been filming with the Stone family for a series of films for the Guardian's Breadline Britain series looking at poverty in Britain. Gordon's film starts with a laughing Telan being gently bounced on the bed by her mother. Telan died 10 days after filming finished.
The Guardian showed the film to Prof Richard Jenkins, one of Britain's foremost experts on cot deaths. He said: "It's not clear that the fungus growing over the baby's cot is necessarily a toxic form of black mould, but it is likely to give rise to airborne spores which, when inhaled, could exacerbate a respiratory condition.
"Damp conditions also encourage mould and house mites and researchers have reported an increased frequency of immune response to dust mites and of minor ailments in cot death victims."
The Stones have lived in their one-bedroomed council flat for two years. It was originally intended to be temporary accommodation.
The family ran into trouble two years ago when Simon's epilepsy meant he had to give up his job as a chef at a fish and chip restaurant at the Novotel hotel in York. The family couldn't keep up rental payments on the two-bedroomed house they were living in at the time and when the owner put it on the market for £113,000 they had to move out.
"I really wanted to work. Buying that house was way out of our league. But it was perfect. I would have stayed there for the rest of my life, just built a little extension on to it, but we couldn't keep it," says Kia.
The flat they moved into on a temporary basis was then permanently assigned to them by the council. "There is a big shortage in York and they told us we had to make the flat we were in permanent or we would lose it. I can't count the number of times I phoned the council about the damp. They came and washed the black mould off – it just came back," says Kia.
By the time of Telan's death they had switched off the heating in the flat in a bid to control the damp.
"The bedroom is freezing cold but the council advised me to keep the heating off because if it gets too warm the fungus grows," she says.
Steve Waddington, York council's assistant director of housing and community safety, said: "Our heartfelt sympathies go to the family for their tragic loss. At this very sad time and alongside other professionals we are supporting the family while they wait for a home that better suits their needs.
"We can confirm their complaint about damp was received and that council technicians visited the house to fit new fans and to advise the family on how to help reduce condensation."
In York, the number of people waiting for council housing has increased by 70% in the last year. Nationally, the number of people waiting for council accommodation is close to 2 million, and when the government caps housing benefit payments to private landlords next April, the housing charity Shelter expects that number to soar.
York council said the growth in demand was due to the high cost of property in the city, making accommodation within the housing benefit cap hard to come by. Shelter says the average private rent in the city for a two-bedroom home is around £650 a month. For the Stones, who have a joint income of £640 a month, there are few choices about where they can live. The Labour-run council said more than 4,500 people were now on its waiting list for homes but supply was limited.
Tracey Simpson-Laing, the council's cabinet member for health, housing and adult social services, said she expected the problem to worsen. "Legislation coming into force in April 2013 could impact negatively on people living in overcrowded conditions as households eligible for housing benefit in registered social housing will be expected to contribute more to their rent if their number of bedrooms exceeds new Department for Work and Pensions guidelines."
Shelter is warning that a combination of rising rents, the shortage of suitable rental properties and the forthcoming housing benefit cap is forcing people to choose to live in overcrowded and damp conditions all over Britain. Roger Harding, head of policy, research and public affairs, said: "As changes to housing benefit start to hit, many people will try to stay put until they hit breaking point, potentially taking other measures such as overcrowding or living in poor conditions to avoid disruptive, expensive moves. Overcrowding is one of the hidden symptoms of our housing crisis. Behind closed doors, hundreds of thousands of children are suffering in cramped conditions that are doing lasting damage to their education and wellbeing." In a recent study, Shelter found that poor housing conditions increase the risk of severe ill health or disability by 25% during childhood.
The environmental health consultant Steph Harrison, a member of the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health, told the Guardian: "In 30 years working as an environmental health officer I've never seen so many cases of overcrowding as I am seeing now. It's becoming a big problem that councils must take more seriously.
"Mould grows in overcrowded houses because of the amount of laundry and cooking that goes on to feed more people in a small space. Insulation and ventilation can't cope with the extra demand."
Back in Chapelfields, Kia is on the phone to the council again. A social worker is in the front room offering counselling to the grandparents. "I can't bear it," Kia is telling York housing department. "I can't stay in this flat. I can't stand the damp and the wet."
On 7 November, a month after her daughter's death, York council rehoused Kia Stone and her family in a two-bedroom flat. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/nov/26/uncle-frank-review-paul-bettany-sophia-lillis-alan-ball-american-beauty | Film | 2020-11-26T11:00:56.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Uncle Frank review – fervent family drama from writer of American Beauty | Alan Ball will probably always be known as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of the 1999 hit American Beauty, though he saw his original script curtailed in the edit, and its themes of identity and sexuality made more opaque than he intended. His subsequent work has tended to focus on repression, sexuality and guilt, and so it proves again with this fervently personal movie.
Sophia Lillis plays Betty, a shy, smart teenage girl growing up in an old-fashioned southern household in the early 1970s. She idolises her smart uncle Frank (Paul Bettany), an unmarried, unconventional guy who left home to become a literature professor in New York, and who always inspired her love of books. When Betty comes to New York as a student, she reconnects with Uncle Frank but, innocent country mouse that she is, Betty is baffled by Uncle Frank having a “roommate”: Walid, played by Ball’s partner and one of the movie’s co-producers Peter Macdissi.
Betty gradually comes to realise that her witty, urbane, kindly uncle carries an awful burden of pain because of his relations with his father – her grandfather – “Daddy Mac”, played by Stephen Root as a crocodile of reactionary hostility. As with so many movies of this kind, some of the interest lies in wondering how the writer has transformed elements of his own life and family experiences: how much of Ball is in Betty and how much in Frank?
Uncle Frank doesn’t have the witty indirectness of American Beauty or Ball’s TV classic Six Feet Under, but it has a strong and very convincing performance from Bettany. The excellent Margo Martindale also has a small part as Frank’s mother, though she has little to do. It’s a shame that the only good role she’s had recently has been on the Netflix animation BoJack Horseman.
Uncle Frank is on Amazon Prime Video. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/sep/16/stardust-nation-deborah-levy-review | Books | 2016-09-16T09:00:07.000Z | Evie Wyld | Stardust Nation by Deborah Levy review – an unsettling exploration of memory and identity | Deborah Levy is a novelist, playwright and short story writer whose work explores memory and the messy intersections between identity, repression and depression – the people we are, the people we think we are and the chasm that can lie between. Her two most recent novels, Swimming Home and Hot Milk have been, among other things, powerful investigations of identity under threat. They are populated by characters who can’t seem to fully catch sight of themselves or each other. Stardust Nation, a graphic novel adapted from one of her short stories in collaboration with the illustrator Andrzej Klimowski, is a troubling crystallisation of many of these ideas using the graphic form.
Tom Banbury is a high-flying advertising executive; alcoholic but successful, he relies on “a slight shamanistic edge”. As he puts it, “it is our job to crash into the unconscious of the consumer and broadcast a number of messages that end with ‘buy this product’.” Unfortunately for Tom, as we begin the story, we learn that his colleague and friend Nick Gazidis has “somehow extended his brief as Head of Finance and crashed inside ME”. What this means is that Nick has absorbed traumatic memories from Tom’s past and is repeating them back as if they were his own. This is not the first time Levy has explored the thin membrane between characters in her work – in Hot Milk she writes about a mother and daughter, the daughter limping when the mother does, “my legs are her legs” – but here she takes this idea to darker and more surreal lengths. Tom’s is a past full of trauma: he had a violent father who “uncomfortable with the lack of excitement on home leave, he did tend to start small wars against his five-year-old son – usually with his leather belt”. Nick suffers a breakdown as a result of “taking on” Tom’s past.
It has been observed that Levy is a writer who builds her characters from inside out. She is far less interested in telling us how tall they are or what colour hair they have than in capturing the flickering self from within. And this presents an interesting tension within this work. In many ways, illustrations would seem to remove the need for many of the traditional hand-holding of literary fiction – she did this, I felt like this, he looked like this – but to begin with I found myself reaching for more. The central conceit of the story is powerful, but none of the characters seem to react to it. Klimowski’s art, too, seems purposefully designed to deflect attempts at realist interpretation – the characters look as if they come from propaganda posters issued by their own broken psyches. It took me a while to get used to how everything in this story seems to be drifting past just out of reach. This is partly a representation of Tom’s way of coping with his past – “While he beat me I used to imagine myself somewhere else, away from Lt-Col. Banbury, away from my forlorn mother.” Here he is shown in space as an astronaut. At another time of anxiety – telling his tutor that he is afraid, he projects himself outside on to the birds he is watching, and becomes a boy-headed bird.
There is a horrifying, dreamlike logic to the relationship between text and imagery. Nick ends up in an asylum, confused about who he is, guarded by his sister, who Tom starts imagining as a guard dog, and dreaming about her as a three-headed Cerberus figure. By the end it seems that Tom’s plan may have been to empty his bad memories into the vessel of Nick, that his reticence in showing an emotional response to Nick taking on his past is because it’s all part of his plan. Which makes the moment when Tom tells Nick what eventually happened to his father even darker – Tom washing his hands of the guilt, passing it on to Nick.
Swimming Home was famously too literary for literary London. Although two Booker listings have presumably put paid to that, this is still a brave and unapologetically difficult book. For a readership used to the more straight-forwardly confessional tone of the memoir, which is still the graphic form that receives the most attention, things may be too oblique, never resolving themselves.
Yet Stardust Nation leaves a mark, an echo of something unsettling made more unsettling by pinpricks of realism. There is a kind of joy in this slippage, in giving up on realism and delineation. As Tom says, “Don’t be frightened. We are all of us breathing in atoms that were once forged in the furnace of a star. There are tiny shards of your life inside them and their life is inside you too.”
Stardust Nation is published by Self Made Hero. To order a copy for £10.65 (RRP £12.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/dec/31/talking-horses-stage-star-can-shoot-to-glory-in-new-years-day-chase | Sport | 2023-12-31T14:15:47.000Z | Greg Wood | Talking Horses: Stage Star can shine but why so few New Year runners? | The traditional New Year’s Day card at Cheltenham – which is also the first of 170 “Premier” racedays in a new top tier for the sport in 2024 – has attracted just 36 runners for its six events over jumps, with only half a dozen horses, the smallest field this century, declared for the most valuable race on the card, the £100,000 Paddy Power New Year’s Day Chase.
It does, however, offer a rare chance to see a Grade One winner attempting to give weight away in a handicap, as Stage Star, who moved to the top of the market for the Ryanair Chase in March when successful in the big handicap chase at the November meeting, looks to follow up off an 11lb higher mark.
Stage Star was running off 155 last time out, and had 11st 7lb on his back in a race where The Real Whacker – like Stage Star, a Grade One-winning novice at the 2023 Cheltenham Festival – shouldered top weight of 12st.
Stage Star’s impressive success was an achievement in itself – he was the first handicap chase winner off 155+ in 2023 – and a victory on Monday would elevate him into even more rarefied company.
Just nine horses have defied a mark of 166 or above in a handicap chase since the start of 2003, with Greaneteen, who took the Haldon Gold Cup off 168 in November 2022, the only one to do so since Sire De Grugy in February 2015. Seventeen horses have tried and failed in the same period.
These are daunting stats for favourite-backers, but Stage Star (2.05) won with something to spare last time and is likely to come on for the outing, in a race which should further underline his claims to be the best two-and-a-half-mile chaser in Britain or Ireland.
Quick Guide
Greg Wood's Thursday tips
Show
Cheltenham 12.55 Matata made a very promising start to his chasing career at Ffos Las in October, winning eased down by 10 lengths, and a 9lb rise is unlikely to stop him here.
Musselburgh 1.10 Freddie Gingell’s 5lb claim could be enough to swing this the way of Afadil, who could also find a little improvement for this step up in trip.
Cheltenham 1.30 Inch House has made an excellent start to his career over fences and has been found an ideal opportunity to continue his progress against opponents that, for the most part, are far more exposed.
Musselburgh 1.45 A 3lb rise after a narrow win over track and trip last time looks more than fair for Cuban Cigar, given that the second and fifth horses home there were both successful next time.
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Quick Guide
Greg Wood's Friday tips
Show
Musselburgh 2.20 A mistake three out could well have cost Frere D’Armes the spoils at Ascot last time and this looks an ideal opportunity to make amends off just a 1lb higher mark.
Cheltenham 2.40 The most competitive event on the card and Butch could emerge as the best of the less-exposed runners after a narrow win from a useful field at the October meeting here.
Cheltenham 3.15 The signs from Bob Olinger were much more promising last time out and the former Festival winner could have a touch too much class for Marie’s Rock if he can build on that success. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/29/ecuador-julian-assange-wikileaks-embassy | Opinion | 2018-03-29T14:10:19.000Z | James Ball | Ecuador’s patience with Assange has run out – and he has himself to blame | James Ball | Convincing yourself, and the world, that you’re a major political player on the global stage is a tough ask when you’re confined to a back bedroom. It’s an act that Julian Assange has been trying for years – and one which is increasingly starting to have consequences on the WikiLeaks founder.
Assange has had his internet access cut off by the staff of Ecuador’s embassy in London for a second time – the first being a result of WikiLeaks’ intervention in the US election with the leak of emails from the Hillary Clinton campaign, and Assange’s tweets expressing political preference.
Ecuador, not wanting to get dragged into this political row, cut off Assange’s internet access and made him sign an undertaking not to get involved in the politics of other countries – only for the WikiLeaks Twitter account, and Assange’s personal account, to tweet about Catalonian independence and Britain’s expulsion of Russian diplomats. As a result, Assange has once again had his internet access stopped – and the embassy is reportedly turning away visitors, including Vivienne Westwood, who want to see him.
The move tells us much about Assange’s psychology and how it clashes with the reality of his day-to-day life. Assange would like to be seen as a figure on the world stage with equal stature to those he leaks and tweets about – footage in Laura Poitras’s documentary on Assange, Risk, showed him insisting he speak with Clinton directly when she was secretary of state, to discuss the forthcoming cable leaks.
Ecuador cuts off Julian Assange's internet access at London embassy
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This desire to be part of the conversation, a focus of attention, is marked by much of Assange’s theatrics: WikiLeaks’ constant tweeting of mysterious insurance codes, strange hints at contacts with intelligence agencies, and more – usually when the world is talking about a huge story that has no connection to WikiLeaks.
Assange is a man who would rather be viewed with suspicion – is he working with people at the top of Putin’s government? – than not be thought of at all, or worse yet be thought of as a cat’s-paw of a greater power.
The realities of Assange’s day-to-day life, though, reveal that that is exactly what he has become, in many ways. There is good evidence in the public domain – as well as testimony from intelligence agencies across the world – that Russian state-sponsored hackers obtained the campaign emails from Clinton, which were later published by WikiLeaks and came to dominate months of coverage of the US election.
No one has offered any good evidence that WikiLeaks knowingly cooperated with the Russian government in this effort – but the simple alternative explanation is a hurtful one to Assange’s ego: the documents would simply be presented to WikiLeaks from a “hacking group”, in the knowledge that WikiLeaks wouldn’t ask too many awkward questions. Who needs an accomplice when you have an unwitting and useful tool on hand?
Reconciling Assange’s version of events with reality is an all-but impossible task
Assange’s position with Ecuador is weaker still. When he entered the embassy in the summer of 2012 – a few weeks after the country’s then-president jokingly invited him to seek asylum in Ecuador during a Russia Today interview – Assange was a useful symbol to shore up Ecuador’s anti-US position to South American allies, especially as he was still then a hero to many on the left.
There has since been a change in government, a change in Assange’s public image, and years of daily frustrations between a man who has been called the “world’s worst houseguest” and a country not known for respecting a free media. As early as 2015, documents leaked from Ecuador’s intelligence agency showed that Assange was facing minute-by-minute surveillance on all his activities in the embassy, all of which were being sent back to Ecuador daily. The documents also logged Assange clashing with embassy staff, breaking into secure rooms, and more.
The man who would like to portray himself as a stateless challenger of power has found himself in the same position as a grounded teenager: Ecuador decides who he sees, what can be in his room, even when he washes and tidies up (a regular source of friction).
Judge refuses to withdraw Julian Assange arrest warrant
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Additionally for someone trying to offer safety to whistleblowers around the world, he is a stationary target for the world’s intelligence agencies: any of them able to piggyback on Ecuador’s surveillance – or create new surveillance of their own – and track what his site is up to.
Assange lives in a world of dissonance, right down to his reasons for being in the embassy. He talks of being a political prisoner, who has been under “house arrest” for seven years due to his work for free speech. In reality, he fled from justice having decided not to face Swedish authorities over an investigation into rape and sexual assault.
Reconciling Assange’s version of events with reality is an all-but impossible task, and one Ecuador has been trying to unravel as it finds a way to end his stay. As Ecuadorian patience continues to crumble, Assange may soon find reality will come to bite.
James Ball is a former Guardian special projects editor | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jun/22/windrush-victims-on-compensation-process | UK news | 2023-06-22T18:24:46.000Z | Amelia Gentleman | ‘I feel such indignation’: Windrush victims on the compensation process | Four people affected by the Home Office’s Windrush scandal talk about their experiences of trying to claim compensation, as the latest statistics reveal that just one in four applicants have received payments, four years after the scheme was launched. The Home Office has paid out £63m across 1,681 claims, a much lower amount than officials anticipated.
