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https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/feb/08/bamber-gascoigne-obituary | Television & radio | 2022-02-08T13:28:08.000Z | Stephen Bates | Bamber Gascoigne obituary | If the polymathic Bamber Gascoigne was ever irked by the fact that he was best known to the British public for the phrase: “Fingers on buzzers … your starter for 10,” he never showed it. More than 30 years after his retirement as the quizmaster on University Challenge – a post he had held for a quarter of a century between 1962 and 1987 – the phrase still dogged his footsteps, despite everything else he did.
Gascoigne, who has died aged 87, with his easy patrician manner, born of a family steeped in centuries of aristocratic connections, proved an inspired if incongruous choice to chair a television quiz show on a commercial channel, even in the early 1960s. He looked and spoke like a junior don, gradually evolving into an uncensorious professor. He did not mind being parodied by Griff Rhys Jones in the anarchic 80s Young Ones comedy series, or by Mark Gatiss in the film Starter for Ten in 2006 – about a student desperate to appear on the show – and he even played himself in an episode of the Jonathan Creek mystery series.
Bamber Gascoigne, centre, on Celebrity University Challenge in 1992, with from left: Alistair Little, John Simpson, Stephen Fry and Charles Moore. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA
His genial presence – fair, curly hair and tolerant smile – hovered over University Challenge long after it was revived in 1994 under his more acerbic successor, Jeremy Paxman, with his displays of incredulity at the ignorance of contestants. Gascoigne never showed such impatience.
Gascoigne, who was not much older than the contestants when the quiz started (and did not look much older than them when Granada first ended it in 1987), had much to do with the show’s enduring success. Despite being pitched at a level of knowledge above the heads of many viewers, it did not patronise or condescend either to those taking part or those watching.
Bamber Gascoigne at West Horsley Place in Surrey, which he unexpectedly inherited from a great-aunt. The house, with its 50 rooms and 380 acres of grounds, was in a dilapidated condition, but rather that selling it he turned it into a community arts centre. Photograph: David Crump/Daily Mail/Rex/Shutterstock
The show, originally based on an American television quiz called College Bowl, required only 40 days a year of Gascoigne’s time, for which he was initially paid £40 a week. That meant he could indulge his wide-ranging other interests, including opera, theatre and the arts along with a number of serious historical studies, some linked to television documentary series.
“University Challenge gave me economic freedom, although not much,” he told the Daily Telegraph in 2012. “I love playing games, the students were incredibly nice and it was great fun. I have only watched it two or three times since – but then I never watched myself either. We don’t watch television as early as 8.30 in the evening so I have only seen it very few times.”
Gascoigne was the son of Lt Col Derick Gascoigne and his wife, Midi O’Neill. He was descended from a long line of military men and the Gascoignes traced their roots back through Yorkshire landowners to the 14th century. Bamber was a family name too – an 18th-century predecessor of the same name had been an MP. His uncle Terence O’Neill was the Ulster Unionist prime minister of Northern Ireland in the 60s. There were family connections also with the Cecils, Tudor and Victorian power-brokers and prime ministers.
He was educated at Sunningdale prep school, Berkshire, and was a scholar at Eton. He claimed that the scholarship boys were looked on as impoverished scum and although he said he enjoyed his time at the college, he would not have sent a son there because he did not believe in the separation of social groups. National service in the Grenadier Guards was followed by an English literature degree at Magdalene College, Cambridge, and a year in the US at Yale. At Cambridge he reviewed plays for Granta and then became theatre critic of the Spectator and the Observer, from which he was plucked to chair the new university quiz show.
At Cambridge he had written a revue, Share My Lettuce, which was produced in the West End, starring Maggie Smith and Kenneth Williams. Over the years it was followed by other plays: Leda Had a Little Swan made it to New York in 1968 (it had been refused a licence by the lord chamberlain, whose responsibilities then included censoring plays, in London the previous year); The Feydeau Farce Festival of 1909 was put on at Greenwich in 1972 and Big in Brazil was produced at the Old Vic in 1984.
Letters: Bamber Gascoigne obituary | Letters
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For television Gascoigne wrote and presented a major documentary series for Granada called The Christians in 1977, co-funded by Dutch and German channels. The series took three years to research and present and Gascoigne insisted – in the face of criticism from the church – that his lay status was precisely what was required: he said he wanted Christians to assume he was a believer and non-Christians to assume he was not.
Further documentaries included Victorian Values in 1987, Man and Music in 1987 and The Great Moghuls in 1990. Usually these were accompanied by books. There were also novels, potboilers and short histories as well as Quest for the Golden Hare (1983), documenting the treasure hunt that followed the publication of the bestselling book Masquerade (1979) by Kit Williams, which set readers clues to finding a precious object hidden somewhere in Britain. From 2000 he became editor-in-chief of historyworld.net and he also accumulated trusteeships in the arts, at the National and Tate galleries, at the Royal Opera House and the National Trust. He was appointed CBE in 2018.
Gascoigne was unexpectedly left a 16th-century stately home, West Horsley Place – once owned by Henry VIII – near Guildford, Surrey, by his great-aunt Mary Innes-Ker, the Duchess of Roxburgh, who died aged 99 in 2014. The house, with its 50 rooms and 380 acres of grounds, was in a dilapidated condition, as she had lived alone for many years and had not been able to maintain the building. “Every time there was a new drip, she thought: get a new bucket,” he said in 2018.
Instead of selling the property, as the duchess had imagined he would, Gascoigne and his wife, Christina, decided it should be renovated and turned into a community arts centre. The £10m cost of repairs was largely met by selling much of the contents, including paintings by Edward Burne-Jones and a study for Lord Leighton’s famous Flaming June, at Sotheby’s. A 700-seat opera house was built by Grange Park Opera in the grounds and the house itself is intended to be used for conferences, classes and for filming.
“We both felt it was a bit feeble not to give it a shot,” he explained. “A place that for several centuries has been entirely private, somewhere people did not even really know was there, can look forward to many centuries of people enjoying it. I think that’s a wonderful thing.” The duchess’s ashes are buried under the orchestra pit.
Gascoigne had met Christina (nee Ditchburn), a photographer and ceramicist, at Cambridge, and they married in 1965. She survives him.
Arthur Bamber Gascoigne, writer and broadcaster, born 24 January 1935; died 8 February 2022
This article was amended on 10 February 2022. The artworks sold from West Horsley Place included a study for Lord Leighton’s Flaming June, rather than the painting itself, as an earlier version stated. Flaming June has been in the collection of the Museo de Arte de Ponce in Puerto Rico since the 1960s. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2011/dec/15/technology-health-social-care-northern-ireland | Healthcare Professionals Network | 2011-12-15T17:03:56.000Z | Gill Hitchcock | Technology key to 'new model' of NI health and social care | A review of Northern Ireland's health and social care services has identified technology as a key to creating the "new model" for services that will improve patient outcomes and drive up quality of care.
The document, titled Transforming your care, sets out initiatives which mirror those made in England in recent years. It says: "Changes should be supported by up-to-date technology to ensure vital information can be shared quickly among professional staff, duplication eliminated and that the latest diagnostic and treatment tools are available."
Electronic care records which allow health and social care teams to see details of patients' medications, results of tests and hospital treatment, particularly for emergency care, will form part of the new model. Connected health, used to describe the remote delivery of healthcare t through technology such as telecare and telehealth, will provide support to enable people who are sick or frail to maintain their independence and stay in their own homes for as long as possible.
With the shift of care into the community, the report calls for more use of mobile technology to support staff working in the community.
It points out that the national mobile health worker project found that mobile devices loaded with office and clinical software allowed clinicians working within the community to make nearly 9% fewer referrals and avoid 21% of admissions.
The review endorses the development a data warehouse for GP records in order to deliver a safe and secure method of storing and sharing patient information.
It says a single robust community information system will be introduced and a single telephone number for urgent health or social care.
A "forum" should be set up to "take forward how technology will support the new model of care" and will link services to industry and universities, and ensure value for money solutions are taken forward.
The review concludes that current accident and emergency provision is unsustainable and quotes the chair of the British Medical Association's council in Northern Ireland who said: "We cannot maintain top flight A&Es in every town. Reconfiguration ... is currently happening by crisis rather than by taking difficult decisions." Under the new model, there would be between five and seven acute hospitals, against the current 10 acute hospitals.
Health minister Edwin Poots said the report set up a "compelling" set of proposals, which will put individuals at the centre of their care and make services increasingly accessible in local areas.
"This envisages a significant shift in where funding is allocated. This will not be straight forward," he said. "It will require fundamental change to the way we deliver services and will require substantial retraining of staff."
This article is published by Guardian Professional. Join the Guardian Healthcare Network to receive regular emails and exclusive offers. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/06/singer-songwriter-hak-baker-the-old-guard-is-being-priced-out-of-london | Music | 2023-06-06T15:00:10.000Z | Jenessa Williams | Singer-songwriter Hak Baker: ‘The old guard is being priced out of London’ | Hak Baker is harking back to the east London of his childhood, before the oat milk lattes and experiential advertising creatives moved in. “Old boys taking me boxing, or to the scrap yard to flip tyres for 40 quid: that stuff gave me a sense of belonging,” he says. “But now when I look out my window, it’s just not the same. That old guard is being priced out, and if you say hello to someone in the street, they look at you like you’re weird. That’s not where I came from. Not at all.”
Gentrification is one of the glum topics on the singer-songwriter’s debut album World’s End FM, alongside a host of others: colonialism, surveillance, depression. Then there are joyous songs like Doolally, where Baker flirts and boozes around a party sounding like the Streets on Fit But You Know It. Few other British albums this year are as vibrant, and true to life’s contradictions. “When people are low and it feels like world war three is on the balance, it’s hard to believe in yourself,” he says of its paradoxically cheery end-of-days vibe. “But if we’re all gonna die, I don’t want to spend the time being sad about it.”
Born to Jamaican and Grenadian parents, Baker was raised on the Isle of Dogs, singing in church and raising his mother’s spirits after long shifts as a social worker. As a teen, he discovered grime via MCs at his local youth club (alongside one Dizzee Rascal), before finding his own schoolyard fame in rap collective Bomb Squad, a way “to be with your friends as much as possible – you felt safe in that bubble of brotherhood”.
In his mid-twenties, though, Baker was jailed for two years for robbery. “Where we’re from, you only know about keeping it moving, trying to provide for your family,” he says. “Prison gave me time to assess what I actually wanted for myself. If you’re not doing that in jail, then what the fuck are you doing?”
Inside, Baker learned the guitar, and having fallen for the wistful acoustics of British band Daughter, he coined his own genre, G-Folk, as a way to tell stories in his infectious cockney cadence. “I felt I could encapsulate the world of working-class people. It’s always shit, it’s always hard, but we still hold on to the idea of working together for a better place to survive. You never know; one day, whoever runs the country might actually listen to us.” But he doesn’t suggest that he and his people are always unified. Windrush Baby explores the heartache of cultural displacement: his mum crops up to complain that black Britons have “let go of the very strong values that we used to have”, but the song welcomes his burgeoning black audience, coming around to a genre-hopping sound. “A lot of black people are scared to back something that they don’t see as strictly ‘black’, like grime or drill. But rock and blues came directly from us and our struggles too. This is a way for me to connect.”
Baker has himself connected with other rowdy, socially conscious troubadours, and having recently supported Pete Doherty at the Royal Albert Hall, he’ll be appearing at Jamie T’s Finsbury Park all-dayer in June. “We went to the pub, got leathered, tried to make a tune, and just did that a few times until we were pals,” he says of Jamie T. “Pete was similar; he loved Wobbles on Cobbles [a song Baker released in lockdown] and invited me to support one of his gigs. He took one look at me backstage and went: ‘Cor, you’ve got some demons, ent ya?’ Even down to him coming onstage with me at Glastonbury last year, he’s always had my back.” Is there any chance of a potential supergroup between the three? “Oh, yeah, definitely. En route, I reckon.”
World’s End FM uses the framing device of Baker as a pirate radio DJ hosting a show, and on the closing track The End of the World, his friend Jack calls in to discuss the challenge of rebuilding himself after his mother’s suicide: recognition that amid the rabble-rousing East End defiance, it’s not always easy for men to keep calm and carry on. “Young men especially need a place to home in [on] their aggressions. As kids, trauma bonded us, but I think [aggression] creeps in more when we grow up and can’t rely on each other as much as we used to. It can be really sad and difficult for the lads.”
He hopes that his emphasis on community will encourage people to open up, and has faith in his generation to make a better world. “We are the hard workers, the cog-turners,” he says. “The old school are on their knees, begging not to be slayed.” Just as he does on his album, though, he quickly pricks any pomposity. “I don’t want to come across as Mr Billy Big Bollocks though! I just want to show some love.”
World’s End FM is released 9 June on Hak Attack Records (AWAL Recordings). Hak Baker tours the UK this autumn, beginning 22 September, St Luke’s, Glasgow. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/10/how-judge-audience-true-argument | Opinion | 2013-09-10T12:20:55.000Z | Protagoras | How to judge your audience and remain true to your arguments | Protagoras | One of the greatest achievements of reality television gameshows has been the promotion of a distinctive ethical principle: that almost the worst thing you can do is be "two-faced". To say one thing to one group of people and something else to another is widely regarded as the epitome of dishonesty. And the very worst thing? The failure to be "true" to yourself – to moderate or modify your public appearance in response to the expectations of others.
Adapt to circumstances
But if you want to persuade people, or simply communicate clearly, the last thing you should do is say the same thing to everyone and refuse to adapt to circumstances. On the contrary, the first step in developing a good argument is to think about how to fit it to the situation in which you find yourself. It used to be that skill in this was considered a virtue. Rhetoricians called it "decorum".
Today we think of being "decorous" as conforming. But all it means is being "fitting" – using words and arguments that are "apt" given the situation. It is generally a bad idea to give an expletive-packed wedding speech that endlessly insults the bride, not because expletives and insults are always bad but because they are at odds with the mood of collective celebration characteristic of weddings.
Similarly, an economist explaining the Phillips curve ought to do so differently if talking to a niece taking business studies GCSE, the retired sales executive next door or a room full of trade unionists.
Know your audience
In making an argument you are trying to bring three things into alignment: yourself, your words and your audience. You are trying to move your audience so that it is in agreement with you – but to do that you need to move too. And between you – what moves you both – is a form of words and a set of arguments. If you are inflexible, using words and making references that are completely at odds with your audience you won't persuade anybody of anything (except of the view that you are unconvincing and unintelligible).
In practical terms this simply means that you need to know your audience. Cicero, the Roman philosopher, rhetorician and politician, believed that the perfect orator would have to master everything to do with the life of other citizens: laws and customs, traditions and general outlooks, "the way people usually think". In becoming familiar with the general outlooks of other people, as well as the particular outlook of specific groups, you are better placed to adapt your argument as needed.
A problem in the present day is that contemporary communications media make decorum extremely difficult, if not completely impossible. Politicians have long been aware that words said in one context may be rebroadcast in quite another. They have tended to deal with this by being bland and non-commital or by supplementing what they say with briefing and spin. In adopting such positions on the basis of opinion polls and focus groups politicians make the opposite mistake to the foul-mouthed best man. They forget their argument and give themselves over entirely to the audience (who, in turn, succumb to boredom).
It's not only politicians who can find their words taken and used in a quite unexpected context. These days any of us might be live-tweeted or filmed and put online. The examples are piling up of those who forgot that what they said on social media was not private but being said to everybody. On below-the-line comments boards – where most are anonymous or pseudonymous – it is difficult to be sure who one is talking to. This is one reason why people on Guardian comment threads often try to appeal to the (possibly imaginary) audience they know that exists: the moderators, subeditors, or "Guardian readers".
Pitching to the third party
But if you want to persuade you need to have a better idea of the audience you mean to reach. And it isn't the person whose comments you are attacking. On BBC Question Time Russell Brand is never going to persuade Melanie Phillips, and she will never sway him. They'd be foolish to try. They are trying to persuade the people watching them. It is the same online. Persuasive arguments will be pitched to a "third party" – the audience of readers.
Of course you don't know who that audience is. Are they old or young, male or female, new to the topic or experienced? Yet all of us, when we start to compose some kind of general argument, has in mind an "ideal" or "typical" audience. It is worth being clear to yourself who you think this is. It shouldn't be people who think exactly as you do – since those aren't people you need to persuade. Nor should it be a bunch of idiosyncratic types who think like nobody else.
Let's be reasonable
It needs to be something like generally "reasonable" people, neither fanatical nor obstinate, informed but not specialist. What views or outlooks can you assume they share? What are they likely to think decent, kind and reasonable and what might they think is unacceptable, unkind and daft? Be clear on this and you can start to think about how to argue your case. That means paying attention to, and thinking about, other people, their feelings and experiences. If you want to have a chance of persuading people then you need to have a lot more than two faces. Don't be true to yourself. Be true to your arguments. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/19/hurricane-harvey-workers-rights-texas | US news | 2018-09-19T10:00:15.000Z | Mike Elk | A year after Hurricane Harvey, some cleanup workers are still unpaid | One year on from Hurricane Harvey – and as the true scale of the mess left by Hurricane Florence emerges in the Carolinas – the cleanup work in Houston still continues. And workers still digging out from the mess are fearful that they may not get paid.
“As a community, we have stepped up. We have restored people’s homes and restored their lives,” the Houston mayor Sylvester Turner told a crowd at a barbecue marking the first anniversary of Hurricane Harvey last month. Across town at the historically black Texas Southern University, activists paint a less rosy picture of recovery.
At a meeting convened under the title “The People’s Tribunal on Hurricane Harvey,” Claudia, a middle-aged undocumented immigrant from Colombia struggling to pay her children’s college tuitions back home, told the crowd of working for a contractor on a hurricane cleanup project for a week, only to find that the contractor had disappeared when it came time to get paid.
'We've been forgotten': Hurricane Harvey and the long path to recovery
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“It’s sad because we all count on our weekly pay to survive,” Claudia said as she struggled to hold back tears and described facing the threat of eviction because she couldn’t pay her rent. “I’ve seen it happen frequently. Many of my co-workers are fearful that another contractor will come and do the same thing to them.”
According to a survey conducted last year by the University of Illinois at Chicago, approximately 75% of all day laborers have reported wage theft. Even worse, 61% of day laborers said that they received no respiratory devices to protect themselves against the many molds and bacterias that workers face on the job, and 85% of day laborers say they received no health and safety training.
While the hurricane recovery has been marred by abuses of workers’ rights, activists hope that they can use the sense of solidarity created by the recovery to foster a dialogue about the treatment of workers in Houston.
“When any devastation happens, it’s a time to reevaluate how we are doing things,” said Sylvia Chicas, an organizer with the Fe y Justicia Worker Center in Houston. “In a way, it’s an opportunity for our city to start thinking about are we rebuilding in an equitable way, to bring workers into this conversation in a way that they have traditionally been excluded.”
Hurricane Harvey devastated Houston, causing massive flooding in the city. Photograph: David J. Phillip/AP
On a recent Thursday night after work, two dozen Latino laborers gathered for snacks and a health and safety training class on their rights as workers in a large converted dining room in the small brick duplex that houses the worker center.
Pointing to symbols on Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) training cards printed in Spanish, Alejandro Zuniga, a 46-year-old organizer with the center, instructed workers how to determine which symbols stand for what chemicals.
Drawing on his own experiences, Zuniga told the group how he nearly died a decade ago after being exposed to carbon monoxide poisoning in a school. Zuniga spent months in the hospital afterward and was semi-homeless because of the ensuing medical debt.
Zuniga and the workers discussed the best methods to confront their bosses and how to call the authorities if their informal advocacy fails. Many immigrant workers are hesitant to do so, but Zuniga implores them to in order to avoid the financial crisis he faced after he got sick on his job.
“Each one of us has suffered or will suffer labor abuses in our lives,” said Zuniga. “Many of us stay quiet for a lack of immigration documentations and because [we] have no other options. It’s time for us to develop our consciousness because [workers’ rights] is everybody’s fight.”
Activists speaking during the Houston Panel during the People’s Tribunal on Harvey Recovery on 25 August 2018. Photograph: Daniel Kramer
Since the hurricane, Zuniga and the center have trained more than 1,400 day laborers in classes just like this, dramatically more workers than they had been able to reach in years past.
Not only has the center used the hurricane to dramatically increase their health and safety training, but it has also seen an uptick in the number of workers coming forward to report instances of wage theft.
Since February, when the center re-opened its legal clinic, it has received more than 170 complaints from workers for wages totaling in excess of $557,000. The training appears to be paying off as more workers are starting to come forward prepared to take action.
“It’s been really inspiring,” said Marianela Acuña-Arreaza, the 29-year-old executive director of Fe y Justicia Worker Center, who came to the US as an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela when she was 18 years old.
The organizing is also starting to have a serious effect on the way wage theft law is enforced in Houston.
Last week, for the first time, the Harris county district attorney office, working closely with the center, filed a criminal theft of services charge against a homeowner, Sonny D Nicholas, who refused to pay a group of workers more than $2,300 for work done on his home.
If convicted, Nicholas could face up to a year in jail.
“This is about treating people decently and obeying the law,” said the Harris county district attorney Kim Ogg. “We follow the evidence, and we are not going to let employers rip off contractors, just as we won’t let contractors steal from the public.”
Mayor Turner has pledged to use his legal authority to deny city contracts to those who violate workers’ contracts.
Alejandro Zuniga of the Fe y Justicia Worker Center talks with day workers in Houston, Texas, on 25 August 2018. Photograph: Daniel Kramer
“We are saying to those who are taking people’s wages that you cannot do business with the city of Houston,” said Turner in an interview with the Guardian.
However, the center says that not enough is being done and that the city does not have the staff to properly enforce wage theft laws. An analysis done by the Dallas Morning News in conjunction with Reveal showed that the Texas Workforce Commission has only 19 investigators to handle an average of more than 13,000 cases a year, meaning that each investigator is assigned to close to roughly 684 complaints annually.
That analysis also found that workers only received their state-mandated awards half of the time.
The story of a recovery: how hurricane Maria boosted small farms
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Activists say that inaction by the Trump administration has allowed many contractors to get away with wage theft without fear of losing federal contracts.
“These federal agencies say they are helping us when in reality, when they use this system, the only thing they are doing is jeopardizing us, our communities and our families,” said Zuniga.
Houston activists know that they have an uphill battle to take on the scourge of workers rights abuses in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, but they also say that the storm unleashed something else: a mobilized mass of workers seeking change.
Hurricane Harvey created a workers’ rights crisis in Houston, but workers and advocates in Houston say they are taking advantage of this opportunity to build new power.
“Following Harvey, it seems that the infrastructure for workers justice has been growing exponentially,” said center executive director Acuña-Arreaza. “In many ways, this has been a turning point for us as a movement in Houston.”
“We are building a network of people who are learning how to access workplace justice and that’s powerful,” she said.
Translation and research provided by Christine Bolaños | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/12/foi-commissioner-complained-of-being-ignored-and-limited-staff-before-resigning-tense-emails-reveal | Australia news | 2023-05-11T15:00:29.000Z | Christopher Knaus | FOI commissioner complained of being ignored and ‘limited’ staff before resigning, tense emails reveal | In the weeks before his shock resignation, Australia’s freedom of information commissioner complained about being routinely ignored within his own agency and of the pointless diversion of his “very limited” staff, internal records show.
Leo Hardiman, a king’s counsel and former deputy chief general counsel at the Australian government solicitor, resigned as FOI commissioner in March, less than 12 months into a five-year appointment.
Greens, Coalition and entire crossbench unite to force inquiry into ‘broken’ FOI system
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In a public post announcing his decision, Hardiman expressed serious concerns about chronic delays in the FOI system, the consequences for government transparency, and the lack of power he held to bring about change.
But a series of tense emails, obtained by the former senator Rex Patrick using FOI, show Hardiman was also expressing deep frustrations directly to the agency head, Angelene Falk, about the treatment of his role and his FOI staff before to his resignation.
In one email chain, Hardiman complained to Falk about the potential diversion of FOI staff for work on a corporate compliance program.
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He said it “should not be yet another thing distracting the very limited resources of the FOI branch from the enormous core statutory function task before it”.
Hardiman noted that his previous email on the subject had been ignored. He described this as “par for the course”.
When Falk apologised for the “evident frustration” the proposal had caused, Hardiman replied in an email dated 16 February: “While I don’t find the attribution to me of ‘evident frustration’ useful, it is, in any case, a misinterpretation. So let me put my views more directly in the hope of clarifying any misunderstanding.
“Given the state of the FOI regulatory function and the resources allocated to it, there is simply no capacity for FOI Branch resources to be distracted by management of a corporate compliance function. That is obvious, and must have been so for a very long time.
“I do not have any control over the corporate functions of the OAIC. Nor am I an employee working for you. It is not appropriate that the FOI Commissioner’s time be spent dealing with management of a corporate compliance assurance activity.”
He finished the email by remarking:
“Would I find it helpful if a number of your employees were more responsive to me in my role as FOI Commissioner? Indeed, I would. That is, of course, a matter of leadership for you as agency head.”
Other emails suggest Hardiman announced his resignation with a post on LinkedIn before sending an email notifying Falk of the decision.
He told Falk that he did not want the OAIC or her saying anything publicly about his resignation “without my express written agreement to its terms”.
Hardiman also said told Falk he wanted to cease their weekly meetings and stop attending OAIC executive meetings.
“In my experience, that forum has relatively little focus on the FOI side of the agency’s core regulatory functions,” he said. “To the extent my input is needed for anything, I am happy to provide it.
“I also think we should put our weekly catch ups aside. I intend to provide you with a monthly update (commencing the end of this week for February) on how we are progressing with matters.”
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FOI workload mounts after ‘significant staff attrition’
The documents also reveal the latest updates on the agency’s FOI workload, sent to Attorney General’s Department. The OAIC has persistently warned that it is facing an ever-increasing workload without sufficient resourcing, particularly after savage cuts under the Abbott government.
One of the agency’s core roles is to act as a watchdog over government department FOI decisions.
Australia’s FOI backlog: 587 cases remain unresolved more than three years on
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But the documents reveal 20% of requests for reviews of FOI decisions that were received in 2019 – three years ago – were yet to be allocated to an officer within the OAIC by February this year.
In explaining the statistic to government, the OAIC said it had suffered “significant staff attrition within the FOI Branch”.
It was also grappling with significant year-on-year increases in applications for FOI reviews, without commensurate resources, and also having to focus on other FOI regulatory priorities.
The pandemic had also made it more difficult for government departments to respond to the OAIC’s requests for submissions and had caused delays to review processes.
Patrick, who has continued campaigning on transparency since leaving parliament, said Hardiman was right to focus on his statutory work, particularly given he had more than 2,000 outstanding FOI reviews to conduct, some dating back to 2018.
“The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner is completely under-resourced,” Patrick said. “The office is doing too many things without proper resourcing. The Information Commissioner needs to put the office’s statutory work first, not keep taking on more.”
A spokesperson for the OAIC said the office strives to deliver its role within available resources in the most efficient way possible.
“A significant legacy caseload and an increasing number of Information Commissioner (IC) Reviews, combined with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, have affected our ability to deal with this caseload, given the resources we have available,” the spokesperson said.
“Notwithstanding these challenges, the OAIC has increased the number of IC Reviews we finalise each year and we continue to seek to improve the timeliness of IC Review processing.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/apr/06/small-homes-houses-living-designs-plans-how-to-architects-around-the-world | Art and design | 2024-04-07T00:50:16.000Z | Maddie Thomas | ‘We live in the best house in the world’: five design experts on how to live better in small homes | Australia has some of the largest homes in the world. Many who do live small aspire to one day live big. But around the world, limited space is not always seen as a sacrifice.
From Sweden, where the average size of an apartment is 68 sq metres, to Hong Kong’s micro flats as small as 18 sq metres, globally architects are used to getting creative with tight spaces – they must let as much light in and offer individuals and families the same flexibility as a larger home.
Demands for affordable housing in Australia, and the rising cost of living and building globally, has seen an increase in alternate living arrangements from granny flats, to van life to the tiny home movement. But small living doesn’t have to be microscopic. So how does the world live small well?
Madrid, Spain
Architects Patricia Carrasco and Ricardo Mancho’s 55-sq-metre apartment makes use of glass to allow natural light to reach every room. Photograph: Alberto Amores Montiel
Architects Patricia Carrasco and Ricardo Mancho have lived in their 55-sq-metre apartment for the last five years. They say it is the “best house ever.”
“We wake up every morning and say we live in the best house in the world,” says Mancho.
The apartment’s living and sleeping areas are separated – the bathroom and bedroom are set back from the kitchen and open plan living, but the use of glass and floor-to-ceiling balcony doors allow natural light to reach every room, while curtains offer flexibility and privacy. Corridors function as storage for shoes and other household items, while plants fill the balconies and hang from the ceiling.
Mancho and Carrasco say that all this can be done cheaply: most of their cupboards and storage are from Ikea. Discarded materials from construction sites were used to make some furniture, like a marble slab that is now their coffee table.
Being able to move furniture around gives Carrasco and Mancho freedom to use the space in their apartment. Photograph: Alberto Amores Montiel
“Why this house is really good, even though it’s not really big, is because of its flexibility” says Carrasco.
For the few times a month when friends visit, bedside tables can brought into the living room as extra seating and the TV moved aside. “When we do yoga, we move the furniture around, and it really gives us freedom in a small space.”
The couple’s apartment is in one of Madrid’s “corralas”, dating back to the 1860s. With inward-facing patios, windows and doors facing inwards, which often remain open encouraging neighbours to talk throughout the day.
There are some sacrifices to be made. The couple would like an air fryer, but they don’t have the bench space. They have a one-person coffee machine to reduce clutter. But living small, they say, has made them live within their means.
“When I was a kid, I had a really big house with my family. I thought that my house had to be like that … and I really thought that I had to have a wardrobe for the plates … the kind of plates that you only use once a year.”