‘I don’t want to be made to beg’
Kirkland Johnson, 68
Kirkland Johnson says his career was taken from him
Kirkland Johnson, a maths teacher, came to the UK from Jamaica when he was nine in 1964. He qualified as a teacher in 2000 and for the next 14 years taught at two schools in Leicester and Northampton.
After deciding to change jobs in 2014 he signed up with a teaching agency, but they told him that although he had been in the country for 50 years, he didn’t have the right immigration status to continue teaching.
“I thought it was a joke because I’d been employed in my last school for nine years. When I realised it was serious I thought it would be something that would be sorted quickly,” he said. But he struggled to secure paperwork confirming he had the right to live and work in Britain.
Under pressure to make mortgage payments on the family home, he abandoned his teaching career and became a self-employed builder, making much less than his £34,000 teaching salary.
When he applied for compensation, the scheme initially offered him £18,000, and failed to reflect the significant loss of earnings he had suffered over seven years. “My career was taken from me. It hit my confidence badly. I was worried I was going to be locked up and taken away. My children and wife were frightened.”
The award was increased on review, but still did not reflect his lost teaching earnings. He has asked for a second review. “I’ve felt humiliated by the process. I don’t want to be made to beg. I’ve felt devalued.”
‘A sense of grave injustice’
Emunah Baht-Gavriel, 68
The impact on Emunah Baht-Gavriel’s life was classed as ‘moderately severe’ and she was offered £20,000. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
Emunah Baht-Gavriel arrived in the UK in 1979 from Trinidad and was granted indefinite leave to remain. She worked for decades as an NHS nurse in hospitals in London, Leicester, Bristol and Peterborough.
At some point her passport was stolen, and she lost the stamp that provided evidence of her right to remain. She was making £32,000 as a community worker in 2017 when she was made redundant. Because she had no passport, she was subsequently told she had no right to work in the UK, and without her salary she struggled to buy food or pay rent. She became near-destitute.
Her daughter, who was then a university student, used her student loan to support Baht-Gavriel. When she applied for universal credit she was told that she was “a person subject to immigration control and therefore not entitled”. Because she had no documentation, she was unable to travel to see her mother before she died in 2015.
After studying her application, compensation case workers concluded that “no award” should be made under the “loss of access to employment category” of the scheme. “Having reviewed all the available information, we are unable to link your difficulties with employment to an inability to demonstrate your lawful status in the UK,” the compensation team case worker said.
They also concluded “no award” should be made for the loss of access to benefits. The impact on her life was classified as “moderately severe” and she was offered £20,000. A pro bono lawyer with United Legal Access submitted a request for her case to be reviewed in January, but a Home Office caseworker has not yet been allocated.
“Some of the other cases are much more harrowing than mine, but I feel such indignation and a sense of grave injustice. I’m still in debt as a result of not being able to work. Because it hasn’t been resolved I can’t afford to travel to a memorial for my mother,” she said.
‘I ran out of money. I couldn’t get benefits’
David Mitchell, 59
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‘I ran out of money. I couldn’t get benefits,’ recalls David Mitchell
Arriving in Britain from Grenada in 1964, David Mitchell travelled as a 10-month-old baby on his mother’s passport to join his father who was working as a bus driver.
Mitchell worked as a lorry driver until 2011 when his employers told him he needed to upgrade his driving licence to a more modern card with a photograph; he found he was unable to renew the licence because he had no passport.
“I’d been at the firm for 10 years, but they put me under so much pressure I ended up leaving. I thought I’d find another job easily but it didn’t happen like that,” he said.
Larger fines had been introduced for employers who hired people without the correct immigration paperwork and he found it impossible to be rehired. “I ran out of money. I couldn’t get benefits. I stayed with friends and then I was evicted. I sofa-surfed for a while, lost all my belongings. My friends were putting me up, paying for me. I could only eat what I could afford, when I could afford it. It was a terrible time.”
In 2014 he had a heart attack, which he attributes to the stress. His mother (who had returned to Grenada) died, and he was unable to travel to the funeral. He approached a solicitor three years ago for help with applying for compensation, but has never heard back from her. “She took the details and told me it was a complicated scenario,” he said.
Josephine Whitaker-Yilmaz, a policy manager with Praxis, a charity that gave him some support when he was facing homelessness, said: “David’s case clearly illustrates how the shortage of free legal advice and representation for immigration matters, including compensation for victims of the Windrush scandal, is preventing people who are eligible for recompense from getting it.
“Without professional legal representation, many simply feel that they cannot submit an application on their own; even those lucky enough to access legal advice can find themselves slipping through the cracks, simply because existing services are so overstretched.”
‘I felt supported by caseworkers’
Sandra
Sandra, who asked not to use her real name, has a more positive experience of the scheme, after claiming on behalf of her late husband of 43 years. Her husband arrived from Jamaica in 1961 aged 19, and worked and paid taxes for over half a century.
He received a letter in October 2013 from Capita, which had been contracted by the Home Office to track down potential immigration offenders. “The letter told him he had no right to be in the country – he was so embarrassed and shocked, to begin with he didn’t even tell me,” she said.
He tried to apply for naturalisation, filled in a form and paid the £700 fee to the Home Office. “It was the wrong form, but the Home Office wouldn’t give the money back,” Sandra said.
Her husband was made redundant from his job as a senior council caretaker in social housing because of his documentation difficulties. Later he received a second letter from Capita asking him what steps he was taking to leave the country.
“He’d lived here for 52 years. It was dreadful; we thought he was going to have to leave us here. We didn’t have a lot of money but we got a solicitor on to it.”
The solicitor helped them to prove to the Home Office’s satisfaction that he was legally in the UK, but shortly after getting his paperwork he was diagnosed with terminal cancer and died.
Sandra claimed compensation, highlighting loss of earnings, and the negative impact that the mistake had on the whole family. She was awarded £30,000. “It was horrendous to have to go through it all again. It was very emotional reliving it all and it did take a long time, but I felt supported by caseworkers.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/sep/07/amazon-uk-arm-pays-38m-more-corporation-tax-despite-19bn-sales-rise | Technology | 2021-09-07T22:00:20.000Z | Sarah Butler | Amazon UK arm pays £3.8m more corporation tax despite £1.9bn sales rise | Amazon’s key UK business paid just £3.8m more corporation tax last year than in 2019, even as sales increased by £1.89bn.
Accounts filed at Companies House this week show that the corporation tax contribution of Amazon UK Services – the group’s warehouse and logistics operation, thought to employ the majority of the group’s UK workforce – was £18.3m in the year to December 2020, up 26% from £14.5m a year before.
Profits at the division rose by a quarter over the same period to £128m, while sales soared by 64% to £4.85bn.
That performance helped boost Amazon’s total revenues in the UK, from retail, logistics and IT services, to £20.63bn during 2020, approximately double the takings of Marks & Spencer and up slightly more than 50% from £13.73bn a year before.
The company, which has made its founder and outgoing chief executive, Jeff Bezos, a fortune of more than $200bn, tried to fend off accusations of tax underpayment by issuing a statement that said its UK business as a whole paid out £492m in “direct taxes” last year, up from £293m a year before.
That figure includes employer’s national insurance, business rates, stamp duty and corporation tax. The company did not break out its total corporation tax bill, but at least half of the “direct taxes” figure is thought to be accounted for by national insurance and business rates.
The group also said it invested £1.6bn in the UK, more than double the £690m a year spent before, as the group extended its operations to meet high demand during the pandemic. Investments include 11 on-site solar power schemes to help run its facilities, and a 350MW windfarm project off the coast of Scotland.
Amazon now employs more than 55,000 people in the UK, including 10,000 jobs created this year, with more staff being recruited to meet soaring demand. Amid a recruitment crisis across the UK, Amazon has resorted to offering new warehouse recruits a £1,000 joining bonus in an attempt to attract staff.
The company said in a statement: “We are proud of the significant economic contribution we are making to the UK economy. Looking ahead, we know that the UK remains full of opportunity and we continue to be excited by the potential to continue to invest, create jobs, develop talent and have a positive impact in communities across the country.”
Paul Monaghan, head of the Fair Tax Foundation campaign group, described the company’s figures as “more smoke and mirrors from Amazon, who are still refusing to disclose exactly how much total profit they make in the UK, and how much tax they pay on this”.
He continued: “Much of their UK income continues to be shunted to Luxembourg, where there is a ‘loss-making’ subsidiary that is not only not paying tax, but is generating enormous tax reliefs that can be used in the future to ensure that little or no tax continues to be paid. Amazon is growing its market domination across the globe on the back of income that is largely untaxed – allowing it to unfairly undercut local businesses that take a more responsible approach.”
Amazon officially reports its British retail sales through Luxembourg, with Amazon UK services representing only a small part of the wider UK operation.
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Fresh questions were raised over Amazon’s tax planning this spring after its latest corporate filings in Luxembourg revealed that the company collected record sales income of €44bn (£38bn) in Europe last year but did not have to pay any corporation tax to the Grand Duchy.
Accounts for Amazon EU Sarl, through which it sells products to hundreds of millions of households in the UK and across Europe, show that despite collecting record income, the Luxembourg unit made a €1.2bn loss and therefore paid no tax.
This story was amended on 8 September 2021 to correct the name of the Fair Tax Foundation in the 10th paragraph | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/12/wonder-review-owen-wilson-julia-roberts | Film | 2017-11-12T23:00:06.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Wonder review – manipulative feelgood drama comes with hefty dollop of treacle | There’s a treacliness to this manipulative movie – more heartsinker than heartwarmer – about Auggie, a 10-year-old kid with a rare facial disfigurement, played in prosthetic makeup by Jacob Tremblay.
He’s been taught at home by his concerned and caring parents, played by Julia Roberts and Owen Wilson, while successive surgeries partly improved his condition. But this brave boy must now start school, and face down the bullying and staring, without the toy astronaut helmet that he has, until now, always worn outside. Meanwhile, Auggie’s older teen sister Via (Izabela Vidovic) has issues of her own: she is angry and conflicted about her parents neglecting her needs in favour of Auggie’s.
The movie appears very well intentioned, but those good intentions may be as fabricated as everything else here. Certainly Wilson’s performance is horribly fake, phoning it in with the same old halting drawl. He looked a lot more emotionally engaged with his labrador in Marley & Me than he does with any human being here. And Roberts keeps doing her dying-down-to-a-whisper voice at moments of emotional suffering.
Auggie’s face is undoubtedly shocking at first, though far less challenging than Rocky’s face in Peter Bogdanovich’s comparable 1985 film Mask. And as Auggie is a 10-year-old rather than a teenager, some harder and more adult questions about what his condition means for his emotional life need never be asked. This movie is based on the bestselling 2012 novel by RJ Palacio, although tellingly that book was avowedly based on the author’s experience of seeing a girl with a facial disfigurement. By switching the gender, in a film about the importance of looks, the stakes are marginally but distinctly lowered.
It might have been better as a longform TV drama, like a cross between My So-Called Life and The Wonder Years, and the soapy nature of the story is at first reasonably promising. When Auggie first shows up at school, he is greeted by the kindly, wise, bearded principal (Mandy Patinkin) who has ordered a handpicked group of pupils to show him around. One is Jack, played by Noah Jupe, and another is Julian (Bryce Gheisar). Jack sees past what Auggie looks like and they become friends, though their relationship is not without its trials.
Julian’s job is to be the obviously nasty, sneery bully without whom this story cannot function: the tiny Flashman underlines everyone else’s good faith. It becomes clear, however, that despite the principal having a zero-tolerance attitude towards bullying, the film has a zero-tolerance attitude towards being judgmental: it is soon implied that Julian’s behaviour is actually the fault of his smarmy parents. We finally get a glimpse of Julian, smilingly happy and forgiven, as he joins in with the general acclaim for Auggie’s courage.
As for Via, her best friend Miranda (Danielle Rose Russell) has returned to school from her summer break with a trendy new hairstyle and has apparently dropped her as a friend. Her only ally and confidante was her late grandmother, played in cameo by Sônia Braga, last seen as the music critic in Kleber Mendonça Filho’s film Aquarius. Confused and hurt, Via throws herself into trying out for the school play, where an impossibly cute, hip, sensitive, glasses-wearing boy called Justin (Nadji Jeter) instantly falls for her – her trials are not so bad.
All of these characters, or nearly all of them, are given backstories, heralded by their names in intertitles, sympathetically letting us in to their private lives. (Not Julian though: he gets to be the bully, and that’s it.) But there are no real ironies or complexities and Miranda’s secret emotional journey is outrageously unlikely. It is a film with all the depth of a fridge magnet. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/nov/22/passports-for-nhs-access-what-are-the-implications | Society | 2016-11-22T19:14:44.000Z | Patrick Butler | Passports for NHS access plan: what are the implications? | Patients could be told to bring two forms of identification including a passport to get treatment at hospital, according to the most senior civil servant in the Department of Health.
Chris Wormald told MPs on Monday night: “On the general question of, are we looking at whether trusts should proactively ask people to prove their identity – yes we are looking at that.
“Individual trusts like Peterborough are doing that and it is making a big difference. They are saying, ‘Please come with two forms of identity, your passport and your address,’ and they use that to check whether people are eligible. It is quite a controversial thing to do, to say to the entire population you’ve got to prove your identity.”
If that happens, what are the implications?
Why are NHS hospitals seeking to charge some patients?
Ministers are concerned that Britain pays out much more to EEA (European Economic Area) countries for the treatment of British nationals under reciprocal health arrangements, than the NHS recoups for treating patients from those countries. The NHS has a target to recover £500m a year in charges by the middle of this parliament.Could British nationals be denied access to treatment if they fail to produce a passport?
The latest figures show that 13% of British citizens do not have a passport so it could be a very serious problem if they were denied NHS treatment for failing to produce a passport. The current NHS Choices advice to overseas visitors says that “if you do not have valid documentation, you may be charged for treatment”.
Hospitals may require patients to show passports for NHS treatment
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So a British citizen who cannot provide a passport to prove their nationality or country of residence will be treated but may later face a hospital inquiry about the possibility of being charged. This could be dealt with by providing a birth certificate or other proof of British citizenship or residence short of a passport. The NHS describes itself as a “residence-based system, unlike many other countries, which have insurance-based healthcare systems”.What happens to people from outside the EEA who want NHS treatment at present?
The rules changed in April last year as part of the Immigration Act 2016 which was designed to ensure Britain had “a national health service, not an international health service”.
Non-European migrants who have permanent residence in Britain, ie indefinite leave to enter or remain, continue to be eligible for the same NHS care as a resident British citizen.
But those who are temporary migrants or students and intend to stay more than six months are now required to pay a health surcharge when they apply for their visa. This is £200 a year or £1,000 for a five-year visa. In the past year £164m has been raised from the immigration health surcharge.
What happens to people from inside the EU or elsewhere in the EEA who want NHS treatment?
EUcitizens who are resident in Britain can access the NHS on exactly the same basis as British citizens. The difference is that as a result of an EU directive the NHS can claim back the cost of treating EU visitors, students or temporary migrants to Britain from their home governments.
MPs are concerned that while the UK paid out £650m last year to cover the treatment of British citizens in other EU countries, it only managed to recoup £49m for the NHS treatment of EU citizens here. The government thinks that an annual target of £300m is possible if hospitals do more to identify EU citizens being treated in British hospitals.
The NHS is thinking of asking everyone to prove their identity so they can identify EU citizens so their governments can be charged. EU citizens without European health insurance cards (EHIC) may be asked to pay the charges upfront and then to recover them from their own government. The NHS might do better to ask EU citizens to produce their EHIC card rather than ask the whole population to provide a passport or other form of identity.
Is this a national ID scheme by the back door?
A national identity scheme is about having a single government searchable database on which the whole UK population is listed. Asking for a passport or other form of ID card, such as a driving licence, to prove British residence does not mean the proposal is introducing an ID card by the back door.
How does the policy work?
NHS hospitals are expected to ensure they do not pick up the bill for patients from EEA countries and Switzerland who do not qualify for free NHS treatment. NHS trusts are legally obliged to identify such patients and recoup the cost. A separate charging system exists for non-EEA nationals.
Has it been successful?
The Peterborough and Stamford hospitals trust has been operating a pilot study since 2013. It estimates the charging system raises £250,000 a year. It says 95% of invoices were recouped last year, compared to 37% in 2012. NHS bosses told MPs that the scheme “had made a big difference”. However, the trust admits no formal evaluation of the scheme has been carried out. It employs four staff to operate the scheme, but would not say how much the scheme costs.
Who is not entitled to free NHS treatment?
NHS trusts are expected to charge anyone receiving hospital care who is not “ordinarily resident” in the UK. This is broadly defined as anyone not living in the UK on a “lawful, voluntary and settled basis for the time being”.
Does this mean all EEA visitors are affected?
No. Residency is the prime factor, not nationality or race. So NHS hospital care is free for ordinarily resident EEA/Swiss nationals with indefinite leave to remain in the UK, or who have paid a £200 annual health surcharge as a condition of obtaining a visa.
What if you are a British citizen living abroad who needs NHS hospital care while visiting the UK?
The regulations state you may be a UK citizen and passport holder and have paid UK national insurance, but if you are not “ordinarily resident” in the UK you would be liable for charging, and would be expected to either pay or offer health insurance to enable the hospital to recoup charges for your treatment.
Is there a danger that patients may be discriminated against on racial grounds?
The regulations state that when patients are assessed for charging, NHS staff must “avoid discriminatory measures or practise racial profiling ... or cherrypick which patients to question”.
Can a hospital refuse treatment?
Under the Human Rights Act it is unlawful for an NHS hospital to refuse urgent (defined as “immediately necessary”) treatment, regardless of whether payment has been secured in advance or the patients has indicated they cannot pay. A hospital has the right to refuse treatment if the intervention is deemed to be non-urgent. Peterborough says it has never refused a patient on these grounds.
What constitutes urgent or non-urgent treatment, and who decides?
Only a doctor or clinician is allowed to judge whether a condition is urgent. This may involve an assessment of whether it is life-threatening, or whether a more expensive intervention may be required if treatment is delayed. Non-urgent is defined as “routine elective treatment that could wait until the patient can return home”.
Are all NHS services covered by the charging regime?
Emergency services at the hospital are free at the point of use to all, as are all health services provided outside hospitals, including GP services. All maternity services are chargeable for non-UK residents, although no pregnant patient would ever be refused care. Other exemptions include treatment for some infectious diseases, such as cholera and rabies, sexually transmitted diseases, and clinical interventions for victims of torture or domestic violence.
What happens if patients receive treatment and then refuse – or are unable – to pay?
If an invoice is unpaid then the trust will pursue payment via debt collectors. Patients with an unpaid invoice over £500 are reported to immigration officials.
Are the rules likely to change?
The Department of Health has suggested the current regulations will be reviewed, saying: “We consulted earlier this year on extending the charging of migrants and visitors using the NHS. We will set out further steps in due course to ensure we deliver on our objective to recover up to £500m a year by the middle of this parliament.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/jun/27/epsteins-shadow-ghislaine-maxwell-review-uncomfortably-close-to-excusing-her | Television & radio | 2021-06-27T21:00:34.000Z | Lucy Mangan | Epstein’s Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell review – uncomfortably close to excusing her | Afour-part Netflix documentary miniseries last year, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, told his abusive, paedophilic, sex-trafficking story. Now it is the turn of his partner in, it is charged, all things, Ghislaine Maxwell. She gets a three-hour Sky Documentaries series, Epstein’s Shadow: Ghislaine Maxwell, which itself feels like a shadow of Filthy Rich. The latter was not laden with original insight but did deliver a dense, compact history of the proliferating tales, evidence, rumours and reports that had swirled for decades before Epstein’s arrest for trafficking minors, and subsequent suicide while awaiting trial.
This documentary tells the story of Maxwell’s upbringing as the youngest child of media baron and notorious bully Robert Maxwell, her socialite years and her introduction to and subsequent long relationship with Epstein, which included, many claim, procuring underage girls for him who were then often passed round a network of like-minded men.
A number of talking heads are interviewed who are billed as her “former friends”. They include Lady Victoria Hervey, who collapses into giggles remembering Maxwell’s hilarious lesson on how to give a blowjob when they were socialite-ing together in 90s New York. Precious memories endure, I guess, whatever your former friend stands trial for in the end.
The waffler-in-chief is Anna Pasternak, “Oxford contemporary” rather than “former friend”, which does not seem to have put a brake on her willingness to deliver unsearing and repeated insights into the workings of the Maxwell mind. We return to her approximately every seven minutes, so she can tell us – again and again – that Maxwell grew up under a monstrous father, became used to pleasing corrupt and awful men and thinking this – and money – was the way to be protected. Thus she was drawn to Epstein when he first entered her father’s circle. Thus she clung to him after Daddy died and the family finances suffered (upon the discovery that he had left the Mirror Group pension fund and other business holdings hundreds of millions of pounds short). And thus – if the allegations by multiple survivors are true – she became his enticer of minors and procurer of the three young women a day he liked to have sex with in his wired-for-covert-surveillance townhouse or Palm Beach mansion, depending which coast they were on at the time.
Nothing is interrogated. The idea that Maxwell’s upbringing led her to Epstein and predisposed her to normalise depravity and exploitation is left to squat complacently over the whole. Yet the idea that she was almost destined, doomed through no fault of her own to become embroiled with the likes of Epstein should merit at least a passing critical thought. Otherwise it comes uncomfortably close to accepting the idea of Maxwell as a victim herself, with her free will entirely abraded by her early experiences.
There are many people out there with traumatic childhoods who don’t become (apparently) handmaidens to convicted sex offenders (as Epstein has been since 2005, though he cut the deal of deals, which caused outrage even at the time, to avoid proper punishment). What of personal responsibility? What of personal depravity? The desire to explain her away, and in effect excuse her, was a strong and jarring element of the first hour and a half especially of the three.
Nor did the programme question the idea, stated explicitly by Pasternak – on, as ever, more than one occasion – that Maxwell is “worse than Epstein” because she, as a woman, should have known better, done better, simply been better than him. Again, if you’re going to introduce that proposition, you really need to examine it rather than assert and move on.
It might also have been worthwhile to ask how much worse they were together than they might have been separately. Was it a case of two toxic people finding each other and creating a greater hell than they could have individually – a Fred and Rose West or Ian Brady and Myra Hindley, just stopping short of murder? Or do men as rich and powerful as Epstein always eventually manage to find the staff they need?
A three-hour documentary should do more than competently marshal facts (even if, as this one did, it gives decent consideration and screen time to the survivors). It has room to theorise and it should take it, rather than pad the time with the likes of Pasternak (and her assurances that she is “appalled” by Maxwell’s alleged behaviour, as if the rest of us are sitting around thinking of butterflies and marshmallows) and former friends with nothing personal or perceptive to say. | Full |
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/jan/14/philipfrench | Film | 2001-01-14T23:24:35.000Z | Philip French | And your one luxury item is... | From Shakespeare's The Tempest and Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe to William Golding's Lord of the Flies and the 1964 science-fiction movie Robinson Crusoe on Mars, writers have been intrigued by the notion of people cast ashore on desert islands. Audiences share this fascination and every week since Roy Plomley devised Desert Island Discs in 1942 several million listeners have tuned in to hear how various celebrities would cope with loneliness and privation, and what eight gramophone records they'd take with them to ease the pain.
The latest exercise in the Crusoe genre is Cast Away, which reunites Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks, the director and star of Forrest Gump, which was, of course, an updating of another eighteenth-century moral fiction, Voltaire's Candide.
Hanks plays Chuck Noland, a workaholic FedEx systems engineer who spends his time flying around the world trying to make his company's parcel delivery service faster than that of its rivals. We first meet him a couple of blocks from Red Square trying to imbue FedEx's Moscow branch with the Stakhanovite spirit. 'We live or die by the clock,' he tells them.
Back home in Memphis, Tennessee, he has a fiancée, Kelly (Helen Hunt), a research scientist working on her doctorate and, except for a nagging tooth, all seems well with his life. After a pre-Christmas dinner, he promises to be home for New Year and possible nuptials, after he's accompanied a Fed-Ex cargo plane to the Antipodes. Unfortunately, the plane loses radio contact with Tahiti in a storm and in a superbly extended crash sequence that leaves you searching for a seat belt, Chuck is washed up on a small island, the only survivor.
Robinson Crusoe actually had it lucky with a wrecked ship from which to salvage for rifles, gunpowder, tools, clothes, timber and so on. He also had a rather grand island to explore, to map and to colonise. Chuck Noland, whose name suggests someone dumped in no man's land, has wound up on a hard place as inhospitably rocky as the one that provided the briefest of sanctuaries to the eponymous hero of William Golding's brilliant and remorseless Pincher Martin.
Chuck has nothing except for a few random parcels, containing a woman's party dress, a pair of ice-skates, a volleyball, some VHS cassettes and a document annulling a marriage. When the body of his dead pilot is washed up, he keeps the man's boots but can't bring himself to remove the belt. Crusoe managed to retrieve some of the ship's instruments; Chuck has a fine pocket watch, a family heirloom given him by his fiancée, whose photo is in the cover.
The first days on the island are well managed - the discovery of coconuts, the shaping of tools, the hope of imminent rescue, the descent into despair. The film's colour is cold, unromantic, quite unlike the gorgeous Technicolor hues of the 1949 (British) and 1980 (American) versions of The Blue Lagoon, both shot in the same area of the South Seas.
There are neat details here. The retrieved volleyball is given a face painted in blood, named Wilson after its manufacturer, and becomes a cross between a mute companion and a fetishist Cargo Cult object. An ice skate becomes a primitive dental tool for the most painful exercise in sadomasochistic orthodontics since Marathon Man.
Unlike Crusoe, Noland defecates (hiding behind a bush) and urinates boldly into the sea, and it's during a moonlight slash that he spots a distant light which raises rapidly dashed hopes of rescue. Of his sexual yearnings, we hear nothing and, unlike Crusoe, he has little in the way of larger social or spiritual experiences.
There's no frisson like the solitary footstep on the sand. No modern Man Friday appears. In fact, there are no unforgettable images that lodge in the mind like those scenes in Luis Buñuel's Robinson Crusoe, where the hero climbs a hill to shout out the Twenty-third Psalm as a defiant challenge to an indifferent universe, or where Friday innocently puts on a woman's dress and throws Crusoe into a perverse crisis of revulsion and attraction.
Cast Away, in fact, jumps four years from the first terrible weeks to the final period, when Noland has adapted to his new environment, but is preparing to escape on a raft. The big change is not internal (we never discover his religion, his politics or his aesthetic interests other than his love of Elvis Presley) but purely physical.
Tom Hanks spent 18 months getting into condition for the second part of the movie under Dr Paul McAuley, credited as 'Weight Loss Adviser', and the American Humane Society saw to it that in the scenes involving the skewering of crabs and other foodstuffs 'no animal was harmed'.
To reveal that Hanks makes it home is merely to acknowledge that this is a big-budget Hollywood picture, produced by its star, and there is a drawn-out, sentimental coda that more or less re-enacts Tennyson's 'Enoch Arden', that great Victorian poem about a desert-island survivor returning to discover that life has changed and his wife has remarried.
Weirdly, however, this finale turns into a tribute to Noland's employers, and the real-life boss of the organisation, Paul Smith (billed 'As Himself'), turns up to welcome Chuck back to 'the FedEx family'. Unlike FedEx, however, Cast Away finishes up delivering a neatly wrapped, somewhat disappointing package rather slowly. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/05/no-more-monkey-business-thai-lopburi-macaques-to-be-rounded-up-and-put-in-enclosures | World news | 2024-04-05T11:20:32.000Z | Rebecca Ratcliffe | No more monkey business: Thai city’s macaques to be put in enclosures | Mischievous long-tailed macaques are, for many, a symbol of the Thai city of Lopburi. Tourists flock to the city’s ancient temple to feed the macaques fresh fruit and photograph them as they maraud the streets. But, increasingly, residents say they have had enough.
This week, after growing complaints from residents, wildlife officials announced a plan to round up 2,500 of the urban monkeys and place them in large enclosures. It follows an incident in March where a woman’s knee wasdislocated after she was kicked in the back by a monkey that wanted her food. Separately, a man lost control of his motorcycle after a monkey tried to grab a bag of food from him.
“I don’t want humans to have to hurt monkeys, and I don’t want monkeys to have to hurt humans,” Athapol Charoenshunsa, the director general of the department of national parks, wildlife and plant conservation, said at a news conference.
Some people have fed the monkeys for generations and feel they are part of the city’s identity. Others say the macaque population has grown too big and that the animals are damaging to businesses and properties and are endangering people’s health.
“People say that if there are no monkeys, then it is not Lopburi,” one resident, Phairoth, told the Thai broadcaster Channel 3. “I want people who say that to take a monkey into their own house and look after it. Let’s share them, five per house, 10 per house. I’ll help deliver the food to their house as well.”
The monkeys are infamous for ambushing people and businesses in search of snacks. Some food sellers have resorted to carrying slingshots to threaten the animals if they approach. Shops have installed metal grilles and displayed large toy animals – crocodiles or tigers – to deter the intruders. When the Thai prime minister, Srettha Thavisin, visited the city this year, residents tried to hand him a printed frame of an image that had gone viral on social media of a young girl holding a toy gun to warn off monkeys as she walked through the city.
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Athapol said he expected the first phase of the catching operation to start within weeks and that the enclosures would be big enough to contain thousands of monkeys. A small number of macaques would be allowed to remain in the city.
Wildlife authorities began rounding up the most aggressive males last week, catching 37 so far. According to Thai media, four gang leaders are among those that were caught. A fifth monkey, known for stealing underwear and necklaces from a shop, is still free.
Rival troops of monkeys occupy different buildings, including a derelict cinema. Monkeys that were caught would be kept in enclosures for their group, authorities said.
“There are people who like monkeys, while others don’t. I think that, compared to 10 years ago, the population of monkeys has increased significantly,” said resident Job Jirapat, adding that she understood both sides.
The authorities have run sterilisation campaigns, and from 2014-23 neutered about 2,600 macaques.
Female monkeys are able to reproduce twice a year, and the abundance of high-sugar treats given over recent decades has meant they have plenty of energy to do so. Last year, the population totalled 5,709.
“If sterilisation can be carried out consistently, it is a good long-term solution,” said Job. “I have a feeling that the government didn’t take it seriously. It is possible that they were not able to continue because of a lack of funding, which is why the number of monkeys is increasing so quickly. Another thing that we should do is stop feeding monkeys.”
Experts have previously called for greater education about what type of food can be given to monkeys, and how and when they should be fed. The province celebrates an annual “monkey buffet” festival, where the monkeys are given huge feasts of fruit and other treats.
Athapol said the phased roundup of monkeys kwould “solve the problem very quickly” but some people are sceptical. “If the officers only capture a few ones or only the mean ones, then, to be honest, it won’t make any difference,” Panya Phaopahol, a noodle seller, told Channel 7 TV.
Job said that while monkeys may be a symbol of the city, having fewer around would improve people’s quality of life and keep the city cleaner. “And I think Lopburi has more to offer than just monkeys.”
Associated Press contributed to this story | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media-network/2015/nov/26/value-uncertainty-advertising-digital-brands | Media Network | 2015-11-26T14:25:04.000Z | Tracey Follows | The value of uncertainty in advertising | When new technologies and communications services start up, they are invariably more interesting and enjoyable when no one is quite sure how to use them. Twitter was fun when it was a micro-blogging platform for people to test out ideas, start discussions, and ask questions of other people out there. Now it is a platform that can shut down conversation and debate. Everyone using it is so certain they are right that it is in danger of becoming nothing more than a noticeboard for bullies.
The people responsible for that, of course, are the users, the people who make the service what it is. Anything that requires action en masse requires certainty. But certainty suffocates creativity. What a vicious circle we seem to have got ourselves into.
The lost art of the long view in advertising
Tracey Follows
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Nowhere is this more obvious than in advertising and communications. Creative agencies, media agencies and brands require strong leaders with conviction. But in choosing a strongly held belief or presenting a very definitive world view, other alternatives are choked off and experimentation, which may have led to something no one had yet thought of, is curtailed.
Take the pitch process. It is commonplace for a client to set a question, or problem, and for the agency to return with the answer, which is presented back as the “solution to the problem”. In today’s world of possibilities and varying perspectives it seems quaint. Because there could be more than one answer to the question, and there could well be more than one way to interpret the question. But the “problem-solution” set-up assumes that there is one – and only one – correct answer.
At the Guardian Changing Media Summit last year, Gary Bramall of Hailo said: “There is no answer anymore, it’s just a series of iterations and challenges.” It has struck me lately that we have an industry with an analogue “problem-solution” process that is operating in a digital world of continual experimentation; one where there is no right answer, just whatever seems most useful at that time.
In western life, certainty trumps uncertainty. One only has to look at the comfort that religious certainty brings people to understand that. Leaders in business never admit to their disciples that they are uncertain about anything because uncertainty is perceived as weakness. The only time I can remember a business leader admitting they were uncertain of anything was recently, when Dido Harding, TalkTalk’s chief executive, did several days of public appearances on TV admitting she wasn’t sure about the scale of the data breach and did not know whether her customer data was encrypted. Unfortunately, such an admission in the context of a crisis once again reinforced the idea that uncertainty comes from a weak position.
But it can be a strength, when it is a source of creativity. That is one of the things that the digital media and creative businesses have shown the traditional advertising world. Whether it is Google, Facebook, Amazon or Uber, all of these companies are working in a state of perpetual beta. They are not certain about their next product or service, they are not certain about how to communicate it or how it will be received. They might be certain about their long-term vision but everything up until they reach that point is open to change.
Olafur Eliasson, an artist most famed for his Weather Project installation at London’s Tate Modern, which 2 million people saw, said in a recent Wired article the artist should make you feel like “you are co-producing your experience”. He is very interested in public space and works in a collaborative manner. He is also particularly interested in science: “I am very curious to access fields in which I am less knowledgeable and see if the creative muscle can translate into action ... As an artist I think I can co-produce answers.” With such a mentality, one doesn’t really know how things will end up or where they will take you. This is of course the exact opposite to traditional advertising. Through the combination of art and science some of the most creative ideas are emanating from questioning, not answering.