The size of the average home in Spain is growing and bigger homes are desirable. But cost and a desire to be in Madrid’s city centre has Spaniards in the capital sticking to 60 to 70 sq metres dwellings.
The couple are about to upgrade to a 90-sq-metre apartment, so their home can double as an office and have room for a future family. But they say this is their limit.
‘If we have smaller houses, we have more density and density gives you everything.’ Photograph: Alberto Amores Montiel
“If your house is 250 sq metres, that means that there is almost no density in your area,” says Mancho.
“If we have smaller houses, we have more density and density gives you everything … I work, and I have a place to buy bread, I say hello to the person selling flowers, I talk to people, I have an interaction with them. We love our neighbourhood.”
Paris, France
Architect Bertille Bordja says ‘every corner, every centimetre in Paris especially, and in France, is precious’. Photograph: agathe tissier 2021/Agathe Tissier Supplied
For architect Bertille Bordja, giving a second life to the historic buildings of Paris is a welcome challenge at her Ovo Studio business.
“Every corner, every centimetre in Paris especially, and in France, is precious,” says Bordja.
“We have a big history, so lots of buildings and old stones.”
Apartments in Paris are about 70 sq metres on average, she says. Bordja says many Parisians are willing to sacrifice space to be in the city centre, where apartments are often in or next to iconic 19th century Haussman buildings that dominate the city.
Space is at a premium in Paris. Photograph: Agathe Tissier
Bordja commonly removes large corridors taking up valuable square metres, instead creating a thicker wall to house inbuilt storage, but maintaining the division of space and isolating noise. She also embraces open-plan kitchens and living areas to let light in.
Bordja says even though living smaller is normal, families in particular are always trying to find ways to squeeze in more space, and she encourages clients to think about the whole space, floor to ceiling.
“They ask, every time, for the famous third room, in the two bedroom apartments,” she says.
“I say, ‘you will have the third room, but maybe it is only eight sq metres, but it’s OK, it will work’. I work more with volume than with sq metres … eight in volume is very different.”
Ovo Studio aims to retain the character of any place they renovate. Photograph: Agathe Tissier
She always tries to use sustainable materials, often multiple times, throughout an apartment while maintaining the character of the space. Heritage buildings can have layers of structural problems under the surface, but Bordja says new developments made with cheap materials are not always easier to design for.
“It is very important for some French people to renovate, to take care of these buildings,” says Bordja.
New York City, US
Michael Chen says ‘there is a degree of motion and transformation that happens from morning to night’ in his apartment designs. Photograph: Alan Tansey/MCKA
New York City is the most densely populated city in the US. In the historic, desirable neighbourhoods of Manhattan, apartments are an average of 50 to 60 sq metres.
The founder and principal architect at MCKA, Michael Chen, says that there is “a spirit” to those who want to live in cities and smaller spaces.
Chen became known for designing small almost 10 years ago, when he took 36 sq metres and created the “five to one” apartment – a custom-built, fold-out, multi-use space.
“One thing about designing for small spaces is thinking about time and how the space evolves over the course of the day,” says Chen.
“There is a degree of motion and transformation that happens from morning to night.”
Demonstrating what Chen calls the “choreography” of living, the apartment’s sliding storage unit creates the ability to close away day or night “rooms” as required. Transforming a dressing room to a sleeping space to an open plan living space, the “zones of overlap” feel spacious, separate and deliberate.
Leaving some space empty allows for ‘visual and spatial relief’.
Chen says he also hopes such designs allow for living small can be done with grace.
As well as using custom-built, highly engineered and malleable solutions to tight spaces, Chen extols the virtues of a particular piece of traditional furniture: the table.
Another design trick he suggests is leaving some space empty, which allows for “visual and spatial relief”.
As prices rise in boroughs like Manhattan and Brooklyn, Chen says people are rethinking the way they live in their apartments, and “planning in place” for families instead of relocating.
“The idea that multiple people might be in a small space, means you need to allow for coordination and privacy.”
Tokyo, Japan
The small parcels of land in Tokyo means architects have to adapt and think differently. Photograph: Kai Nakamura/Unemori
A city of 13 million, Tokyo is the most populated prefecture in Japan, where the average home is about 65 sq metres. At Unemori Architects, architect Ryosuke Koizumi says the smaller plots in the city force architects to think differently.
“I believe that thinking about spaces with extremes, such as light and dark, openness and closure, stretches the range of human perception,” says Koizumi.
Unemori project House Tokyo, built in 2019, has a total floor space of 50 sq metres despite being built on a 26-sq-metre block.
A house for two, it sits in a dark, narrow alley, but is full of light thanks to building upwards – a semi basement level for the bedroom leads up to an entrance, before the kitchen and dining areas on the first floor.
Large windows allow for natural light at varying angles. Photograph: Kai Nakamura/Unemori
Above them, large windows and various ceiling heights make the home feel expansive, bringing natural light from multiple sides.
Like Hong Kong, Tokyo is also known for micro apartments, starting at just nine sq metres, but small spaces often mean that more time is spent out in the community.
“They frequently bathe in a nearby public bath. That’s why there is no bathtub in this house” he says.
Building upwards is also common. Views of the sky, neighbouring houses and streets means homes have a unique relationship with the space around them. In Tokyo, creating new shapes creates the uneven landscape the city is known for.
Melbourne, Australia
Colin Chee used tips and trips from Never Too Small to transform his apartment.
The founder of Never Too Small, Colin Chee, says small apartments in Australia are often seen as dark and dingy.
Chee bought a 37-sq-metre apartment off the plan in 2012. A year and a half later, he was shocked to find his flat was cramped, dark and narrow. But stripped of brand new, ill-fitting wardrobes and replaced with Ikea furniture, floor-to-ceiling storage and mirrors, it became his home.
He recently upgraded to 40 sq metres – what he calls the sweet spot – where he now lives with his partner and his dog.
But Chee says Australia places too much emphasis on size, over quality.
“My mum used to say … you cannot judge the quality or the nutrition of the food by the size of the plate,” says Chee.
Chee says that Never Too Small has inspired people to pick up on hacks for small living. Pick the right furniture (chairs with skinny legs and low backs keep the space open), choose sliding doors and curtains over permanent walls and add mirrors where they will reflect natural light.
Also in Melbourne, Chee says the Cairo flat is one of the best examples of how high ceilings, dividing curtains and multi-use spaces can make a small apartment sing. In the heritage listed 1930s art deco Cairo flats, one of the first examples of medium density housing in Australia, surrounding vegetation and a courtyard offer both communal space and a green aspect for all apartments.
But Chee says new blocks in Australia typically don’t have shared spaces that encourage interaction, and restrictive floor plans and minimum standards for cubic metres of (often pre-built) storage make apartments hard to adapt.
Chee’s 40sq-metre apartment before refitting.
In contrast, many apartments in Asia are “shells” when bought, allowing for more flexibility, as well an ability to respond to cultural norms, including the arrangement of the living space for prayer or a large entryway where shoes are left.
Architecture videographer and the creative founder of Simple Dwelling, Anthony Richardson, says, “There’s a really strong misconception that minimalism is empty, cold, white rooms.
“A simple home can have texture, it can have life and warmth to it … so many houses that are touted as minimalist are often quite excessively large … but when you really break it down, minimalism is about the essentials.”
Richardson says existing suburban terraces can be poorly oriented, but skylights and creative ceiling design can let the light in, while using textures like timber, brick and concrete can create warmth in small spaces.
But the biggest challenge in Australia is that small is seen as a backwards step.
“I think so many people would choose a larger, poorly designed house over a smaller, more refined, beautiful house just because of the size.”
“Everyone just thinks about resale, resale, resale.”
This article was amended on 7 April 2024. Colin Chee’s apartment was bought in 2012, not 2007. This article was amended on 9 April – an earlier version said Paris apartment sizes were an average of 40-45sqm, not 70sqm. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/01/david-bowie-books-kerouac-milligan | Books | 2013-10-01T14:00:00.000Z | Liz Bury | David Bowie's top 100 must-read books | As a new version of the exhibition David Bowie Is opens this week at the Art Gallery of Ontario, curators have revealed a list of his top 100 must-read books, giving a fascinating insight into the mind of the influential musician and style icon.
The show, which offered unprecedented access to Bowie's own archive, became the most popular ever mounted by London's V&A when it ran there earlier this year.
As the Guardian's Alexis Petridis pointed out at the time, the Bowie story is so well-known that "unless it's content to retell a very hackneyed story indeed, David Bowie Is has to find a way of casting new light on some of the most over-analysed and discussed music in rock history."
The reading list, with books presented in chronological order rather than order of preference, provides Ontario with a new angle. American classics of the 50s and 60s are strongly represented – On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Truman Capote's In Cold Blood – as are tales of working-class boys made good, which emerged in the postwar years: Keith Waterhouse's Billy Liar and Room at the Top by John Braine, and The Outsider by Colin Wilson, a study of creativity and the mindset of misfits. RD Laing's The Divided Self speaks to a fascination with psychotherapy and creativity, as does The Origin of Consciousness in the breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, by Julian Jaynes. There is no evidence that Bowie's scientific inquries extend beyond psychology – Stephen Hawking's cosmic theories are out – but his tastes are otherwise broad.
Political history features, in titles such as Christopher Hitchens' The Trial of Henry Kissinger, and Orlando Figes' A People's Tragedy, as well as collections of interviews.
A broad taste for fiction emerges, too, from early Ian McEwan (In Between the Sheets) and Martin Amis's definitive 1980s novel, Money, to 21st-century fictions such as Sarah Waters' Fingersmith and Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz.
He also displays a penchant for irreverent humour, with the inclusion of Spike Milligan's comic novel Puckoon, and the entire oeuvres of Viz and Private Eye.
And, of course, there's music – with soul music especially prominent. Bowie selects Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom by Peter Guralnick, and Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music by Gerri Hirshey, as well as Charlie Gillett's The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll.
David Bowie's top 100 must-read books
The Age of American Unreason, Susan Jacoby (2008)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz (2007)
The Coast of Utopia (trilogy), Tom Stoppard (2007)
Teenage: The Creation of Youth 1875-1945, Jon Savage (2007)
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters (2002)
The Trial of Henry Kissinger, Christopher Hitchens (2001)
Mr Wilson's Cabinet of Wonder, Lawrence Weschler (1997)
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1890-1924, Orlando Figes (1997)
The Insult, Rupert Thomson (1996)
Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon (1995)
The Bird Artist, Howard Norman (1994)
Kafka Was the Rage: A Greenwich Village Memoir, Anatole Broyard (1993)
Beyond the Brillo Box: The Visual Arts in Post-Historical Perspective, Arthur C Danto (1992)
Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson, Camille Paglia (1990)
David Bomberg, Richard Cork (1988)
Sweet Soul Music: Rhythm and Blues and the Southern Dream of Freedom, Peter Guralnick (1986)
The Songlines, Bruce Chatwin (1986)
Hawksmoor, Peter Ackroyd (1985)
Nowhere to Run: The Story of Soul Music, Gerri Hirshey (1984)
Nights at the Circus, Angela Carter (1984)
Money, Martin Amis (1984)
White Noise, Don DeLillo (1984)
Flaubert's Parrot, Julian Barnes (1984)
The Life and Times of Little Richard, Charles White (1984)
A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn (1980)
A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole (1980)
Interviews with Francis Bacon, David Sylvester (1980)
Darkness at Noon, Arthur Koestler (1980)
Earthly Powers, Anthony Burgess (1980)
Raw, a "graphix magazine" (1980-91)
Viz, magazine (1979 –)
The Gnostic Gospels, Elaine Pagels (1979)
Metropolitan Life, Fran Lebowitz (1978)
In Between the Sheets, Ian McEwan (1978)
Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, ed Malcolm Cowley (1977)
The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes (1976)
Tales of Beatnik Glory, Ed Saunders (1975)
Mystery Train, Greil Marcus (1975)
Selected Poems, Frank O'Hara (1974)
Before the Deluge: A Portrait of Berlin in the 1920s, Otto Friedrich (1972)
n Bluebeard's Castle: Some Notes Towards the Re-definition of Culture, George Steiner (1971) Octobriana and the Russian Underground, Peter Sadecky (1971)
The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll, Charlie Gillett(1970)
The Quest for Christa T, Christa Wolf (1968)
Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock, Nik Cohn (1968)
The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov (1967)
Journey into the Whirlwind, Eugenia Ginzburg (1967)
Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jr (1966)
In Cold Blood, Truman Capote (1965)
City of Night, John Rechy (1965)
Herzog, Saul Bellow (1964)
Puckoon, Spike Milligan (1963)
The American Way of Death, Jessica Mitford (1963)
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea, Yukio Mishima (1963)
The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin (1963)
A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (1962)
Inside the Whale and Other Essays, George Orwell (1962)
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, Muriel Spark (1961)
Private Eye, magazine (1961 –)
On Having No Head: Zen and the Rediscovery of the Obvious, Douglas Harding (1961)
Silence: Lectures and Writing, John Cage (1961)
Strange People, Frank Edwards (1961)
The Divided Self, RD Laing (1960)
All the Emperor's Horses, David Kidd (1960)
Billy Liar, Keith Waterhouse (1959)
The Leopard, Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1958)
On the Road, Jack Kerouac (1957)
The Hidden Persuaders, Vance Packard (1957)
Room at the Top, John Braine (1957)
A Grave for a Dolphin, Alberto Denti di Pirajno (1956)
The Outsider, Colin Wilson (1956)
Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (1955)
Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell (1949)
The Street, Ann Petry (1946)
Black Boy, Richard Wright (1945) | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/shortcuts/2019/sep/30/from-worzel-gummidge-to-grotbags-the-10-most-disturbing-childrens-tv-characters | Television & radio | 2019-09-30T16:54:31.000Z | Hannah J Davies | From Worzel Gummidge to Grotbags: the 10 most disturbing children’s TV characters | Worzel Gummidge is the latest kids’ series to get a reboot, with Mackenzie Crook playing the titular scarecrow for two hour-long specials that will air later this year. But rather than the raggedy, straw-haired look of old, he has been reimagined with skin as crumpled and weathered as an ancient oak, and creepy roots sprouting from his chin. In short, he is half-man, half-tree – and 100% sure to scare your children (and maybe you, too). But isn’t children’s TV all about burying nightmarish characters into the psyches of successive generations? Here are some of the scariest.
The Daleks (Doctor Who)
Like body-snatched Question Time audience members, Doctor Who baddies often have no hair, wrinkled skin and sunken eyes. The scariest of all remain the Daleks, the metal tanks of doom whose exterminatory antics were supposedly based on the Nazis. Cheery.
Raggety (Rupert Bear)
Rupert is a cuddly-looking bear dressed as if on a “big four” accountancy firm away day. Then there is Raggety, his moody and terrifying pal, who is shaped like a twig. Time to get some new mates, Rupes.
Grotbags (Grotbags)
Nightmarish ... Carol Lee Scott as Grotbags. Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
Try to imagine a more horrible-sounding word than Grotbags. You can’t, can you? Perfect, then, for a green-skinned witch with broken teeth, first seen on Rod Hull’s Emu’s World in the 80s. These days, everyone has seen the musical Wicked – about a green-skinned witch – at least eight times.
The Demon Headmaster (The Demon Headmaster)
As if being the image of Jack Straw isn’t scary enough, the Demon Headmaster is also, well, a demon headmaster. The series, created for CBBC in 1996, followed his exploits to control a school and then, eventually, seize all the information in the world. Who says teachers are only in it for the holidays?
Mr Blobby (Noel’s House Party)
Chilling ... Mr Blobby. Photograph: BBC
Of course Mr Blobby is terrifying – he is basically a Dalek with legs and a fancy paint job. But it is his lack of personality that makes him so spooky: there is, categorically, nothing inside Mr Blobby’s skull. He is a void of clumsiness, repetition (“Blobby, blobby, blobby”) and nonsense. As the New York Times said, some consider him “proof of Britain’s deep-seated attraction to trash”.
Wizbit (Wizbit)
Everyone remembers Caroline Aherne’s withering question to Debbie McGee, in her Mrs Merton guise. But maybe she shouldn’t have been asking what first attracted her to a millionaire, but rather what on earth possessed the pair of them to make a children’s TV show about a sentient wizard’s hat with a monobrow. Chilling.
Chocky (Chocky)
Every child has an imaginary friend, right? But do all kids have imaginary alien friends? Such was the USP of Chocky, the 1984 series about a boy who has his brain infiltrated by an otherworldly creature, attracting the attention of the government. Terrifying – although nice to remember an era when they had time for things other than stockpiling and backstops.
The Sun baby (Teletubbies)
Make it stop ... the Sun baby. Photograph: BBC Worldwide/PA
The Teletubbies baby is now in her 20s, with an internet rumour earlier this year claiming that she had had a child of her own (it wasn’t true). But, amid the faux-nostalgic “Oh my God, I feel so old”, it is easy to forget that the decapitated Teletubbies baby was kind of terrifying, despite being one of the more normal elements of a programme about toddlers with TVs in their stomachs.
Entire cast (Rentaghost)
Creepy jester – check. Pallid witch – check. Pantomime horse with a rictus grin – check. Everything about Rentaghost was scary. At least its vision of west London suburbia avoided the horror of surging house prices and babyccinos.
Noseybonk (Jigsaw)
With his protruding nose, cavernous nostrils and eyes like wormholes, this character from the retro puzzle show looks like something out of A Clockwork Orange. But Noseybonk was, unfortunately, not censored. Even years after the show ended in 1984, he hadn’t gone, popping up on Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe in 2008. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/feb/03/vegan-roast-cauliflower-kimchi-couscous-salad-recipe-meera-sodha | Food | 2024-02-03T12:00:16.000Z | Meera Sodha | Meera Sodha’s vegan recipe for roast cauliflower and kimchi couscous salad | The new vegan | You can take the girl out of Scunthorpe, but you can’t take Scunthorpe out of the girl. This is possibly why I didn’t latch on to the bowl food movement a decade ago, but I’ve since grown, both as a woman and as a food writer (not physically, mind; I am still only 5ft 2in), and these days I can see the benefits of being able to fashion delicious ingredients, some of them ready-made, such as kimchi and hummus, over grains and binding them all together with a lovely dressing. It’s very useful to have a template with which to create a delicious, nutritious meal using whatever you have in the fridge, so now I’m on board with the bowl.
Roast cauliflower and kimchi couscous bowl
Keep the dressing and the condiments, but otherwise use this recipe as a rough guide – feel free to switch out the grain, roast vegetables and herbs for whatever you have.
Prep 15 min
Cook 40 min
Serves 4
For the salad
1 large cauliflower (or 2 small ones), trimmed and cut into florets (750g net)
Rapeseed oil
Salt
2 sweet potatoes (400g), washed and cut into 2cm cubes
250g giant couscous – I used wholewheat
100g baby-leaf spinach, roughly chopped
20g parsley
100g kimchi, shop-bought or homemade, drained if need be, then sliced
200g hummus
2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
For the dressing
2cm x 2cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
1 lemon, zest finely grated, then juiced, to get 2½ tbsp
1 tbsp light agave syrup
90ml rapeseed oil
1 tsp salt
Heat the oven to 220C (200C fan)/425F/gas 7, and line two large baking trays with greaseproof paper.
Cut out the base from the cauliflower and remove and discard the outer larger leaves; keep the inner tender ones. Break the cauliflower into 4cm florets, cut the inner leaves into 3cm strips and cut the stalk into ½cm pieces. Put all the cauliflower in a bowl with three tablespoons of rapeseed oil and a half-teaspoon of salt, then mix really well. Tip on to one of the lined trays and spread out evenly.
Put the cubed sweet potato in the same bowl, add a tablespoon of oil and a quarter-teaspoon of salt, toss to coat, then tip on to the second tray. Roast the cauliflower for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown, and the sweet potato for 30 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the dressing. In the same bowl, mix the grated ginger, lemon zest and juice, agave syrup, oil and salt, and whisk to combine.
Cook the couscous in plenty of boiling water, according to the packet instructions, then drain really well. Transfer to the bowl of dressing, add the cooked cauliflower and sweet potato, stir in the spinach and parsley, toss and taste for seasoning.
Divide the salad between four large bowls, top each portion with two tablespoons of hummus, a tablespoon of kimchi and a sprinkling of pumpkin seeds, then serve. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/mar/30/philippa-gregory-interview | Life and style | 2024-03-30T09:30:05.000Z | Rosanna Greenstreet | Philippa Gregory: ‘I’m lazy domestically. I don’t do housework. My mother would have called me a slut’ | Born in Kenya, Philippa Gregory, 70, wrote her first novel while completing a PhD in 18th‑century literature at Edinburgh University. Wideacre became a bestselling trilogy, and she went on to write many popular historical novels, including The Other Boleyn Girl, The White Queen and The White Princess, which have also been adapted for screen. Her first play, Richard, My Richard is at the Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds from 11 to 27 April. She lives in Leicestershire and has two children.
When were you happiest?
I’m a lucky woman – I was walking in the rain yesterday and was really happy.
What is your greatest fear?
I am spooked by water underground, water in drains and water in machinery. I am very frightened of mill wheels.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
I’m lazy domestically. I don’t do housework. My mother would have called me a slut.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Trolling, meanness and male violence.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I have days when I don’t get on with my hair.
What is your most unappealing habit?
I sometimes drift off into a world of my own when people are talking to me.
Which words or phrases do you most overuse?
I say “darling” when I don’t know people’s names.
Peter Sarsgaard: ‘A relative once said to me: You’re not an actor, an actor looks like Mel Gibson’
Read more
Would you choose fame or anonymity?
Anonymity. I don’t think you get a lot of benefit from being famous.
Aside from a property, what’s the most expensive thing you’ve ever bought?
I take my family on holiday. We went to Egypt just after Christmas. Golly, it’s expensive.
What do you owe your parents?
My mother had a deep curiosity and would speculate about people, and that would involve making up stories. The habit of looking at people and wondering about them is a fantastic start for a writer.
What is your most treasured possession?
I am currently treasuring a birthday card from my grandson that reads: “Thank you for living until 70.”
What was the best kiss of your life?
Kensington High Street, after lunch, 25 or more years ago. I don’t want to say who.
Have you ever said ‘I love you’ without meaning it?
No, I haven’t.
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Which living person do you most despise and why?
I am not very keen on Netanyahu or Putin or Trump. There are quite a few people whose behaviour is not up to the standard of civilised humanity. I am disappointed in them.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
I was very sorry to stop at two children – I would have liked to have had a third – and I am very sorry to have got divorced.
How often do you have sex?
With somebody else, not at all at the moment.
What would you like to leave your children?
I’d like them to inherit my optimism.
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
A full-time driver/butler/chef.
What keeps you awake at night?
An exciting idea. I usually write for an hour or so, and then I go to sleep.
Would you rather have more sex, money or fame?
Money.
How would you like to be remembered?
Not for a long time. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2005/dec/15/englandinpakistan200506.cricket1 | Sport | 2005-12-15T13:06:22.000Z | Lawrence Booth | Over-by-over: England innings | Preamble So, England need to score 354 runs to win after Pakistan's batsmen went berserk. I knew I should have put money on a 4-1 series victory for Pakistan! "Enough of the miserable English defeatism," shrieks Andy Harold. " We should be encouraging our boys to victory or at the very least tell Freddie he has to make a double century or will we take back his shiny trophy and give it to some obscure gymnast."
1st over: England 0-0 (Trescothick 0, Prior 0) This surely has to be the most forlorn runchase in the history of one-day international cricket, but, well, it needs to be reported, so here goes. Shoaib Akhtar opens the bowling to Marcus Trescothick, who signals his intentions by leaving alone the second ball. And the third. And the fourth. And the fifth, which in fairness should have been a wide. He then plays and misses at the sixth. A maiden!
2nd over: England 2-0 (Trescothick 1, Prior 1) Rana Naved almost has Matt Prior caught behind first ball with a delivery that swings away late from the right-hander. Prior then picks up a single thanks to an edge through the slips, before Trescothick breaks his duck with a push down the ground. England don't have much time to play themselves in here. In fact, they have no time at all. "Being English, and living and working in Karachi with all Pakistani colleagues, is no longer fun," weeps George Fulton. "The abuse is merciless."
3rd over: England 4-0 (Trescothick 2, Prior 1) Shoaib is no-balled for a slow full-toss that passes Trescothick above waist height. He gets a warning for it - one more and he's out of the attack. It could be England's only hope. Trescothick pats a single into the covers, but England need boundaries! As usual, Shoaib is varying his pace superbly. England need to score at seven an over; so far, they're racing along at 1.33. "I will be surprised if they get within 200 of this total," says Dave Langlois. "The disintegration of this tour is now reaching Yatesian proportions. It's horribly painful."
4th over: England 16-0 (Trescothick 14, Prior 1) Trescothick pulls Naved for two in the first real show of aggression from the English openers, then takes two runs into the covers. The next ball is worked off his pads over midwicket for four - that was the slower one, but Trescothick picked it well. He then completes the over with a lovely late-cut for four more. "I'm following this in a vague attempt to bring myself to care more about the one-day form of the game, which I usually look on in the same way as football friendlies," says Sam Carpenter. "I'm sure it would help if they had these before the Tests, rather than now when everyone's attention is elsewhere. I suppose the hosts are still mustard keen though." They sure are, Sam.
5th over: England 19-0 (Trescothick 15, Prior 1) Shoaib is just too fast for Prior, who flashes hard outside off but connects only with fresh air. He escapes the torment with a leg-bye off his hip. A steady start by England as Trescothick runs a single to third man. "I have a feeling in my stomach that we're going to see something very special this morning," says Nick Gale. Hmm.
6th over: England 22-0 (Trescothick 17, Prior 2) Trescothick nibbles Naved to third man for a single and Prior decides to have a wipe: he advances down the track but only gets a big inside edge to short fine leg for a single. Every time England fail to score seven runs in an over, the required rate climbs. "It's probably a good moment in your current state to make you wince and tell you about my bestest cricket-related injury," says Richard Rowe. "As the fourth Ashes Test finished a day early, my now wife thought it'd be a Good Thing for me to get some damnable fresh air instead of being cooped about slobbering at the telly, and cut the hedges. Whilst basking in the imminent Ashes victory I lost concentration and sliced through the top of my two little fingers with my lethal (and now binned) hedge-trimmer. Got a week off work out of it but with no cricket on to watch. Gah! Anyone beat that?"
WICKET! Prior run out (Shoaib Akhtar) 2 (22-1) Whoops. Trescothick drops the ball at his feet and Prior decides there's a single. The problem is that Trescothick disagrees. By the time Prior has come round to his way of thinking, he's virtually at the other end of the pitch. His scamper back to the crease is beaten by Shoaib's direct hit. Dear oh dear oh dear.
7th over: England 35-1 (Trescothick 22, Strauss 5) Trescothick does his best to put the Prior dismissal behind him by lofting Shoaib's slower ball over the covers for four. I suspect he's going to have to score 150 if England are going to win this. Shoaib sends down two leg-side wides to Andrew Strauss, who then helps the first legitimate delivery he faces to fine leg for four. Incredibly, umpire Hill then signals wide as Shoaib goes round the wicket - that was a ridiculous decision. "How the hell is that a cricket-related injury?" scoffs Jack Fray. "If that counts, then the time I detached my quadruceps while playing rugby BECAUSE IT WASN'T THE CRICKET SEASON must count as well. See, we can blame anything on the absence of cricket. I believe when Thatcher got elected there was no cricket on. And Hitler wouldn't have invaded Poland if only there had been an Ashes nailbiter."
WICKET! Trescothick c Inzamam-ul-Haq b Rana Naved 22 (40-2) Trescothick completes a miserable game by edging Naved straight into Inzy's cuddly midriff at first slip. England are doomed. "When Dave Langlois (3rd over) says that the disintegration of this tour is reaching Yatesian proportions - does he mean that the only way to watch it is while getting smashed in a tacky wine lodge?" asks Jim Procter-Blain. "If so, I must agree... it's horrible to watch it sober." Yatesian, Yeatsian - what's a couple of vowels between friends?
WICKET! Solanki c Younis Khan b Rana Naved 0 (40-3) The ball after Strauss is nearly run out Vikram Solanki steers Naved high to second slip. "How about suggestions for a theme song for this tour?" says Karl Meakin. "My nomination: 'Is It Wicked Not To Care' by Belle & Sebastian."
9th over: England 47-3 (Strauss 6, Flintoff 5) The bad news is that England need to score a further 313 runs at 7.51 an over. The good news is, er, um, oh. Then again, Freddie isn't going to die wondering, as he puts it in his new DVD, and pulls his first ball from Shoaib for four.
10th over: England 47-3 (Strauss 6, Flintoff 5) A maiden from Naved to Flintoff. Not what the doctor ordered. "Yes Richard Rowe I CAN beat that," claims Kurt Stengel. "I was also using my hedge trimmer recently, slipped and cut my left leg clean off at the knee. It bloody smarted I can tell you."
11th over: England 50-3 (Strauss 8, Flintoff 6) I seem to remember these two adding an awful lot of runs during a one-dayer against West Indies in 2004. Well, today they're going to have to add an awful lot and then an awful lot more. And even then England will probably still lose. Gah! Flintoff pummels Mohammad Sami into the covers off the back foot for a single, but his big shots keep hitting the fielders. "In reply to Karl Meakin, I think that a more apt theme song for the tour would be I Wanna Be Sedated by the Ramones!" says Jos Roberts.
12th over: England 55-3 (Strauss 9, Flintoff 10) Afridi drops Flintoff at extra cover! It was low and hard but he got both hands to it. I'd love to say Freddie will now make Pakistan pay for their carelessness, but I'd be lying. Naved then thinks he's got Flintoff out caught behind, and I think he's got a point: Flintoff nicked it and Akmal caught it in his fingertips. Freddie responds by lofting the next ball over cover for four, but he had two lives in that over. "How about Funeral by The Arcade Fire," suggests Andy Harrod.