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Recent articles written on the topic of the advertising business have either promoted the emotive virtues of TV over new media, or the effectiveness of online and digital over traditional media, but both arguments miss the point. They are so certain that their world view pertains that they are less open than they should be to new and combined alternatives that perhaps are co-produced by the viewers/users/consumers of these media themselves. It’s the users of media who will decide which bits of the old world and which bits of the new world they like and which are most useful to them. It is these people who will knit together the old and new media in new ways that suit them.
It has not been a supply-led communications market since the 1960s and arguably it has not been a consumer-led market since about 2010. It is now a user-led market. As much as I hate the descriptor “users” and think there is better language to be employed, it is right that they are the co-producers of the media landscape. It is they who will complete the communications process, not the purveyors of the various channels and content themselves, especially when the internet of things converts many things that we now think of as products and services into media, too. In so doing, a media landscape will emerge that we can’t be certain about now: something combinatorial, something emergent; something immersive; something not like either traditional TV or clickable content online. It will be something more creative because people out there will have had a hand in its design.
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https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2008/sep/25/classicalmusicandopera | Music | 2008-09-25T12:40:16.000Z | Tom Service | Saint-Saëns is crowned the jewel in our record collections | An outbreak of musical patriotism over at the Times, on the day the winners of this year's Gramophone awards are announced. In a poll to decide the greatest classical music recording of the last 30 years – based on the Gramophone records of the year over the last three decades – the balance of opinion of more than 6000 voters was that pianist Stephen Hough playing Camille Saint-Saëns was the disc of discs, the Gramophone of Gramophones. It was a relative landslide, too, with Hough's seven-year-old Hyperion recording winning by a couple of thousand votes. The Times itself admits that Hough invited his friends to vote for him - although it's unlikely that Nikolaus Harnoncourt, whose discs of Beethoven's symphonies were also on the list, called on his Times-reading chums to do the same. Nevertheless, who would have thought that Saint-Saëns and Hough would beat Beethoven and Mahler, Harnoncourt and Karajan?
I'm all for a bit of publicity for old Camille though. I used to think his music was largely incidental, both to the narrative of music history, and in its limited, decorative effects. But there's more to him and his music than the Carnival of the Animals: he created a huge output in a life dedicated to the technical craft of musical composition. There's a gigantic variety of genres in his music, from bassoon sonatas to film scores – he was the first major composer to write music for the movies, for Henri Lavedan's 1908 film The Assassination of the Duke of Guise.
The dates of his life give a clue to the breadth of what he accomplished: born eight years after Beethoven died in 1835, Saint-Saëns died in 1921, when Benjamin Britten was an eight-year-old. By the time of his death, he was considered a musical relic, but the deliberate emotional restraint of his best music, its glittering play with the stuff and surface of music, makes him a neo-classicist avant la lettre. There's no more purely musical composer than Saint-Saëns. Even the five piano concertos (all written before the turn of the 20th century) aren't romantic, in a big-boned Germanic sense, but instead are cool, clear and concise, even when evoking the voluptuous delights of the orient, as the Fifth Concerto (The Egyptian) does. So let's hear it for Saint-Saëns: Stephen Hough's victory of victories gives us the chance to celebrate this unique output – and is a reminder that we should hear more of it in the concert hall. After all, what other composer in musical history wrote everything from harmonium duos to operas, symphonies, and film scores, and moonlighted as an orientalist travel writer? | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/jun/16/central-intelligence-review-dwayne-johnson-kevin-hart | Film | 2016-06-16T10:17:11.000Z | Jordan Hoffman | Central Intelligence review – broad, brainless and impossible to dislike | History books are loaded with the names of entertainers who were wildly popular in their day, even if their fame hasn’t exactly stood the test of time. Assuming all the hard drives from our era don’t get degaussed, future generations ought to be able to judge our era’s performers for themselves, something we can’t do so easily with the giants of vaudeville and music hall. But it’s interesting to wonder which mainstream projects of today will slip into the memory hole of tomorrow.
It’s in the category of ephemeral-yet-enjoyable where you’ll find much of the work of wrestler-turned-thespian Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and diminutive comedian Kevin Hart. These are gifted men working in immensely broad strokes, mugging for the cheap seats, giving those of us willing to let our guard down for two hours a much-needed opportunity to let off some steam.
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Central Intelligence, Johnson and Hart’s first pairing – and it’s a natural pairing at that – is an asinine film with a plot so moronic one wonders if it were devised by some sort of computerised algorithm. Yet the result, while instantly forgettable, is a fundamentally pleasurable experience. As with jugglers or tap dancers, recognisable skill can’t be ignored. This buddy action-comedy hits all the usual marks, but does so in something of a populist state of grace. Central Intelligence makes a sly reference to itself as Jason Bourne in jorts, but it’s really more like Xtreme Laurel and Hardy.
Hart’s Calvin Joyner, the antic straight man, peaked in high school. Voted most likely to succeed, he’s now a mid-level accountant and stuck in a rut – no way he’s going to the 20-year reunion. Back in the day, Johnson’s Robert Weirdicht (intentionally mispronounced “weird-dick”) was an obese, awkward kid, ruthlessly bullied by just about everyone other than Joyner. As such, Weirdicht has had an obsession with the affable Joyner, which manifests itself in a Facebook friend request that leads to meeting up for drinks. Having shed hundreds of pounds (and gained it back in muscle) Weirdicht’s Bob Stone (as he calls himself now) is a babe magnet and human killbot, but still maintains his wide-eyed wonder around the once popular kid.
His ass-whoopin’ skills become evident when they bump into bullies, but also when the CIA (led by Amy Ryan, one of many funny supporting players) ends up at Joyner’s front door. Bob Stone is a rogue agent (or something) and must be stopped. He’s got secret nuke codes (I think), has betrayed his former partner and is about to conspire with an international terrorism ring. The plot mechanics are ludicrous and tedious. Exposition dumps are delivered at lightning speed, as director Rawson Marshall Thurber, whose earlier work includes the daffy Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, is well aware that watching tiny Kevin Hart wail and fret as mountainous Dwayne Johnson bashes secret agents in the head is what everyone has signed up for.
Once Central Intelligence hits its stride (and prior to Bob Stone’s appearance the comedy doesn’t quite snap together) the film is impossible to fully dislike. It’s essentially the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Danny DeVito comedy Twins meets the Peter Falk/Alan Arkin CIA spoof The In-Laws. That’s hardly a bad thing, especially with some solid zingers in Ike Barinholtz, David Stassen and Thurber’s script. (I’ll only spoil one, in which Johnson, complimenting Hart’s appearance, says he looks “like a black Will Smith!”) The anti-bullying message mixes with some weird recurring gags, such as Stone’s childhood obsession with the coming-of-age movie Sixteen Candles, letting Johnson tap his natural sweet side to great effect.
Half of the time Central Intelligence feels somewhat progressive but the rug gets pulled with some gay panic and an anti-Asian joke. The script hedges its bets a bit (“That’s racist!”) but it feels strange in a movie about a character still struggling with being taunted as a teen. More disappointing, though, is the inevitable and dispiriting quagmire of action beats that bog down the final act. Only one shootout has any real panache, playing off the visual disconnect between the gargantuan Johnson and minuscule Hart. Every other fight scene – and there are many – feels phoned in.
The best bit in the movie is the stupidest: sunny, caring Johnson is in a cardigan pretending to be a marriage counsellor as weary Hart sputters with rage. It plays as if one of the writers took a nap on set and woke up shouting: “I’ve got a great idea that doesn’t make sense but let’s do it anyway!” It’s just the type of preposterous scenario that would have worked in a stage revue decades ago. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/30/ed-balls-says-blair-and-former-pms-should-not-act-as-political-figureheads | Politics | 2022-05-30T18:32:50.000Z | Rachel Hall | Blair and former PMs should not act as political ‘figureheads’, says Ed Balls | Ed Balls has said former prime ministers such as Tony Blair and David Cameron should not attempt to return as “figureheads for the next phase of politics”.
The former cabinet minister’s comments addressed Blair’s upcoming Future of Britain conference, which is seen as an attempt to reinvigorate centrist politics in the UK by taking inspiration from the success of La République En Marche, the recently created centre-left party that brought Emmanuel Macron to power in France.
Balls warned that the rise of polarised parties that were reluctant to work together made these “dangerous times for politics”, adding that the UK and France were “not in a politically healthy place”, while the US was “deeply divided as well”.
He told an audience at Hay festival: “I’m not sure whether it’s sensible to have people like Gordon Brown or Tony Blair, or David Cameron, Theresa May attempting to be figureheads for the next phase of politics … it may make things harder.”
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Blair told the New Statesman in March that he wanted to advise the next Labour government. Earlier this month, his Tony Blair Institute thinktank produced a report recommending that Labour recapture the centre by rejecting “woke” politics and focusing on the economy.
Balls said he personally would not return to politics. “I think you have to be really careful in life not to go back and try to remake the past. I’m not sure whether going back would be wise for me or wise for anybody else.”
Although he acknowledged that the Tony Blair Institute, which is organising the conference, had “done lots of great policy work”, he questioned whether Macron was the right leader to emulate. “You have to be slightly careful about the Macron comparison. Was he a socialist or was he fundamentally an anti-politics outsider?”
He likened Macron’s decision to set up a party outside France’s political mainstream to a broader trend towards “people who were rebelling against the mainstream party, the established order, the outside trying to rip things up”, exemplified by the former US president Donald Trump, the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the impact of Brexit on the Conservative party.
“[Macron has] won again but where that will leave French politics at the end of his time, who knows,” he said.
Balls said his main takeaway from his political career was that while “debate and disagreement” could be constructive, ultimately the policies that “end up lasting are the things that become consensual, agreed across parties”, citing the NHS and the national minimum wage. “I don’t think we’ve had that for a long time.”
He added: “At the moment we’re in a phase of politics where, partly because parties are in such crisis internally, people get strength and traction from hating the other side and always disagreeing. If I’m honest, Macron was a little bit one of those as well.”
One pressing area where politicians needed to seek cross-party consensus was around a shared vision for the UK’s post-Brexit future, Balls said. He suggested Labour’s circumspection was an attempt to distance itself from the ill-fated campaign for a second referendum, but that the party could push for a “more progressive, internationalist” vision, and should challenge “ridiculous” policy ideas such as returning to imperial measurements.
He noted that the word “politician” had become a shorthand among the public for people who obfuscate and lie, and asked: “If politics becomes a discredited way to be, where does that leave democracy?”
He suggested politicians could change this by being “more open about talking about their lives, their ambitions, their mistakes”.
His final comments elicited titters from the audience: “Having the confidence to say we made a mistake, this is why it happened, we won’t make it again because we’re going to make the following changes, that would be a much better way to do politics … if you look in the last few months, we haven’t had much of that.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2022/mar/16/pervasive-inequality-derailing-black-uk-chemists-careers-report-finds | Education | 2022-03-16T19:06:46.000Z | Richard Adams | ‘Pervasive’ inequality derailing black UK chemists’ careers, report finds | Black and minority ethnic chemists face “pervasive” inequalities that restrict their access to research funding and derail their academic careers, according to a new report by the Royal Society of Chemistry.
The report found that while black students were well represented at undergraduate level, very few were able to develop academic careers, with only one black professor of chemistry of the 575 professors working in UK universities.
Prof Robert Mokaya, of the University of Nottingham, said he was not aware he was the only black professor of chemistry when he was appointed nearly 15 years ago. “It only became clear to me as I didn’t interact with any others,” he said.
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He said for many students, progressing on a career path from postgraduate degree to research fellowship to a first lectureship required support as well as ability. “Unless somebody has got support from the community around them, it can be very difficult – you need references and you need people to talk about your abilities,” he said. “If those who are able to offer that support do not feel inclined to offer it, then it can disadvantage some groups.
“Or some people are not seen as having the potential for that career path and are not given a push. It then becomes very discouraging and difficult to move on.”
The Royal Society of Chemistry’s report, Missing Elements, found that black and minority ethnic chemists were paid less than their white peers, and were less likely to receive research funding at crucial points in their careers.
The society said it would establish a new race and ethnicity unit, with £1.5m funding, to push for systemic change and increased diversity.
“People need to engage with the data and the lived experiences in this report and not assume that it is going to be somebody else’s problem to deal with it. Everybody within the chemistry community and science in general can make a contribution,” said Mokaya, who is a trustee of the society.
MPs on the Commons science and technology committee were told of the “shocking” numbers of research grants going to black academics working in science and technology.
Prof Rachel Oliver, of the University of Cambridge, told the committee that the government’s UK Research and Innovation councils made about 4,000 research grants in 2018-2020, but only 20 went to projects led by black researchers.
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“These are tiny numbers. If I start to try and talk about these numbers in terms of black women, there are so few black women that the numbers are simply not written down because you’d be able to identify the individual,” Oliver said. “The numbers are shocking.”
She said figures showed that women, ethnic minorities and disabled people were less likely to apply for research funding, and less likely to be successful if they did. “And when they do receive funding, the amounts they receive are smaller than the amounts received by their white male counterparts,” she added.
She said small biases accumulated, having a big impact on career progression. “It perhaps isn’t surprising that, across a 40-year career, we end up with a very large number of white male professors and a very small number of black female professors. That’s really at the heart of what we have to tackle.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/aug/13/robin-williams-tweet-hollywood-academy-suicide-genie | Film | 2014-08-13T16:19:00.000Z | Josh Halliday | Robin Williams tweet by Hollywood Academy 'may glorify suicide' | The Hollywood Academy behind the Oscars has been accused of glorifying suicide over a tweet about Robin Williams's death.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences posted a picture from a scene in the film Aladdin, in which Williams plays the genie, along with the caption: "Genie, you're free."
The image had been retweeted 318,000 times by Wednesday morning with some describing it as the iconic social media image of Williams's death.
However, suicide-prevention groups raised fears that the tweet encouraged the idea that suicide was an option – potentially promoting copycat behaviour among vulnerable people.
Ged Flynn, chief executive of the charity Papyrus, which works with young people, said he was particularly concerned that the tweet sent a harmful message to people in need of help: "Sensitive reporting of suicide – ie without detail of method or location – can have a positive outcome. It can help to reduce stigma, thus encouraging young people with suicidal thoughts to seek help. It is proven that comment that shares detail, such as some we have seen or heard in the last few hours relative to the suicide of Robin Williams, can encourage copycat suicides by those who are emotionally vulnerable.
"However, I am particularly concerned that use of the 'Genie, you're free' tweet could be seen as validation for vulnerable young people that suicide is an option. The most important message to be conveyed as a result of this sad death is: if you are feeling suicidal, talk to someone; there is help to see you through dark times."
Christine Moutier, chief medical officer at the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, said: "If it doesn't cross the line, it comes very, very close to it. Suicide should never be presented as an option. That's a formula for potential contagion."
Jane Powell, director of the support group Calm, which focuses on the prevention of male suicide, said the image was deeply unhelpful to young people with thoughts of suicide. "We all want Robin to be in a happier place but it's not a good message for people feeling suicidal, because we want them to stay with us and not go find some starry night escape with genies," she said.
"It's a very emotive, nice, friendly thought – but if you're feeling suicidal you're in huge pain, you would like to be free of that pain, and that is why it's an unhelpful image."
Alarm over the tweet came as the Samaritans condemned some media coverage of Williams's death, which was announced on Monday night after his body was discovered by his personal assistant. On Tuesday, officials confirmed that Williams was found hanged with superficial cuts to his wrists.
On Wednesday, the Samaritans was contacting several newspapers, thought to include the Sun and Daily Mail, to raise concerns about the extent and detail of their coverage. Sophie Borromeo, director of communications at the Samaritans, said: "The media has come a long way over the past few years in terms of sensitively reporting suicide, which is why we are concerned to see that there have been a large number of articles detailing unnecessary information about the nature of Robin Williams's death. We are taking steps to address our concerns.
"Research shows that inappropriate portrayal of suicide in the media can lead to imitative behaviour amongst vulnerable people and this risk is heightened when a celebrity has died in this way. We issued a briefing to the media yesterday reminding them of these risks and specifically asking them to avoid reporting explicit details of the suicide method. We also offered guidance on reporting the death appropriately. For the most part it's positive to see the media has talked about the complexities of suicide and the need to break down the stigma around mental health issues, as well as encouraging people to seek help."
Suicide-prevention groups have privately warned media outlets about their coverage of celebrity suicides, over concerns that the extensive coverage risks encouraging copycat behaviour. Guidelines advise newspapers and broadcasters to avoid explicit details about suicide methods, even warning against disclosing the cause of death.
Williams's daughter, Zelda, 25, spoke of her "immeasurable loss" of her "father and best friend" and their struggle to come to terms with his suicide. "He was always warm, even in his darkest moments," she said. "While I'll never, ever understand how he could be loved so deeply and not find it in his heart to stay, there's minor comfort in knowing our grief and loss, in some small way, is shared with millions."
The Papyrus national helpline, HopeLineUK 0800 068 41 41, provides practical help to young people and those who care for them.