13th over: England 63-3 (Strauss 15, Flintoff 12) Pakistan didn't make much of a fuss over that Flintoff non-decision, which is to their credit. But I suspect that has something to do with the fact that they know they're going to win this game very easily indeed. Four singles in that Sami over followed by a Strauss cover-drive for four. "Given the number of abject batting, bowling and fielding performances on this tour, the theme song has to be 'Disintegration' by The Cure," says Richard O'Hagan.
14th over: England 71-3 (Strauss 16, Flintoff 19) A lovely shot from Flintoff, who pings Naved back over his head with consummate timing. Two singles and a two follow: eight off the over. Which is just what England need. And here come the drinks. "Love in an Elevator," says Dave Wilkerson. "For no other reason than I have it mercilessly stuck in my head."
15th over: England 72-3 (Strauss 17, Flintoff 19) Flintoff is leading a charmed life here. Sami almost bowls him as he attempts to run a single to third man, but the ball misses off-stump by a coat of varnish. Just one of the over as the commentators babble excitedly about Power Plays. Can't see it myself. "How about "Dazed and Confused" by the the mighty Led Zeppelin!" says Andrew Beaumont. Actually, it could apply just as well to the Guardian sports desk this morning, Andrew. As I glance across to Barry Glendenning, all I can see is a broken man.
16th over: England 79-3 (Strauss 23, Flintoff 19) England need 8.1 an over as Flintoff hares through for a leg-bye. The supersub Yasir Arafat is bowling now, and Strauss hammers him through point for four. England's supersub, by the way, is Ian Bell, who I'm assuming will replace Jimmy Anderson in the batting order. "Is Kurt Stengel pulling our collective leg?" says Angus Saunders. "If not, please apologise to him on my behalf for that pun. And to everyone else, too."
WICKET! Strauss lbw b Sami 24 (79-4) Superb stuff from Sami, who pins Strauss in front of middle stump with a 91mph inswinging yorker. Strauss had no chance at all with that one and England are sinking fast.
17th over: England 79-4 (Flintoff 19, Collingwood 0) I can honestly say I have never watched a more one-sided one-day international, and that includes Bangladesh's triumph over Australia last summer. And to think England actually won the toss! A wicket maiden for Sami. "How about Helter Skelter by the Beatles?" asks Neil Toolan. "Looks like we got to the top of the slide against the Aussies and we're now going for a ride back down again!"
18th over: England 91-4 (Flintoff 31, Collingwood 0) Flintoff eases Arafat to the right of the stumps for four gorgeous runs, then pulls him high over midwicket for four more. Another heave to cow corner follows, but these runs feel like drops in the ocean. Quite entertaining drops, mind you. "Is it not time to amend "Follow England's progress against Pakistan LIVE" to something more appropriate such as "Wallow in the misery of England's latest dismal performance against Pakistan LIVE"?" suggests Magnus Spencer. "Just a thought." And not a bad one either.
19th over: England 97-4 (Flintoff 32, Collingwood 5) Paul Collingwood misses out on a couple of leg-side deliveries from Sami as the required rate climbs to 8.35. A clumped four through point helps. "What about Earth, Wind and Fire classic 'After the love has gone'?" says Mike McDougall. "It sums up our Ashes comedown rather succinctly methinks."
WICKET! Flintoff b Yasir Arafat 36 (101-5) Flintoff is yorked leg-stump as he tries to make room, and Arafat is delighted with that one! The end is well and truly nigh for England. As if it hasn't been since about 4.30am this morning when Trescothick asked Pakistan to bat.
20th over: England 102-5 (Collingwood 5, Jones 1) Geraint Jones is the new batsman, but not even Jesus Christ could save them from here. "How about "Death of a Party" by Blur?" suggests Andrew Smith.
21st over: England 103-5 (Collingwood 5, Jones 2) Shahid Afridi enters the attack, but quite frankly Inzamam could toss the ball to Noddy at one end and Big Ears at the other and England would still be shafted. Two singles off the over, which clearly is not enough.
22nd over: England 107-5 (Collingwood 6, Jones 5) Jones is dropped by Younis Khan at slip off Arafat, who gives his team-mate a round of applause for costing him a wicket. Imagine his reaction if Khan had clung on! Here's Stephen Nye in Kazakhstan. "I have just been informed by an employee of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales that they consider Almaty, Kazakhstan (about 100 miles from China, at least 2,500 miles from anything that could be remotely considered as Europe, nearest major city: New Delhi) as part of Continental Europe. Consequently a higher rate of annual subscription applies."
23rd over: England 114-5 (Collingwood 13, Jones 5) Collingwood sweeps Afridi fine for four and is then caught behind trying to dab him to third man. But umpire Hill fails to hear the thin edge, which is understandable given the din coming from the crowd. Kamran Akmal can allow himself a cheeky grin behind his gloves: he knows it's not going to cost Pakistan the match. "Don't look back in anger by Oasis seems the obvious choice to me," says Gillian Stapleton. "Let's not be too harsh on them, wait till after India."
24th over: England 118-5 (Collingwood 16, Jones 6) Collingwood uses his feet to lift Arafat over midwicket for three. Whoop-di-do! "One series lost does not a summer make, as Yoda once said," points out Rory Lawson. "We have won 7 out of the last 8 Test series, and the one-day team are getting there, albeit not today...or on Monday. Therefore I go for the classic "Always look on the bright side". p.s. My works Xmas do tomorrow so in the form of a preemptive strike, I would like to apologise around to any colleagues that I may offend."
25th over: England 122-5 (Collingwood 19, Jones 7) So, at the theoretical halfway stage of the England innings, they have absolutely no chance whatsoever! You've got to love it. Eh? "Sod all these doom mongers," says Phil Maynard. "I'm remaining defiantly deluded. How about It Ain't Over Till It's Over by Lenny Kravitz?"
WICKET! Collingwood c Salman Butt b Shoaib Malik 19 (122-6) Collingwood tries to hit the new bowler Shoaib Malik out of the ground, but his slog-sweep only succeesd in picking out Salman Butt at deep midwicket.
26th over: England 122-6 (Jones 7, Blackwell 0) The question now is: will England lose by more than 200 runs? That was a wicket maiden for Shoaib Malik.
27th over: England 126-6 (Jones 9, Blackwell 2) England are playing as if they want to be tucked in bed with their loved ones on Christmas eve with snowflakes pattering on the windows. "Do you think Pakistan might make England follow on, in a novel attempt to achieve the first innings victory in one day cricketing history?" asks Alex Cooke.
28th over: England 129-6 (Jones 10, Blackwell 4) England need 10 an over from here, but the ball is turning and England can hardly get it off the square. Other than that, they are cruising towards a famous victory.
29th over: England 133-6 (Jones 11, Blackwell 7) Blackwell cuts Afridi for three. These spinners make an OBO writer's life hell, so my apologies for the shorter entries right now. "I wouldn't be too complacent, Lawrence," writes James Matthews. "I hear Big Ears has a mean slower ball."
30th over: England 138-6 (Jones 13, Blackwell 10) This game now has the feel of an extended net session: five runs off that Shoaib Malik over as the required rate approaches 11. Hell, I don't even know why I'm bothering telling you what the required rate is. "Instead of covering the last two one day games OBO should just repeat the last two days of the Ashes at The Oval," says Lee Deacon.
WICKET! Jones c Yasir Arafat b Shahid Afridi 14 (140-7) Jones reverse-sweeps Afridi straight into the hands of Arafat at short third man and England's runchase goes from utterly risible to downright humiliating. "I agree with the optimists," says Gary Ashwell. "We haven't even lost this one day series yet and remember we are without Vaughan, Jones and Pietersen. It's only five days since we scored our highest-ever one-day total against Pakistan."
31st over: England 140-7 (Blackwell 11, Bell 0) Ian Bell comes in at No9 as the supersub. But, as David Lloyd points out on Sky, "you need Superman out there.
32nd over: England 143-7 (Blackwell 13, Bell 1) Ho hum. Three runs off that Shoaib Malik over. I do wish Pakistan would hurry up and put everyone out of their misery. The Guardian sports-desk lunch is already in full swing!
WICKET! Blackwell c Mohammad Sami b Shahid Afridi 14 (145-8) The rout continues apace as Blackwell lifts Afridi straight to Mohammad Sami in the covers. If he was going to go down, he might as well have gone down fighting. That was just tame. "There is an old Pakistani drinking song that roughly translated is called 'We have hold of your balls and we are squeezing'," claims Kurt Stengel. "I would like to suggest that this is THE song of the tour. End of argument."
33rd over: England 145-8 (Bell 2, Plunkett 0) Time for a Plunkett half-century, I reckon...
34th over: England 148-8 (Bell 3, Plunkett 2) I wonder whether the sports-desk lunch will be a stand-around buffet or a sit-down formal thingy. I hope the former. "How about "Stiff Upper Lip" by AC/DC?" says Craig Easterbrook. "That's what's required at times like these."
35th over: England 157-8 (Bell 12, Plunkett 2) Bell brings up the 150 - yes, the 150! - with a thick outside edge for four as he dances down the track and tries to hit Afridi out of Karachi. He then collects four more with a neat chop through the off-side. Rarely have fours been scored to so much indifference.
36th over: England 162-8 (Bell 17, Plunkett 2) Bell edges Shoaib Mailk for four to third man, and I suppose he has a point to make here: a nice little 30 not out will remind the selectors that if he's good enough for the Test side, then he should be good enough for the one-day team too. "Re: Kazakhstan," writes Paul Graham. "If it's good enough for Uefa, it should be good enough for the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales."
37th over: England 165-8 (Bell 20, Plunkett 2) Three runs off that Afridi overzzz.... "With my Xmas being held tomorrow night, would any of your readers have advice for me to avoid completely destroying my career or what"s left of it after last years shenanigans?" says Rory Lawson. "Obviously this year I will not stage-dive onto the boss's head table mid-dessert. Been there, done that!"
38th over: England 169-8 (Bell 23, Plunkett 3) Come on, Belly! Hit the ball out of the ground! If ever there was a chance to practise six-hitting, this is it! But no, England collect four runs in that over as the torture continues.
39th over: England 175-8 (Bell 28, Plunkett 4) Bell uses Afridi's pace to run him for yet another boundary to third man. Clever, but futile. "Anyone who is out trying to do a reverse sweep should be banned from cricket for 25 years," says Danny Tolhurst.
40th over: England 179-8 (Bell 31, Plunkett 5) These two are doing their best to give the total some respectability, but no one's fooled. This has been a first-order thrashing. "Maybe England are collapsing as they're worrying about when they're going to have time to do their Christmas shopping," suggests Andy Gore. "They'll have to do it down the Shell on Christmas Eve. I can just imagine the look on Flintoff's mum and dad's face when he turns up with a bag of charcoal briquettes and a can of antifreeze."
41st over: England 186-8 (Bell 36, Plunkett 7) Shoaib drops an absolute sitter after Bell gets a big leading edge off Abdul Razzaq. No one is amused, least of all your correspondent who is licking his lips at the thought of the approaching buffet. Bell punishes Shoaib by whacking Razzaq over extra cover for four. Another blow in vain!
WICKET! Plunkett b Shoaib Malik 7 (186-9) Plunkett moves across his stumps and is bowled behind his pads. An amateurish dismissal on an amateurish day for England.
WICKET! Harmison c Shahid Afridi b Shoaib Malik (188) Harmison reverse-sweeps Shoaib Malik straight to silly point and England have lost by 166 runs, which is their joint-heaviest defeat in one-day internationals. It's been an utterly one-sided game, but, hey, we've had fun! Thanks for all your emails and see you on Monday for what I'm hoping will be the series decider. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2022/may/30/tv-tonight-amateur-artists-are-in-for-a-nude-awakening | Television & radio | 2022-05-30T05:20:20.000Z | Hollie Richardson | TV tonight: amateur artists are in for a nude awakening | Drawers Off: The Big Naked Painting Challenge
5.30pm, Channel 4
“In the studio we’ve got paints and colourful markers. Behind the curtain, somebody’s starkers!” A software developer and a barber are among the amateur artists having a nude awakening in this life drawing competition. Every evening throughout the week, enthusiastic host Jenny Eclair gives the contestants a new model to put on canvas using their skills, imagination and flair. They then mark each other out of 10 and the winning artist walks away with a £1,000 prize. Hollie Richardson
Springwatch
8pm, BBC Two
Chris Packham and Michaela Strachan return to showcase the best of British wildlife. In tonight’s opener, Iolo Williams is having a gander at eagles and otters on the Isle of Mull, while Megan McCubbin visits Kielder Forest. Tomorrow: adders, owls and a lesser-spotted woodpecker. Ali Catterall
Britain’s Got Talent
8pm, ITV
In the first of the live semi-finals, which run through the week, the judges welcome back eight acts as well as golden buzzer performers Loren Allred, Axel Blake, Born to Perform, Keiichi Iwasaki and Flintz & T4ylor. The first finalist will be chosen via public vote and the second by the judges. HR
Silent Witness
9pm, BBC One
Unclear intentions … Genesis Lynea and Emilia Fox in Silent Witness. Photograph: David Emery/BBC
Halfway into the 25th-anniversary season, Nikki (Emilia Fox) examines the butchered body of a man after his bloodied wife walks into a police station with a knife in her hand. Amanda Burton continues to enjoy her return as a shifty Sam Ryan – with her intentions still unclear. HR
The Chris & Rosie Ramsey Show
9pm, BBC Two
It was only a matter of time before this smash hit of a podcast made its way to TV. The geordie comedy couple are joined by Craig Revel Horwood and his fiance, Jonathan Myring, for a poke around their relationship, listening to audience confessions and – hopefully – keeping the bickering short of a full-blown row. Alexi Duggins
The Time Traveler’s Wife
9pm, Sky Atlantic
Steven Moffat’s unstable emotional rollercoaster cranks back to the troubled youth of Claire (Rose Leslie), who is frustrated by her own linear experience of time. She recalls when she was the girl who waited (for Henry to visit) – and when her teen self wanted more. Jack Seale | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/11/kate-picture-editing-royal-family-tell-all-secrets | Opinion | 2024-03-11T13:00:11.000Z | Simon Jenkins | The moral of Kate’s picture-editing debacle is simple: the royal family should tell all | Simon Jenkins | Not since Trotsky vanished from the Soviet politburo portrait has photo-editing caused such a storm. What dark secrets lie behind the daughter’s misaligned sweater, the blurred skirt and the twisted zip? What dynastic horror is being concealed by the Princess of Wales’s missing wedding ring? What are we not being told?
Questions over the princess’s abdominal operation follow hard on the heels of those over the king’s cancer. Both suggest something has been seriously wrong with the health of senior members of the royal family, something that they want to keep private. It has not worked. That subtlest of art forms, publicity manipulation, has gone awry. The palace must be asking, where is some nonsense from Prince Harry when we most need it?
The picture of the Princess of Wales and her children published over the weekend could hardly have been more charming and reassuring. After weeks of seclusion, she appeared smiling, hale and hearty. Good for her. If something went a bit fuzzy with the picture of her hand, so what? Her face is what matters. We can surely congratulate her on apparently being well, and turn the page.
Except that has not happened. The reality is that since the early years of Queen Elizabeth, the British royal family has validated itself through the medium of publicity. It did not follow most of Europe’s “cycling monarchies” into modesty and privacy. It did not treat its anachronistic status as purely ceremonial. The Queen presented her monarchy in full historic majesty, represented by an extended family of uncles, aunts and cousins with an estate of palaces, titles and functions, all involving serious money.
Princess of Wales says she edited family photo recalled by picture agencies
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There was only one form of legitimacy in this approach: that it was popular. British royalty relied on its celebrity, promoted worldwide. Broadly speaking, it worked. The Queen, King Charles and Prince William have been ideally cast. If others didn’t follow the script – Princesses Margaret and Diana and Prince Harry – they were almost perfect foils. But to the end of time, the institution of monarchy will depend on popular support. That is why its handling of the media is crucial. Press officers are its brigade of guards.
The iron law of celebrity states that there can be no such thing as privacy. There may be sympathy. There may be understanding. But there is no secrecy. The column inches and websites, once brought to life, are aching to be filled. They ache even more today, galvanised by an undisciplined and unregulated digital media, free to pour its poison into a world where lies are cash. The social media treatment of the health of the Princess of Wales has been disgusting. That such material should be unpoliced and legal is a scandal.
The moral of the editing of the royal picture is simple. Tell all. The princess has now admitted she edited the photograph but not why or what she edited out. At this stage, privacy does not work. It breeds rumour, gossip and fabrication. When fake news and fake pictures are rampant, secrecy is the enemy of truth. Just say what the matter is. It is more likely to generate respect.
Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/aug/17/scottish-power-overcharging-metric-meter-imperial-bills | Money | 2017-08-17T06:00:00.000Z | Anna Tims | Metric meter and imperial bills leave Scottish Power confused | Scottish Power seems to think I live in a blast furnace and use £400 worth of gas every month.
We moved into a three-bedroom house in 2015 and registered for an online dual-fuel account. From the start, the bills, based on meter readings, have been three times what they should be. The reason is clear – while the meter is metric, the bills use an imperial correction factor.
I have emailed and sent photos to explain the problem. But Scottish Power seems unable to comprehend this and keeps increasing my direct debits, so I am overdrawn. I have now fallen off its discount rate and am stuck on the costly standard charge. GK, Manchester
It’s a disgrace that it requires press intervention to sort out this simple problem. Scottish Power, having ignored a year of emails from you, discovers that the national gas database still has the old imperial meter for the property registered. The database and Scottish Power have updated their records and you will be rebilled for the past 12 months on the cheapest tariff.
You are to receive a refund of £1,381 with 3% interest, plus £100 in goodwill.
If you need help email Anna Tims at [email protected] or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/dec/25/royal-christmas-broadcast-queens-speech-elizabeth-10-facts | UK news | 2014-12-25T07:00:03.000Z | Caroline Davies | The royal Christmas broadcast: 10 facts | 1. The Christmas broadcast dates back to 1932, dreamed up by Sir John [later Lord] Reith, to plug his Empire Service, now the BBC World Service. George V, not initially enthusiastic, was persuaded during a tour of the BBC, and broadcast from a makeshift studio at Sandringham, hooked up by telephone lines to Broadcasting House, for the next three years, though he complained it ruined his Christmas Day. His final broadcast was delivered a month before his death in January 1936.
2. Rudyard Kipling drafted the first speech, which was 251 words long, ran for two-and-a-half minutes and reached a radio audience of 20 million across the British empire. It began: “I speak now from my home and from my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert, or the sea, that only voices out of the air can reach them.” So nervous was George V the BBC had to cover his desk with thick cloth to deaden the sound of him rustling his papers. The 3pm time slot was chosen as the best for reaching most of the empire by short waves from transmitters in Britain.
3. George’s successor, Edward VIII, did make a radio broadcast in December 1936, although it was on the 11th rather than the 25th, and announced his abdication rather than seasonal glad tidings.
4. George VI overcame his stammering on Christmas Day 1937 to thank subjects for their support during the first year of his unexpected reign. Two years later, his landmark broadcast marked the outbreak of war with the words: “A new year is at hand. We cannot tell what it will bring. If it brings peace, how thankful we shall all be. If it brings us continued struggle we shall remain undaunted.” His final broadcast, in 1951, was recorded rather than delivered live owing to illness.
5. The Queen has broadcast every year except 1969, because of a surfeit of coverage of Charles’s investiture as Prince of Wales that year. In 1957 she agreed to it being televised live. Freak atmospheric conditions caused US police radio transmissions to interfere with the broadcast and at one point some listeners heard an officer say: “Joe, I’m gonna grab a quick coffee.”
6. Since 1959, when she was heavily pregnant with Andrew, her broadcasts have been recorded a few days before Christmas, though the content remain secret until transmission. 1967 was the first to be shown in colour.
7. In 1987, embarrassed BBC royal correspondent Michael Cole resigned after letting slip snippets of the speech at a royal reporters’ lunch, which duly appeared in a tabloid.
8. Audience figures have fallen but royal misfortune attracts more viewers such as in 1992, her “annus horribilis”, which saw the marriages of Prince Charles and Prince Andrew collapse, the publication of Andrew Morton’s Diana: Her True Story, the public airings of the embarrassing Squidgygate and Camillagate private phone calls, and the Windsor Castle fire. The Sun broke the embargo, publishing the message two days early, and the Queen sued for breach of copyright.
9. The BBC lost its monopoly on broadcast rights in 1995 with the announcement that from 1997 it would have to alternate with ITV, a move some interpreted – despite the palace’s denial – as royal revenge for the BBC’s broadcast that year of the Panorama interview with Diana, Princess of Wales, without Buckingham Palace sanction. Sky News has also since been added.
The Queen dons 3D glasses to view footage of her 2012 message with producer John McAndrew (centre) and director John Bennett. Photograph: John Stillwell/PA
10. Today the speech is broadcast on TV, radio and online. A podcast was added in 2006, and in 2012, for the diamond jubilee, she appeared in 3D. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog/2015/jun/07/phone-hacking-rupert-murdoch-sky-own | Media | 2015-06-07T17:03:04.000Z | Jane Martinson | Will Murdoch go back to buying Sky now four years of hacking is over? | It’s been almost four long years, but now seems as good a time as any to examine the fallout from phone hacking at the News of the World. With only a few charges remaining relating to phone hacking and payments to officials, most of the central characters involved in the saga are now more or less free to get on with their lives.
As if to mark the new dawn, former editor Andy Coulson was last week cleared of perjury after serving time for phone hacking, saying “after four pretty testing years … my family and myself have finally had a good day”.
With all but one of those suspended during the trials still waiting to hear whether they will ever get their jobs back, Rupert Murdoch, his News Corp boss Robert Thomson and Rebekah Brooks have been huddled in meetings at the group’s mini-Shard offices. After spending £500m and rising on the scandal, closing the once biggest-selling Sunday tabloid and dropping his bid for the whole of BSkyB, as it was then called, how will Murdoch spend his peace dividend now the war is just about over?
Will he go back and finish what he started with a bid for the 60.1% of Sky he does not already own? So much has changed in the media landscape since summer 2011 that some will argue it is counterintuitive to care. In a world in which the future of the BBC is dominating discussion in the UK, and European regulators are wrapped in the “gaffa” tape embrace of the big digital groups - Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon - why would Murdoch want to take full control of a pan-European broadcaster? And who could be bothered to stop him?
The reasons why are more or less the same as they were in 2011 – the chance to control a European distribution network with all the cross-promotional benefits that entails. Only a tiny minority of companies can use their huge scale to buy rights to content globally – Disney is one.
Sky already markets itself as Europe’s biggest content producer, largely because of its stranglehold over rights to the Premier League. The huge cost of buying those rights becomes more manageable when they can be offered on a pan-European basis even in those areas without a huge satellite market. Now TV, part of the Murdoch empire, provides a cheap distribution network via local internet service providers.
Bundling in Sky would also give Murdoch’s online subscription model for the Times and Sunday Times as well as the Sun a boost. At this point it should be noted that as part of the complicated web of deals in which BSkyB turned into Sky, it is Murdoch’s 20th Century Fox which owns 39% of the TV company and no longer once-beleaguered News. But such niceties over which part of the empire rules what never seem to make much difference to Murdoch game plans.
And who would stop him? Not the Conservative government, which even back in 2011, when those pesky Liberal Democrats were declaring “war” on Murdoch, was all set to approve the takeover.
Nor regulators on both sides of the Atlantic, who are no longer considering whether James Murdoch should be deemed “fit and proper” to run a huge television group.
As if to prove that everything is back to the 2011 future, even Frédéric Michel, the former News Corp lobbyist whose email and text exchanges with a minister and his special adviser revealed the close relationship between the government and the Murdoch-controlled business during the takeover bid, is back working for James Murdoch in Europe. Last week, Sky chief executive Jeremy Darroch was in Brussels saying hello to the new European competition commissioners.
The media has changed enormously in five years, and News UK’s 33% share of the British newspaper market and Sky’s share of the commercial television market need to be set in the context of a world in which consumers can access news and information from anywhere.
Rupert Murdoch says ex-Times editor has 'gone native' over BBC comments
Read more
There are still plenty of media owners who would worry about the potential cross-ownership benefits though and not just the Guardian. Sports journalists were outraged last year amid suspicions that Newcastle United had done an exclusive access deal with the Sun which stopped other media organisations from getting access to players. The existence of any deal was strongly denied, and Newcastle has to some extent made peace with those outlets it antagonised. But imagine if Premier League games were broadcast by Sky and the only pitchside analysis was provided by Sky’s sister titles?
That wouldn’t just cause problems for commercial rivals. At the peak of concerns about the exclusive access deal, Simon Bird, football correspondent for the Daily Mirror, pointed out a Sun article about the Newcastle boss headlined “Why we should love Mike Ashley”.
By all accounts Rupert Murdoch himself is still more interested in his press and political empire – taunting former Times editor James Harding for going native at the BBC and denying stories that he is pro-Europe last week – but his son James, with possibly an eye on the top job, is still left with a 39% share of a company he wanted to own outright.
Money is the only sticking point, not the amount the cash-rich Fox has, especially after its bid for Time Warner collapsed last year, but the amount coughed up by Sky shareholders since the abortive 2011 bid. Investors had to stump up last year when Sky acquired its sister companies in Italy and Germany for £6.9bn. The share price, at a record high of more than £10, reflects their largesse. It is well above the £8 a share level Murdoch balked at back in 2011.
In 2010 Financial Times columnist Martin Wolf wrote: “No private individual should be so powerful that politicians tremble before him. That is not democracy.” Much may have changed since; that fundamental principle has not. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/feb/06/ian-carmichael-obituary | Television & radio | 2010-02-06T20:43:50.000Z | Dennis Barker | Ian Carmichael obituary | Playing the archetypal silly ass was the sometimes reluctant business of the stage, film and television actor Ian Carmichael, who has died aged 89. In the public mind he became the best-known postwar example of a characteristic British type - the personally appealing blithering idiot who somehow survives, and sometimes even gets the girl. One of his most characteristic and memorable sorties in this field was his portrayal of Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim – the anti-hero James Dixon, who savaged the pretensions of academia, as Amis had himself sometimes clashed with academia when he was a lecturer at Swansea. Appearing in John and Roy Boulting's 1957 film, he was able to suggest an unruly but amiable spirit at the end of its tether, his great horsey teeth exposed in the strained grimace that often greeted disaster.
Carmichael made several more hugely popular comedy films with the Boultings in the second half of the 1950s, including Private's Progress, Brothers In Law and I'm All Right Jack, but always wanted to do more straight roles. The nearest he came to it was his Lord Peter Wimsey in the television series based on Dorothy L Sayers's amateur detective (1972-75), a role he felt very happy in. Laurence Olivier once offered him a part in a Graham Greene play that he had in mind for television, but, like other possible projects, it came to nothing.
Late in Carmichael's career, when he had semi-retired back to his native Yorkshire, the Boultings told him that they wondered if they had done their best for his talents in the five-film deal they made with him near the start of his film career: perhaps they should not virtually have confined him to the playing of twerps. The light comedy producer Michael Mills used him early in his career, and years later made The World of Wooster (1965-67) with him. As PG Wodehouse's silly ass Bertie Wooster, Carmichael was constantly saved from disaster by his manservant Jeeves, played by Dennis Price, a formula so effective that Mills doubted whether Carmichael could have played straight parts without provoking laughs.
What made Carmichael notable was that he could play fool parts in a way that did not cut the characters completely off from human sympathy: a certain dignity was always maintained, so that any pathos did not become bathos. He was at the opposite pole to Norman Wisdom, whose conscious pathos irritated some people. Carmichael once said waspishly of Wisdom's ragged-urchin persona that any character he played was unbelievable because no girl, except a film starlet under orders, would ever settle for him. It was not a limitation from which the handsome, cricket-loving Carmichael suffered.
He was born in Hull, the son of an optician in the family's smart silversmith's and jeweller's shop in the centre of the city. His mother's father was a lay preacher who had wanted to become an actor, but neither parent had stage ambitions. His father was disappointed when the boy hated school at Scarborough college (so much so that he vowed never to set foot in the place again) and hated it a little less at Bromsgrove school, Worcestershire, where he distinguished himself by hitting his own wicket during a cricket match so that he could get back to two girls he was entertaining in the bushes.
However, his father swallowed his disappointment and financed him to go to Rada, in London. In his first year he played the robot in Karel and Joseph Capek's surreal play, RUR, at the People's Palace, Stepney, east London, and, more significantly, toured the regions for a few weeks in a tour of a Herbert Farjeon revue, Nine Sharp. Then war broke out and Carmichael joined the 22nd Dragoons, a recently formed tank regiment at Whitby. There he met Jean Pyman (Pym) Maclean: they married in 1943 and had two daughters. Nine years after Pym's death in 1983, he married the novelist Kate Fenton.
Carmichael was mentioned in despatches, but his war was distinguished chiefly by a staff job behind a desk, arranging entertainment, in the course of which he found he was good at the detail of administration. He admitted in a BFI interview at the National Film Theatre in 2002 that he had always had to bear the cross of initially finding Frankie Howerd "death-defyingly unfunny" when auditioning him in Germany, though had the sense to defer to a colleague's better judgment. However, he recognised the talent of the comic magician Tommy Cooper and helped him get a break.
After demobilisation, Carmichael did a lot of work for the revived BBC television service at Alexandra Palace, north London – directing and producing as well as performing. A tour of the operetta The Lilac Domino in 1949 brought him into contact with the comedian Leo Franklyn, from whom he learnt the "ABC of comedy... all the tricks of the trade". Carmichael then made his name in The Lyric Revue (1951-52) and The Globe Revue (1952-53) in the West End. For the latter he devised the comic business for a sketch in which, as an ultra-respectable little man, he had to undress on a beach and get into his swimming costume, protected from exposing himself only by panicky use of his raincoat and bowler hat. When the Boulting Brothers saw this sketch, it set them thinking. When they got round to seeing Simon and Laura, Alan Melville's play about the tensions and sentimentalities of a marriage of actors, in which Carmichael played a frantic TV producer trying to prevent the combative pair from ruining his show, they insisted he play the same part in the film version they were planning at the time. Later they told his agent they wanted to make him a film star and offered him the five-film deal. To sweeten the prospect, they sent him two comic novels, Alan Hackney's Private's Progress (the film of which followed in 1956) and Henry Cecil's Brothers in Law (1957).
Out of this deal came the films that made Carmichael a national symbol of the muddling-through Englishman. In I'm All Right Jack (1959), he played the decent but slightly daft young executive, Stanley Windrush, while Peter Sellers appeared as the pompous shop steward – an even-handed cinematic satire on both management and trade unions. Later he even portrayed one of the cricket-mad buffoons fighting back against Balkans devilry (originally made famous by Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne) in the 1979 remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes.
By then, Carmichael had admitted to being a would-be Peter Pan who hated the thought of ageing, and said he was growing too old to go on playing the sort of parts that had made him famous. He had always expressed a dislike of London. Some friends took this with a pinch of salt in view of his handsome house in Hampstead but, with his two daughters now grown up, he bought a house on the North Yorkshire moors, which he remembered visiting on day trips as a boy. It was also near Whitby, where he had met his first wife.
Such sentiment was part of his character and appeal. He continued to be available for work that took his fancy, such as narrating the television series The Wind in the Willows (1984-88), but was the victim of ill-health, and appeared ever more rarely as the portrayer of an English type now likely to provoke more irritation than laughter. Nonetheless, there were still roles for him in the nostalgic drama series always in demand for Sunday-evening television: the 1950s Scottish laird Sir James Menzies in Strathblair (1992-93), Lord Cumnor in Elizabeth Gaskell's Wives and Daughters (1999), and the hospital secretary TJ Middleditch in The Royal, from 2003 onwards. The last two episodes in which he appeared are due to be screened later this year.
He was appointed OBE in 2003, and is survived by Kate and his daughters.
Ian Gillett Carmichael, actor, born 18 June 1920; died 5 February 2010 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2012/apr/05/le-havre-review | Film | 2012-04-05T20:40:00.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Le Havre – review | The Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki has come to France for his latest film, making explicit his indebtedness to figures like Tati and Vigo. It is seductively funny, offbeat and warm-hearted, like the rest of his films, but with a new heartfelt urgency on the subject of northern Europe's attitude to desperate refugees from the developing world. The movie is set in the port city of Le Havre, maybe summoning a distant ghost of L'Atalante, and it has a solid, old-fashioned look; but for the contemporary theme, it could have been made at any time in the last 50 years. André Wilms is Marcel, a phlegmatic shoe-shine guy who plies his trade around the streets as best he can. He discovers a young boy called Idrissa (Blondin Miguel), an illegal immigrant on the run, and hides him from the authorities, including the tough Inspector Monet, superbly played by Jean-Pierre Darroussin. It's a drama that plays out in parallel with private heartbreak: Marcel's gentle wife Arletty, played by Kati Outinen, is in hospital. The drollery and deadpan in Kaurismäki's style in no way undermine the emotional force of this tale; they give it a sweetness and an ingenuous, Chaplinesque simplicity. It's a satisfying and distinctively lovable film. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/04/trespass-by-clare-clark-review-on-the-trail-of-an-undercover-police-officer | Books | 2022-08-04T08:00:02.000Z | Barney Norris | Trespass by Clare Clark review – on the trail of an undercover police officer | Clare Clark’s seventh novel, her first book to be set in the contemporary world, explores one of the defining scandals of recent times: from the 1980s to the present day, undercover police officers infiltrated activist groups in the UK. They developed sexual relationships with their targets as part of their cover, in some cases fathering children. This story was brought to public attention by the unmasking and subsequent disclosures of the former undercover officer Mark Kennedy. It was also exposed in the Guardian by Rob Evans and Paul Lewis, whose landmark work, Undercover, is credited as the source material for Trespass.
Clark’s novel is a harrowing and compelling act of excavation. It feels almost like a moral necessity to read it, and through doing so bear witness to something that wasn’t just perpetrated by the police against political activists. It was done in the name of the people whose taxes fund the state and whose votes decide its direction.
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Trespass tells the story of Tess, a former environmental activist, and Mia, the daughter she had with another activist who became violent and unstable during Tess’s pregnancy and then disappeared shortly before Mia was born. When a death in the family brings to light the appalling truth that this man, whom Tess knew as Dave, had in fact stolen the identity of a dead child and was not who he claimed to be, a grimly inevitable unravelling ensues. It becomes clear to Tess that the man she loved must have been an undercover officer. She sets out to reach back into her past and understand who this man really was, at the same time as Mia, now aged 12, begins her own search to understand the story of her father.
The novel is most successful in dramatising the relationship between Tess and Mia. Theirs is a mother-daughter bond put under intense pressure by the ghosts of the past, and by the fact that, as an attempt to protect her daughter from the shame of abandonment, Tess has told Mia her father died. These lies, piled on top of each other, exert an extraordinary pressure on the excellently written character of Mia. Clark rises to the challenge of imagining what a story like this would do to a child; the emotional violence visited on Mia simply by the facts of her birth.
There is much else to praise in Trespass. The greatest outrage expressed by society when this news story broke was over the surveillance of people like Tess: white middle-class activists whose main concern was road-building. This book deftly shows how the same unchecked surveillance had been visited on many other social groups. Clark threads the low-level monitoring of a Muslim youth group into the story, and we glimpse how very far the tentacles of the state spread.
She also illustrates that whatever is done by the state is likely to be done to an even greater extent in the private sector, bringing corporate espionage into the narrative. After leaving the police, Dave finds an espionage network that is openly for hire, unchecked and motivated only by the profit principle. Finally, Clark asks us to consider the way surveillance, which seems so appalling when done in person, has become a part of all our lives. Mia’s life, in particular, is dominated by her phone, and the buzz of her texts becomes part of her father’s violence against her.
At the heart of the narrative, though, is one significant failure. It may well be intentional. Clark interleaves three voices to tell her story – those of Tess, Mia and Dave. She signally fails to explain or humanise the last of these: as the novel proceeds he becomes steadily more monstrous, until his behaviour is almost unbearable to read about. It may be Clark’s contention that such men are simply monsters. However, the value of extending Evans and Lewis’s work into fiction is surely the opportunity to go deeper into the lives and motivations of all the people caught up in these atrocities. Trespass does not fully pursue this. Having met Mark Kennedy once while he was still undercover, and been haunted by that meeting ever since, I could not help but wish it had.
Trespass by Clare Clark is published by Virago (£16.99). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/jan/09/bargain-beach-houses-around-world | Travel | 2014-01-09T13:01:00.000Z | Lara Dunston | Bargain beach houses around the world | Warung Deeksha, Bingin, Bali, Indonesia
Good for surfing cooks
Sleeps six
Cost from £595 a week
The Brazilian owner of this light-filled house above the sand called it Warung Deeksha when he built it in 2008. A warung is a family-owned business and deeksha means blessing. Surfers will enjoy watching beach breaks from the comfort of their beds, while other guests may be satisfied with the panoramic sea views. There are large outdoor decks, foldable doors that open the place to the elements, and a superb kitchen. It's accessed by 108 steps, so if you weren't fit when you arrive, you will be when you leave.
airbnb.co.uk/rooms/52613
Pen-y-Parrog, Pembrokeshire
Pen Y Parrog, Pembrokeshire
Good for walkers and wild swimmers
Sleeps six (two doubles, one bunk room)
Cost from £466 a week
Walk out of the front door of this cottage and you are on your own sandy shale beach. Built in typical Pembrokeshire style – whitewashed with thick stone walls and low-beamed ceilings – it was used as the home of Rosie Probert (played by Elizabeth Taylor) in the film of Under Milk Wood. Modern introductions include a hot tub in a cabin with sea views, and a woodburning stove. Situated just off the Pembrokeshire coastal path, it is ideal for walkers or anyone keen on rockpooling, swimming and feasting on locally grown mussels.
0844 5005 101, underthethatch.co.uk/penyparrog
The Waterhouse, Koh Yao Noi, Thailand
Outside the waterhouse, Koh Yao Noi, Thailand
Good for water-babies
Sleeps six
Cost from £284 a week
A soothing soundtrack of bobbing fishing boats, panoramic sea views, and sublime sunsets are in store at this over-water holiday house on one of Thailand's least developed islands, Koh Yao Noi or Little Long Island. Located midway between Phuket and Krabi, and accessible by boat from both, the traditional timber-stilted house is typical of the architecture of the Muslim south. Low tide reveals mud flats, but it's a short amble to a fine swimming beach.
khaodham.com/listings/waterhouse/
The Beach House, Dahab, Egypt
The Beach House, Dahab, Egypt
Good for water sports enthusiasts
Sleeps 4
Cost from £372 a week
This is a good example of the type of self-catering property it's now possible to book through Tripadvisor – mixing recycled furniture with Egyptian art and driftwood. Its walled garden with hammocks for chilling out in leads on to the beach. There are seafront restaurants and a market two minutes' walk away, or you can have locally-caught fish and Bedouin bread delivered.
No phone, tripadvisor.co.uk
Pavilion, Kovalam, Kerala, India
Good for sundowner-sipping couples
Sleeps eight
Cost from £700 a week (£350 for one floor)
Sink into the cane chairs on the marble balconies in the evenings to sip cold beers and enjoy the cool breeze as you gaze at the Arabian Sea. In a coconut grove overlooking Samudra beach, the two-storey property is split into two apartments with spacious rooms and decent kitchens, which can be rented separately or together. Kovalam's cream sand beaches are the main attraction (the famous Lighthouse beach is nearby), but Kerala's tranquil backwaters are two hours away.
ownersdirect.co.uk/india/IN154.htm
Straddie Bungalows, North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia
Straddie bungalows, North Stradbroke Island, Queensland, Australia
Good for budget-conscious families
Sleep 6-8, including bunks or sofabeds
Cost from £417 a week
With thatched roofs and woven-bamboo walls, these Robinson Crusoe huts, an hour from downtown Brisbane, look as if they've blown in from a Pacific island. The five no-frills cabins share a pool and playground and sit in bushland where koalas snooze and lorikeets screech. Amity Beach is safe for swimming; a 10-minute drive brings you to Main and Cylinder beaches, two of Queensland's premium surf spots.
+61 07 3409 7017, straddiebungalows.com.au
Las Palmeras, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico
Las Palmeras , Puerta Vallarta, Mexico
Good for: playful children (and adults)
Sleeps 6
Cost £760 a week
This tangerine-coloured home, in a former coconut plantation north of pretty Puerto Vallarta, is made for groups wanting to create the perfect family idyll. You walk through tropical gardens to a pristine beach for hammock-swinging, sandcastle-building and swimming on a safe shelf beach. Or there's a pool with a shallow end. There are board games, beach toys, boogie boards and buckets, and there's surfboard and kayak hire nearby. A turtle reserve releases baby turtles into the wild here in winter; in summer they return to lay their eggs. Interiors are classic Mexican chic: tiled floors, crisp linens, and exuberant colours. A cook can be arranged for $30pp a day extra (kids $10-20), including food.
+ 1 212 905 6065, kidandcoe.com/destinations/mexico
Shore Cottages, Berriedale, Caithness
Shore Cottages, Caithness
Good for a remote getaway
Sleeps Two (cottage one); six (cottage two)
Weekly cost from £179 (cottage one) or £471 (cottage two)
Built in the 1840s to house four fishermen and their families, this terrace of cottages was abandoned when fishing went into decline. The Landmark Trust has since reconfigured the row into two cottages: one at the original size, sleeping two, and the other three knocked through to sleep six. Reached by a footbridge, the front doors open directly on to the beach known as The Shore. Both have tongue-and-groove panelling and plump armchairs to sink into after a day exploring Mull.
landmarktrust.org.uk, 01628 825925
Villa Jarrow, Barbados
Villa Jarrow, Barbados
Good for Caribbean luxe on the cheap
Sleeps 6
Cost from £854 a week
This charming three-bedroom Victorian villa is gingerbread-pretty and perfect for an extended family looking to experience classic Barbados without the high price. Skylights in the bedroom mean you can sleep under the moonlight. From the kitchen, deck and living space there are princely sea views – great for observing the rituals of island life, especially if you want to snaffle something for dinner from the fishermen. Half Moon Bay is packed with snorkelling, scuba and windsurfing centres, reef-protected and excellent for day and night swimming.
no phone, homeaway.co.uk
Folly Beach House, Folly Beach, South Carolina
Folly Beach House, South Carolina
Good for hearty families and groups of friends
Sleeps 10
Cost from £1,333 a week
It may be only a 20-minute drive from Charleston, but Folly Beach's surf stores and pizza joints make it feel much further from the famously precious city. The Folly is for crews of surfers and swimmers who can appreciate this stilted home's bright decor and bargain price. It's spacious and modern, with two porches for taking in the Atlantic views. While the screened-in lower deck is a godsend for escaping mosquitos on summer evenings, the half-covered upper deck is a good sunbathing spot.
homeaway.com
Riviera Villa, Latchi, Cyprus
Riviera Villa, Latchi, Cyprus
Good for families with under-fives
Sleeps six
Cost from £600 a week
It may be Ikea'd up to the nines, but this house has been kitted out with exactly what you need if you have toddlers in tow, with wipe-clean furniture and a pool that can be watched from almost every room. Through the arbor at the end of the garden lies the Blue Flag shingle-and-sand Latchi beach, with excellent swimming and a handful of tavernas.
no phone, beachlets.co.uk
Spahouse 579, Skallerup, Denmark
Spahouse 579, Skallerup Seaside Resort, Denmark
Good for multi-generation gatherings
Sleeps 12
Cost from £1,238 a week
When the Danish do Center Parcs-style resorts, this is what you get: an adventure-filled camp by the heather-covered dunes of the remote Jutland peninsula. The wooden lodges are basic but functional, with tongue-and-groove walls, easy-to-sweep floors (for the pitter-patter of sandy feet) and plenty of natural light. Request Spahouse 579, closest to the water, and you can hear the waves crash at night. Go on blustery walks, ride the stout ponies, splash about in the indoor waterpark, or cycle the coastal paths. For grown-ups, there's a terrific spa.
skallerup.dk, +45 9924 8400
Beach House, Concarneau, Brittany, France
Beach house, Concarneau, Brittany
Good for surfers and sailors
Sleeps six
Cost from £495 a week
This bleached, wood-clad, grey-and-white bolthole is just feet from the sands of Plage des Sables Blanc, north of Concarneau, with a south-west-facing beach terrace that's a great suntrap. This shallow stretch of Atlantic swings from millpond to wild and windy, and is great for surfing and sailing. Go crabbing, kayaking or ride the bicycles provided to market to gather picnic feasts.
no phone, thebeachhousefrance.wordpress.com
Estrella do Mar, Tofo, Mozambique
Tofo Villa, Mozambique
Good for style lovers on a budget
Sleeps 8
Cost from £1,099 a week
It's not easy to find houses that marry style, affordability and location but Tofo Villa ticks all the boxes. Inside, this stilted, four-bedroom property is all wood panelling, handmade throws and plantation shutters (though no Wi-Fi, which you can get at the scuba place two doors up if you must). Outside, there are massive decks, a pool and a gas-fired braai (barbecue). If you don't fancy cooking, the former village of Tofo, a popular but laid-back resort with sandy-floored bars and restaurants is a short walk up the road.
+27 82 942 2611, tofovilla.com
Gearrannan Blackhouse Village, Isle of Lewis
Gearrannan Blackhouses, Isle of Lewis
Good for experiencing life in a crofting village
Sleeps two (Taigh Thormoid); five (Taigh Glass and Taigh an t-Seòladair); 16 (Taigh Lata)
Cost three nights £153-£578, depending on house
This village of traditional stone houses, once occupied by a crofting community, has been restored as self-catering accommodation (the four rental houses are named after former occupants) just a few steps from a pebbly beach and the mighty Atlantic. With double drystone walls and roofed with turf thatch, they were built to withstand the Scottish weather and make a historically interesting and comfortable, rather than luxurious, place to stay.
01851 643416, gearrannan.com
Tiznit, Morocco
Tiznit villa South Agadir, Morocco
Good for adventure-minded families
Sleeps 4
Cost from £270 per week
This two-bedroom villa has its own private sun terrace for looking out over the empty beaches on the edge of the desert, 75 miles south of Agadir. The beach can be explored on horseback; back at the complex, there are swimming pools and tennis courts.
No phone, alphaholidaylettings.com | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/feb/20/out-of-darkness-review-stone-age-survival-thriller-finds-horror-in-the-highlands | Film | 2024-02-20T11:00:14.000Z | Cath Clarke | Out of Darkness review – stone age survival thriller finds horror in the Highlands | ‘F
orty-five thousand years ago …” So begins this ambitious, confident feature debut from Scottish director Andrew Cumming. It’s a horror movie set in the stone age where a poor old early human is yomping about the Highlands in winter; no Gore-Tex or warm pub, just a tough bit of elk meat to chew on and the odd run-in with a hairy Neanderthal. What a god-awfully grim time to be alive – even before things go bump in the night.
The premise is simple: this movie is “Alien in the stone age”. It begins with six intrepid early humans washing up on a Highlands beach, all of them quickly and efficiently sketched out as characters. Adem (Chuku Modu) is in charge and evidently sees himself as a mighty leader of men. He’s travelling with family: his pregnant partner (Iola Evans), son, and younger brother. Beyah (Safia Oakley-Green), a teenage “stray”, is with them; she’s no relation to anyone, which makes her vulnerable (“strays eat last”). Finally, there’s a wily old adviser who starkly warns that “cold, starvation and bloodthirsty things” await them in this new land.
All of which comes to pass. As they sit around the campfire, terrifying noises emerge from the forest; something out there in the dark wants them dead. And for a while Cumming’s film really touches a nerve; for the first half it’s super tense, before the pace dips in the second and it goes off the boil.
That said, miraculously this film is never silly. The recreation of stone age life feels unexpectedly convincing – partly I suspect, because of the sensible decision to have the actors speak a made-up stone age language instead of English (bolted together, apparently, from bits of Arabic, Basque and Sanskrit). It left me in awe of the survival instinct: how on earth did humans make it through those cold, bloody old times? I’d hurl myself into the nearest loch.
Out of Darkness is in UK cinema|s from 23 February. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/dec/13/harlequins-ulster-match-report | Sport | 2019-12-13T21:58:48.000Z | Gerard Meagher | Harlequins’ Champions Cup hopes all but ended by Ulster mauling | Harlequins had been challenged to take inspiration from the world heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua in their rematch against Ulster but once more it was the scrum-half John Cooney who delivered the knockout blow.
Cooney, who kicked the decisive penalty in Ulster’s one-point victory a week ago, proved Harlequins’ chief tormentor again, ending with two delightful tries and exerting a control over proceedings that will not have gone unnoticed by Ireland’s new coach Andy Farrell.
His first try was a fine team move but the second was a delicious bit of skill, prodding the loose ball ahead with his foot, gathering and stepping his way over and condemning Harlequins to a sixth defeat of the season. He ended the match with 19 points and suffice it to say Conor Murray has a battle on his hands to hold on to Ireland’s No 9 jersey.
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Ulster have won all four of their European matches and look destined for the knockout stages. For Harlequins, despite the call to arms from Paul Gustard, a miserable campaign cannot end soon enough and it must be said their head of rugby’s comparison with Joshua rang hollow given his team selection.
This was a match Harlequins had to win to stand any realistic chance of advancing but six frontline players including Joe Marler, Chris Robshaw, Marcus Smith and Danny Care were omitted from the starting XV.
It was a point made to Gustard afterwards but one he did not appreciate. “If you’re suggesting by resting – who are you talking about? Give me a name? Danny Care has got how many caps for England? [The starting scrum-half] Martín Landajo has got how many caps for Argentina? Are we insulting Martín Landajo by saying Danny Care is a better player? It’s irrelevant, absolutely irrelevant.”
In Robshaw’s absence, Gustard handed the captaincy to Kyle Sinckler, who is the subject of considerable interest from Bristol with a view to a summer move on a bumper £500,000 salary. Such was Ulster’s monopoly on possession for most of the first half that Sinckler had little chance to make an impact but it was his deft offload that yielded Harlequins’ first points – a James Lang penalty after a concerted period of pressure around the half-hour mark.
Before that, Ulster had dominated a first half punctuated by a number of injury delays. The Ulster fly-half Billy Burns went down in considerable pain in the second minute but was able to continue. His opposite number, Brett Herron, and the Harlequins flanker Will Evans did not return after both went off for head injury assessments.
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It is to Harlequins’ credit that until the last minute of the first half they had held out, bar an early Cooney penalty, but he produced his first try with half-time beckoning. Billy Burns set off after receiving the ball from an Ulster scrum on their own 22 and made ground down the right-hand side. The ball was fed to Luke Marshall, then Jacob Stockdale, who wriggled free and released Matt Faddes – the wing then feeding back inside to Cooney for the try.
It was not just in attack that the scrum-half was having an impact either. Early in the second half the Harlequins flanker Semi Kunatani burst out of his 22, up field and found Ross Chisholm on his outside. The Harlequins full-back appeared to have the pace to get to the line but Cooney darted back to make a crucial tackle.
Just a few minutes later, Ulster had their second try. Marshall had work to do when gathering a delicate grubber from his centre partner Stuart McCloskey but he made the pick-up and finish look far easier than it was to go over. Cooney’s conversion gave the visitors a 14-point buffer and his moment of magic, again showing his footballing skills, put the result beyond any doubt.
Harlequins restored some respectability with a close-range try from Stephan Lewies - the one-cap Springbok who is impressing in his first season at the Stoop - but Faddes rounded off Ulster’s night with the bonus point try before Tom O’Toole added number five late on.
Harlequins now turn their attention to next weekend’s Premiership fixture at Wasps but you get the feeling they already had. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/oct/05/uk-oil-and-gas-sector-must-do-more-to-meet-2030-emissions-target | Business | 2023-10-05T15:53:27.000Z | Jillian Ambrose | UK oil and gas sector ‘must do more’ to meet 2030 emissions target | UK oil and gas companies need to do more if they are to meet an official target of halving their emissions from fossil fuel extraction by the end of the decade, the North Sea regulator has warned.
The North Sea Transition Authority (NSTA) said it would set out proposals to help give fossil fuel companies a greater focus on their climate pledges amid concerns the targets would be missed without further action.
The firms promised to slash the emissions caused during the production of oil and gas as part of a deal struck with government in 2021 to secure billions of pounds in state help for the sector.
This year the government set out plans to grant more than 100 new North Sea exploration licences and gave the green light to develop the huge Rosebank oilfield.
The NSTA warning is the latest to cast doubt on the UK meeting its legally binding climate targets given government announcements of plans to delay the ban on combustion engines in new vehicles and the phaseout of gas boilers, and to water down home energy efficiency standards.
The watchdog’s proposals will form part of an industry consultation to “encourage oil and gas operators to take action today”. The industry is under pressure to reduce emissions from oil and gas production, which accounts for about 3% of total UK greenhouse gas emissions.
Last month, a NSTA report found the industry was on track to meet the interim emission reduction targets of 10% by 2025, and 25% by 2027, compared with 2018, but added that “bold measures” would be required to halve emissions by 2030.
“Significant progress has been made, but there is more work to be done and the NSTA estimates that without further initiatives, the 2030 emissions reduction target agreed between government and industry as part of the North Sea transition deal may be missed,” the regulator said this week.
The government’s transition deal earmarked more than £8bn in public funds to support the industry as it prepared to play a role in the UK’s ambition to develop carbon capture technology and hydrogen production. In exchange, the industry promised to cut its emissions and use UK-made components for 50% of their decarbonisation projects.
The NSTA said the industry risked losing its “ongoing social licence to operate”, which allowed companies to keep drilling for oil and gas even while the UK moved away from fossil fuels, unless it could meet its longer term climate targets.
Philip Evans, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said the industry’s operational emissions were “the mere tip of the iceberg” compared with those produced by using fossil fuels, which accounted for more than 80% of the total emissions from drilling, extracting and burning oil and gas.
“This is why [Rishi] Sunak’s plan to ‘max out’ North Sea reserves is a grave mistake,” Evans said.
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“The government’s deliberate disregard for the majority of the emissions from these climate-wrecking projects is completely reckless and the reason we’re fighting them in two separate court cases.
“And, unless it revokes the recently approved licence for Rosebank, we’re likely to be back for a third.”
A government spokesperson said: “Through our landmark North Sea transition deal agreed between the UK government and industry, we are backing the decarbonisation of the oil and gas sector while supporting tens of thousands of jobs across Scotland and the wider UK.
“While our plans to power up Britain include significant investment in new renewable and nuclear projects, the transition to non-fossil forms of energy cannot happen overnight and, even when we’re net zero, we will still need some oil and gas, as recognised by the independent Climate Change Committee.”
This article was amended on 6 October 2023. An earlier version said that the government had granted more than 100 new North Sea exploration licences. In fact, it announced that these licences have been approved, but none have been granted yet. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2017/jan/13/nhs-crisis-more-money-linked-reform | Healthcare Professionals Network | 2017-01-13T11:25:00.000Z | Richard Vize | NHS crisis: more money must be linked to reform | The biggest crisis facing the NHS is that, no matter how high or low the funding, transformational change fails to happen. It is easy to justify why reform is so slow and patchy currently, but neither did it happen in the years following the NHS Plan in 2000, when the annual real funding increases were among the highest in NHS history.
The same promises were made – risk stratified prevention, involving people in their own care, a digital revolution, a massive expansion of primary care. Waiting lists tumbled, A&E treatment times were slashed and there was huge capital investment, but the underlying shape of the service remained largely unchanged.
That history is one reason why the Treasury is so resistant to injecting more cash. After the NHS England chief executive, Simon Stevens, appeared in front of the Commons public accounts committee this week former permanent secretary Nick Macpherson tweeted: “NHS bottomless pit. Money should be linked to reform.”
Simon Stevens a good guy but he should not determine health spending. NHS bottomless pit. Money should be linked to reform. #soundmoney
— Nick Macpherson (@nickmacpherson2) January 11, 2017
In other parts of the public sector, the current “burning platform” of sustained and substantial real-term funding cuts has driven major restructuring. Councils have been merging management teams and back-office systems, selling buildings and consolidating staff in fewer centres and engaging with the public online rather than face-to-face. This is been delivered by facing up to tough decisions and planning ahead, knowing that they have to break even each year.
But there is a difference between tight control of public spending and setting the NHS up to fail. Undermining prevention by cutting public health budgets, driving people to A&E through inadequate primary care, and stopping hospital patients returning home by eating away at real-term social services spending for seven years is a triple assault on the NHS that is overwhelming the system. Add in the efficiencies – cuts – being driven through the payment system and the pressures become intolerable.
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Our health spending as a proportion of our national wealth has always been low. According to the Health Foundation, we would need to increase our spending as a proportion of GDP by around 10% to catch up with France and Germany. Health spending should be seen as an investment. Mental health services in particular have a direct economic benefit.
More cash is needed to break the vicious circle. The vortex of acute sector deficits is sucking in funds from the rest of the system, undermining precisely the developments that can help to avoid emergency admissions. It has swallowed up virtually all the money intended for service transformation. Beyond this, cuts to local government funding for social care and public health need to be reversed.
Leaving aside the politics of the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, trying to wriggle off the four-hour A&E target by applying it only to the most serious cases, it is the right move for the health service. When the entire system is under such pressure there is no sense in prioritising rapid treatment of minor ailments.
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But Nick Macpherson is right. More money has to be linked to reform. Numerous hospitals are still failing on basics such as effective management of patient flows through the hospital, driving efficiencies in A&E and on wards, managing their estates and driving down the cost of back-office systems – including by outsourcing.
Too few managers and clinicians have the skills to design and implement improvements to care pathways. Simple ideas that have been around for years such as social workers stationed in A&E to divert older people from hospital admissions are still under-exploited.
The NHS and the rest of the health and care system desperately needs more cash, but this cannot be swallowed up in funding business as usual. Firm commitments need to be made and kept across the hospital sector to ensure organisations are as lean and efficient as possible. That is the only way to ensure the endlessly discussed investments in primary, community and mental health care are finally delivered.
Join the Healthcare Professionals Network to read more pieces like this. And follow us on Twitter (@GdnHealthcare) to keep up with the latest healthcare news and views. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2023/apr/25/i-have-an-invisible-disability-myself-edward-enninful-and-sinead-burke-on-their-fashion-revolution | Fashion | 2023-04-25T09:00:32.000Z | Zoe Williams | ‘I have an invisible disability myself’: Edward Enninful and Sinéad Burke on their fashion revolution | The May issue of British Vogue, titled Reframing Fashion, features 19 disabled people from fashion, sport, activism and the arts. Five of them are cover stars: the actor Selma Blair, who has multiple sclerosis; Sinéad Burke, a disability activist and consulting editor for the issue; the models Ellie Goldstein and Aaron Rose Philip; and the American Sign Language performer Justina Miles. Since Edward Enninful was appointed editor in 2017, Vogue has performed a 180-degree turn: from the pronounced, even defiant, homogeneity that was once its hallmark to a magazine at the frontier of what representation and diversity in fashion can look like.
Burke, meanwhile, came at fashion from the citizen side, writing a blog about the industry’s accessibility and
the visibility of disabled people within it. Over the past five years, it has turned into a global consultancy, Tilting the Lens.
Enninful and Burke’s mission with Reframing Fashion goes back to first principles and asks: what would a fashion shoot – or an image, or a magazine, or an industry, or society – look like if it were designed not for disabled people, but with them? “We have this notion that disability is invisible disabilities or physical disabilities,” says Burke. “The reality is, we live in an ageing society. We’ll all be disabled at some point in our lives. This is not about us. This is about all of us.”