In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In the UK, the Samaritans can be contacted on 08457 90 90 90. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/jan/24/apple-macintosh-ad-super-bowl-1984-21st-century | Opinion | 2024-01-24T11:01:05.000Z | Siva Vaidhyanathan | Forty years ago Apple debuted a computer that changed our world, for good or ill | Siva Vaidhyanathan | On Sunday, 22 January 1984, the Los Angeles Raiders defeated the Washington (then) Redskins 38-9 in Super Bowl XVIII. With the exception of a few aging Raiders’ fans, what we all remember better from that evening 40 years ago was one advertisement that set the tone for a techno-optimism that would dominate the 21st century.
The ad showed an auditorium full of zombie-like figures watching a projection of an elderly leader who resembled the Emperor from 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. A young, athletic woman in red and white (the colors of the flag of Poland, which had been engaging in a massive labor uprising against the Soviet-controlled communist state) twirls a hammer and throws it through the screen framing the leader’s face, just as armored police rush in to try to stop her.
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The ad explicitly invoked George Orwell’s dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Meanwhile, Ronald Reagan, then president, was launching a re-election campaign based on his boldness in facing down the totalitarian Soviet threat while amplifying the risk of global nuclear annihilation.
That month, Apple began selling a personal computer that would change how we think about computing technologies in our lives and would channel many of the ideological changes that set the 21st century in motion. In many ways, the long 21st century began this week 40 years ago.
In addition to rising in fits and starts from a garage-based startup in Cupertino, California, to what is now one of the most valuable companies in the history of the world, Apple changed the way we experience culture and each other. While it’s not the only force to do so, if you look at the other dominant forces that made their mark in 1984 – like Reagan – Apple was part of a massive shift, in how we would come to see and govern ourselves over the next 40 years, and still influences daily life to an extent few could have imagined at that moment.
Before the debut of the Macintosh, Apple was well regarded among computer hobbyists for producing high-quality and innovative desktop computers like the Apple II (1979) that would run programs using a standard operating system of the time, Apple Disc Operating System (which resembled MS-DOS from a then upstart little firm called Microsoft) and could be programmed in languages like Basic.
Although companies like Texas Instruments and Atari had introduced user-friendly computers into the home before the Macintosh, and IBM and Commodore had produced desktop computers for businesses, the Macintosh promised something different.
The Macintosh created a mass market for usable computers that appeared to be more magic than machine. By hiding the boards and cables and presenting a sleekly designed box, the Macintosh set the design standards for what would become a sealed box like the MacBook or – the most influential and profitable of all of Apple’s products – the iPhone, launched in 2007.
The iPhone represents so much of what is attractive and repulsive about life in the 21st century. It’s a device that does nothing other devices and technologies could not do. It just offers them all in a controlled, proprietary environment that masks all the actual technology and the human agency that created it. It might as well have tiny elves in it.
The move to magic through design has blinded us to the real conditions of most people working and living in the world
Billions of people use such a device now, but hardly anyone peeks inside or thinks about the people who mined the metal or assembled the parts in dangerous conditions. We now have cars and appliances designed to feel like an iPhone – all glass, metal, curves and icons. None of them offer any clue that humans built them or maintained them. Everything seems like magic.
This move to magic through design has blinded us to the real conditions of most people working and living in the world. A gated device is similar to a gated community. Beyond that, the sealed boxes, once they included ubiquitous cameras and location devices and were connected through invisible radio signals, operate as a global surveillance system that Soviet dictators could never have dreamed of. We bought into a world of soft control beyond Orwell’s imagination as well.
Gated communities began their rise to popularity in the US during the Reagan era, as they offered the illusion of security against an imagined, but never defined, invading enemy. They also resembled a private state, one with an exclusive membership and strict rules of decorum.
Reagan won a landslide re-election in November 1984. His triumph established an almost unshakeable commitment to market fundamentalism and technological optimism that even his critics and successors like Bill Clinton and Barack Obama largely adopted. Beyond the US, ostensibly leftist 20th-century leaders like Andreas Papandreou of Greece, François Mitterrand of France and Tony Blair of the United Kingdom limited their visions for change to what the growing neoliberal consensus would allow.
By the dawn of this century questioning faith in the techno-optimism imposed by Apple or the neoliberalism ensured by Reagan’s dominance over the world’s political imagination would seem like a fit of grumpiness or crankiness. Who could question the democratizing and liberating potential of computer technology or free markets?
Well, a quarter of the way through this century it’s clear that the only promises kept were those made to Apple’s shareholders and Reagan’s political progeny. Democracy is in tatters around the world. Networked computers drain pleasure and humanity out of relationships, communities and societies. Economies are more stratified than ever. Politics are evacuated of any positive vision of a better future.
We can’t blame Apple or Reagan, of course. They just distilled and leveraged – and sold back to us – what we craved: a simple story of inevitable progress and liberation. Had we heeded the warnings of Orwell’s book rather than Apple’s advertisement we might have learned that simple stories never have happy endings.
Siva Vaidhyanathan is a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia and the author of Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy. He is also a Guardian US columnist | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/29/florence-machine-the-who-alexis-petridis-glastonbury-2015-roundup | Music | 2015-06-29T07:00:10.000Z | Alexis Petridis | Glastonbury 2015 verdict: Florence + the Machine, Kanye West, the Who and more | There are many diverting sights to take in at Glastonbury: everything from Pussy Riot forcing a gun-toting man to wear a rainbow balaclava in the name of politically charged performance art, to the Dalai Lama addressing the stone circle on Sunday morning, traditionally a time when it is largely populated not by seekers of spiritual insight but by people who haven’t been to bed since Thursday, struggling to uncross their eyeballs. But one thing you almost never see is a performer using a torrential downpour of rain to their advantage, which is one of the things that makes Mary J Blige’s Friday afternoon appearance on the Pyramid stage a genuinely remarkable event. She announces that she’s never been to Glastonbury before – handy clarification for anyone who thought they saw the self-styled Queen of Hip-Hop Soul down the front for Ozric Tentacles in 93 – but her performance is dazzlingly slick. Then she plays a startlingly intense version of the title track of her 2001 album No More Drama, crouching on the rain-lashed lip of the stage, as if she’s treating the elements as a special effect, amping up the song’s harrowing, cathartic power. Her voice is incredible, all the more so if you’ve spent the earlier part of the afternoon listening to some pretty wan-sounding alt-rock bands. When it ends, the audience goes so nuts for so long that her band can’t start the next song. Looking out over the field, Blige bursts into tears.
Mary J Blige performs at Glastonbury. Photograph: Redferns via Getty
You can’t accuse Friday’s Pyramid stage bill of lacking eclecticism. Blige is followed by Motörhead, a band whose immutability is part of their appeal. Their sound is like a multistorey car park: grey, hard, wilfully ugly, cast in concrete in 1976. But this evening, Lemmy cuts a surprisingly frail figure onstage, and the band seem somehow sapped of their raw power: it feels tinny and sluggish. A similar problem affects the Libertines, who fill the gap left by Florence + the Machine’s elevation to headline status: their ricketiness is part of their appeal, and their set might well sound great in a smaller venue, but in a vast space like this it seems undernourished and insubstantial.
“We spent our entire stage production budget on making the sun come out,” yells El-P of Run the Jewels, triumphantly, as the duo arrive on the West Holts stage. “Yeah, $82,” deadpans his partner, Killer Mike. It’s true that there isn’t a great deal to Run the Jewels’ live show: just the pair of them and a DJ. But it works, even in front of a huge crowd: the duo are incredibly charismatic onstage. There’s something infectious about their obvious delight at finding the biggest success of their respective careers as middle age approaches and they have an ability to seamlessly switch the mood from wit to fury and back again. At the other extreme, Mark Ronson pulls out all the production stops, and that works too: there’s something faintly overwhelming about his show on the Other stage, which features BMX bikers, double-dutch skippers, his band performing to a recording of the late Amy Winehouse singing Valerie and a plethora of special guests. Boy George sings Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? in a top hat with fake dreadlocks attached to it. For the concluding Uptown Funk, Ronson is joined not just by Mary J Blige, but Grandmaster Flash and George Clinton of Parliament-Funkadelic: it’s a totally joyous performance.
Mark Ronson at Glastonbury. Photograph: Jonathan Hordle/Rex Shutterstock
Also clearly making an effort are substitute headliners Florence + the Machine. Florence Welch doesn’t so much seize the opportunity as grab it by the throat and wrestle it to the ground. She does everything to win over the audience short of offering to pack up their tents for them on Monday morning. She repeatedly ventures into the crowd, much to the consternation of the bouncers. She puts a flower garland on her head, proffered by a fan. She encourages audience members to clamber on their partners’ shoulders. She asks the audience if they want to get high: this being Glastonbury, the answer is a resounding yes. She talks about ley lines. She reminisces about the days when she played in an outlying tea tent at the festival, “but I had a feeling everything was beautiful”. She throws shapes with such abandon that we occasionally seem to be venturing perilously close to the world of interpretive dance. It veers between ridiculous, entertainingly ridiculous, faintly irritating and authentically endearing. The crowd love it, aided by the fact that the main stage at Glastonbury potentiates grandiose gestures and anthemic music: for better or for worse, a headlining set at the festival is no place to start exploring your music’s more arcane subtleties, as Kanye West will subsequently discover. A woman whose music doesn’t really have that many subtleties to explore in the first place, Welch is ideally placed: You Got the Love provokes a mass singalong, and it’s hard to begrudge her her unexpected moment.
Florence Welch on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury. Photograph: Oli Scarff/AFP/Getty Images
Saturday dawns with the beautiful sound of the Unthanks singing folk songs accompanied by an orchestra, but the John Peel stage offers shouting. Slaves are raw-throated and estuary-accented, but their take on punk is more lighthearted than it first appears: indeed, on their more jokey tracks, such as Where’s Your Car Debbie?, the ghost of Splodgenessabounds’ Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps Please lurks improbably around. And then it’s Sleaford Mods, whose approach to the festival offers an intriguing contrast to the standard “we’re-so-grateful-to-be-here-this-is-a-dream-come-true” approach. “The toilets are fucking shit here,” opines Jason Williamson. “Everything’s fucking shit here.” Their set is relentlessly powerful: Williamson is magnetic, Jobseeker and Fizzy’s howls of despair and anger genuinely hit a nerve with the audience. “Got a bit tense that, didn’t it?” he nods after the latter comes to an end. “Got a bit carried away.”
Elsewhere Clean Bandit draw a huge crowd to the Other stage. You can see why Rather Be was a huge hit – it’s got a massive, inescapable hook – and they cover Robin S’s 1993 hit Show Me Love, a record that was audibly hugely influential on the the current wave of vastly successful pop-house, but their brand of dance music still feels devoid of grit, as antiseptic as the hand gel you’re advised to use after visiting one of the lavatories that so upset the guy from Sleaford Mods. Over on the Park stage, meanwhile, Father John Misty is in full flow. It’s not just that singer-songwriter Josh Tillman’s music sounds substantially more aggressive and less obviously indebted to mid-70s LA rock live than on record, although it does. It’s that Tillman himself is a brilliant performer. Besuited and luxuriantly bearded, he manages to exude an aura of sleazy malevolence while hamming it up relentlessly: dropping to the floor, plunging into the crowd, clambering on top of his drummer’s kit to perform the title track of I Love You Honeybear, thrusting his pelvis as he sings the title of When You Are Smiling and Astride Me, examining the selection of festival wristbands on his arm between songs: “This one means I’m underage, ladies.” It’s simultaneously hugely entertaining and slightly discomfiting, an impressive trick to pull off.
Pharrell Williams’s Saturday evening performance on the Pyramid stage offers a rather more straightforward approach. In fact, it’s got a hint of the light-entertainment spectacular about it: he brings on a chorus of children to sing Happy, invites a load of festival-goers to dance behind him – rather shamelessly, the handful of men among them are hastily ushered offstage – and offers a lot of slightly oily patter about the beautiful ladies of England. He cedes the stage to a female dance troupe called the Baes and brings on a woman who stands on her head and walks on her hands. Williams sings She Wants to Move to her inverted form, which looks a bit peculiar, as if he’s addressing the song to her crotch. Elsewhere, he smartly takes the same approach to his live show as Nile Rodgers of Chic, performing not just his solo material, but tracks he has produced or written or guested on, which means the set is almost comically overstuffed with hits: Blurred Lines, Get Lucky, Drop It Like It’s Hot, Hot In Herre.
Pharrell Williams at Glastonbury. Photograph: Tabatha Fireman/Redferns via Getty
It all makes for an intriguing contrast with what follows: while Williams goes out of his way to win over the crowd, Kanye West doesn’t bother. There are no dancers, no grand special effects, no sense of an artist turning on the charm: just West, rapping underneath a vast ceiling of glaring white lights. There’s something admirable about his bloody-minded determination to do everything on his terms, rather than cravenly court the audience’s affections, and the opening burst of songs is genuinely thrilling. The staging is starkly impressive, his performance is forceful, not even a stage invader can blunt Black Skinhead’s edge. But for something that, according to one of West’s few onstage announcements, involved an entire creative team to stage, it’s a weirdly disjointed and uneven show. He cuts big hits short, not least Gold Digger, but extends a performance of Lost in the World, a beatless Auto-Tuned ballad featuring a guest appearance from Justin Vernon of indie folk band Bon Iver: it comes decorated with a monologue about the song’s creation and a lot of camera closeups of West looking pensive and melancholy on the stageside screens. As the intro to Touch the Sky begins, he suddenly stops the song, mutters “that’s not what we rehearsed in the dressing room” and vanishes. He reappears performing the song on the platform of a cherry picker. It would be spectacular stagecraft were it not for the fact that there’s a vast gap before he resurfaces: the stage is black and silent, the show’s momentum is lost. It fitfully sparks again: during All the Lights and Jesus Walks, when he performs a cover of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, despite the fact that the latter demonstrates that without Auto-Tune, West’s singing voice is no great shakes.
As the set ends, he repeatedly informs the audience that they are watching “the greatest living rock star on the planet”. He has a point. If you think that it’s the job of rock stars to be grandiloquent, complex, controversial and occasionally ridiculous figures, so remote from everyday life that they seem almost otherworldly, then it’s hard to think of anyone currently doing a better job. The problem is that tonight’s performance doesn’t back the claim up: it offers flickers of greatness rather than a blaze of glory.
Patti Smith … feel the power. Photograph: Yui Mok/PA
The next day, the lead singer of Fat White Family exposes his genitals on the Park stage, Lionel Richie draws what looks suspiciously like the biggest crowd of the festival and spends virtually his entire show wearing a cartoonish OMG expression at their vociferous reaction: they even love it when he plays a version of USA For Africa’s We Are The World. Patti Smith brings the Dalai Lama onto the Pyramid stage in the middle of an astonishing, incendiary set: she ends with a cover of the Who’s My Generation, tearing the strings off her guitar as it shrieks and howls. She even manages to make falling over seem cool. “I fell on my ass at Glastonbury because I’m an ANIMAL!” she growls by way of explanation.
“What a night you’ve got,” says Paul Weller gruffly, not, one suspects, a man who’s ever been much given to spending his weekends trudging through mud with glitter on his face carrying a flag that says PAUL AND SPUD’S BARMY ARMY. “Not just us but the Who as well.” The audience roar: there are people here in FUCK KANYE T-shirts, a lot of blokes with Liam Gallagher hair. But these days, at least, Weller is nowhere near as musically conservative as some of his fans. The hits understandably get the biggest response – Changing Man, You Do Something To Me, That’s Entertainment, a slightly trudgy version of Start!, a sparkier take on A Town Called Malice that concludes the set – but the most intriguing stuff he plays is off his most recent album, Saturn’s Pattern: if it’s less fragmented and strange than its predecessor, Sonik Kicks, there’s still something exploratory and off-kilter about the piano-powered title track, and the dense, ominous psychedelia of opener White Sky.
Their generation: Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend of the Who. Photograph: Samir Hussein/Redferns via Getty Images
The Who, claims Pete Townshend – even more gruffly than Paul Weller – have “an easy job”: “we ’ave to send you ’ome ’appy.” They do this by rolling out the hits in quick succession: Who Are You, The Seeker, Pictures of Lily, Behind Blue Eyes. My Generation now comes with an odd, slow little coda in place of the old explosive, Keith Moon-fuelled ending that’s presumably there to circumvent the inevitable question of what a 71-year-old man is doing singing the line about hoping he dies before he gets old: “My generation, we’re still here today.” From a projection at the back of the stage, the young Moon stares down, doe-eyed.
Daltrey can still swing a microphone around with considerable panache, but his voice is rougher than it was. Even so, it still has a powerful belligerence about it that matches the sound of Townshend’s guitar and brings out the distrust and paranoia at the heart of I Can See For Miles. The guitarist seems a bit underwhelmed by the set. “It could have been better,” he says, before a version of Won’t Get Fooled Again that sounds great. The band didn’t get to soundcheck, he complains, although frankly no one would have known if he hadn’t mentioned it. And then he raises an amused eyebrow at Kanye West’s line about being the greatest rock star on the planet.
Still, the next morning, it’s still the only thing that people at Glastonbury are talking about. West appears to have succeeded in making the biggest music festival in Europe all about him, which is an achievement in itself.