Tell me your fashion origin stories. How did it all start?
Edward Enninful: I’ve been in the fashion press since I was 16 years old. I started as a model, but I knew that, as an industry, it was getting left behind. When I started here, so many people I knew said: “We don’t look at Vogue, we don’t see ourselves in it.” That was all I needed to hear. My work has always been about diversity in all its shapes; women of different sizes, ages, religions, socioeconomic backgrounds.
Sinéad Burke: I was training to be a primary school teacher and they asked us to create a blog. I created one about fashion. As someone with a physical disability and as a little person, I was hungry, always ravenous, for information. What does change look like? What do sustainability and accessibility look like, not as values, but as business initiatives? Through that, I got the opportunity to attend fashion shows. Disabled people have a skill set that is shaped by their experience. I have always been organised and articulate and tried to be considerate. Those are skills that I’ve had to harness for my own independence.
L-R: Sinéad Burke on the cover, and Aaron Rose Philip in the May 2023 edition of Vogue. Composite: Adama Jalloh/Condé Nast
What inspired you to create Reframing Fashion?
Enninful: I met Sinéad when I started here, in 2018. We sat next to each other at the Burberry show and, from that minute, I just knew we were going to work together. I said: “I’m going to take your lead, because you’ve lived it. And you continue to change people’s perspectives on disability.”
Burke: I sat next to him, tugged on his sleeve and said: “Hi, I think what you’re doing at British Vogue is incredible, but have you ever thought about disability?” Knowing that, of course, based on his own lived experience, that was always going to be part of the conversation. So, in 2019, I was the first little person to be on the cover of any Vogue.
Why this issue now?
Burke: The pandemic was a mass disabling event. We all had a touchpoint to disability in a way we never had before. And yet, in the first cohort of deaths, six out of 10 people were disabled. We used language like “vulnerable” and “underlying conditions”, as if it was easier to accept those deaths. So, while our lived experience became much closer to disability, our awareness and empathy were unchallenged.
Where do you think representation of disability has got to?
Enninful: From my point of view, we are not doing enough in the fashion industry. I want to emphasise that I’m also learning. I have an invisible disability myself: I’ve had five retinal detachments, I’m partially blind and my hearing is less than 50% – I’m wearing hearing aids now. It’s never stopped me, but there are so many people with invisible disabilities who never talk about it, because it might hinder them. I’ve never had that fear. When I’m reading, it’s still difficult; when I’m doing interviews, I have to ask people to talk at a certain level. But these are things that are me, these are things that I’ve embraced. We always talk about diversity and inclusivity, but that also has to extend to our disabled brothers and sisters.
Burke: Representation and visibility are so important, but we need to acknowledge the systemic barriers that exist. It was lovely that we sat together in this building and said: here’s our ambition. But then we had to unpick the system. We had to make sure that the place itself was accessible. Does it have step-free access all the way through to the set, including the canteen and the bathrooms? Is there a quiet room on set for people who are neurodivergent, for people with requirements? You can imagine the information that came back was incredibly disappointing. When you look at representation as the only solution, you’re not acknowledging all the barriers there are to participation. It’s not just fashion – this is a microcosm of the wider world.
Ellie Goldstein in the May 2023 edition of Vogue. Composite: Adama Jalloh/Condé Nast
Do you see yourselves as being on a political mission?
Enninful: I would see it as just personal.
Burke: If we look at this portfolio of talent [in the forthcoming issue of Vogue], we have Dr Rosaleen McDonagh, who is a writer, and the Irish human rights and equality commissioner, and also an Irish Traveller. Is it political to have her in the issue, or is it just deeply personal, to ensure she has the pedestal and the platform she deserves? I think about Christine Sun Kim, the Asian American deaf artist. This is the value of having a lived experience in the room where decisions are made. It is about bringing in the humanity, creating an explicit invitation to people and saying: “You belong.”
Enninful: It’s an empathy question. I believe that, in whatever we do, we have to have empathy.
This industry is perceived as forbidding, harsh and judgmental. Have you experienced any of that?
Burke: Historically, there was a very specific definition as to what we defined and described as beautiful. In any industry, if you’re asking questions about or advocating for a change of that norm, you are often met with friction, uncertainty, nervousness. From the beginning, I was hoping to create change for far more than me. Particularly since the pandemic, I’ve really started to ask the question: in terms of the part that I’ve played within the fashion system, did it become more accessible? Or did it become more accessible for me? Because that’s not a broad enough definition of success.
Enninful: This is an industry that we both know very well. I’ve navigated it. I’m not scared. I’m very vocal. It’s up to us to change it. Vogue changed with the times; it had to. The brilliant thing is, it’s now a whole industry having these conversations. And we’re very proud of that.
Burke: What’s important about fashion is, wherever you participate in it, at whatever price point, the reality is we all have to participate in the fashion industry, because we all have to wear clothes. So, you may not have any interest in the most expensive streets in London, but the reality is, what happens in those rooms shapes what we have access to.
‘Representation has to be more than covers’ … Enninful with Burke. Composite: Yves Salmon/The Guardian
What has it been like dealing with the corporate world as an accessibility consultant?
Burke: It can be incredibly difficult. You’re sitting with somebody, saying: “This is an opportunity.” And somebody says: “We’re just not going to do it, because it’s too expensive.” Or because there’s a recession. Or “we don’t have time”. And when you are a member of that community and have that lived experience, you can’t help but feel like the refusal to participate is deeply personal. But I just choose differently the people I work with. The reality is, I will not convince everyone.
Do you ever think exclusivity is in the DNA of the industry?
Burke: I fundamentally believe that disability and accessibility are at the core of fashion’s DNA. Because where this industry started was made-to-measure. We have moved to something that is much more streamlined, much more cyclical. If we were to reflect on where this industry began, it was about customisation. It was, of course, veiled in wealth – and, in many instances, still is. But in terms of the history of this industry, it began designing for bodies, not designing for a mass market that the body then had to fit.
There is a seasonal logic to the industry. This leads people to think that, whenever there is a surge of representation, it will be short-lived, whether that’s plus-size models, or racial diversity; it will happen, then drop out of fashion.
Enninful: That’s why I always said, when I started at Vogue, you don’t just do a special issue and move on. We need representation in every single issue. And we’ve been able to do that – not perfectly, but we have done it.
Burke: Last season, there was some really challenging data around the lack of representation of fat and plus-size models, how it had decreased from previous seasons. Two weeks later, British Vogue had three supermodels who were plus-size. This is not a moment. But it goes back to the idea that representation has to be more than covers. It has to be inclusivity at every strata of the industry where decisions are made.
L-R: Fats Timbo, author, comedian and content creator, in the May 2023 edition of Vogue; and Selma Blair on the cover. Composite: Adama Jalloh/Condé Nast
When you’re making editorial decisions about representation, where do you stand on invisible disability?
Enninful: Even before we did this issue, someone said we should do an issue on invisible disability and I said: there is no way we’re doing that. For me, you have to deal with both.
Burke: It’s about a broader intersectionality – can you imagine, in this issue, if we’d said we were going to have one definition of disability? Maybe Aaron Rose Philip, who is a black transgender disabled woman, wouldn’t be part of that. Our identities weave and overlap, we are not just one thing, and by not having a cacophony of voices in the room we further create a path where the most excluded continue to be excluded.
There are evolutions of diversity and inclusion in which fashion has led the way, and others in which it has lagged behind. How do you account for that?
Burke: Often, the people who have gravitated to this industry are people who felt excluded, people who wanted to discover who they were, people who came out as queer …
Enninful: People who’ve been othered.
Burke: And clothes were this tool, this armour they could put on; whether it’s a beautiful navy suit or a bell skirt, fashion gave them – and gave me, specifically – a vocabulary.
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Enninful: And me.
Burke: So, we understood the language – and maybe LGBT people in particular felt seen and it felt like a safe place.
Enninful: We always think of fashion as where the misfits gather. We were all alienated one way or another and the industry welcomed us.
Burke: Clothes and beauty were ways in which people worked out who they were.
Enninful: I have always found it a very welcoming industry. I was a very shy, religious kid.
Burke: And look at you now.
Historically it has also been racist, right?
Enninful: Oh yeah. In the 1990s, they used to say things like: “Non-white models don’t sell covers.” And it was OK to say that. And I used to go: “Here’s another one. Here’s another one.” You continuously have to fight. You continuously have to show another way. It’s a complex industry.
Burke: What’s important about this issue is that, whether or not people pick it up, very few people in the world don’t know what Vogue is. And there are five disabled people on the cover of Vogue, being daring, dynamic – and disabled.
The May issue of British Vogue is available on newsstands and via digital download | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2023/oct/21/tenacious-cunning-and-courageous-but-england-were-just-outgrappled-rugby-world-cup | Sport | 2023-10-21T22:59:41.000Z | Andy Bull | Tenacious, cunning and courageous, but England were just outgrappled | Andy Bull | They say a man ought to know his limitations, and England discovered theirs at the Stade de France on Saturday night. They are somewhere right out on the furthest edge of contention, as close as you can go without actually making it. They were, in their own tenacious way, utterly brilliant, cunning, courageous, and committed, but those qualities only get you so far when you’re up against a team as good as these Springboks, who have just as much of all of them, and more of everything else besides. “Never wrestle with a pig,” said George Bernard Shaw, “you both get dirty, and besides the pig likes it”. Well, now Steve Borthwick knows you never try to grapple with a Springbok, either.
Some defeats cut deeper than others. This one, in the dying moments of a match that England led from the very first minute right through an hour and 17 minutes of brutal and excruciating rugby, will hurt more than most. England were oh so close to making the final. They used to measure the number of people watching big events on TV by the power surge on the National Grid when everyone got up to put their kettles on for a cup of tea at half-time. This time it might well have been by the spike in traffic on the travel and hotel websites as England fans watching back home picked up their phones and investigated the idea of getting out to Paris for the final.
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Then South Africa won a scrum penalty, five metres inside England’s half. And well, you just knew what was coming. Of course Handré Pollard kicked it and now England were behind for the first time, one point off with three minutes left to play. They spent it trying to claw their way back within kicking distance, but South Africa just didn’t let them get there. They actually thumped them backwards with a series of vicious tackles, deeper in their own half, further away from where they needed to be. Having worked that hard to win a lead, they weren’t going to let it slip now.
In the end, the only thing that will ease the pain of it for the English players will be the knowledge that they played so well. Which won’t have been much consolation in the minutes, or even the next days, weeks, or months, afterwards, but one day, surely, they will look back on this match with a measure of pride. England, a team who were written off after being beaten at home by Fiji in the warm-ups before the tournament, ended up pushing the world champions closer than anyone expected. Yes, they missed their opportunity to make the final, but the truth is it was something of a miracle that they had earned it to begin with.
1:11
Springboks look to All Blacks but admit England 'dominated' semi-final – video
It had, after all, been two years since they had beaten a top-five team, and right now South Africa are No 1, top of the rankings, and world champions for another week at least. They have spent the four years developing a new style of play, based around their richly gifted fly-half Manie Libbok. England, on the other had spent the last four months paring theirs right back. The days of pairing two playmakers at fly-half and inside-centre, all the complicated designs they were working on in the autumn, were long gone. England arrived here, instead, with a gameplan that was so devolved it was barely recognisable as modern rugby at all. It largely involved kicking the ball as often as possible – they did it 41 times in this semi-final – chasing after it and then, if they didn’t win it back, working their socks off in defence.
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South Africa ended up chasing after opponents who just wouldn’t be drawn away from their own way of doing things. Kick the ball, contest the kick, and, if you can’t get there, smash the man underneath it down. “My style?” Bruce Lee says in Enter the Dragon. “You can call it the art of fighting without fighting”. England are mastering the art of playing without playing. It takes some nerve. There was a point when Jesse Kriel grabbed Manu Tuilagi by the shirt and tried to start on him. Tuilagi simply grinned back at him. Elliot Daly ran over to the two of them to intervene, and Kriel simply collared him as well and stood there for a moment, one England player in each hand, and neither making a move back at him.
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England 15-16 South Africa: Rugby World Cup semi-final player ratings
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They were brilliantly composed, as if they had taken on the character of their new coach. Their captain, Owen Farrell, was the only one who lost his head, which he will regret since the referee, Ben O’Keeffe, penalised him for it with a 10m penalty, which meant Libbok was within easy kicking distance.
The abiding image, though, will be of England forming up another of their ponderous caterpillar rucks, one body joining on behind another in one long human centipede, while Alex Mitchell, the ball by his feet, crabbed backwards like a man retreating from a rattlesnake, then whistling up another box kick. That and their work at the breakdown and maul, Farrell’s brilliant drop goal, and their utter devastation when the final whistle went.
They had played South Africa five times in the World Cup before taking them on here, and only scored one try in all that time. They didn’t even really seem to go after one, this time thinking, instead, they could kick their way ahead and stay there. And they almost did. But almost, of course, doesn’t count for much in the World Cup. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/aug/27/abortion-rights-groups-clash-planned-parenthood-modesto | US news | 2022-08-27T21:49:34.000Z | Edward Helmore | Pro- and anti-abortion groups clash at California Planned Parenthood clinic | A clash between groups opposing and supporting abortion rights broke out at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Modesto, California, on Saturday was cleared by law enforcement in tactical riot gear using pepper ball guns, police have confirmed.
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The encounter, which resulted in multiple arrests, was confirmed by the Modesto police department. Video of the clash was posted on Twitter.
We got shit going down at the opposition to the straight pride rally in Modesto, CA. Cops have just declared an unlawful assembly aftee the fash showed up. pic.twitter.com/MbqkQpkGbS
— Daryle Lamont Jenkins (@DLamontJenkins) August 27, 2022
“We got shit going down at the opposition to the Straight Pride rally in Modesto, CA. Cops have just declared an unlawful assembly aftee (sic) the fash (fascists) showed up,” said Daryle Lamont Jenkins, director of One People’s Project, alongside the post.
A spokesperson for the department said that clashes came during an annual protest by Straight Pride, an anti-abortion group with links to the alt-right, after they were confronted by pro-choice counter-protesters.
Four people were detained – three were arrested for failure to disperse, and one was released, police said.
Police said they didn’t immediately have the names or affiliations of those who were arrested, though they noted that the counter-protest group showed to the demonstration in larger numbers.
Counter-protesters yell slogans in opposition to a rally of the rightwing group Straight Pride. Photograph: Carlos Barría/Reuters
The clashes between rival groups came soon after the scheduled 11am start of the rally. About 11.20am, Modesto police declared an unlawful assembly and directed demonstrators to disperse.
Besides a shrub being lit on fire, “there was some fighting … so we declared it unlawful assembly, moved everybody out of the area, blocked streets and made several arrests”, the department spokesperson explained.
Straight Pride is among several fringe groups that are active against reproductive rights, which suffered a substantial blow when the US supreme court decided to overturn the landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision that granted nationwide abortion rights.
Members of the group were reportedly among the Donald Trump supporters who attacked the Capitol on 6 January 2021 in a desperate but unsuccessful attempt to block the congressional certification of the former president’s electoral defeat to Joe Biden.
SP is often grouped with Super Happy Fun America, which bills itself as a civil rights organization that opposes gender diversity and stands in opposition to what it calls “cultural Marxism”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/may/17/the-rover-review-cannes-robert-pattinson | Film | 2014-05-17T09:45:00.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Cannes 2014 review: The Rover - Robert Pattinson in apocalypse now | David Michôd's new picture, showing as a special screening here, could perhaps be labelled dystopian ozbilly noir: violent, alienated, self-consciously speckled with gruesome little details. His first feature, Animal Kingdom in 2010, was a powerhouse gangland thriller set in Melbourne; hopes couldn't have been higher for this followup movie. But expectations have to be managed downwards, a little. The Rover is an undoubtedly atmospheric and brutal drama set in an apocalyptic future after a "collapse": the endless bush has telegraph poles on which crucified bodies are displayed from some unspecified insurgency or crackdown and the economy now depends on US dollars. It has something of a surlier, meaner Mad Max, a flavour of Australian New Wave pictures like Wake in Fright, and even something of Spielberg's Duel. After a terrific start, the film begins to meander, to lose its way, and its grip.
Michôd developed the script with actor Joel Edgerton who may well have expected to get one of the lead roles — perhaps the one that has gone to Robert Pattinson, whose character Rey is from the American South, with some slightly Rada-ish hillbilly acting. Exactly how he and his brother Henry (Scoot McNairy) have come to be in this ruined Australia is never explained. Rey and Henry, along with a couple of other guys, Caleb (Tawanda Manyimo) and Archie (David Field) are making their getaway after violent, bungled armed robbery: but Rey has been left behind in the dusty road for dead. The gang crash their truck, and impulsively steal a parked car. This belongs to a grizzled, careworn, bearded loner, played with blazing-eyed intensity by Guy Pearce. With fanatical determination, this sets out to get his car back, using Pattinson's wounded brother to help him in this quest, and to buy a gun to enforce a terrible revenge out in the desolate Outback. For Pearce, it seems that the theft of his car is the last straw. Perhaps it is the last vestige of his self-respect, or perhaps, somewhere in his scorched soul, he feels that a brutally violent revenge over the matter of his car is an appropriately suicidal farewell to all human happiness. Who exactly he is, and how exactly he has reached this stage is not clear. The nearest he comes to demonstrating human emotion or sympathy is when he sees half-a-dozen or so dogs kept in cages in a garage belonging to a harassed doctor. Perhaps it is a key to his personality. In fact, the film itself is a bit of a shaggy dog story.
Robert Pattinson and Guy Pearce in The Rover Photograph: A24 Films
The script twists and turns as it brings Pearce together with Robert Pattinson's poor, ignorant, incompetent young robber. Pearce had actually managed to give chase to the gang in their own truck, which turns out to be perfectly drive-able: it is plausible that the robbers would abandon their vehicle as casually as they abandoned Rey, although why they don't simply demand it back once they realise it's undamaged isn't satisfactorily explained. On his way to Rey, and later, Pearce's character makes a tour of all the freaky, scary figures out there in the wasteland: people in ruined shacks trying to sell stuff, and people who have become feral in a weird Diane Arbus-world of their own. At one stage, he stumbles upon what appears to be a travelling circus which is no longer in a position to do any travelling — and finds some dwarves, asks them if they have seen anyone in his car, and if he can buy a weapon. It is certainly very creepy, but very contrived setpiece of violent strangeness. The tension leaks, while Pearce roves around the dusty wasteland having these unsettling, but random encounters.
The Rover
Michôd creates a good deal of ambient menace in The Rover; Pearce has a simmering presence. But I felt there was a bit of muddle, and the clean lines of conflict and tension had been blurred: the dystopian future setting doesn't add much and hasn't been very rigorously imagined. I even had the suspicion that the screenplay should perhaps have gone through one or two more drafts, or perhaps returned to an earlier draft, when casting was clearer. Well, Michôd certainly delivers some brain-frazzling heat and directionless despair.
More from Cannes 2014 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/04/tennessee-abortion-ban | US news | 2024-04-04T11:00:09.000Z | Carter Sherman | Her abortion experience was ‘bizarre and painful’. Now she’s suing Tennessee | In January 2023, whenever Kathryn Archer took her young daughter out to the local playground in Nashville, Tennessee, strangers often noticed her visibly pregnant stomach and wanted to make small talk.
“When are you due?” they would ask Archer. “Do you know if you’re having a boy or a girl?” “Oh, I bet your daughter’s so excited to be a big sister.”
Archer did not know how to tell them the truth: in early January, Archer’s fetus had been diagnosed with several serious anomalies that made a miscarriage likely. If Archer did give birth, her baby could only be treated with surgeries and lifelong help – pain that Archer was unwilling to put a newborn through. Without those surgeries, which the infant might not survive, Archer’s baby would die shortly after birth.
But due to Tennessee’s near-total abortion ban, Archer could not terminate her pregnancy in her home state and, instead, had to wait more than three weeks for an appointment at an out-of-state abortion clinic.
“I don’t want to confide in a stranger that I’m having to get an abortion because my baby can’t survive outside of my womb and I can’t get the care that I need as soon as I need it,” Archer recalled thinking. “Those three weeks were really bizarre, challenging, painful – beyond what it needed to be.”
I
n the nearly two years since the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, 16 states have implemented near-total abortion bans. In theory, these bans have exceptions that permit people to get medically necessary abortions – but in practice, doctors and patients say, these exceptions are worded so vaguely that they are unworkable, prompting doctors to delay care out of a fear of running afoul of the law. Dozens of women from states like Texas, Idaho and Oklahoma have come forward to say that they were denied abortions they should have been legally entitled to.
Archer is now one of seven women in Tennessee who, along with two doctors, have sued the state, asking a court to clarify the scope of the state’s exception for medically necessary abortions.
Currently, Tennessee doctors can use their “reasonable medical judgment” to perform abortions in severe emergencies, but abortion-rights supporters say that the standard is vague and subject to interpretation, leaving well-meaning doctors vulnerable to prosecution. Lawyers from the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing the women, instead hope to establish that doctors can use their “good faith medical judgement” to perform an abortion when continuing a pregnancy would be unsafe. They also want to allow abortions if a fetus is unlikely to survive a pregnancy and sustain life after birth – as in Archer’s case.
On Thursday, almost all of the women in the lawsuit will gather at a courthouse in Nashville for a hearing in the case.
“I felt like if I can share our story and join this lawsuit, and even just change one person’s experience, that would be worth it to me,” Archer said.
A
rcher and her husband decided to start trying for a second child right around the time Roe fell. A longtime supporter of abortion rights, Archer was aware of the risks that Tennessee’s abortion ban posed to her pregnancy.
“‘What if I have a miscarriage? What if something were to happen in the pregnancy?’” she recalled thinking. “But I was pretty much only thinking about the first trimester.”
Archer’s pregnancy appeared normal throughout her first trimester of pregnancy and into her second. In early January 2023, at her 20-week anatomy scan, Archer learned that she would be having a girl.
Then the doctor told her: “There are diagnosable abnormalities from head to toe in this baby.”
A follow-up visit with a specialist confirmed that the fetus, who Archer and her husband named Cecilia, had a litany of health issues, including brain damage, a bladder located outside the body and severe spina bifida that left the spinal cord and nerves exposed. These anomalies, the specialist told Archer, made it unlikely that Cecilia would make it to birth, according to Archer’s lawsuit.
Continuing the pregnancy, rather than ending it, would also pose more risks to Archer’s own health.
“After that scan, both my husband and I felt really strongly that the best thing for us to do and for our family would be to terminate the pregnancy,” Archer said. “Our doctors were incredibly supportive. They cared for us in so many ways, but their response was, essentially: ‘Our hands are tied now. We can’t help you any more.’”
Archer and her husband immediately started trying to find an appointment at an abortion clinic in another state. Since so many abortion clinics had shuttered in the wake of Roe’s downfall, multiple clinics were booked up for weeks, pushing Archer deeper into a pregnancy that could threaten her own health and increase the risk she would be forced to give birth to a stillborn baby.
US abortion clinics performed more than 1m abortions in 2023, a record high. But that number clouds a more complex reality: abortion bans have shuttered numerous abortion clinics in the south and midwest, leaving the remaining clinics on the coasts deluged by a flood of patients from states with abortion bans. Abortion clinics in Kansas, where Archer initially tried to book an appointment, now treat roughly double the number of monthly patients that they saw before Roe fell, one recent analysis found.
Only a handful of US clinics provide abortions past about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Abortions also take longer and become more expensive later on in pregnancy.
Ultimately, Archer was able to secure an appointment at a Washington DC, abortion clinic, about three and a half weeks after her 20-week anatomy scan. Due to the wait, “it went from a one-day procedure to a two-day procedure,” Archer said. “They give her a shot to essentially stop her heart. And then I had to come back 24 hours later, so there was this period of time where she was no longer alive, but she was still in my body … Had I been able to get the procedure sooner, I wouldn’t have had the longer, slightly more complex procedure.”
An abortion fund and a church helped Archer and her husband defray some of the costs, but they still had to pay more than $10,000 out of pocket.
“We had really good care because we have resources,” Archer continued. “Had we not had those resources and that privilege, I don’t know what we would have done.”
One of the other women involved in the Tennessee lawsuit also learned that her pregnancy was unlikely to result in a healthy baby, but was unable to get an abortion. Against her will, the woman continued her pregnancy and delivered a stillborn son 31 weeks into her pregnancy.
Archer is now pregnant again and set to give birth in May – almost exactly one year after Cecilia’s due date.
Ahead of the abortion, Archer and her husband promised to scatter Cecilia’s ashes near water. “I just felt like, on a spiritual level, that I was really connected to her when I was near the element of water,” Archer said. They also pledged to take a hike every year in her honor.
“We did a lot of ritual around death and saying goodbye,” Archer said. “It felt like – at every stage, for her and for our family – we’re doing the right thing.”
This article was amended on 4 April 2024 to correct a quotation from Kathryn Archer in which she said a one-day procedure turned into two-day procedure, not into a three-day procedure as originally quoted. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2016/dec/22/the-oa-dazzling-sci-fi-mystery-with-mumblecore-moments | Television & radio | 2016-12-22T15:00:02.000Z | Stuart Heritage | The OA: this sci-fi mystery dazzles if you push past its mumblecore moments | What is it? A sci-fi mystery about which you will definitely have an opinion.
Why you’ll love it: The problem with launching a show in secrecy is that you have no way to guide viewer response. This has been the case with The OA. The only thing that Netflix revealed about The OA prior to its release last week was its genre and, in a post-Stranger Things world, that is dangerous. Now, when you tell people that they are about to watch a sci-fi mystery show, they expect cute kids, easy nostalgia and references to films they already like.
The OA is not that show. Sure, it opens in a grabby enough manner – we see iPhone footage of a beautiful young woman hurling herself off a bridge, then learn that she has been missing for seven years. Then it seizes up for three-quarters of an hour. What starts as a hooky thriller devolves into a mumblecore indie about Brit Marling staring mournfully out of windows.
Needless to say, this has upset a lot of viewers. They wanted something as emptily calorific as Stranger Things, but they were handed Upstream Color. Had Netflix offered more information about The OA prior to its release – had the show been pitched as slow and meditative or included the word “arthouse” in the description – perhaps this backlash could have been avoided.
What this means is that those who actually like The OA have to bat a little harder for it. And, for better or worse, I count myself among that group. Even though The OA was not what I was expecting, it has stayed with me like few other shows I have seen this year.
Take the first episode. Once you realise that it is going to be more about mood than a propulsive quest for answers, you are able to retune your expectations and appreciate it for the meandering tone poem it is. If you stick it out – if you stick out only this one episode – you are rewarded in spades. When you think the episode is about to end, something extraordinary happens. Without giving too much away, the show lifts into the stratosphere. The whole show shifts completely: formally, chronologically, cinematically. Just at the point when you start to think about giving up on The OA, it whooshes into life in the most unexpected of ways. It is a truly dazzling moment.
And, there or thereabouts, that is where it stays. While slowly filling in the central mysteries from the opening episode, The OA flits between mumblecore domestic life and thrillingly ostentatious pretension. Two of the set pieces of the finale – two big, long moments that explain a lot of the series – are delivered via an extended piece of abstract choreography and discordant Johnny Greenwood-style viola music.
The OA is that sort of show. It is cryptic and impressionistic and it has a vision all of its own. The leaps it takes are so huge that you cannot doubt its confidence for a moment.
The OA will bewilder many who watch it. It is not, by any means, an easy watch. But those who get it will love it. It is strange and beautiful and, if you let it, it will stay with you.
Where: Netflix.
Length: Eight one-hour episodes.
Standout episode: The first. If you like it, you will love the rest of the series. If you feel otherwise, it might be smart to back out.
If you liked The OA, watch: Stranger Things (Netflix), Sense8 (Netflix). | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2000/may/17/artsfeatures2 | Music | 2000-05-17T01:14:10.000Z | Adam Sweeting | Poor, poor, pitiful me | So your new album's all about old age and disease, then? Warren Zevon waits several moments before replying. "I think it has more to do with death," he decides, in his gravelly baritone. " 'Timor mortis conturbat me.' You know that poem?"
Er, no.
Zevon gives a ferocious leer, flashing two rows of evenly spaced, impossibly white teeth. Just because he doesn't sell many records these days, that doesn't mean he can't afford deluxe California-style dental care.
"It's a medieval Scottish poem by William Dunbar. It means, 'The fear of death just fucks me up.' " His face creases up and he emits a deep, leathery laugh.
Warren Zevon's latest album is called Life'll Kill Ya, and it's a record he didn't expect to make. After the blistering career-best brilliance of his 1987 disc Sentimental Hygiene, Zevon spent the 90s subsiding gradually into a quicksand of popular indifference. It didn't matter that 1991's Mr Bad Example was beyond the wildest dreams of the average singer-songwriter, nor that 1995's Mutineer, though not a masterpiece, deserved far better promotion than it got. Logic led Zevon to the conclusion that he was, to all intents and purposes, retired.
He concocted his latest batch of songs without a recording contract, and feeling no particular urge to find one. He made up his own demo tapes to play in his car. "Jackson Browne and I were having dinner and driving around Santa Monica and I was playing him the new songs, and he asked me what I was going to do. When I told him I had no idea, he suggested calling Danny Goldberg - he's known not to be allergic to artists over 30 or 40 or 50."
Goldberg, something of a rockbiz legend in his own right and Nirvana's former manager, heard Zevon's tapes and promptly offered him a deal with his new record label, Artemis. It seemed churlish to refuse. Somewhat to his bemusement, the 53-year-old songwriter found that his career had spluttered into life again.