This piece was amended on 2 July. The original version incorrectly stated that Lionel Richie neglected to play his track Easy. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/aug/28/tories-accused-of-trumpeting-discipline-instead-of-investing-in-schools | Education | 2019-08-28T06:22:12.000Z | Kevin Rawlinson | Tories accused of trumpeting discipline instead of investing in schools | Ministers have been accused of trying to act tough over proposed education reforms that would emphasise excluding unruly children from schools and using “reasonable force” against them.
The plans are outlined in leaked documents seen by the Guardian that also set out government plans to announce within days billions of pounds in new funding and a further wave of free schools.
“We know the role that school exclusions have played in the rise of knife crime, but once again the Tories are trying to sound tough whilst failing to look at the evidence,” said the Liberal Democrat education spokeswoman, Layla Moran.
“The Conservative government would rather kick kids out of school and advocate the use of the ambiguously termed ‘reasonable force’ as discipline, which will cause parents, children and teachers additional stress, rather than actually putting the time and investment in to ensure all children receive a good education and have a positive experience within our schools.”
Richard Crellin, the policy manager at the Children’s Society, said the charity was deeply concerned at any policy that made exclusions easier. “We know that excluded pupils can be targeted by criminal gangs and exclusion is often linked to unmet mental health needs.”
The documents also include plans for a £3.5bn funding announcement and proposals to increase teachers’ basic pay. While the measures will be broadly welcomed, some observers will want to know how much of the money is new. The documents also suggest that No 10 wants to cut the number of teaching assistants.
The shadow education secretary, Angela Rayner, said: “Time after time, Boris Johnson has backed Tory cuts to school budgets that created the crisis in our classrooms, while slashing taxes for the richest. Johnson shows no sign of taking the action needed to undo that damage, and isn’t even proposing to reverse the Conservatives’ cuts to schools since 2010.
“It is concerning that this leaked document shows senior Tories casting doubt on the value of teaching assistants and suggesting that more cuts are on the way, despite the vital work they do, such as supporting children with special education needs.
“The next Labour government will fully reverse Tory cuts to our schools, increasing per pupil funding in real terms and offering a real terms pay rise to both teachers and support staff.”
Moran largely agreed, saying: “Schools will await this announcement with a mixture of expectation and dread. They had already been promised more funding in the final days of Theresa May’s premiership, only to see the money disappear in a puff of smoke. This time, Boris Johnson must put his money where his mouth is.
“Headteachers will be desperate to know what this means for frontline budgets meanwhile, the Conservatives’ ideological obsession with academies will continue. Schools will waste thousands of pounds being forced against their will to convert to a new structure that will do nothing to improve pupils’ life chances.”
The Labour MP, Bill Esterson, tweeted:
There really are no depths to which Boris Johnson's Tories won't sink. Their own officials warn that their new education plans will see more kids being maimed and killed. But they are going ahead anyway just to look good on the front of the Daily Mail. Despicable. https://t.co/mp5GXP5Ng7
— Bill Esterson (@Bill_Esterson) August 27, 2019 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/02/sophie-ellis-bextor-make-a-scene-review | Music | 2011-06-02T21:40:00.000Z | Caroline Sullivan | Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Make a Scene – review | Now that Sophie Ellis-Bextor has her own label, she's doing what she damn well pleases with her first album in four years, such as releasing it first in Russia. But in terms of musical direction, she's a follower: Make a Scene's apparent aim is to establish the plummy disco singer as the rich man's Kylie Minogue. She delves into the same seam of busy electropop that informed Kylie's last two albums, and at times the only difference is Ellis-Bextor's regal diction, which has the effect of making her sound mightily bored. There are some wonderful bits: the urgent, reverb-accented Heartbreak (Make Me a Dancer); the sole ballad, Cut Straight to the Heart, co-written and produced by the reliably gloomy Ed Harcourt, who has stripped Ellis-Bextor of her froideur here and made her sing from the gut. But the bulk of the record is shopping-mall pop that was probably expensive to make, but sounds depressingly cheap. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/02/volvo-seeks-volunteers-for-self-driving-car-trial-in-west-london-public-roads | Business | 2017-02-02T07:22:32.000Z | Julia Kollewe | Volvo to seek volunteers for self-driving car trial in UK | Volvo is looking for drivers who commute into west London to take part in its self-driving cars trial, the largest conducted by the the automobile industry.
The Swedish carmaker said it was aiming to make operating self-driving cars as easy as using a smartphone.
The Drive Me trial in London will initially see engineers behind the wheel of Volvo’s self-driving XC90 in coming weeks, with the carmaker planning to start selling the vehicle in 2020/21. The 4x4 cars have already taken to public roads in test in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Speaking before a conference on insuring autonomous cars in London on Thursday, Anders Eugensson of Volvo told the Guardian: “They [the engineers] will not read the newspaper; they will sit there ready to grab the wheel. We need to work on it [the technology] more before we can hand the cars to the public.”
Volvo is also using databases of car crashes going back decades to run a variety of simulations to make the cars safer. It will then start recruiting up to 100 commuters for the London trial to try out its semi-autonomous vehicles from the summer of 2018.
Eugensson said Volvo was looking for professionals of different age groups – people who regularly commute to or from west London via the M40, M4, M25 or A4.
“We focus on people who are normally frustrated when they drive to work in the morning. We really want people who say: ‘I think it’s going to be useful for me to be able to use this time.’”
The cars will drive themselves on motorways and dual carriageways, giving commuters a chance to “take the laptop and prepare for your meeting that morning, read the newspaper or update your Facebook”, Eugensson added. However, drivers will take over as soon as they get into London, with the vehicle signalling well before that the driver needs to take control.
The carmaker does not anticipate that drivers will need additional training or driving tests.“Our aim is to make it almost like using your smartphone,” Eugensson said.
The Hain family are among those who will test the self-driving XC90 in Gothenburg. Photograph: Volvo
The London trial is running in parallel with the one in Gothenburg, where Volvo has set up a website so people can register their interest. The Hain family are among those taking part in the Swedish trial. Eugensson said the carmaker would follow a similar approach in London.
Volvo is yet to decide whether to use unmarked cars in London, possibly with special licence plates to alert police to their semi-autonomous status. In Gothenburg, the vehicles are marked with bold blue stripes and the Drive Me name.
“We got a mixed reaction from other road users: some tried to damage the car and push it off the road,” Eugensson said.
The idea behind the trials, which are also planned for China and probably the US, is to find out how other road users react and whether motorists find self-driving cars safe and useful. A firewall will be installed between the vehicle’s different systems in an effort to ensure that steering, braking and acceleration cannot be hacked.
The trial will examine how other road users react and whether drivers find self-drive safe and useful. Photograph: Volvo
US government research predicts that driverless vehicles will lead to an 80% decline in the number of car crashes by 2035. Eugensson reckons it will be 30-40 years until fully autonomous cars are in everyday use.
The Volvo cars use a combination of cameras, radar transmitters, sensors, laser scanners, 3D maps and GPS. A trifocal camera at the top of the windscreen spots pedestrians and other obstacles that appear suddenly.
Aside from safety, insurance is the other big challenge. Experts are predicting a shift from a fault-based, or tort liability, system – in which companies pay according to each party’s degree of fault – to a product liability system. Data recorders (“black boxes”) will help establish whether the vehicle technology or the driver is to blame in the event of an accident. Insurance premiums are expected to drop, with young male drivers, who currently pay the highest premiums, likely to benefit most.
Eugensson said: “There needs to be a quick [claims] process for the customer ... If the car was clearly at fault, the insurance company can pay the customer and we speak to the insurance company” and cover the damage.
Jaguar Land Rover and Ford are also undertaking trials in the UK, but the Volvo pilot is the largest one on public roads. Self-driving pods and shuttles have been tested on pavements in Greenwich, Milton Keynes and Coventry, with the technology developed by Oxbotica, a spin-out from the University of Oxford.
Volvo’s self-driving cars will come with a hefty price tag, Eugensson said, although it is set to drop once they become more common. Last year, its chief executive, Håkan Samuelsson, told the Guardian that Volvo hoped that one in four owners of premium cars would buy a self-driving vehicle. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jul/12/the-death-of-louis-xiv-review-albert-serra-jean-pierre-leaud | Film | 2017-07-12T15:00:27.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | The Death of Louis XIV review – a quietly amazing portrait of the end of life | This quietly amazing film is conceived in terms of pure minimalist intimacy. Some might feel that it should be a stage play, and there is something Beckettian in it, a Happy Days for one lead character. But that would be to misread its eerie, closeup effects on faces. The candlelit sombreness makes it painterly, or more like a tableau vivant.
In what seems like real time, the film takes its audience through a historical event, the death of Louis XIV, placing us by the royal deathbed in the days and hours before he died in 1715 of a blood clot. Frowningly solicitous courtiers come and go. Murmuring physicians suppress their obvious terror of being blamed. Ladies-in-waiting simperingly attempt to keep His Majesty’s spirits up and greet his pathetic attempts at gallantry and good humour the way they might an infant doing his toilet training. And the king slowly dies.
At 73, Jean-Pierre Léaud gives what could be the performance of his career as Louis XIV. It is inspired casting. The director Albert Serra might have considered bringing Alain Delon out of retirement for the role, or even Jean-Paul Belmondo. But that somehow would not have been as powerful or as poignant. As the young lion and icon of the French New Wave, Léaud became part of the history of cinema. His face as a boy became lasered on audiences’ minds in the final freeze frame of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows. Now that face, in old age, is gradually immobilised by fictional death. Cinema promoted him from the streets to the aristocracy of French culture. The next evolutionary stage is monarchy.
Movingly, and often terrifyingly, Léaud gives a superb approximation of what the slow approach of mortality looks like: the retreat into fatigue, into a strange combination of fear and calm, into mysterious stillness. The gradual leaking of life looks like the disappearance of moisture from wet sand in the sun. I can’t think of any actor who has over the space of a feature film given such a brilliant portrayal of the protracted moment of death.
We see him first outside in the gardens of Versailles, and then, feeling unwell and tired, he comes inside and takes to his bed. There is a subtle, but heartstopping moment in this opening sequence, when Léaud’s king appears to gasp or gape, his mouth flapping briefly open and shut. He looks like an injured baby bird; it is a sign of his body beginning to break down, succumbing to trauma.
In denial … his attendants keep up the fiction that His Majesty is merely indisposed
Inside, his attendants are keeping up the fiction that His Majesty is merely indisposed, although naturally they are greatly concerned. The king looks like a bizarre figure on the bed, hugely plump in the midsection, like an angler’s float, but always sporting his royal peruke, a surreally large helmet of false hair rising as if in two big horns: he is a public figure, always on view. At no moment can he withdraw into privacy.
The ladies applaud his attempt to flourish a hat in greeting, and his heroism in eating an egg for dinner. His attendants discuss affairs of state with him. With studied worldliness, they gossip about the desirability of various noble ladies, for all the world as if the king could act on any notional lechery.
They are in denial. And anyone who has been with a dying person knows what this is like. The physicians dare not voice a regicidally disloyal conviction that the king is facing the end. But the denial gradually lifts, and it is impossible to tell at what point hope turns into fear, and then into a new certainty. There are endless little ministrations to make the dying man comfortable – futile and yet profoundly important. In their desperation, the doctors even indulge a useless quack remedy from a charlatan, but its failure is not the occasion of bitterness.
The simplicity and clarity of the death itself is moving: the performance is almost like a reverse of the Marat/Sade. There is no grandstanding, no grandiloquence, even when Louis addresses his uncomprehending five-year-old great-grandson and heir on how to rule France. And the death itself is almost immediately followed by an anatomy, beginning with the intestines.
Dying of old age should be the most commonplace thing. This film reveals it to be an extraordinary, eerie spectacle, waiting for all of us. It is Jean-Pierre Léaud’s finest hour.
This article was amended on 14 July 2017. An earlier version said Louis XIV’s heir was his grandson. This has been changed to say great-grandson. A further amendment was made on 16 August 2017 to remove an incorrect reference to discussions about the Duke of York, England’s future James II. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/jul/05/media-should-rethink-coverage-in-wake-of-brexit-vote-says-justin-webb | Television & radio | 2016-07-04T23:01:01.000Z | John Plunkett | Media should rethink coverage in wake of Brexit vote, says Justin Webb | BBC presenter Justin Webb has said the media needs to look again at how it covers politics and the way it holds people to account in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union.
Webb, one of the BBC Radio 4 Today team, spoke out after Oscar-winning film producer Lord Puttnam criticised the BBC’s coverage of the European debate as constipated and effectively hamstrung by its own strict rules on impartiality.
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Webb said some people who campaigned to remain in the EU had felt let down by the media’s coverage of the debate before the the historic poll result on 23 June. “A discussion about holding people to account, a discussion about impartiality in the modern era, is one I suspect the broadcasters would rather welcome, if only to sort out their own thinking,” the BBC’s former North America editor, wrote in the Radio Times.
“And it should not be a discussion left to newsrooms and editorial offices and university journalism departments: it really should matter to us all.
“One of the clearest messages during the referendum campaign was that audiences were hungry for real knowledge. People wanted to go beyond claim and counter-claim so that they could work out what was true.”
The aftermath of the vote has been marked by leading leave campaigners backtracking on claims made before the vote, such as the pledge by Vote Leave to spend £350m “sent to the EU every week” on the NHS.
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Webb wrote: “Some of those on the losing side think they were let down. The Oscar-winning film producer Lord Puttnam is among those who wonder if impartiality rules torpedoed the search for truth: he accused the BBC in particular of providing ‘constipated’ coverage.
“The impartiality question is a reasonable one to raise – and it is one the BBC has grappled with on subjects such as climate change, where most scientists are on one side of the argument but some very feisty campaigners think they’re wrong. But the question has to be part of a wider debate.”
EU referendum: how Britain voted for Brexit – video Guardian
Puttnam, the former deputy chairman of Channel 4, said last week that media as a whole had failed to tackle the “Monty Pythonesque vision of Europe” which he said had been allowed to go unchallenged for the last 30 or 40 years.
Puttnam himself had been one of the driving forces to change the way the BBC reports on climate change.
The BBC’s former director general Greg Dyke echoed Puttnam’s thoughts at the launch last week of a report into the future of public service broadcasting. “I understand exactly why they ended up reporting it the way they did, because there’s people with stop watches and all the rest of it, but the result I thought … was a little bit dull to be honest,” said Dyke.
Webb said: “We tend to regard campaigning as promising policies or aspirations that can be tested against the facts of the real world. A combination of forensic interviewing and zealous fact-checking strips away the nonsense and allows the public to make a balanced choice.
“Seriously? In the modern world, this is not necessarily what happens. It is a truism to say we’re post-ideological: we don’t vote tribally for ‘the workers’ or ‘toffs’, based on a love for socialism or capitalism. It is equally cliched to talk of post-factual debate, where no one accepts the version of reality presented by anyone but their own side,” he wrote.
“Our real problem might be that we are entering, as the Americans seem to have entered, an era of identity politics where the politicians, the campaigners, are seeking by a process of nods and winks to let you know: ‘Hey, this is where you belong. Your people are here.’” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/24/from-the-great-escape-to-benny-hill-afl-on-the-run-in-madcap-bid-to-see-out-season | Sport | 2021-07-24T01:17:07.000Z | Geoff Lemon | From The Great Escape to Benny Hill: AFL on the run in madcap bid to see out season | Geoff Lemon | The shortened AFL season of 2020 could have been set to the tune of The Great Escape. Teams spent months Steve McQueening over fences in the nick of time as one border opened while another closed, with each state shifting restrictions about who could enter, where they could go next, and what they could do in the interim.
In time Queensland emerged as the Switzerland of the picture, a distant vision to besieged communities of the rolling pastures of freedom. Back at AFL headquarters, trying to schedule 18 teams across five states to meet once apiece over those months must have been like one of those Chinese tile puzzles, each move threatening a cascade of potential problems even as it created openings in the tortuous march to completion.
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By this year, though, any novelty to a schedule that changes by the day has shrivelled away like the sun-blasted leavings of lamb-marking season. In 2021, the Great Escape’s trumpets have morphed into the saxophones of Benny Hill. As virus situations mutate, squads and staff race across the country, bumping into one another, rushing in through one doorway just as another team leaves through the other.
In recent weeks the Lions flew from Brisbane to Melbourne before being turned around and sent home again. In a move that now sounds unfathomable, the Western Bulldogs fled a lockdown in Melbourne for the safety of Sydney en route to Perth. The Adelaide teams spent a day pinballing between homes and the airport as a trip to locked down Melbourne became a trip to Brisbane, then an all-Adelaide Showdown, before South Australia announced a lockdown that sent them to Melbourne after all. Then we have the increasing list of players knocked out of games by contact-traced exposure sites because they went cross-code to watch some rugby or chose the wrong time to visit their local cafe.
For the people performing this routine, it must by now have sunk plenty of them into lethargy. How often have you heard of a situation like last weekend, when a professional game had its start time delayed because one team was stuck in traffic? After a sudden switch of states, we were told that Richmond’s bus was hemmed in on the freeway to the Gold Coast. You could equally imagine Jack Riewoldt in his unexpected hotel room, one lamp tipped over on its side, texting the Brisbane Lions “No worries :) We’re on the way!!” when in fact he’d been sitting in a damp towel staring at the wall for 50 minutes.
This weekend, some things look normal: there will be hometown matches at the MCG, two Queensland teams playing each other in Brisbane, West Coast hosting a match in Perth, and Geelong being forced to play home games in Melbourne instead of Geelong. But there will also be two Adelaide teams hosting games at Melbourne’s Docklands, while Sydney teams form an unlikely grouping with Fremantle and Essendon on the Gold Coast. Increasingly, as instituted last year, the spiritual home of Australian rules football is now the other MCG – the Metricon Carrara Ground.
Which is well and good until next weekend, with four rounds of the season notionally to play, three red-zone states closed off to the rest of the country, and half the league’s teams on the wrong side of travel restrictions. Perhaps making sure that everyone played everyone in the first 17 rounds would have been the smart play for the AFL. Perhaps the tactic will be to gradually draw each team back to Victoria and bunker down to finish the season from there, with the hope that the promising local viral trajectory will hold.
Eddie McGuire labels former club Collingwood an AFL ‘laughing stock’
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But as we’ve all learned, any level of planning these days can be overturned. The New South Wales outbreak is frothing at the edge of the pot. Self-appointed representatives of Melbourne and Sydney bicker over who wore it better. After months of mangling the message about getting vaccines into people, federal authorities are just now realising that it would have been quite handy to have got vaccines into people. Now politicians are asking why they can’t shift a vaccine that works well but that they’re still formally advising people not to take. To co-opt the writer Scott Benson: “This is closing the barn door after the horse has bolted and then come back and sired several other horses that also left and came and there was a whole horse town and now there’s horses everywhere and they’re bad, bad horses.”
For those of us watching along, the show going on has been welcome. Football hasn’t saved Australia, but it has been reassuring over the past two winters to be able to hit the remote on a bleak night and find a game being played somewhere, by somebody. Whether it’s North Melbourne and Fremantle coming live from TIO Stadium in Darwin hasn’t much mattered. But when it comes to the performers in the show, the AFL should be thankful that the end of the season is in sight. This year’s comedy routine would really not be funny anymore. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/jan/27/vegan-recipe-beans-greens-tomato-cashew-pesto-butter-beans-and-greens-meera-sodha | Food | 2024-01-27T12:00:36.000Z | Meera Sodha | Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe for beans and greens with tomato and cashew pesto | The new vegan | Although the law of diminishing returns should dictate otherwise, no matter how much pesto I eat, I can never get enough. Potentially, this is due to its ability to shapeshift and move between herbs and nuts. You can make a great pesto with basil, rocket, coriander or wild garlic, and with walnuts, almonds and even peanuts. Here, I’ve made one using cashews and sun-dried tomatoes alongside basil leaves and nutritional yeast (in place of the traditional parmesan). The butter beans, chard and leeks are merely vehicles, to aid my general pesto intake.
Beans and greens with tomato and cashew pesto
Prep 10 min
Cook 30 min
Serves 4
130g sun-dried tomatoes (drained weight)
50g cashew nuts
40g fresh basil, leaves and tender stems
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 tbsp nutritional yeast
Extra-virgin olive oil
Finely grated zest and juice of 1 lemon
Salt
2 leeks (200g), trimmed and cut into ½cm-thick coins
2 x 400g tins butter beans, not drained
200g rainbow chard, shredded into 1cm-wide strips
1 fresh long red chilli, stalk discarded, flesh finely diced
Warm crusty bread, to serve
Put the first five ingredients in a small blender with five tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, the lemon zest, three tablespoons of lemon juice and a teaspoon and a half of salt, then blitz until very finely chopped.
Put two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil in a large frying pan for which you have a lid, and set it on a medium heat. Once the oil is hot, add the leeks, and cook, stirring occasionally, for eight minutes, until softened. Add the beans and their can liquid to the pan, then simmer for 10 minutes, until the liquid reduces and the beans soften.
Stir in the chard and the sun-dried tomato pesto, cover and leave to cook for 10 minutes, until the chard stalks are tender. Stir in the chopped chilli.
Spoon the beans into shallow bowls, drizzle over more extra-virgin olive oil and serve with warm crusty bread for mopping up. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/call-my-agent-the-french-tv-hit-that-viewers-and-actors-adore | Television & radio | 2021-01-15T21:10:51.000Z | Jon Henley | Call My Agent: the French TV hit that viewers and actors adore | Fast approaching 50 and fed up after two exhausting decades at Artmedia, the top talent agency in Paris, Dominique Besnehard decided, one day in 2005, that he would quite like to turn his hand to producing something of his own.
“At the time,” Besnehard told Le Monde, “Desperate Housewives was all over the telly, a huge success. I just thought, with a couple of colleagues, we could maybe make a series a bit like that, but about the job we do for a living.”
Call My Agent, whose fourth series starts on Netflix this week, is now a huge hit – and has, along with Spiral and The Bureau, two other acclaimed series, fully and perhaps finally disproved the dictum that France is as bad at TV drama as it is good at cinema.
“France is really benefiting from a global trend in TV series towards strong, original, local stories, anchored in their territory and free of American and British norms,” said Laurence Herszberg, director of the international Series Mania festival.
Camille Cottin with Jean Reno in series 4 of Call My Agent. Photograph: Christophe Brachet/Christophe BRACHET - FTV/MONVOISIN PROD/MOTHER PROD
The show, she said, was so big because it was “set in a milieu we don’t know well but would like to; because the agents are sympathetic and passionate and people like them even more than the guest stars; because it’s very French – it’s in Paris, it has office love affairs … And because it’s on Netflix.”
Call My Agent, whose French title is Dix pour Cent (for the 10% fee French agents charge actors), draws between 3 and 4 million viewers on public broadcaster France 2 and is available around the world on the streaming service.
Successful remakes are now airing in French-speaking Canada and Turkey, with more in development in India, China, Vietnam and the UK, where the series will be produced by the team behind the popular BBC mockumentaries 2012 and W1A.
Versions are also being negotiated from Germany and Italy to South Korea, according to France 2. “It is,” Thibault de Montalembert, one of the French show’s stars, said recently, “one of those rare French series that foreigners love.”
Call My Agent's Camille Cottin: 'Don’t we need culture more than we need shopping?'
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It is not hard to see why. The premise is simple but fertile: a talent agency in Paris, ASK, coping with the imaginary caprices of an impressive coterie of A-listers, who each play a believable version of themselves, mostly for just one episode.
Jean Dujardin, best known for 2011 silent movie The Artist, appeared in the show to be hysterically unable to shake off his previous role as a survivalist army deserter, while Juliette Binoche went catastrophically off piste at the Cannes film festival.
Isabelle Huppert was seen as a workaholic shooting two films at once, while Monica Bellucci was dying for a date with anyone who wasn’t famous. In the new series, Charlotte Gainsbourg is stuck with an unwanted part and Sandrine Kiberlain gives everything up to try standup.
Sigourney Weaver (right) with Fanny Sidney in series 4 of Call My Agent. Photograph: Christophe Brachet/Christophe BRACHET - FTV/MONVOISIN PROD/MOTHER PROD
Series four also features Dix pour Cent’s biggest non-French star to date, Sigourney Weaver, who told Variety last year that she had said yes to the show “without even reading the script – the first and last time I’ve done that in my life.”
Weaver described the show as “a love letter to the business” that “goes behind the scenes to show the problems of actors in dealing with different directors and mood scenes. It has a lot of affection for the business, and for the job of being an agent.”
Dix pour Cent has, at any rate, catapulted its regular performers – ASK’s engaging, and endlessly inventive, agents and their assistants – to domestic stardom. From careers in regional theatre and art movies, several have since starred in considerably bigger-budget, and bigger audience, French films.
Camille Cottin, the series’ standout star, will be seen co-starring with Matt Damon in Tom McCarthy’s Stillwater later this year, and is about to start shooting Ridley Scott’s biopic Gucci, featuring Adam Driver as Maurizio Gucci and Lady Gaga his ex-wife.
Cottin also starred in Mouche, a not particularly successful adaptation of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag: by the time the French series had been made, the original had already aired on French TV, with subtitles.
While series four has been billed as the show’s last, its unexpected transatlantic success – Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Aniston are both on record as saying they love it, while Besnehard has said “quite a few” Hollywood names have called him personally to offer their services – means it probably won’t be.
“There will certainly be a film, in any case,” the producer told Europe 1 radio recently. “And France Télévisions have said they are keen for some kind of fifth series. We’re thinking about it. We may even try to make it in the States.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/nov/04/the-shining-stanley-kubrick-review | Film | 2012-11-04T00:05:24.000Z | Killian Fox | The Shining – review | Stanley Kubrick's only foray into the horror genre was met with a curiously muted response when it was released in 1980. Its slow pace left many viewers cold, as did the nudge-wink craziness of Jack Nicholson as the author who agrees to take care of an isolated hotel – and later, in the worst possible sense, of his own family – during a long Colorado winter. But the film's power, like that of its setting, seems to have grown on audiences over the years, and three decades on it still exerts a fearsome grip.
It's all in the build-up: Kubrick sets the scene for the horror with meticulous care. By the time things start to go wrong, we feel dreadfully intimate with the sprawling Overlook hotel and the menace hidden along its carpeted corridors and in its luridly coloured bedrooms and bathrooms.
This version, newly transferred to digital and screening for the first time in UK cinemas (though we've seen it before on TV), is the extended US cut, longer by 24 minutes. More is shown of the Torrance family's life prior to their arrival, and not all of it is necessary (Kubrick himself apparently favoured the shorter version). One early scene makes explicit what Nicholson's character only hints at later on, when he tells the hotel barman Lloyd that he did once hurt his son but it was an accident, completely unintentional, could've happened to anybody. Past transgressions don't need to be spelled out to clarify that Jack is not a model parent. But the longer running time does increase the sense, both terrible and exhilarating, of being trapped in Kubrick's magnificent, malevolent nightmare, never to escape. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/23/funky-chaucer-reboot-patience-agbabi-canterbury-tales | Books | 2014-01-23T13:27:21.000Z | Alison Flood | Funky Chaucer reboot by Patience Agbabi due for April launch | This April, when the "shoures soote" immortalised by Geoffrey Chaucer in the 14th century see off the "droghte" of March once more, the award-winning poet and performer Patience Agbabi is set to release a "21-century remix" of the medieval poet's most famous work, The Canterbury Tales.
Agbabi's Telling Tales retells each of Chaucer's pilgrims' stories, with the author dreaming up new takes on the characters, from a ladette Miller to a hoodie Canon's Yeoman, rapping Parson and self-help guru Pardoner. Out in April, from publisher Canongate, it is already drawing rapturous praise from the likes of Simon Armitage, Andrew Motion and George Szirtes, who called the book "brilliant" and "virtuosic", adding that if it was not in the running for a major prize this year "it will be proof the world has grown very dull indeed".
Helen Cooper, professor of medieval and renaissance poetry at Cambridge University, said that "Chaucer would have been proud of what he has inspired" .
"Tabard Inn to Canterb'ry Cathedral, / Poet pilgrims competing for free picks, / Chaucer Tales, track by track, it's the remix / From below-the-belt base to the topnotch," writes Agbabi.
"I won't stop all the clocks with a stopwatch / when the tales overrun, run offensive, / or run clean out of steam, they're authentic / and we're keeping it real, reminisce this: / Chaucer Tales were an unfinished business."
Agbabi, whose debut poetry collection R.A.W. won her the 1997 Excelle Literary Award, is known for both her written poetry and her performance work. "Give me a stage and I'll cut form on it / give me a page and I'll perform on it," she writes, in her poem The Word. Her second poetry collection, Transformatrix, saw her create a Nigerian Wife of Bath who "went down a storm in performance", she said, and when she was made Canterbury festival's laureate in 2010 she "saw this as a sign to do more tales".
She was, initially, a little intimidated to take on Chaucer. "I had no problem with the Middle English. I love Middle English. I'm no expert but I like the fact that it's so near and yet so far from contemporary English," she said. "Taking on the grandfather of English literature was the issue. The first six months were hell. I was too reverent, scared to put a foot out of line. But then a year into the project I got a second wind and let creativity take over. Whenever I got stuck I reread the original text and imagined Chaucer winking at me, saying, go girl."
Agbabi's editor at Canongate, Francis Bickmore, said the author's background as a performance poet as well as a "page" poet meant she was "ideally placed to write work that, like the Canterbury tales, works as well read aloud as it does on the read to oneself".
"It's easy to forget that the Canterbury Tales were some of the most wild, rude, funny, heartbreaking stories of human behaviour and misbehaviour ever written," said Bickmore. "Patience catapults the characters into modern multicultural Britain, with joyous effect. Formally daring but also bang up-to-date, we're hoping Telling Tales will make big waves this year and rekindle an interest in Chaucer generally ... With Lavinia Greenlaw's retelling of Troilus and Criseyde this year for Faber, it seems like there's something in the air."
Greenlaw's A Double Sorrow is a fresh telling of the tragic romance of the Trojan hero Troilus and his lover Criseyde. It is out in February, taking its title from the first line of Chaucer's poem. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/may/23/worldmusic | Culture | 2008-05-22T23:10:30.000Z | Pascal Wyse | How do you get music out of the theremin and the ondes Martenot, asksPascal Wyse | In Pamelia Kurstin's Vienna apartment, I have my back up against the wall and am attempting not to breathe. My hands are stuck in mid-air like a neglected shop dummy, and I am told to imagine I'm in a tub of "very thick fluid". Before me is what could be a little robot with two antennae. I carefully reach out towards it and it makes a seasick whooping sound.
Kurstin lets out the first of many enormous giggles. She is giving me a lesson on the theremin: an early electronic instrument that became the universal sound of aliens, ghosts and other voices from the B-movie ether.
"Just think of it like a horse," says Kurstin. "Whenever you walk around it, keep touching it so it doesn't freak out and kick you and go 'Yyyeeeoooww!'"
She is referring to the instrument's volume antenna, and how, if you keep your hand against it, the theremin will remain silent. Move it away and it starts to sing. Meanwhile, the proximity of your hand to the other antenna governs the pitch of the sound, which is made electronically by a simple synthesiser. The "thick fluid" is the electromagnetic field you become part of. Whatever you do in that field with your body affects the sound, so in order to be precise you must try to move just, say, your hand, nothing else. Even the swelling of your chest as you breathe can make the notes glide up and down. It's fitting that Léon Theremin's invention was used in the score for the film The Day the Earth Stood Still. In my hands, it's The Day the Earth Wobbled About Quite a Bit.
You can hear this instrument played virtuosically by Kurstin next Thursday and Friday in the Bath International music festival, in what is being billed as "a mind-blowing night of jazz, skronk and electronic music". But what you might not spot is that gig's connection to next Wednesday's offering in Bath's eclectic programme: the Messiaen Centenary Celebration. Among the instruments required for the composer's Trois Petit Liturgies de la Présence Divine is the ondes Martenot (or "Martenot waves", after inventor Maurice Martenot) - another early electronic instrument, cherished by Messiaen, which will be played by Cynthia Millar.
Both these instruments make a sound that is at once futuristic and vintage - just like the old science-fiction movies they were often used in - and both came about as a by-product of their inventors' work in radio technology around the 1920s. But it is their survival, against waves of advances in music technology, that is interesting. "The sounds themselves are not wildly sophisticated," says Millar, whom I meet in Birmingham as she prepares to play Messiaen's mighty Turangalîla Symphony with the CBSO. "What's special is the way it is played." From a distance the ondes Martenot looks like a traditional keyboard instrument - except the player's right hands seems to float over the keys rather than touch them. Up close you see that Millar's finger sits inside a ring attached to a wire. The movement of this wire, which in turn is attached to a drum inside the instrument, takes the pitch up and down - the sound, as with the theremin, being produced electronically by a rudimentary synthesiser. The notes are articulated by the left hand, via a wooden button called the "touche". The further you press down the touche, the louder the note.
"The touche is in effect my breath. That is what makes it so musical, in a way un-electric," says Millar. "The electricity is powering the sound out, but the technique is much more like singing a vocal technique, or trombone technique." There are also unusual speakers that add an eerie resonance, one by having the driver mounted against a small orchestral gong. Millar, who divides her time between Los Angeles and the UK, and between playing and film composing, has just been helping Matt Groening out with some sounds on a new Simpsons Halloween Special. She took up the ondes Martenot as a joint project with the late film composer Elmer Bernstein.
"Elmer had heard of the instrument through the composer Richard Rodney Bennett, who had used it in film scores. Elmer used it in a score he was then writing for a film called Heavy Metal. For that recording, Messiaen's sister-in-law, Jeanne Loriod, came over from France to play. Elmer said it made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. She played so beautifully on that movie." Among contemporary composers who have felt that same rush is Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood, who used six ondes in How to Disappear Completely.