Life'll Kill Ya is a fine addition to the Zevon canon, all the better for its stripped down and frequently acoustic arrangements. In the past, Zevon has occasionally been guilty of LA sludge-rock bluster, but these songs flash back to the rough simplicity of his original inspiration, Bob Dylan. Despite the morbid tone of the title tune, or I Was In The House When The House Burned Down, and the terror of medical crises that palpitates through My Shit's Fucked Up or Don't Let Us Get Sick, Zevon's black, ironic delivery manages to suggest that there are still a few more twists left in these tales. His unexpected cover of Steve Winwood's Back In The High Life Again suggests both the painful transience of fame and Zevon's indifference to it.
But doesn't he get angry that people don't buy his records? "Uhhh, not really," he answers. "I wish they'd buy a few more - it would help in many ways. Doesn't seem to be much I can do about it. But I love it when the cult kind of artists say, 'Well, I could change to sell records.' This from, like, a 58-year-old man. 'Yeah, I know how to make a commercial record, but I won't.' " Zevon roars with malicious laughter. "Like they ever knew how in the first place. Or if anybody knows how."
It's disorientating to recall the rocket-assisted ascent of Zevon's career in the mid-70s, when he became the toast of the West Coast with his albums Warren Zevon and Excitable Boy. The cream of the Los Angeles session-man elite queued up to work with him, and Linda Ronstadt covered his songs Poor Poor Pitiful Me and Hasten Down the Wind. Zevon was signed to David Geffen's Asylum label, the centre of California soft rock, and even had a hit single with the deranged Werewolves of London.
Geffen founded Asylum as a tasteful boutique label and once boasted that he never wanted to sign more artists than could fit into the sauna in his home. "I was never in David Geffen's sauna," says Zevon firmly. "Geffen wasn't particularly hands-on with my career. He was gracious enough. You'd play him a new song and he'd encourage you, but I'm not a great intermingler. It's not an accident that I'm a solo performer at the age of 53. I'm a deeply anti-social person. So the fact that I've had a few sustaining friendships over the fullness of time is the anomaly, not the rule. And remember, I was also dead drunk for 27 years, so although I had a sauna, I wasn't in as many saunas as some."
Yet he was rubbing shoulders with some of the biggest acts of the era. A more calculating artist would undoubtedly have hustled his way into multi-platinum heaven alongside them.
"I remember Glenn Frey from the Eagles calling me, and he said, 'You got a shitload of those songs like Hasten Down the Wind?' I thought I would have, and then Linda Ronstadt covered it, and it was a good time. But I didn't know all those people as well as popular myth would have you believe. I knew Jackson Browne and John David Souther better than anybody."
A hard drinker who drank even harder when he was hired as musical director to the Everly Brothers in the early 70s, Zevon was sucked into alcoholism. He later detailed his rehab experiences in his song Detox Mansion.
Zevon has always viewed the world more as a film-maker or crime novelist would (several of his eclectic circle of friends are writers, and, as Jackson Browne puts it, Zevon "is the first exponent of song noir"), and the role of drunken loner sat well with the caustic observations of his writing.
To his disgust, the Philadelphia Enquirer once described him as "the Woodstock Liberace", presumably having overlooked the drugs, death and decapitated mercenaries that rampage through his songs. The fact that his father was a gangster and a gambler adds more fuel to the Zevon psychodrama. "My father was a wonderful guy," says Zevon. "But I can't imagine him going to a therapist, which is the premise of that TV series The Sopranos. A gangster at the therapist? I don't think so." He leans forward menacingly. "Sensitive gangster? Just a little oxymoronic, I think."
Yet having dragged himself free of addiction (he looks startlingly bronzed and fit) he can detect no difference in his approach to songwriting. "It's exactly the same," he rumbles. "Writing a new song is like making a little movie or something. There has to be some kind of deal, and the deal is I get the idea, I hear it in the air and I say, OK, that's gonna be my next song. Am I gonna have to go on location? Will I have to shave my head? How am I gonna make enough sense out of this song to write it?
"I don't like talking about it I'm ashamed to say this, but I even declined to speak at my daughter's college about this. I don't want to take it apart. I think it's a journalist's thing sometimes. They want to take the mechanical sculpture apart and see which way the spring is wound. And I don't know."
Zevon obviously takes little interest in the fleeting picture-show of pop. "As Penderecki, the Polish modernist composer who writes spectacular two-hour requiems, said, 'I'm in the fine art business.' That's what I say." And we should encourage him to keep saying it.
Life'll Kill Ya is on Artemis Records. Warren Zevon plays Shepherds Bush Empire, London W12 (020-7771 2000), on Friday. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jan/17/english-national-opera-arts-council-england-investment-eno | Music | 2023-01-17T16:39:33.000Z | Nadia Khomami | English National Opera to receive £11.46m from Arts Council England | The English National Opera (ENO) has announced it will receive an £11.46m investment from Arts Council England (ACE) to sustain its work in London for another year.
The ENO is one of a number of organisations that have been removed from ACE’s national portfolio, losing its £12.8m annual grant and told it must move outside London if it wants to qualify for future grants. ENO chiefs have said the 100% funding cut would decimate the 100-year old company, while many big names across the arts world called the decision a “simplistic move”.
On Tuesday, ACE said it would invest national lottery funding in the company until March 2024 to “sustain a programme of work at the ENO’s home, the London Coliseum, and at the same time help the ENO start planning for a new base outside London by 2026”. It also said further investment for 2024-26 was available – subject to discussion and application.
“The shared ambition is for the ENO to be in a strong position to apply to the Arts Council’s national portfolio of funded organisations from 2026, from a new base outside London,” ACE said.
ENO needs London home, opera star says amid rumours of a rethink on funding cut
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ENO has previously said it was holding meetings with ACE to decide on a model that would help it retain a London presence. While welcoming the funding, the company said the delay in confirming financial status meant it had to postpone a number of productions including its current Ring Cycle, in partnership with the Met, which was due to continue with a new production, Siegfried, next season.
It said: “However, this level of funding will allow us to honour many of the contracts of the hundreds of freelancers we hire every year, and enable us to continue to make incredible opera available for everyone, in English, with hugely subsidised tickets.”
The company said it was concerned the funding only gave audiences and its workforce one year’s reprieve and still left a huge amount of uncertainty regarding the ENO’s future.
“For the ENO to meaningfully deliver on the government’s levelling up agenda, ACE needs to invest in the organisation at an appropriate level going forward,” it said. “This has to be done in the context of ACE developing an opera strategy, in conversations with audiences and our colleagues across the industry – something that is still yet to be undertaken by ACE.”
The ENO has consistently said it remains in the dark as to why ACE decided to remove its status as a national portfolio organisation despite it “meeting or exceeding” the criteria set by ACE. “One in seven of our audience are under 35, one in five of our principal performers are ethnically diverse and over 50% of our audiences are brand new to opera,” it said.
Darren Henley, the chief executive of ACE, said: “This grant will provide the ENO with stability and continuity, while they plan their future. We want to back an exciting programme of work from the ENO in a new home, and make sure it stays part of the brilliant London arts offer at the Coliseum.
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“We know this means a challenging period of change for the company and its staff, but it will also mean opera for more people in the long term and contributes to the levelling up of cultural investment.”
ACE has announced a total of £50m cuts from arts organisations in London to fulfil a government instruction to divert money away from the capital as part of the levelling up programme.
Among those who have protested against the decision are actors Juliet Stevenson and Maxine Peake, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries – who called the decision “politically motivated” and veteran opera singer Sir John Tomlinson, who wrote to the ACE chair, Nicholas Serota, to state the case for retaining the ENO.
On Tuesday, the ENO chief executive, Stuart Murphy, said it would continue discussions with ACE in “good faith” and looked forward to agreeing funding levels until 2026 “that would allow us to continue to deliver the best of the ENO for out-of-London audiences – at a level London audiences have experienced for almost 100 years”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/09/biden-ad-campaign-addresses-age-economy | US news | 2024-03-09T18:40:00.000Z | Maya Yang | ‘Young and handsome’: Biden kicks off $30m ad blitz with spot addressing age | Joe Biden’s campaign kicked off a $30m TV and digital ad blitz in key swing states on Saturday with an ad in which the president directly addresses concerns about his age.
‘Like choosing between a hedgehog and a porcupine’: US braces for presidential election no one wants
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Set to run for six weeks on stations including Black- and Hispanic-owned outlets, and released shortly after his fiery State of the Union address, the 60-second spot does not shy away from what many voters say is growing concern with the president’s age. The ad, titled For You, opens with Biden in light-hearted form. “Look, I’m not a young guy. That’s no secret,” the 81-year old president says. “But I understand how to get things done for the American people.”
The Biden campaign said the ad will appear on networks including ESPN and TNT throughout March Madness, during which NCAA college basketball tournaments are held across the country. It is also set to appear on Comedy Central and FX, Bloomberg reports.
“I led the country through the Covid crisis,” Biden says in the ad. “Today, we have the strongest economy in the world. I passed a law that lowers prescription drug prices, caps insulin at $35 a month for seniors.”
Biden then changes tack from the State of the Union and addresses who in that speech he only called “my predecessor” by name. “For four years, Donald Trump tried to pass an infrastructure law and he failed. I got it done. Now we’re rebuilding America. I’ve passed the biggest law in history to combat climate change because our future depends on it,” he says.
Echoing his pledge from his Thursday State of the Union speech, Biden promises to make Roe v Wade “the law of the land again”, saying Trump “took away the freedom of women to choose”.
“Donald Trump believes the job of the president is to take care of Donald Trump,” Biden says. “I believe the job of the president is to fight for you, the American people, and that’s what I’m doing.”
The end of the ad features an outtake as a producer off-camera asks Biden for one more take, to which Biden jokes: “Look, I’m very young, energetic and handsome. What the hell am I doing this for?”
Biden criticises Trump’s Mar-a-Lago meeting with Hungarian premier Orbán
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Since his address to the nation, praised by Democratic observers as a return to form and the occasion for his highest fundraising totals in recent memory, Biden has embarked on a tour of multiple states. He visits Pennsylvania and Georgia this weekend before heading to New Hampshire, Wisconsin and Michigan next week.
As the country gears up for a Biden-Trump rematch, a poll released last week by the New York Times and Siena College showed that 73% of all registered voters in the US believe Biden is too old to be an effective president.
Among those who voted for Biden in 2020, 26% said they strongly agree his age will make him an ineffective president for a second term.
At 81, Biden is the oldest president ever to seek re-election, though Trump, at 77, is just four years younger. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/dec/24/sir-jim-ratcliffe-manchester-united-stake-announced | Football | 2023-12-24T16:00:14.000Z | Jamie Jackson | Sir Jim Ratcliffe completes deal to buy Manchester United 25% minority stake | Sir Jim Ratcliffe has completed a deal to buy a minority stake in Manchester United. The British billionaire has spent just over £1bn to acquire 25% of the club and gain control of football operations. He will provide a further $300m (£237m) for investment in infrastructure at Old Trafford.
Ratcliffe’s arrival will throw a spotlight on the future of Erik ten Hag. While the club has been in flux there has been no structure to sack the manager and Ratcliffe will decide whether to keep faith with the Dutchman after a miserable first half of the season. United are out of Europe after finishing bottom of their Champions League group and go into the Boxing Day game at home against Aston Villa eighth in the Premier League. They have not scored in their past four matches.
Will Jim Ratcliffe’s stake in Manchester United lighten damp air at Old Trafford?
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Sir Dave Brailsford, the Ineos sporting director, is poised to hold discussions with key United personnel and will make decisions, including about Ten Hag, thereafter. Brailsford will have a prominent role but it is unclear whether he will take over from John Murtough as United’s football director. The Guardian understands Murtough is not minded to leave and may accept a different role if Brailsford decides to replace him. High on Ratcliffe’s priority list will be to replace Richard Arnold, who has left as chief executive. Jean-Claude Blanc, the CEO of Ratcliffe’s Ineos Sport, is a favourite to succeed Arnold.
Ratcliffe has used his company Trawlers Limited – named after the famous Eric Cantona quote – to make the purchase. He said: “As a local boy and a lifelong supporter of the club, I am very pleased that we have been able to agree a deal with the Manchester United board that delegates us management responsibility of the football operations of the club. Whilst the commercial success of the club has ensured there have always been available funds to win trophies at the highest level, this potential has not been fully unlocked in recent times.
“We will bring the global knowledge, expertise and talent from the wider Ineos Sport group to help drive further improvement at the club, while also providing funds intended to enable future investment into Old Trafford.
“We are here for the long term and recognise that a lot of challenges and hard work lie ahead, which we will approach with rigour, professionalism and passion. We are committed to working with everyone at the club – the board, staff, players and fans – to help drive the club forward.
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“Our shared ambition is clear: we all want to see Manchester United back where we belong, at the very top of English, European and world football.”
Ratcliffe, who previously attempted to buy Chelsea, wanted a majority holding in United from the Glazers but has had to settle for a quarter of the club. The deal is said to have been funded without debt and is subject to Premier League approval. Of the $300m Old Trafford investment, $200m is due on completion of the transaction and the rest by the end of 2024. Ineos is getting two seats on the board.
The Glazers signalled 13 months ago that they were “commencing a process to explore strategic alternatives” and decided against a full sale. Avram Glazer and Joel Glazer, the executive co-chairmen, said: “Sir Jim and Ineos bring a wealth of commercial experience as well as significant financial commitment into the club. And, through Ineos Sport, Manchester United will have access to seasoned high-performance professionals, experienced in creating and leading elite teams from both inside and outside the game. Manchester United has talented people right across the club and our desire is to always improve at every level to help bring our great fans more success in the future.”
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Drab, weary, uninspired: Manchester United hit new low at West Ham
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Qatar’s Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad al-Thani withdrew from the takeover process after making little progress with his £5bn offer for United, paving the way for Ratcliffe’s deal. Ratcliffe owns two football clubs, Nice and Lausanne, plus the Ineos Grenadiers cycling team and a sailing team.
The Failsworth-born businessman founded and runs Ineos, the petrochemicals and fracking company. Blanc has held executive posts at Paris Saint-Germain and Juventus, and Brailsford was British Cycling’s performance director for 11 years during which a strategy founded on “marginal gains” drove GB to head the sport’s medal table at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/may/26/lewis-hamilton-niki-lauda-monaco-gp | Sport | 2019-05-26T19:24:44.000Z | Giles Richards | Niki Lauda was ‘racing with me’ during Monaco win, says Lewis Hamilton | Lewis Hamilton said he believed he felt Niki Lauda was with him as he drove to a hard-fought victory in the Monaco Grand Prix. The British driver added that he wanted to go on to emulate the three-times world champion in earning the respect and admiration with which he was held across the world.
After he clung on to take victory in Monte Carlo with his tyres giving up and Max Verstappen hounding him to the last, Hamilton immediately paid tribute to Lauda. The Austrian had played a key role in bringing Hamilton to Mercedes in 2013 and the two had become close friends. Hamilton and his team endured an emotional week after Lauda’s death on Monday.
Lewis Hamilton holds Max Verstappen at bay to win Monaco Grand Prix
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“When I was driving I thought: ‘What would Niki do?’ So I just kept going,” he said. “I definitely felt like he was with me racing today. It was just incredible to see how much support there has been for Niki from across the world, how much respect and appreciation there is for him. As a driver my goal is to be one day as respected as he was. He left a great example and was a real hero to so many.”
Formula One and the drivers all paid tribute to Lauda at the race and Hamilton confirmed he will attend Lauda’s funeral in Vienna on Wednesday. He was pleased at what he considered was his toughest victory and said he intended to speak to both his parents and Lauda’s wife, Birgit, after the race.
“I think it is the hardest race I have ever had; it is in the top five,” Hamilton said. “I appreciate a tough race. As an athlete you always want the toughest battles. I am going to enjoy my evening tonight. I can’t wait to call my dad and mum see what they thought of it. I will get a chance tonight to talk to Birgit to let her know how much I appreciate her and her support with Niki over these years.”
Hamilton had struggled with his grip from the early stages of the race and was vocal in his concern over the radio with his team. He revealed he had been venting his frustration at a safety valve in the car while he concentrated on holding his line in front of Verstappen.
“Winning the Monaco GP is an incredible accomplishment,” he said. “If anyone can relate to how the pressure builds up at work and you want to slap the keyboard, it was one of those heated days today. It was so easy to burst out and I am sure I did at some stages but ultimately I was able to release and continue to take it out on the tyres and the car.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/19/food-giants-accused-of-links-to-amazon-deforestation | Environment | 2021-05-19T05:00:19.000Z | Andrew Wasley | Food giants accused of links to illegal Amazon deforestation | Three of the world’s biggest food businesses have been accused of buying soya from a farmer linked to illegal deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.
Cargill, Bunge and Cofco sourced soya beans from the Chinese-owned Fiagril and the multinational Aliança Agrícola do Cerrado, both of which have allegedly been supplied by a farmer fined and sanctioned multiple times after destroying swathes of rainforest, according to a new investigation.
Soya beans are a key ingredient in poultry, pig and cattle feed, particularly for animals reared on intensive farms.
The fate of the Amazon is the subject of intense focus as world leaders scramble to agree on how to tackle the climate emergency. Research published in the academic journal Nature Climate Change last month found the area deforested in the Amazon almost quadrupled in 2019 – President Bolsonaro’s first year in power – compared with the year before.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), Unearthed and Repórter Brasil used satellite images and enforcement records to uncover how soya was planted on land that had previously been placed under embargo – a form of government ban that stops farmers found to have breached deforestation rules or caused other environmental damage using parts of their land.
At least 15 sq km of forest registered to a farmer supplying soya to Aliança and Fiagril was embargoed in 2019 by Brazil’s environmental regulator Ibama after being deforested. A separate embargo, issued by Mato Grosso’s state environment agency in 2016, names the same farmer in relation to further illegal deforestation.
Using satellite analysis from MapBiomas, Repórter Brasil established that soya was illegally grown on this land in 2018 and 2019, despite the embargo. Public records show that the farmer has been fined a total of R$12m (£1.3m) for breaches of forest protection rules – the fines were in 2013 and 2019.
The farmer, based in the remote Marcelândia region of Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, allegedly sold soya to Fiagril and Aliança in 2019 after the government embargo on the land. Bunge bought soya from Fiagril, and Cargill and Cofco purchased soya from Aliança, after the two companies had been supplied by the farm in 2019, according to records seen by TBIJ.
Fiagril and Aliança, as well as Cargill, Bunge and Cofco, are signatories to the soya moratorium. Signatories commit to not “sell, purchase and finance soya from areas deforested in the Amazon biome after July 2008”.
However, the companies can legitimately buy soya from the farm because it is the land that is embargoed rather than the entire farm or farmer. It is not known if the soya bought by Fiagril and Aliança came from prohibited land.
The moratorium’s monitoring system is understood to usually only prohibit the land where the breaches occurred, excluding other properties owned by the same farmer.
“Allowing different properties operated by the same person or group to follow different rules opens a loophole that farmers can use to circumvent the soy moratorium,” said Lisa Rausch, a researcher at the University of Wisconsin.
Fiagril told TBIJ that it condemns illegal activity and is “committed to the legal enforcement of sustainability in agriculture with our clients and suppliers”. The company denied sourcing soya from the embargoed farm.
Aliança said it was regularly audited and in compliance with all regulations and that “there are no facts or official rulings that mention, connect or in any other way refer to Aliança in any environmental violations”. The company said it deals with “countless farmers and producers in Brazil” and “businesses outside of Aliança’s control remain within the sole responsibility of a particular farmer/producer”.
Walmart selling beef from firm linked to Amazon deforestation
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Cargill said it did not source soya “directly” from the farm. It added: “We have firmly upheld the Brazilian soy moratorium in the Amazon since 2006 … We will investigate Fiagril and Aliança do Cerrado in accordance with our soy grievance process.”
Bunge said it has not bought soya beans from Aliança since 2017, and that Fiagril had not supplied them with soya beans from the Marcelândia region. “As a signatory of the Amazon soy moratorium, purchases made by Fiagril are audited by independent entities. In addition, Bunge’s contracts with suppliers have clauses in which the supplier expressly commits to supply grains in accordance with the applicable legislation, including environmental laws,” the company said.
Cofco said: “We conduct monthly internal audits, as well as annual external audits, on suppliers’ compliance with the moratorium. The 2019 audit confirmed that all our suppliers complied with moratorium requirements in the past season.”
Sign up here for the Animals farmed monthly update to get a roundup of the best farming and food stories across the world and keep up with our investigations. And you can send us your stories and thoughts at [email protected] | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2023/sep/24/arsenal-tottenham-premier-league-match-report | Football | 2023-09-24T15:31:37.000Z | David Hytner | Son Heung-min double hands Spurs share of derby spoils against Arsenal | But who have they beaten? Three teams in the bottom four and, er, Manchester United. Tottenham had heard the attempts to explain away their excellent start to life under Ange Postecoglou, their finest opening to a season in 58 years.
This would be the acid test, a truer gauge of where they stood – a derby against their neighbours at whose stadium they never seem to win. What we learned after a stirring contest is that they are looking like a serious proposition.
James Maddison’s action-hero energy is the perfect fit for Ange-era Spurs
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Postecoglou’s team were unable to record what would have been only a second Premier League win in 31 attempts on enemy turf. But what the manager wanted to see from his players was personality and the imposition of their style. He certainly got that.
Son Heung-min was razor‑sharp, scoring a pair of equalisers, answering the Bukayo Saka-forced Cristian Romero own goal and a Saka penalty, conceded by Romero. But Son was ably supported by a clutch of stellar individual performances – most notably from Yves Bissouma, a titan in central midfield. Destiny Udogie was a powerhouse from left‑back, recovering from a difficult start that meant he was booked for a lunge at Saka, while James Maddison had his moments, setting up both goals.
There was steel and control from Spurs, no panic when the board went up to show 10 additional minutes. If anything, they looked the likelier scorers of a winner in the closing stages and the post-match scenes were telling, Postecoglou and his players taking the acclaim of the visiting fans.
0:50
'I've got no idea': Postecoglou confused about handball rule after Romero penalty – video
Arsenal did not do enough. They were flying after their 4-0 Champions League win over PSV Eindhoven in midweek, unbeaten since the start of the season, but they came to look heavy, lacking in inspiration in the second half. They missed Declan Rice after he was forced off with a back problem at the interval and the injured Gabriel Martinelli, who did not play at all. Nobody in an Arsenal shirt really seized the occasion. They were not the story here.
Mikel Arteta had faced Postecoglou before – when he was Pep Guardiola’s No 2 at Manchester City and they met Postecoglou’s Yokohama F. Marinos in a 2019 friendly. City won but what was notable was how Yokohama hogged 58% of the ball. “They played some incredible football,” Guardiola said.
Postecoglou wants to play only his way – on the front foot, possession-heavy, well-grooved combinations. Arsenal were determined not to let them and one of the key battle areas was when Spurs had the ball in their defensive third. Arsenal put huge pressure on the ball as they sought to build. Spurs showed their nerve.
Bukayo Saka celebrates after forcing Cristian Romero to turn the ball into his own net. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/AFP/Getty Images
The transitions were everything, the speed of them breathtaking, including the one for the breakthrough goal. Postecoglou watched Dejan Kulusevski run left to right and then run out of options, losing the ball. The manager gestured in frustration. He knew there was danger coming.
Arsenal moved slickly, Martin Ødegaard coming right to Saka, who cut inside and shaped a trademark curler, the ball flying past the helpless Guglielmo Vicario off Romero’s outstretched leg.
Arsenal had threatened before then. Gabriel Jesus, who Arteta played off the left-wing, worked Vicario from a tight angle; Eddie Nketiah did likewise from the right after a loose Micky van de Ven back-pass. Might Ntekiah have cut the ball back?
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A turning point came on 32 minutes when so many of the main themes coalesced. Spurs played out through Vicario to Maddison, who took too long on the edge of the box and was robbed by Jesus, who had to score. Instead, he blazed high.
Maddison did not let his head drop. Udogie continued to drive and Spurs stuck to the gameplan. They deserved the equaliser. Brennan Johnson, on his full Spurs debut, drew a smart save out of David Raya after a Son incision, the Arsenal goalkeeper moving quickly across his line. Raya would deny Johnson again after a weak punch on a Pape Sarr cross. Yet Spurs recycled the ball, Udogie heading to Maddison, who turned away from Saka’s challenge and pulled back, Son timing his arrival to flick home.
The penalty at the start of the second half was a body blow for Spurs after they defended a corner poorly, allowing the delivery to bounce and leaving Ben White alone in front of goal. When he spun and shot, the ball banged into the ground and reared up to hit Romero’s outstretched hand. It was not his day. Saka chipped his kick up the middle with beautiful disguise.
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Back came Spurs. Again. Arteta had introduced Jorginho and Kai Havertz into midfield at half-time, Rice and Fábio Vieira making way. And it was Jorginho who gave it away. Again, it was a high turnover that provided the talking point, the catalyst. He tried to step away from Maddison but was dispossessed and Spurs had two on one, Maddison drawing William Saliba to play in Son, whose finish was nerveless.
Both teams had the chances to nick it, Havertz lashing high when well placed and Saka extending Vicario after a corner. For Spurs, Son went close after a Kulusevski pass and, at the very end, the substitute Richarlison saw a shot deflect wide off Jorginho after Bissouma had stepped up imperiously to feed Kulusevski for the cross. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/jan/29/t2-trainspotting-danny-boyle-sequel-review | Film | 2017-01-29T08:00:19.000Z | Mark Kermode | T2 Trainspotting review – still in a class A of their own | There are few cinema images more iconic than the sight of Ewan McGregor’s feet hitting the ground running to the frantic drumbeats of Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life in the opening moments of Trainspotting, or the sound of a poppy T-shirt slogan (“Choose life”) being turned into a scabrous countercultural call to arms. Both are cheekily revisited in T2 Trainspotting, the long-awaited (or perhaps feared?) sequel that catches up with novelist Irvine Welsh’s antiheroes two decades later, and finds them ravaged not so much by heroin as by age, emasculation and an air of disappointment.
Bremner is just terrific, his Keaton-esque physicality perfectly capturing Spud’s blend of fragility and resilience
No longer the angry young man who once tore down Edinburgh’s Princes Street, McGregor’s Renton is here introduced pounding a gymnasium treadmill, a sardonic nod to former fast times. Drawn back to his old haunts in the wake of a midlife crisis, he is shocked to find Spud (Ewen Bremner) with his head in a plastic bag, longing to end his miserable existence. Meanwhile, Jonny Lee Miller’s broilingly embittered Simon (AKA “Sick Boy”) spends his days nursing old grievances against his former “best friend” who ran off with his loot 20 years ago (“First there was an opportunity”, runs a recurrent line, “then there was a betrayal”). As for Begbie (Robert Carlyle), a lengthy spell behind bars has estranged him from his teenage son, leaving him to face up to lonely fatherhood truths, tingeing his still violent sociopathy with a streak of pathos.
T2 Trainspotting - full trailer for the sequel to the 1996 hit Guardian
It’s easy to forget just how shocking Trainspotting’s scenes of intravenous heroin use were, and how much the language of horror cinema inflected its shiversome visions of dead babies crawling across ceilings. Yet more shocking still would be the spectre of the original film-makers reteaming for a belated cash-in sequel that somehow undermined the enduring legacy of the original. “It’d better not be shite” was the phrase that director Danny Boyle remembers hearing repeatedly on the set of T2 Trainspotting, whispered by everyone from cast to crew. Thankfully, T2 is definitely not “shite”. While it may lack the vampiric teeth of its youthful predecessor, it is a worthy sequel to what has become a sacred original, respecting the rough edges of its forerunner while putting middle-aged flesh on the once raw ribcages of its oddly sympathetic subjects.
Drawing on both Welsh’s 1993 novel and its 2002 sequel, Porno, returning screenwriter John Hodge forges new narrative paths, remembering the glory days of yore without becoming what Simon calls “a tourist in your own youth”. The story may be driven by extortion, prostitution, addiction and even Death Wish-style revenge, but its primary concerns are friendship and memory (recurrent Boyle themes), with editor Jon Harris shuffling time frames like playing cards, old knaves coming face to face with new kings and queens, the latter in the shape of Anjela Nedyalkova’s enigmatic Veronika.
Jonny Lee Miller and Ewan McGregor rolling back the years. Photograph: Graeme Hunter
The real triumph of the original Trainspotting was that it gave vibrant voice to protagonists who would elsewhere be written off as deadbeats, turning them into empowered characters rather than downtrodden victims. The same is true of the sequel, nowhere more so than in the character of Spud, who gradually becomes the true heart of the drama, the author of his own story. Bremner is just terrific in the role, his Keatonesque physicality perfectly capturing Spud’s blend of fragility and resilience, finding hidden depths beneath the defensively gormless facade. Like the movie itself, Spud can be both hilarious and heartbreaking; you want to hug him, even when his face is explosively splattered with vomit.
Begbie’s balcony and Spud’s cafe: classic Trainspotting haunts 20 years on
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Visually, T2 reminds us that Boyle comes from a rebellious lineage of British cinema that can be traced back through Nicolas Roeg and Ken Russell to the classic films of Powell and Pressburger (the latter the grandfather of Trainspotting producer Andrew Macdonald). Cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle quotes affectionately from his predecessor Brian Tufano’s kinetic playbook, and the bold colour schemes of Kave Quinn’s original production designs haunt the new locations. Yet this new movie retains a distinctly modern edge even as it looks back to the future. On the soundtrack, Underworld’s Rick Smith provides “original score and needle drops”, which blend altered fragments of old favourites with newer offerings from the likes of Young Fathers, High Contrast and Wolf Alice.
How T2 will play to younger audiences who didn’t grow up with the 1996 original is anyone’s guess. It’s hardly likely to become a touchstone text for a new generation of cinemagoers. But from the perspective of a fiftysomething film fan who was shaken up by Trainspotting all those years ago, it’s enough that the opportunity for this class reunion has not become a betrayal. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/jun/19/john-myers-obituary | Television & radio | 2019-06-19T14:00:57.000Z | Maggie Brown | John Myers obituary | John Myers, who has died aged 60 of a heart attack, was a powerful and colourful figure in the commercial radio industry, adept at all aspects of the medium, from presenting live shows – for which he went under the pseudonym John Morgan – to masterminding a stream of successful bids for commercial radio licences.