Pamelia Kurstin decided to buy a theremin having read an interview with the synthesiser godfather Bob Moog. "Later, of course, people said, 'We want that sound but it's too difficult to control,' so that's why Moog started figuring out making it controllable by keyboard. A lot of the innards of the theremin are the foundations of monophonic synthesisers." But Moog, who cared so passionately about keeping machinery expressive, continued manufacturing - and being in love with - the theremin, and the humanising quality of its playing style. That makes theremin players (and ondes Martenot players) as variable in style as singers, choosing from infinite shades of portamento, articulation and vibrato. The instruments survive partly because this interface is one area of technology that has yet to be bettered.
The techniques, of course, can have disadvantages. If Kurstin is playing with her band, Barbez, she has to be careful that external movements don't stray into her "field". "It's a nightmare when someone is doing some licks and they walk up to you as they are playing, like a guitar or sax player. It can be a total miscommunication nightmare!" Audiences can get a bit confused, too: "Someone once thought I was an interpretive dancer. I was doing the bass lines in a duo with a keyboard player, and a woman just assumed the bass was coming from him. She went up to him afterwards and said, 'You're such a great player, and so expressive, but that dancer is horrible.'"
In film scores, the sounds of both the ondes and the theremin are distinctive: "The ondes works very well in film, though you can't hide it," says Millar. "You are always aware of it. It's difficult to use under dialogue, because it's like another little voice saying, 'And what about me? Do you want to hear what I've got to say?!'"
"Definitely, people associate the theremin with the world of B-movies and science fiction," says Kurstin. "That's the first exposure people have. Even kids nowadays go 'woowooowoowoowooo' when something is scary, and they don't even know they are making reference to a theremin. It's so part of pop culture, part of our vocabulary."
On the face of it, Kurstin and Millar are poles apart. Kurstin will play an improvised solo set in Bath, though perhaps influenced by her new-found love of Schoenberg and Webern. Millar, who travels the world and guests with its best orchestras, will perform Messiaen. But they are connected by a shared musical heritage, an invisible electromagnetic field - and the sound of little green men. Cynthia Millar performs in Messiaen's Centenary Celebration at Bath Abbey on May 28. Pamelia Kurstin performs at Bath's Invention Studios on May 29 and at The Pavilion on May 30.
Details: bathmusicfest.org.uk | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/17/what-abortion-pills-ruling-mean-access-mifepristone | World news | 2024-03-26T17:34:08.000Z | Carter Sherman | What is the abortion case in front of the US supreme court right now? | Less than two years after it overturned Roe v Wade and ended the national right to abortion, the US supreme court is back on the frontlines of the American abortion wars.
On Tuesday, the court heard oral arguments in one of the most highly watched cases of the session, which could dramatically curtail access to mifepristone, a drug typically used in medication abortions. The court is reviewing decisions made by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to loosen restrictions on the drug, such as allowing non-physicians to prescribe it, as well as letting providers prescribe it through telehealth rather than in-person appointments.
Any decision to restrict mifepristone will affect everyone in the US, not only those who live in the 16 states that have banned nearly all abortions. This case could also have wide-ranging consequences for the FDA’s future decision-making.
A decision from the nation’s highest court in the case will probably arrive by summer 2024.
What is mifepristone?
Medication abortions typically use two drugs, mifepristone and misoprostol, taken several hours apart. While mifepristone generally stops a pregnancy from progressing, misoprostol makes the uterus cramp, bleed and empty out – similar to a miscarriage. Medication abortions now account for 63% of all US abortions.
The plaintiffs in the case claim that mifepristone, which was first approved by the FDA for use in abortions in 2000, is unsafe and understudied. However, more than 100 studies conducted across three decades and more than two dozen countries have found that mifepristone is safe, a New York Times analysis found. The World Health Organization has also outlined a protocol by which women can use mifepristone to safely “self-manage” their own abortions.
What has happened in the case so far?
The case was first filed in late 2022, just months after the supreme court overturned Roe, by a group called the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, which includes doctors who oppose abortion. It is being represented in court by the Alliance Defending Freedom, a powerhouse Christian law firm that champions conservative causes such as ending abortion rights.
The ADF filed the case in federal court in Amarillo, Texas, which guaranteed that only one judge would oversee it: the US district judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a conservative appointed by the former president Donald Trump. In April 2023, Kacsmaryk ruled to suspend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, peppering his decision with rhetoric widely used by the anti-abortion movement.
In August last year, the conservative fifth circuit court of appeals narrowed Kacsmaryk’s ruling. The court found that it was too late to completely suspend the FDA’s approval of mifepristone, but reversed more recent measures that the FDA had taken to expand access to mifepristone, including allowing non-physicians to prescribe the drug and eliminating a requirement that people pick up mifepristone in person.
The FDA appealed that ruling up to the supreme court, as did Danco Laboratories, which manufactures mifepristone. The supreme court paused the ruling as the litigation made its way through the judicial system, so the drug’s availability has not changed for now.
What will the supreme court consider?
In addition to debating the FDA’s changes to how mifepristone is regulated, the supreme court justices focused part of the oral arguments on the question of “standing” – whether these doctors even have the legal right to bring this case. Generally, people who file lawsuits have to prove that they have been harmed or will be without the help of a court.
The Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine has argued that its doctors have treated women dealing with complications from medication abortions and may be forced to do so again. But the FDA has contended that Alliance’s claim is speculative and highly unlikely, given mifepristone’s proven safety record, and said that the Alliance’s case for its standing doesn’t meet the legal threshold needed to establish it.
What happens if the supreme court cuts access to mifepristone?
If the court rules that only physicians can prescribe mifepristone, this will narrow the pool of clinicians eligible to prescribe the drug. However, the potential hit to telehealth would have a particularly sweeping impact on abortion access across the country.
First permitted by the FDA amid the coronavirus pandemic, telehealth abortions now account for about 16% of all US abortions and are available even in states that ban the procedure, thanks to blue state laws that protect providers who prescribe and ship the pill anywhere in the country. Over summer 2023, abortion providers facilitated roughly 14,000 abortions each month through telehealth.
US appeals court upholds restrictions on abortion pill access
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Telehealth abortion providers may pivot to using only misoprostol to perform abortions. Although misoprostol-only abortions are safe and effective, they can have more side-effects than abortions performed using both mifepristone and misoprostol. However, many abortion providers said they had yet to make a final decision about how to handle such a ruling.
Regardless of what the supreme court decides, mifepristone will remain available outside the formal US healthcare system. Since the demise of Roe, people have increasingly turned to self-managing their abortions using pills provided through online businesses and community networks of abortion rights activists. Because these kinds of organizations typically get their pills from overseas pharmacies, changes to FDA regulations will not affect their mifepristone supply and distribution.
Ultimately, the consequences of this case could also stretch far beyond abortion. If the supreme court agrees to let judges overrule the FDA’s decision-making processes, the legality and availability of any drug – particularly those that have been politicized, like vaccines – could be challenged.
This explainer, first published on 17 August 2023 and co-written by Maya Yang, is being regularly updated to ensure that it reflects the current situation as best as possible. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/apr/06/van-poortvliet-leicester-leinster-champions-cup-rugby-quarter-final | Sport | 2023-04-06T21:00:33.000Z | Luke McLaughlin | Leicester’s Van Poortvliet relishing Gibson-Park reunion against Leinster | Leicester’s Jack van Poortvliet is relishing the chance to renew his rivalry with Jamison Gibson-Park. The scrum-halves will line up opposite each other again on Friday when the Tigers visit Dublin to face Leinster in the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup.
Both started last month’s Six Nations encounter when Ireland secured their fourth grand slam by beating England. With the bulk of that side consisting of Leinster players Van Poortvliet knows Leicester’s challenge will not be dissimilar.
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“He’s a world-class scrum-half who’s really dictated the speed and the quality with which Ireland have attacked over recent years,” Van Poortvliet said of the New Zealand-born Gibson-Park.
“He’s brilliant at keeping defences honest. He’ll get on the ball, he’ll always look down short sides … he’s a world-class athlete and he’s blessed to be behind a brilliant pack that gets them go-forward and speed of ball.”
The Tigers head coach, Richard Wigglesworth, makes four changes for the match at the Aviva Stadium: Mike Brown starts at full-back, with England’s Freddie Steward shifting to the wing. The South African Jasper Wiese comes in at No 8 after a bullocking try against Edinburgh last Friday.
Olly Cracknell drops to the bench for Wiese, while in the front row Joe Heyes replaces Dan Cole. Dan Kelly starts at inside centre, replacing Jimmy Gopperth, with Harry Potter selected at outside centre for the injured Guy Porter.
Leinster, for whom Johnny Sexton is absent because of a groin injury, make two changes from last week’s win against Ulster: the No 8 Caelan Doris has recovered from illness and comes in for Josh van der Flier, who rolled an ankle. The centre Garry Ringrose, who suffered a brain injury during the Six Nations, starts in place of Jordan Larmour having observed return-to-play protocols.
Leicester were comprehensively defeated at Welford Road by Leinster at this stage of the competition last season and Van Poortvliet acknowledged playing the four-times champions in Dublin will be even more demanding.
“It is an incredibly difficult challenge with the quality of side they are,” said the 21-year-old. “But we are excited. We have got a chance to go to an incredible stadium on a Friday night in a European quarter-final to have a free shot. We know what a world-class outfit they are with incredible players and the team they have built over the last few years, we are extremely excited.”
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Van Poortvliet was first picked by Eddie Jones for last summer’s tour to Australia and believes the tumultuous experiences of the national squad in recent months have been a useful learning process. “In the short time I’ve been at England I’ve experienced a lot of highs and lows,” he said.
“I think I’ve learned how to deal with lots of things. I’ve had probably quite a broad scale of experiences in a short time … I’ve been, maybe in a weird way, lucky to experience a lot of different scenarios so early.”
Leicester’s assignment is one of the most difficult in world rugby, let alone in Europe. If the Tigers are to roar into the semi-finals he will need to put those learnings with England to good use. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/apr/19/acdc-brian-johnson-hearing-loss-diagnosis-statement | Music | 2016-04-19T16:28:17.000Z | Guardian music | AC/DC's Brian Johnson: hearing loss diagnosis was a dark day for my career | AC/DC’s Brian Johnson has revealed further details about why he had to stop playing live with the band. His statement comes in the same week that it was announced that Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose will take over Johnson’s duties during AC/DC’s forthcoming live shows.
Johnson made it clear that he wasn’t retiring from recording with the band, but that his health had made playing live shows impossible. In a statement he said: “On March 7th, after a series of examinations by leading physicians in the field of hearing loss, I was advised that if I continued to perform at large venues I risked total deafness. While I was horrified at the reality of the news that day, I had for a time become aware that my partial hearing loss was beginning to interfere with my performance on stage … and because I was not able to hear the other musicians clearly, I feared the quality of my performance could be compromised. This was something I could not, in good conscience, allow. Our fans deserve my performance to be at the highest level, and if for any reason I can’t deliver that level of performance I will not disappoint our fans or embarrass the other members of AC/DC.”
Johnson was at pains to point out that he wasn’t a “quitter” and that there is nothing he’d like more than to be able to continue playing live with the group. “I like to finish what I start. Nevertheless, the doctors made it clear that I had no choice but to stop performing on stage for the remaining shows and possibly beyond. That was the darkest day of my professional life.”
Don't ride on: why it's time for AC/DC to call it quits
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He added that it was possible he could continue at some point in the future: “Since that day, I have had several consultations with my doctors and it appears that, for the near future, I will be unable to perform on stage at arena and stadium-size venues where the sound levels are beyond my current tolerance without the risk of substantial hearing loss and possibly total deafness. I tried as best as I could to continue despite the pain and hearing loss, but it became too much to bear and too much to risk.”
Johnson said doctors had confirmed he could continue to record in the studio with the band: “And I intend to do that. For the moment, my entire focus is to continue medical treatment to improve my hearing. I am hoping that in time my hearing will improve and allow me to return to live concert performances. While the outcome is uncertain, my attitude is optimistic. Only time will tell.”
Axl Rose, 54, will fulfil his current commitments to Guns N’ Roses before replacing Johnson on AC/DC’s remaining tour dates.
The last couple of years have been difficult for AC/DC. In July 2015, they parted company with drummer Phil Rudd after he was convicted of threatening to kill and possession of drugs. Rhythm guitarist Malcolm Young left in September 2014 after announcing he had dementia. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/feb/13/nine-facts-about-the-medical-evacuation-bill | Australia news | 2019-02-13T03:02:01.000Z | Katharine Murphy | Nine facts about the medical evacuation bill | With the medical evacuations bill now cleared by the Senate, and with politicians coming off the long run with all kinds of misleading claims about what this package does, let’s spell out some basic facts.
How do the medical evacuation procedures work?
The new legislation sets out the conditions by which sick people on Nauru and Manus Island can be transferred to Australia for medical treatment. In the event there is medical advice from two or more treating doctors that a person needs to be evacuated, the home affairs minister has grounds for refusal.
What discretion does the responsible minister have?
Ministerial discretion applies in three areas.
First, the minister can refuse the transfer if he or she disagrees with the clinical assessment.
The second grounds for refusal is if the minister reasonably suspects that the transfer of the person to Australia would be prejudicial to security “within the meaning of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation Act 1979, including because an adverse security assessment in respect of the person is in force under that Act”.
Sticking with security, the transfer can also be knocked back if Asio advises the minister that transfer of the person to Australia may be prejudicial to security “and that threat cannot be mitigated”.
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The third grounds for refusal is if the minister knows that the transferee has a substantial criminal record (I’ll give you some definitions on that in a minute) and the minister reasonably believes the person would expose the Australian community to a serious risk of criminal conduct.
The decision needs to be made within 72 hours.
If the minister denies the transfer request on health grounds (as opposed to security or criminal grounds), then the issue goes to an Independent Health Advice Panel “as soon as practicable”.
The panel then conducts a second assessment and reports within 72 hours. If the panel reports the person should be transferred on health grounds, and the other vetoes I’ve mentioned are not in force, then the view of the panel prevails.
What is a substantial criminal record for the purposes of this legislation?
There has been lots of talk since the political temperature has started to rise around this issue about rapists, paedophiles and murderers coming to Australia for medical treatment – courtesy of this law.
To define a substantial criminal record, the bill references section 501(7) of the Migration Act. That definition says a substantial criminal record applies for the purposes of a character test if the person has been sentenced to death; life imprisonment; a term of imprisonment of 12 months or more; has been in prison for two or more terms where the total is 12 months or more; if the person has been acquitted of an offence on the grounds of unsoundness of mind or insanity, and as a result the person has been detained in a facility or institution; or the person has been found by a court to not be fit to plead in relation to an offence, and the court has nonetheless found that on the evidence available the person committed the offence, and as a result the person has been detained in a facility or institution.
Who is on the independent medical panel?
The panel will be made up of the commonwealth chief medical officer, the home affairs department’s chief medical officer, and at least six others (a nominee of the president of the Australian Medical Association, of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists and of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians, and an expert in paediatric health). They will not be paid for their service to avoid a constitutional problem with the bill.
Who do these new procedures apply to?
Despite what you might hear in the political debate, the answer to this is simple. The new procedures only apply to the cohort of asylum seekers currently on Nauru and Manus Island, not to any new boat arrivals. The legislation says a person is “a relevant transitory person if the person is in a regional processing country on the day this section commences”.
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Will people be out of detention once they arrive in Australia for medical treatment?
No. The legislation says any transitory person who is brought to Australia for a temporary purpose must be kept in immigration detention while in Australia. “That immigration detention must continue until the time of removal from Australia or until the minister determines that immigration detention is no longer required.”
To put that simply, anyone transferred to Australia for treatment will remain in detention unless the minister decides otherwise.
Do the new medical evacuation procedures destroy the border protection regime?
People will make all sorts of contentions about this point, but the facts don’t point to that conclusion. The architecture of offshore detention remains in place. Boat turn backs remain in place.
The new legislation has one job. It codifies the means by which people can be medically transferred to Australia, and makes clinicians more central in decisions about duty of care than they are currently. The government has already transferred a number of people to Australia for medical treatment, often after contested court proceedings. Doctors have more influence in this system than under the status quo, but we are not inventing the wheel here.
Will the people smugglers view the change in Australia as a green light to restart operations?
That’s entirely possible – particularly given some of the misleading claims flying around in the public debate at the moment and being amplified on social media and in some news outlets.
Given those febrile, hyperbolic conditions, it is entirely possible that the change in Australian law will be used in marketing by people smugglers.
The home affairs department is clearly very concerned about the impact of the changes according to a ministerial brief that was released by the Morrison government over the weekend.
But the departmental language on the specific point of whether people smugglers would be activated or not was nuanced.
What does the advice from the home affairs department say about whether people smugglers would be activated or not?
This is their advice.
“People smugglers pay particular attention to perceived or actual changes in Australia’s policy. Although people smugglers may claim there has been a shift in Australian policy and entry to Australia is now possible with just the opinion of two doctors, the resumption of large-scale people smuggling to Australia will remain dependent on a shift in Potential Illegal Immigrant (PII) intent – not smuggler marketing,” home affairs officials said.
“PIIs will probably be interested in any perceived or actual pathway where resettlement in a western country is guaranteed, even if such a pathway includes a period spent in detention. However, PIIs will probably remain sceptical of smuggler marketing and await proof that such a pathway is viable, or that an actual change of policy has occurred, before committing to ventures.” | Full |
Subsets and Splits