His most prominent role, between 1999 and 2009, was founding the Guardian Media Group’s radio division, with stations branded Real Radio and Smooth Radio. He became a board member and spent more than £100m acquiring Century Radio, Saga Radio, Scot FM and Jazz FM. His winning streak allowed him to negotiate an enviable bonus for each successful bid by GMG and he retired at 50, a wealthy man.
Myers had been recruited to GMG by its chief executive Sir Robert Phillis. These were gold rush days when newly available commercial radio franchises were being licensed. It was “the fastest way to millionaires’ row”, Myers observed. He shrewdly understood the need to tailor applications to meet the regulator’s concerns with enough news or sport and local coverage.
GMG wanted Myers to repeat what he had already achieved at Border Television, where he built a radio business that dwarfed the ITV station. He had also featured in a BBC observational documentary, Trouble at the Top (1999), about the launch of a new north-west commercial station with the former politician Derek Hatton as a presenter.
He swiftly won GMG big regional licences, in Wales, Yorkshire and Manchester. He set its strategy of targeting only large regional radio licences and disposed of its 30 small stations. His brother, Eddie, was his driver as he worked 80-hour weeks. For a while the division flourished.
Myers was a giant of a man Clubbable and able to charm, he could also cajole and swiftly close deals on a handshake. But his brash style sat uneasily within GMG. He crossed swords with Alan Rusbridger, the Guardian’s editor, when Myers tried to quash a story about the company’s purchase of two radio stations. “I had to walk a tight line in the early days, the company didn’t know me.”
He was carpeted for offering to settle a dispute during an asset sale with an arm wrestle. But he said later that GMG had been “the best company I ever worked for”. As part of his exit deal in 2009, Myers worked as a stand-in presenter for Smooth Radio.
But radio never made much money for GMG. By the time of his departure, the company, struggling in the wake of the financial crash of 2008, was centred on securing the future of the Guardian newspaper.
The radio division was sold to Global Radio in 2012 for £70m, half the valuation of six years before.
Myers was born in Carlisle, Cumbria, to a Catholic family, one of the nine children of Helen (nee Bromley) and James Myers, who lived in a three-bedroomed council house. His father was a bookmaker and lorry driver.
John grew up listening to “Luxie” – Radio Luxembourg. He was expelled from primary school for ringing the school bell and left Newman Catholic school in Carlisle without any qualifications. After dead end jobs he started doing dance nights at Tiffany’s club in the city.
He secured technical support shifts at BBC Radio Carlisle in the early 1980s and through his irrepressible drive and warm voice made it on to air, then landed a weekend breakfast show with the Lancashire commercial station Red Rose. The freelance pay was initially so low that he lived in a caravan to save money.
He gained a prized breakfast show on Radio Tees, and then started a regional TV career as a cheeky late night announcer on Border Television in 1985, signing off with “kick the cat out, gag the budgie, come back tomorrow morning for a new day on Border”. He even appeared in pantomime.
His philosophy of life was to live, learn, never be boring. The TV dalliance ended after three years. He went into radio management with Red Rose (while hosting a morning show). In 1993 he launched Carlisle’s new commercial station, CFM, then won large radio franchises in the north as Border Radio’s group managing director.
After he left GMG, he reflected that too many licences had been awarded through breathtakingly bad decisions by regulators. He said it would have been better to launch several national commercial stations. Between 2005 and 2007 he was part of three attempts to merge GMG Radio with the rival group Chrysalis, but the boards were unable to agree a price. Then recession struck, and by 2009 around 80% of commercial radio stations were unprofitable. Bauer and Global Radio emerged.
In 2009, Myers was asked to undertake a review for the Department of Culture, Media & Sport on commercial radio, with some of his recommendations taken up in the Digital Economy Act of 2010. He also advised the BBC on various aspects of streamlining its radio services. He said he was shocked to find BBC working conditions poorer than those at commercial radio.
Myers was awarded a fellowship by the University of Cumbria for outstanding contribution to radio in 2012, and was chief executive of the Radio Academy in 2012-13. He donated the proceeds from his 2012 autobiography, Team: It’s Only Radio!, to radio charities.
Golf was a passion – Myers was at the 18th hole of the Gleneagles PGA course when he died. He had recently recovered from throat cancer.
He is survived by his wife, Linda (nee Hogg), whom he married in 1985, their son, Scott, and daughter, Kerry, and two grandchildren, Mia and Marcus.
John Frederick Myers, broadcast executive, born 11 April 1959; died 1 June 2019 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/marketforceslive/2011/jan/21/astra-bolstered-ftse-recovers | Business | 2011-01-21T17:13:40.000Z | Nick Fletcher | AstraZeneca bolstered by Brilinta hopes as FTSE 100 recovers some lost ground | AstraZeneca, which has been under something of a cloud recently, has been lifted by renewed hopes for its blood thinning drug Brilinta, helping the FTSE 100 mount a partial recovery after two days of decline.
Astra has suffered several blows to its drug pipeline in the past few months, not least a decision by US regulators to withhold approval of Brilinta pending further analysis of clinical trials. Astra had been hoping the drug would be a new blockbuster, rivalling Plavix from Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Today Astra said it had written to the US Food and Drug Administration answering its queries about Brilinta, and remained confident about the submission. Ahead of its full year figures due on Thursday, Savvas Neophytou at Panmure Gordon said Astra had responded to the FDA more quickly than expected, which was a positive sign. He said:
This may result in registration by the end of March 2011, which would trigger consensus upgrades. This news confirms our positive stance on the drug, and coming shortly after the troubles that competitor product candidate vorapaxar ran into last week [development of the Merck product was halted], enables us to reiterate our buy recommendation and £36.00 price target.
Jefferies International was rather more downbeat, however:
Whilst it is encouraging that we are moving forward on resolving the uncertainty surrounding this product, it does not necessarily mean we are significantly closer to an actual approval.
Even so Astra added 41p to 2963.5p. Overall the FTSE 100 finished up 28.34 points at 5896.25, but the index was still down more than 100 points on the week. Investors shrugged off poor UK retail sales, to concentrate on better than expected German business confidence figures and positive figures from America's General Electric. Angus Campbell, head of sales at Capital Spreads, said:
In every bull market you get retracements then rebounds, so this is exactly what we have seen in the last couple of days. The overall outlook for equities remains bright, but often after prolonged gains we will experience a sharp decline. Today's bounce doesn't guarantee that we will get back above the 6000 level straight away and there is still a risk that we could see another dip lower, but in the long run the prospects for the FTSE are still in decent shape.
Royal Bank of Scotland rose 2.75p to 44.94p after reports it could make an early exit from the government scheme which insures £230bn of its riskiest assets.
Such a move would save the £750m in fees the bank pays to the government, and also pave the way for a possible sale of the stake in the bank held by the state. But traders pointed out that the bank had always said it would leave the scheme in 2012, and they believed little had changed. They said share price increase was also due to positive comments on the bank from Citigroup and Morgan Stanley.
Meanwhile analysts at Societe Generale looked at the possible outcome from the Independent Commission of Banking ahead of a speech by the chairman Sir John Vickers tomorrow, where he will give a progress report. They said:
Although included within its remit, we do not expect the ICB to recommend a full and legal separation of investment banking business from retail banking. The international debate has moved on from when the ICB was established, and crucially, no other country has followed the UK's lead in the proposal.
More likely are recommendations for: (i) subsidiarisation of the investment banking business to separate it from retail banking, (ii) curtailing certain investment banking business such as proprietary trading, and (iii) measures to enhance competition in UK retail banking. On a worst case scenario - which we do not expect - subsidiarisation could require the investment banking businesses to become self-funding.
Barclays
National Grid added 3p to 542p despite a New York commission ruling it could not charge customers as much as it had hoped. Investec analyst Angelos Anastasiou issued a sell note, saying:
It has been allowed $112.7m, versus $361m requested in October (from $391m originally asked for in January 2010). Much though this was expected, it is nonetheless disappointing.
Among the mid-caps Premier Foods put on 1.6p to 22.35p on talk it was close to a sale of its Quorn division for around £250m, with Nestle said to be one possible buyer.
Valiant Petroleum added 72.5p to 672p and Enquest was 8.3p better at 145.5p after the two groups said they had found oil at the jointly owned Don Southwest fields in the North Sea. Elsewhere Premier Oil added 23p to £20.11 as UBS said the company looked a reasonable takeover prospect.
Lower down the market Petra Diamonds jumped 18p to 180p after paying $210m to De Beers for the Finsch diamond mine in South Africa. To help fund the deal and cut its debt, Petra has raised £205m with a placing of new shares at 150p each with institutional and other investors.
Online gaming group 32Red rose 3.25p to 20p after winning a trademark dispute with William Hill, up 2.8p to 185.8p, in the high court, but Churchill Mining lost 13p to 105.5p on worries about the Indonesian government imposing restrictions on coal exports. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/mar/16/ken-adam-bond-dr-strangelove-set-designer | Books | 2023-03-16T08:00:21.000Z | Oliver Wainwright | Dormant volcanoes and working monorails: the grand designs of Ken Adam, master of the Bond-villain lair | Villains hiding out in underground lairs, councils of war meeting at spotlit circular tables, bank vaults full of gold bullion piled high. The popular imagination of what these secret, off-limits places might look like has been shaped, more than anything else, by the dramatic visions of the late production designer Ken Adam.
As the creative mind behind seven James Bond films across the 60s and 70s, and numerous other movies, from Dr Strangelove to Addams Family Values, Adam dreamed up the look of nuclear submarine bases, mountain laboratories, hi-tech space stations, glamorous Las Vegas penthouses, and missile launchers hidden inside volcanoes. In doing so, he built some of the most memorable and influential spaces, not only in the history of cinema but also in the history of architecture, real or imagined.
A concept drawing for the volcano set in You Only Live Twice. Photograph: [email protected]/© Deutsche Kinemathek – Ken Adam Archive
Today, his influence can be felt whenever you walk into a soaring office atrium, take a vertiginous escalator ride into a cavernous subway station, or even get shuttled through a tunnel between airport terminals. He was the master of a style he termed “heightened reality”, taking everyday spaces and giving them a theatrical, supercharged glamour.
Countless architects have copied it since. Norman Foster’s design for the cone-shaped room at the top of the Gherkin is perhaps the most Adam-esque space in London; his Faustino winery in Spain could be a Bond baddie’s lair. A longtime fan, Foster once described Adam as “a master of space and light”, who realised the kinds of spaces that the 18th-century architectural draughtsmen-dreamers, like Giovanni Piranesi and Étienne-Louis Boullée, had only imagined. “Those legendary architectural figures” had “hypothesised visually, graphically, environments of awesome power”, he said. “Ken Adam builds them.”
Seven years after his death, the workings behind the magic have been brought together in a mammoth new Taschen book, The Ken Adam Archive, featuring interviews and production sketches from some of the 70 completed and 15 unrealised projects that he worked on over his 50-year career. Weighing in at 4kg, with the dimensions and heft of a paving slab, it feels like a suitably colossal tome to mark the mind behind the most ambitious film sets ever built.
Edited by the film historian Sir Christopher Frayling, a longtime friend of Adam’s, the book is peppered with revealing conversations between the two. The Bond series, for example, almost didn’t happen for Adam. When he received the initial treatment for Dr No in 1961, he wasn’t impressed. “You can’t possibly do this,” he recalls his wife, Maria Letizia, protesting at the time. “You would prostitute yourself.” Bond writer Ian Fleming himself admitted that his trashy spy novels had been conceived for consumption on “railways, trains, aeroplanes or beds”, while the producer Albert “Cubby” Broccoli described his own films before Bond as “profitable crap”. But Adam saw the potential and conjured some of the most striking spaces yet on the silver screen.
The final concept for the War Room in Dr Strangelove. Photograph: Ken Adam/Deutsche Kinemathek
Dr No’s underwater apartment was a fantastical mashup of fashionable mid-century style and heirloom antiques – some of it from Adam’s own house in Knightsbridge – with fake rocks framing a magnificent aquarium, and a real tree in the middle of the room. The film also featured a nuclear water reactor in a slick laboratory with dramatic, slanting columns and hi-tech control panels, with every detail supervised by scientists from the Atomic Energy Research Establishment in Oxfordshire.
“I knew nothing about reactors!” Adam recalls in the book. “And it had to work. Even though we didn’t use radioactive material … It was really frightening, actually! We knew so little about it.” You can see why he was nervous: this was his first film for Broccoli, and, in today’s money, the set for the reactor room alone cost more than £110,000.
Still, that was nothing compared with what he would concoct five years later, at Pinewood Studios, for You Only Live Twice. In this epic, Bond tracks down Ernst Stavro Blofeld, the shadowy chief of criminal organisation Spectre, to his headquarters inside a dormant volcano in Japan (from where he is launching rockets to capture superpower space hardware and trigger a third world war, natch). The gargantuan set for the volcano lair included a movable helicopter platform, a working monorail system, a launch pad, and a full-scale rocket mock-up that could simulate lift-off. Visible from three miles away, it used 900 tons of steel and 200 tons of plaster (before carbon footprint was anyone’s concern), and cost the equivalent of £7m today.
The book shows Adam’s initial sketches for the sets, drawn with the characteristic high-contrast, energetic strokes of his black and brown felt-tip pens – his dynamic, layered lines emphasising the extreme-perspective views. And those felt-tips, it turns out, were crucial to the evolution of the Adam style.
‘A master of space and light’: Adam at his home desk. Photograph: © Boris Hars-Tschachotin, “THIS IS THE WAR ROOM” (2017). Film still by Andreas-Michael Velten
Born in Berlin in 1921, as Klaus Hugo George Fritz Adam, he arrived in London in 1934 after his family fled the Nazi regime. He went to St Paul’s school, then attended evening classes at University College London’s Bartlett School of Architecture – then a hotbed of fussy beaux arts classicism – while working as an architectural draughtsman during the day. As a result, his early drawings tended to be precise and technically proficient, made with pen and ink and a T-square. He would draw a neat plan and elevation to scale, before projecting it into a sketch, as architects are taught to do.
“I was afraid to let go and express myself,” Adam recalls. “The drawings were a kind of self-defence.” But everything changed with the arrival of the Flo-Master marker pen in 1951. “I had to try and find some way of releasing myself,” he continues. “With the help of felt pens – which had recently been invented – I changed my drawing technique completely.” He settled on the wedge-shaped tip. “Its broad strokes forced me to loosen up and made me design more boldly,” he recalls. “One or two lines might form the basis of my design, and often it is the imperfections of the sketch – with a bold treatment of light and shade – which creates interesting compositions and atmosphere.”
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Drawing and set for the docking bay from The Spy Who Loved Me. Composite: Ken Adam/MGM/Rex Features
Flipping through the book’s 360 pages, you can see Adam’s style evolve from the uptight technical drawing of the early years, to the later exercises in chiaroscuro that flow with expressionist glee, as atmospheric and emotionally charged as any Piranesi etching.
In particular, his designs for the war room in Dr Strangelove, created for Stanley Kubrick in 1962, exude cold war menace in their thrusting triangular geometries. As Frayling describes, it was one part concrete bomb shelter, one part oval light-ring, one part animated map of the world showing the flight paths of nuclear bombers, and “three parts paranoia”.
It went on to become everyone’s idea of what the underground inner sanctum for plotting global warfare must surely look like. When Ronald Reagan, as newly elected US president, was given a tour of the Pentagon by his chief of staff in 1981, he is said to have asked: “But where is the war room?”
“Mr President,” came the reply, “there isn’t one.” Ken Adam’s imaginationcontinues to live on long after his death, inspiring the villainous look of movies, video games, buildings and space stations. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/may/10/plaid-cymru-leader-adam-price-future-in-doubt-damning-review-detoxify | Politics | 2023-05-10T22:21:16.000Z | Aletha Adu | Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price steps down after damning report | Adam Price, the leader of Plaid Cymru, has announced he is resigning after a damning review said his party had failed to “detoxify” its culture and found evidence of misogyny, harassment and bullying.
Plaid Cymru’s national executive committee has approved a motion to allow the party’s Senedd group to invite nominations for the position of interim leader at its meeting on Thursday morning, subject to ratification by the party’s national council on Saturday.
A new leader is expected to be in place for the summer.
What is happening in Plaid Cymru?
Read more
Price, 54, had led the Welsh nationalist party since 2018. In a letter to Marc Jones, the chair of Plaid Cymru, Price said he would be formally tendering his resignation next week “once interim arrangements have been agreed and the employment terms of the Senedd group staff employed in my name have been guaranteed”.
Jones said: “On behalf of Plaid Cymru I want to thank Adam for his drive and vision over the past four and a half years.
“Adam’s personal commitment to making Wales a fairer nation is a lasting legacy of which he and Plaid Cymru can be proud.”
Jones added: “As we begin the process of electing a new leader our unwavering focus will be on implementing the recommendations of Project Pawb [the report] in order to foster a new culture within the party, making it a safe and inclusive member-led movement for all.”
Nerys Evans, the MS who led the review that was published last week, said Plaid had let women down especially and it had “failed to implement a zero-tolerance approach to sexual harassment”.
Her report said that inherent power imbalances within the party “coupled with inaction over many years from those with positions of power to challenge bad behaviour, has made a bad situation even worse”.
Evidence from an anonymous staff survey and elected members “highlight cases of sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination”, the report said, claiming: “These are not isolated cases.”
Last week, Price said all 82 of the report’s recommendation would be taken onboard but refused to resign. He had apologised in response to the report and said it must do better to foster a culture that was “safe, inclusive and respectful to all”.
Reports earlier on Wednesday from the news website Nation.Cymru claimed Price had already agreed to quit as leader before a crunch meeting of Plaid’s national executive committee later in the day. Nation.Cymru also said Price wanted to step down immediately but that others in the party were seeking an orderly handover.
On Tuesday, Plaid members of the Senedd held talks on the damning report, which criticised the party’s leadership for failing to change its culture. It remained unclear what conclusions, if any, were drawn. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jun/14/isle-of-wight-festival-2015-review | Music | 2015-06-14T11:54:58.000Z | Mark Beaumont | Isle of Wight festival 2015 – review | Isle of Wight is a festival nourishing its niche; the gentle ease-in to an overcrowded season. Its various bars and zones, named after Donovan, Beatles and Hendrix hits, shroud this capitalist utopia of competing cider brands in the idyllic hippy fantasy of the original 1969 festival, and its billing is astutely designed to scare not a single horse.
Each afternoon, unchallenging radio fare pitched evenly down the line between Evans and Grimshaw does its best not to flummox the parked-up £200 men. Counting Crows rattle out roots rock enlivened by snippets of Elbow songs and the shaking of singer Adam Duritz’s Sideshow Bob hair. The bill boasts Sharon Corr, Paulo Nutini, Suzanne Vega, Jethro Tull’s frolicking flautist Ian Anderson. At IOW, you picnic in peace.
When the mildness gets too much – say during Saturday’s pillowfight one-two of James Bay and Jessie Ware, essentially UK pop culture’s on-hold music while it rummages around for a better idea – roaming increasingly pays. There are fresh boutique touches, such as a Cabaret Noir tent that must have been stranded on the island since Bestival, full of drag acts and troupes of goth Stevie Nickses.
In the Big Top things get even weirder, as France’s La Femme pound out Gallic synth drones in kimonos and Chicks On Speed feature a fluffy space yeti trying to get a tune out of a miked-up stiletto. Slowly, IOW is growing an edge.
At the top end, IOW 2015 packs a formidable punch. On Friday, the Black Keys offset a torrential downpour with a headline-worthy set of voodoo blues pop, northern soul, T-Rex glam and the sly bit of Rod Stewart bar-room boogie. The Prodigy spare no mercy for what the prowling MC Maxim calls “my soaked people”, unleashing barrages of depth-charge beats on Breathe, Firestarter and Ibiza, barked out by guest ranter Jason Williamson from Sleaford Mods.
Sadly, their backfiring pride in Smack My Bitch Up gives an otherwise powerful set a distinct air of Neanderthal moron, making it impossible to fully buy into the Prodigy in 2015.
Pharrell Williams performing at the Isle of Wight festival 2015. Photograph: James Gourley/Rex Shutterstock
Come Saturday, things go awry for Pharrell Williams as he delivers a medley of his co-written hits for Snoop Dogg, Daft Punk, Gwen Stefani and the Prodigy-esque Robin Thicke and sings Happy to 12-year-old cerebral palsy sufferer Dylan Bleach, as if attempting to become a cross between Nile Rodgers and Esther Rantzen.
Perhaps inspired by the horde of stage invaders mimicking Tim Booth’s jelly-boned dancing during James’s finale of Laid, Pharrell drags his own bunch of fans on stage for a N*E*R*D segment, only for them to roundly steal his show. They interrupt Lapdance to take selfies with him and one enthusiastic middle-aged twerker refuses to leave until Pharrell sings She Wants To Move to her while she booty-shakes on all fours. Thus a slickly choreographed, cynically sportswear-branded set – about which we couldn’t say more without breaching a dozen advertising standards – is dragged brilliantly down to IOW’s Bacardi-basted level.
With Fleetwood Mac set to battle unspecified illness to headline Sunday, the spirit of Dave (“I think I’ve broken my leg”) Grohl pervades the weekend.
Despite having lost his voice the previous day, Damon Albarn bounds on stage like a hyperactive bovver boy up for a rumble and powers through one of IOW’s best ever headline shows. Mingling the subtle noise-mongering and languorous Euro beer anthems of new album The Magic Whip with rare album tracks and solid gold festival killers such as Parklife, Song 2, Girls & Boys and The Universal, theirs is an imaginative, unpredictable display that is still as rousing as Springsteen in 2012. IOW leaves us magically whipped. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/jun/02/rupauls-drag-race-season-7-finale | Television & radio | 2015-06-02T14:24:34.000Z | Megan Carpentier | RuPaul's Drag Race ends season 7 with one of the best finales in show's history | It was that time again: to gather the world’s best queens under one roof, parade all of the participants in this season’s Drag Race across an LA stage and hope to God that RuPaul saw what you did over the course of the season.
But first, three more lip syncs from the finalists. Ginger Minj rocked a gospel-inspired number (including an anti-conversion therapy message); Pearl slam-danced and barely lip-synced an 80s-inspired Bonnie Tyler by way of Blond Ambition number; and Violet Chachki Betty Booped her way through a burlesque performance about “too many daddies”, while channeling Betty Page.
Little wonder, then, that Violet took home the crown. But let’s not lie to one another: when RuPaul called Katya back to the stage just as she was announcing the queen, you were sort of hoping that it wasn’t just a gag. (It was just a gag.)
Did you gag? Or did you hurl?
Dom: Oh boy. I’m not feeling it. My heart stopped when she called back Katya. That was a clear nod to who Ru thought should have been this year’s winner. If the night’s performances had anything to do with it, then Violet deserved the prize. Pearl stank on her lip sync and Ginger ran out of gas – insert your own joke. Violet was amazing by comparison. She looked like a millennial Joey Arias – minus the talent or the wit. But who cares? I wouldn’t cross the road to see her in person. Unless she was with Joey Arias, in which case I’d run. Seeing Bianca again made me remember what a real winner she is.
Megan: Did you see that hug that Bianca Del Rio gave Ginger when Pearl started walking? I smell a roadshow. Bianca’s the one who I feel like really made the most of her year, in terms of of publicity, and shared her success on the road as widely as possible. When was the last time you saw anything with Raja as a headliner (or Jinkx or even Sharon Needles)? Joan Rivers (RIP) didn’t invite those bitches to bed with her before she passed. And Bianca made the most of the opportunity because she can do more than be pretty and lip sync. Violet should team up with Christian Siriano and design corsets for a down-market chain. Waist training is super in right now.
I would’ve cheered a Katya come-back, #TeamGlamourToad be damned.
Violet Chachki, Bianca Del Rio and Jinkx Monsoon. Photograph: Santiago Felipe/FilmMagic
Brian: I agree with you that Violet really won the finale with her amazing Betty Page-inspired looks throughout, and just barely edged out Ginger in the lip sync portion. But I don’t think she’s going to be as good a reigning queen as Bianca. I recently went to see Ginger’s one-woman cabaret show here in New York and she killed. I didn’t know that she has an amazing singing voice and an encyclopedic knowledge of show tunes to go with that clever wit. But I feel like she didn’t live up to her full potential on the show, including her looks in the finale.
Now, as a TV critic I must say that this was probably the best finale episode we’ve seen in a long time. The addition of the final lip sync numbers at the top of the show, accompanied by little packages about who the queens were and are in real life made for gripping television. I never liked the canned catch-up with the queens, and I’m glad that got shuttled to the back half of the program. Next year I think we should forego it altogether, give all the losers one big number, and just focus on the final three. And have Bianca read everyone. It’s not a show without Bianca.
Dom: I’m feeling sulky about the whole thing. I didn’t even like the Nasty Pig ad this week. All that stuff about how the founders met 20 years ago, blah blah blah. Shut up and sell me a jockstrap already. Next we’ll be getting the backstory of Boy Butter. Too many huggable moments. Although I was glad Patti LaBelle gave Jasmine Masters a shout out after she was monstered on Twitter. She deserved that.
Megan: Look, Miss Fame bringing a chicken on stage should never be the funniest moment at a drag show, though I’m a former chicken-keeper myself. (And the Nasty Pig, from-leather-daddy-to-grown-up-business-owners-who-look-but-don’t-touch ad was the worst upshot of all those naughty boy commercials all season. They didn’t make out with any of them!) I liked the Sharon-Jinkx-Bianca run because they weren’t gorgeous and perfect, but they were weird and a little fucked-up and vulnerable. I wanted Ginger because I wanted her to believe in herself!
Don’t tell anyone I’m a big softie.
Miss Fame. Photograph: Vincent Sandoval/WireImage
Brian: I think they filmed this week’s Nasty Pig commercial in my old Fire Island house, so I was down with it. And I could tell you the backstory of Boy Butter and it would certainly be more exciting than anything Violet has to say, but we don’t love Violet for what she has to say, we love her for how she looks. I actually think it’s good that she won, because for the last several years it was the funny girl that took the crown, and this is a reminder that drag is as much a visual medium as it is a comedic one. That said, I think that Miss Fame’s chicken has a better sense of humour than Violet.
Megan: Miss Fame’s chicken is probably a better date than Violet, too.
Dom: The chicken will also probably last longer. Ginger could have been an OK successor to Bianca. I agree that maybe it wasn’t time for another funny girl, but Pearl is far prettier and much funnier than Violet. Ru was right - as always - that Katya should have won. Oh well. There’s always next season.
Best lines
RuPaul: “Like my momma said, unless them bitches is paying your bills, you don’t pay them bitches no mind.”
Jaidynn Dior Fierce: “I was sitting in my hotel room, beating myself up and eating Doritos.”
RuPaul: “And that’s different from your normal life?”
RuPaul: “Katya, you are a freak, and I freaking love you.”
Latrice Royale: “Ella Cution? Is she from Inglewood? I went to high school with her.”
Mimi Imfurst: “If you can’t hate yourself, how the hell are you gonna hate somebody else?” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/aug/22/scottish-labour-leader-kezia-dugdale-backs-owen-smith-against-jeremy-corbyn | Politics | 2016-08-22T07:42:30.000Z | Damien Gayle | Scottish Labour leader backs Owen Smith against Jeremy Corbyn | The leader of the Scottish Labour party has announced her support for Owen Smith in the party’s leadership contest as ballots are sent out to 640,000 members.
Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith promise to have woman at top of Labour
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Kezia Dugdale, who led Labour to its worst defeat in the Scottish elections earlier this year, said only Smith could unite the divided party and win over voters outside the party’s traditional base.
Writing in her column in the Daily Record, Dugdale said: “Owen understands that to have a chance of implementing Labour values, we need to win over some of those who didn’t vote for us at the last election. We can’t pin our hopes on a leadership who speak only to the converted, rather than speaking to the country as a whole.”
Rival supporters stake their claims in Labour leadership fight | Letters
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Dugdale said she had a responsibility to speak out as the party’s most senior female elected leader.
“I don’t think Jeremy [Corbyn] can unite our party and lead us into government. He cannot appeal to a broad enough section of voters to win an election,” she wrote. “I believe Owen can.”
Dugdale has been a prominent figure in Progress, the centre-left party faction closely associated with former leader Tony Blair, and has been a regular contributor to its eponymous journal. Yet she insists that she stands behind Smith’s leftwing programme.
Dugdale told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday: “Across the country today Labour party members and supporters are receiving their ballot papers and on that ballot paper is a very fundamental question: who can lead the UK Labour party and who is best placed to form the next Labour government?
“And the answer to that question is, for me, very clearly Owen Smith, because he represents a mixture of radical policies and politics combined with a credible plan of getting back into government.”
Dugdale also appeared on BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme, saying she “disagreed entirely” that her position would become untenable if, as is widely expected, Corbyn won the leadership contest.
She insisted she was “absolutely fine” with her deputy, Alex Rowley, despite his backing for Corbyn and recent comments that he would not oppose a second referendum on Scottish independence.
Smith said he was incredibly proud to have Dugdale’s support for his leadership bid.
“Kezia and I want to see a strong Labour party that can defeat the Tories in Westminster and take the fight to the SNP in Holyrood,” he said. “But that will only be achieved if we can unite our party and demonstrate we have a radical, credible plan to rebuild communities right across the United Kingdom.”
Dugdale’s intervention came a day after Corbyn drew thousands to a rally in Kilburn, north London, where he said he wanted to implement a democratic shift in politics that would “empower people so they don’t have to bow down before the rich and the powerful”.
His re-election campaign director, Sam Tarry, told Today on Monday that a “complete overhaul of the entire [political] system” was needed, including giving citizens greater rights to challenge decisions taken on their behalf.
“That’s why we are suggesting things like citizens’ assemblies, genuinely participative and representative assemblies of people that could actually start to look at the big democratic deficit issues of the day,” Tarry said.
“This is really about drilling down to the local-est level possible. It is about saying we want more democracy in our economy, we need more democracy in our community and actually across the country we need more democracy.
“Ultimately what we want to do is give more people more power to design their own democracy and what I mean by that is, for example, in this country we don’t even have a written constitution, we don’t even have our rights properly enshrined. What I would like to see is a citizen-led process to design the regulations that govern them, rather than just be told: this is how you will be governed.”
Labour members eligible to vote in the leadership contest will start receiving their ballots by email from Monday.
A string of senior figures have urged members not to re-elect Corbyn, who was swept to power by an unexpected landslide last year. The party’s national executive committee changed the rules of the contest to disenfranchise 130,000 new Labour members, which it is believed were mainly Corbyn supporters. However, the MP for Islington North is widely expected to win.
This article was amended on 22 August 2016 to change the description of Progress from “pro-business, rightwing” to centre-left. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/may/11/conservative-lib-dem-minority | Opinion | 2010-05-11T14:42:25.000Z | John Redwood | Lib Dems should back a Tory minority government | John Redwood | Iwould like a stable government capable of tackling our economic and financial problems soon. That is why I have offered full support to David Cameron, who has been very generous with his revised offer to persuade the Lib Dems to join a Con/Lib coalition government. Yesterday, when the negotiators appeared to be making progress, dramatic events intervened. Gordon Brown decided to resign, lest he become the obstacle to a deal with Labour. The Lib Dem parliamentary party, after a long meeting, discovered they were hopelessly split over how to proceed.
None of this is a great advert for hung or "balanced" parliaments. The so-called new politics takes to extremes many of the features of the old that people did not like. It seems to mean more decisions taken behind closed doors that we cannot scrutinise. It means indecision. It means political parties having to give up promises and leaders they presented to the electors, as they struggle to find a way forward.
The current disposition of forces will unleash the mighty question of England. Labour put through an asymmetric devolution settlement. The Scottish and Welsh Nationalists would agree with many in England that it is not fair that Wales and Scotland can settle many things for themselves in their own democratic assemblies, yet the MPs of the whole union can determine English issues at Westminster. David Cameron and the Conservatives won a strong majority of the seats in England. By rights Conservatives should now be ministers in all the English departments, where matters have been devolved to Scotland and Wales. We should be deciding the policies for England based on our majority of English votes at Westminster.
If Brown, Clegg and an unknown new Labour prime minister succeed in putting together the rainbow coalition – or coalition of the losers, as its critics have called it – they have to answer the English question. Surely Scottish nationalists will not wish to change their habits and start voting on English issues against the view of the majority of English MPs? England will not be pleased if nationalists are offered guarantees of exemption from spending cuts that will apply to England.
The Lib Dems who have prayed, worked and planned for a "balanced" parliament ever since 1979 have discovered that it is much more difficult than they imagined. They are in danger of overplaying their hand, or in danger of failing to reach agreement because they have no internal discipline to favour either the Conservatives or Labour. Their party's constitution is designed to protect and establish their independence. That makes it difficult now to join a government alongside a much bigger party.
I have always thought a minimal agreement to let the Conservatives form a minority government, with Lib Dems promising confidence and supply for a limited period, was our best bet. More co-operation might come of that if it worked well. Trying to establish a comprehensive coalition was always going to be difficult given the wide range of Lib Dem feelings and views.
More election comment from Cif at the polls | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2014/apr/25/boyhood-richard-linklater-dont-watch-trailer | Film | 2014-04-25T15:56:06.000Z | Xan Brooks | Here's the trailer for Richard Linklater's film Boyhood – you really don't want to see it | Polite note to the marketing department at Universal studios: please take your Boyhood trailer and shove it where the sun don't shine. Burn it on a bonfire or bury it underground. There is no worse movie trailer than the Boyhood movie trailer.
Which is not to say that I dislike Boyhood. Quite the opposite: I love it to bits. Nor am I suggesting that your trailer isn't beautiful, because what else could it be? Richard Linklater's new film is purely ravishing, a painstaking coming-of-age drama that charts a Texas kid's journey from infancy to adulthood and was shot, at intervals, over a 12-year period, so that we see little Ellar Coltrane grow up on screen. Linklater's handling turns every time shift into a small epiphany. He conjures an airy, intense study of a life as it is lived and coaxes some gorgeous supporting performances from Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette.
Boyhood, in other words, is a film I can't recommend highly enough. But its magic works best when it is experienced at first hand; when the picture is allowed the space to move and breathe and reveal its treasures at leisure. Who needs the premature splurge of the official teaser trailer (even one as adept as this) when you can have the full 12-year love affair instead?
Ah well, never mind. You can't fight city hall or the Hollywood business model. Up above is an early taste of Richard Linklater's Boyhood, one of the finest films I've seen this year. If you opt to play it now, you've got a weekend treat in store. Alternatively, sit tight and hold out for the official UK release on July 11. And that way, no joke, you win the world in a bottle. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2017/jan/18/the-jesus-and-mary-chain-10-of-the-best | Music | 2017-01-18T10:00:04.000Z | Jeremy Allen | The Jesus and Mary Chain – 10 of the best | 1. Upside Down
It’s difficult now to imagine just how outré the Jesus and Mary Chain would have sounded in 1984, and how incongruous they would have been among the Thompson Twins and Nik Kershaws of this world. It was a desire to hear the Shangri-Las and Einstürzende Neubauten on the same record that drove them to form in the first place, and they were quickly fulfilling that ambition with Upside Down, their debut single. Indeed, the screeching, uncompromising feedback juxtaposed against Jim Reid’s placid murmur still grabs you by the throat, even 33 years on.
The Jesus and Mary Chain on Psychocandy: ‘It was a little miracle’
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“Britain in 1984 was fucking boring,” said Creation boss Alan McGee. “I like ABC, but that was as exciting as it got: Martin Fry and his gold lamé suit. Then we found the Mary Chain.” The Reid brothers from East Kilbride had been recommended by his pal Bobby Gillespie – who would soon step into the breach as the band’s drummer – and while McGee was lukewarm about them at first, he became convinced of their genius when they pitched up in London to perform live, though their avalanche of feedback at that gig turned out to be a mistake rather than a calculation. While the Mary Chain’s importance in the evolution of alternative rock is sometimes downplayed these days, Upside Down was a landmark single, the cacophonous first appearance of one of the 1980s’ most important and influential acts. “Everything hasn’t been done,” Jim Reid told the Face. “No one has ever made a record remotely like Upside Down.”
2. Just Like Honey
The band’s debut album Psychocandy (1985) was a surprise to many, not just because of its influences but because of the depth and maturity of the songwriting. It may not be unusual these days to hear bands borrow from the Ronettes at the same time as from the Velvet Underground and Hank Williams, but in 1985 it was as radical as it was unprecedented. On Just Like Honey, the Mary Chain managed to combine these influences, as well as a splash of psychedelic sunshine pop, on a song written under overcast Glaswegian skies that are also somehow reflected in the music. If that sounds complicated, it actually isn’t: they took all those musical forces and united them with consummate ease. The simplicity of the sound was also reflected in the aesthetic – with their fuzzy hair and black threads, they gave off an air of cultured menace, like characters in a Jean-Luc Godard film. William Reid had intended to make Just Like Honey much faster, but his brother talked him into slowing it down. “Jim’s like, ‘No, bring that down a bit,’ and I was like, ‘No, Jim. No, Jim. You don’t know,’” he told Goldmine magazine. “He was like, ‘Please, please, please, just bring it down a bit.’ He was right. He was totally right.” Whether they agreed on anything again is a moot point.
3. Some Candy Talking
Anyone still expecting the wheels to fall off – even after the excellent reception Psychocandy received – was confounded when the Jesus and Mary Chain released the Some Candy Talking EP in 1986. The lead track, which was even more dreamily narcotic than previous releases, suggested there was no shortage of great tunes. Radio 1 DJ Mike Smith apparently blacklisted the song because of the drug reference in the title (which Jim Reid has always denied), but the record was never outright banned, because the BBC had cottoned on that such bans usually sent a record racing up the charts (a la Relax or Je T’Aime (Moi Non Plus)). Even with only minimal airplay, it reached No 13 in the UK singles chart.
Some Candy Talking was Bobby Gillespie’s swansong. The Reids used a drum machine for recording purposes on future projects, drafting in sporadic replacements for live shows. First up was John Moore. “Bobby was very nice,’ he told Zoe Howe in the biography Barbed Wire Kisses. “He said, ‘It’s not really that difficult, the main thing you’ve got to do is duck when the bottles start flying.’ He was so right.”
4. April Skies
In the Britpop era it was expected that “indie” bands would appear on Top of the Pops, but in the mid 1980s such outings still seemed strange and anomalous. The Jesus and Mary Chain signed to Blanco y Negro – a subsidiary of Warners – but it was still a jolt to the system when they landed in the Top 10 and were invited on the flagship BBC music show. For a period in 1987, the Mary Chain were bona fide pop stars, appearing on the cover of Smash Hits, and as recognisable to striplings taping the Top 40 off the radio as to the more earnest, NME-reading demographic that made up their fanbase. April Skies is a staggeringly confident slab of dark pop, which, while denuded of earsplitting feedback and thus more commercial, still exhibits a whiff of danger and the promise of “making love on the edge of a knife”. The consensus says Psychocandy is the masterpiece, but the Darklands LP, with April Skies and the tenebrous and gorgeous title track, has the better songs.
5. Sidewalking
In 1988, the Reids exhibited an unforeseen influence – hip-hop – on Sidewalking. The standalone single, which reached No 30, sampled the drumbeat from Roxanne Shanté’s Roxanne’s Revenge (part of the infamous Roxanne Wars with the Real Roxanne). At first, the band were unsure whether to put it out under a pseudonym, or even release it at all, given the break from their customary sound, but on the advice of Geoff Travis, they eventually released Sidewalking under their own name. It was the right call, because while the rhythm track was out of left field, it is every inch a Mary Chain classic. In fact the song heralded a more US-friendly sound, which they’d explore further on the album Automatic.
6. Head On
It’s fair to say Automatic, with its calculated appeal to audiences stateside, was not to the liking of all of the band’s original fanbase. But the driving and pulsating Head On, with its rockabilly guitars and chorus reminiscent of Springsteen’s Born to Run, was the standout track for most. Musically, it’s pulverising, and lyrically it’s emphatic too: “Makes you want to feel / Makes you want to try / Makes you want to blow the stars from the sky.” The Pixies certainly thought so – their cover on Trompe le Monde is arguably more famous.
7. Almost Gold
If, on Automatic, the Mary Chain had attempted to ingratiate themselves in the US, tracks such as Reverence on Honey’s Dead (“I wanna die just like Jesus Christ / I wanna die just like JFK”) were surely intended to antagonise. Thankfully, not everything on Honey’s Dead is designed to cause offence, with Almost Gold proving the baggy-tinged jewel in the crown. “Almost Gold is nearly an Aztec Camera title,” wrote Stuart Maconie in the NME at the time, “and it’s not far from an Aztec Camera song, with its glowing Caledonian country feel.” It was certainly a far cry from the band who played 15-minute sets, caused riots in polytechnics up and down the country, and were banned from several British TV shows. Nevertheless, the reflective, mature sound suited them.
8. Snakedriver
In 1994, Brandon Lee’s last movie, The Crow, hit cinemas. Lee had been killed eight days before the end of filming, shot by a defective blank. While there was plenty of hype surrounding the movie, undoubtedly the best thing about it turned out to be the soundtrack, which had a heavyweight Cure contribution (Born), a Joy Division cover that didn’t suck (Nine Inch Nails’ take on Dead Souls), and a searing, swaggering, vintage Jesus and Mary Chain.
Snakedriver is as recalcitrant but effortlessly cool as anything they’ve produced, while William Reid’s gift for manipulating feedback was never better exemplified. “I’ve got syphilitic hetero friends in every part of town,” snarls Jim Reid. “I don’t hate them but I know them / I don’t want them hanging around.” The song had been released the previous year on the Sound of Speed EP, the last classic EP from the band.
9. Sometimes Always
In 1994, the Jesus and Mary Chain got a second wind with Stoned & Dethroned. Unbeknown to many, the band had hitherto maintained a “professional attitude” in the studio by keeping their noses clean, but during the Stoned & Dethroned sessions they began checking out the local pub opposite their Drugstore recording studio in London’s Elephant and Castle. “There was a guy who dealt drugs behind the bar,” Jim Reid told me in a 2011 interview, “so it was all fucked up after that.”
Professional or not, the album was not only a return to their finest form, but something of a change in direction. The country tinge that had always been there came to the fore, while the sumptuous Hope Sandoval duet Sometimes Always sounds like long-lost treasure from the canon of Lee Hazlewood and Nancy Sinatra. At the time, William Reid had started an affair with Sandoval that would eventually end his marriage. “I was in love with Hope, but it was the unhappiest time in my life,” he would say later. “It was like horrible, horrible, horrible.” Ironically, through his most difficult period, he would write with the utmost clarity.
10. Cracking Up
For their sixth album in 1998, the Mary Chain were dropped by their label and ended up returning to Creation. Munki is often unfairly overlooked and the band were terminally unfashionable by this point. “The fact we made that record and it still sounds good today is quite an amazing thing,” said Jim Reid in 2011. “I couldn’t stand the sight of my brother, and he couldn’t stand the sight of me. We made that record under incredibly stressful conditions, but it sort of ended up being a great record.”
Blanco y Negro decided there were no hit singles and passed, but Cracking Up, from its opening Duane Eddy-style riff, through the frantic tambourine, to the doomy piano notes at the conclusion, would deserve to land higher than No 35 in any chart in a more just universe. It was a titular cry for help, documenting the disintegration of the siblings’ relationship and William Reid’s mental state. It would have been a fitting finale, but 2017 promises a new album. Perhaps there might be a happy ending after all. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2011/oct/14/turner-prize-frieze-week-art | Art and design | 2011-10-14T08:00:00.000Z | Jonathan Jones | Turner prize, Frieze, Wilhelm Sasnal – the week in art | Jonathan Jones's top shows to see this week
Turner prize 2011
This year the north-east plays host to the most controversial and influential art prize in the world. A promising shortlist boasts George Shaw (yeah!), Hilary Lloyd, Karla Black and Martin Boyce.
At Baltic, Gateshead, from 21 October until 8 January 2012
George Condo
Crazy and to be honest, really fascinating American painter, schlocky and sensational, this show promises to one of the autumn's best surprises.
At Hayward Gallery, London SE1, from 18 October until 8 January 2012
Wilhelm Sasnal
A powerful and haunting Polish modern painter – what, another? – exhibits eerily ambiguous works.
At Whitechapel Gallery, London E1, from 14 October until 1 January 2012
Anri Sala
Sound and vision resonate in this show by the Albanian film and video artist.
At Serpentine Gallery, London W2, until 20 November
Kerry Tribe
Ghosts and space travel are among the themes of Kerry Tribe's Dead Star Light. Obviously not the real themes – it's about memory and time and stuff like that.
At Modern Art Oxford until 20 November
Up close: five artworks in detail
Icon of introspection ... Auguste Rodin's The Thinker. Photograph: Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images
Rodin, The Thinker, first cast 1902
A massive figure rests head on hand in an image of melancholy that goes back to medieval carvings such as the Queen in the Lewis Chessmen. Rodin first created his Thinker as a pensive witness to the sufferings of the damned on his swarming Gates of Hell, a vision of Dante's Inferno. Later, large versions were cast and it became the modern world's icon of introspection.
At Burrell Collection, Glasgow
William Blake, Milton, c1800-1803
Blake wrote that Milton was of the devil's party but did not know it. He believed the real energy of the 17th-century republican's poem Paradise Lost lies in the rebellion of Satan. His portrait of Milton is the visionary communication of one great mind with another.
At Manchester Art Gallery
Goya, Interior of a Prison, c1810-14
All the clawing anxieties that shape the mad universe of Goya's darkest paintings pervade the sepulchral depths of a prison in this sublime painting. Here is a glaring example of how Britain's art collections can be overlooked: this vision of cruelty and suffering would grace any museum in the world ... how fantastic that it glowers in County Durham.
At the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham
Rembrandt, Portrait of Titus, c1658
The art of Rembrandt is as enduring as his life was fragile. Rembrandt suffered so much, including many bereavements. His son, portrayed here with such love, died before him. But in art, young Titus will live forever.
At Wallace Collection, London W1
Manet, The Execution of Maximilian, c1867-8
Manet takes traditional genres and makes them new. His idea of modern painting is to deliberately, and constantly, reveal how modern life disfigures and traduces the old nobilities, as expressed in artistic tradition. In this great, damaged work he turns to the genre of history painting to show the brutality and cynicism of modern politics.
At National Gallery, London WC2
What we learned this week
Why Chloe Sevigny is encouraging us to "Never stagnate, never stop" – and perhaps to take up pole-dancing
Why a giant egg, peeking eyes, pecking pigeons and a Paramount Pictures peak have come together
How Adrian Searle and Sarah Lucas ended up in bed together
What David Hockney, Kristen Scott Thomas and Ed Vaizey's favourite artworks are
How a hermit crab made a Brâncuşi head his happy new home
Image of the week
Holding a mirror up to the art world ... Anish Kapoor's work at the Frieze art fair. Photograph: Sarah Lee for the Guardian
Your Art Weekly
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This article was amended on 16 November 2011. The original referred to Wilhelm Sasnal as German. This has been corrected. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/dec/13/star-wars-last-jedi-director-hell-yes-to-woman-or-person-of-colour-directing-franchise | Film | 2017-12-13T19:56:45.000Z | Hannah Ellis-Petersen | Star Wars director: 'hell yes' to a woman or person of colour directing franchise | The director of the latest Star Wars film has said it is “about time” a woman or person of colour was brought in to direct a film in the franchise.
Rian Johnson, who has made his Star Wars directing debut with The Last Jedi, which opens in UK cinemas on Thursday, is the third white man to direct a film from the popular sci-fi series. Other directors of the franchise have been creator George Lucas and JJ Abrams, who directed Star Wars: The Force Awakens in 2015.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi world premiere – in pictures
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However, Johnson said “hell yes, it’s time” that the on-screen diversity the rebooted Star Wars series has prided itself on was also extended to people behind the camera.
“There are so many incredibly talented female directors, directors of colour out there, and so many that I would love to see play in this universe,” said Johnson. “So hell yes, please, I’d love it to happen.”
Abrams, it is understood, will return to direct the final film in this trilogy. Disney recently announced that Johnson would be writing and directing the first in a brand new Star Wars trilogy. The directors of the other two films in that new trilogy have yet to be announced.
The Last Jedi returns where The Force Awakens left off. Cast members John Boyega, Daisy Ridley, Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver return alongside the original trilogy characters of Luke Skywalker, played by Mark Hamill, and Princess Leia, played by Carrie Fisher. The film begins as Rey, played by Ridley, starts her Jedi training with Skywalker, while the resistance continue to battle the First Order, led by Driver’s Kylo Ren and Andy Serkis’s Snoke.
While reviews of the the Last Jedi have been almost universally positive (the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw said it was a film of “teetering temptations, spectacular immolations, huge military engagements”) some have accused Johnson of pandering to Disney, who bought the franchise from Lucasfilm in 2012 and were responsible for its reboot.
Variety’s Peter Debruge accused Johnson of bending to pressure from Disney’s Kathleen Kennedy, the film’s producer, and fitting the film into the studio’s “unified corporate aesthetic”. Debruge said: “Johnson was either strong enough or weak enough to adapt to such pressures, and the result is the longest and least essential chapter in the series.”
'Yay, porgs!' – critics' verdicts on Star Wars: The Last Jedi
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It was an accusation that Johnson denied, saying he was “not sure what that means” when people spoke about the Disneyfication of Star Wars in The Last Jedi.
“I know that from the very start Lucasfilm and Kathy Kennedy and the folks at Disney, there was nothing imposed on this movie from anyone and I was not only allowed but encouraged to make the kind of Star Wars movie that I wanted to make,” Johnson said.
The cast also spoke movingly about the loss of Fisher, who died in December last year during the filming of The Last Jedi.
Johnson said he would remember Fisher “first and foremost” as a writer, and recalled “hanging out before the shoot and just at her house and she was digging out books that she wanted to talk about”.
He added: “She was writing the Princess Diaries when we were doing the shoot and she was showing me all the old diaries she had kept and talking about words, and just hanging out with her. I feel really lucky that I got to have even a little bit of time to know her.”
Domhnall Gleeson, who plays General Hux, said that the film was a fitting tribute to Fisher’s talents. “For the people who knew Carrie she’ll live forever anyway because she was just amazingly big-hearted and totally herself and as irreverent as anybody I’ve ever met – and wore it all very lightly,” he said. “And now we get to see her as Leia in this film for the last time and she’s really brilliant in it.”
Star Wars: The Last Jedi lineup (from left): Domhnall Gleeson, Gwendoline Christie, Benicio Del Toro, Laura Dern, Mark Hamill, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Kelly Marie Tran, Oscar Isaac, Andy Serkis and director Rian Johnson. Photograph: Ian West/PA
Johnson also refused to confirm or deny the rumour that Prince Harry and Prince William make secret cameos in the film disguised as Storm Troopers. However, the cast spoke about the Royals’ visit to the set, and Hamill said he had used it as an opportunity to attempt to settle an ongoing dispute between him and Fisher over whether his character Luke Skywalker could claim to be royalty.
“When they told us that Carrie and I were brother and sister, I said ‘well wait, if Luke is Princess Leia’s brother, doesn’t that make me royalty?’ and Carrie immediately said no. But when I met the Princes, I told them I really wanted their opinion on this – ‘my mother was Queen Amidala, my father was Lord Vader and my sister is Princess Leia, doesn’t that make me royalty?’.”
However, he said that William and Harry had not been able to settle the 40-year dispute. “Unfortunately it was a split decision because William said yes and Harry said ‘I need more information’,” Hamill said with a sigh. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/mar/05/unbreakable-kimmy-schmidt-tina-fey-netflix | Television & radio | 2015-03-05T22:36:52.000Z | Brian Moylan | Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Tina Fey’s joyous new creation | What’s the name of the show? Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
When does it premiere? All 13 episodes are available for streaming on Friday 6 March on Netflix.
What is this show? Kimmy Schmidt (Bridesmaids’ Ellie Kemper) is one of four women rescued from an underground bunker after being imprisoned for 15 years by a crazy polygamist cult leader. When she emerges she knows nothing of the world and has to figure out how to live in New York. Oh, and it’s a sitcom.
Seriously? It doesn’t sound funny. Well, then you know nothing about doomsday cult survivors.
What’s the show’s pedigree? Tina Fey and fellow 30 Rock veteran Robert Carlock created the show as a 13-episode series for NBC. They decided that they didn’t want it, so NBC sold it to Netflix, which loved it so much they already ordered a second season.
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Ellie Kemper stars in Tina Fey's sunny sitcom
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How does a show transition from NBC to Netflix? It is a dodgy move and the show retains the 22-minute format that network sitcoms share, including being broken down into acts. Some work has been done to smooth over where the commercial breaks would have gone, but it follows a familiar rhythm. Also, there are no swear words or anything that dirty – which is refreshing.
What happens in the premiere? Kimmy and three of her fellow “wives” are rescued from a bunker in Indiana. They had been living there in isolation for the past 15 years after the madman who kidnapped them told them that the apocalypse had happened and they were the only humans left alive.
On a trip to New York to do an interview with Matt Lauer (of course), Kimmy decides that rather than go back to Indiana, that she wants to stay in New York where no one knows she is a “mole woman”. She finds an apartment being rented by Lillian (Carol Kane) who comes with a roommate, Titus (Tituss Burgess), who describes himself as the gay Tiki Barber. Now that she has a home she has to pay the rent and stumbles into the job as a nanny for the rich, vain, selfish and slightly sad Jacqueline (Jane Krakowski). Kimmy welcomes her new life with a smile that can only belong to someone who has yet to learn that both Michael Jackson and Whitney Houston are now dead.
Is this show any good? If Kimmy Schmidt knew what emoji are, she would describe it as sun, sun, crossout, rain cloud, smiley face, winky face, dancing woman, paint your nails. But Kimmy Schmidt does not know what emoji are (yet) so let’s just say that it is very good and rather funny. Most of the comedy comes from the fact that Kimmy doesn’t know anything about the modern world, and what she does know is incorrect, but she states it with kind the pluck and sincerity that makes you wish she was right. This is a girl who wears light-up sneakers and doesn’t say she was kidnapped but “tooken”.
That kind of attention to detail and fine characterisation will feel familiar to 30 Rock fans. It’s not just the presence of Krakowski, playing a more moneyed version of Jenna Maroney, that make this feel like an unofficial sequel to 30 Rock, but the patterns of Tina Fey’s comedy so evident in the writing. When Kimmy accidentally tries to strangle her roommate while sleepwalking she says his neck was covered in grease. “I fell asleep eating a Hot Pocket,” he retorts. If that’s not something that Liz Lemon already said, it certainly sounds like it.
What differentiates it from 30 Rock, however, is the darkness just below the surface. As unwaveringly happy as Kimmy is, she still tries to strangle her roommate because she’s having a dream about being locked in a bunker. She has an unexplained fear of Velcro and when a man tries to flirt with her and puts his hands over her eyes and says, “Guess who?” she flips out. Making Kimmy deeply damaged but still inspirational and funny is a difficult line to walk, but this show manages it with aplomb.
Which characters will you love? Pretty much everyone. Kimmy, of course, is a weird ray of warped sunshine that will warm your heart. Next to Julia Louis-Dreyfuss on Veep, Kemper as Kimmy is perhaps the best comedic performance on television. Her roommate Titus is a catchphrase slot machine, the hilarious jackpots rolling out with some regularity. And, finally, good on Fey and the other producers for finally bringing Carol Kane back to television.
Which characters will you hate? Xanthippe (Dylan Gelula) is the boss’s 15-year-old stepdaughter who is out to expose Kimmy’s secret. She sort of plays the villain but is drawn as such a wonderfully obnoxious tweeting teen that you can’t help being amused by her.
What’s the best thing about it? It’s all the little things. The chyrons on all the fake news segments about finding the “mole women” are hilarious, as are Kimmy’s malapropisms (she calls hashtags “hashbrowns”). This is the sort of show that could benefit from multiple viewings, because the jokes are so packed in you’re sure to miss something while laughing.
What’s the worst thing about it? The end of each episode after just 22 minutes.
Should you watch this show? I can think of nothing better than sitting through all 13 episodes in a row on a rainy afternoon when you need something to live for. That something is a cult survivor who lives in a closet in a basement apartment in Brooklyn. Just trust me. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/apr/05/rugby-argentina-dirty-war-la-plata-1978-world-cup | Sport | 2021-04-05T07:00:29.000Z | Sean Ingle | Rugby's victims of Argentina's dirty war show sport cannot evade politics | Sean Ingle | Dozens of sports books land on my desk every year. Few, though, have ever packed the gut punch of The Silenced, an extraordinary story that was finally published in English last week. It tells the shocking true tale of what happened when one of the finest rugby teams in Argentina defied the state. Anyone who still believes the dastardly deceit that sport and politics shouldn’t mix should read it – and hastily repent.
It begins with an interview with Raúl Barandiarán, the sole survivor of the original La Plata 1st XV rugby squad from 1975. Every one of his 20 teammates, the Italian author Claudio Fava writes, were murdered: “gunned down, assassinated, ‘disappeared’, in an attempt to tear a generation – an entire squad – out by its roots”.
This was no ordinary squad. La Plata, based in a coastal suburb of Buenos Aires, were one of the leading clubs in Argentina. “They were a good group of guys,” Barandiarán says. “The best – we were unbeatable at sevens. But we never got called up to the national side. Rugby is a right-wing sport in Argentina, and we were on the left.” And being on the left during the “dirty war” in the 70s and early 80s, when 30,000 people suspected of opposing the government were tortured, killed or disappeared, was a dangerous place to be.
The first to be murdered, on Good Friday 1975, was the scrum-half Hernan Rocca, who had decided to stay at home while most of the team toured Europe. “They followed him home from training one night,” says Barandiarán of the paramilitary group Triple A (Argentine Anti-Communist Alliance). “They stopped him en route and they murdered him right there on the Pan-American Highway. They put 19 bullets in him.” He was 21 years old.
For La Plata’s next match against Champagnat, Fava relates how the club held a minute’s silence for Rocca that stretched to 10. It was an act of mourning that became a dangerous act of defiance.
Fava’s novel is based on fact but – like The Damned United – fictionalises many scenes. “A minute can drag on for a lifetime, as drawn out as a slow death,” he writes. “Down on the grass, nobody moved. Up in the stands, nobody sat back down. Everyone remained fixed, frozen, arms by their sides, the ball forgotten. Everyone waited for a bit more time to pass, because a minute was too short … too short for that miserable death with the metal wire wrapped around his wrists and the muzzle of the pistol pressed into the back of his head.”
The silence turned the spotlight on the team’s squad, many of whom belonged to communist groups. And after 1976, when General Jorge Rafael Videla took over, things got even worse.
Three of the team – Otilio Pascua, Pablo Barut and Santiago Sánchez Viamonte – were kidnapped together. A month later, the body of Pascua, an architecture student and Communist party member, was discovered. “His body was found floating in the Rio de la Plata, bloated beyond recognition by the water, arms bound tightly, hands chopped off, a bullet in the head,” says Barandiarán. Like thousands of others Pascua had been thrown out of an aeroplane. But 15 of the 20 from La Plata who disappeared have never been accounted for.
“Every death opened another wound, a fresh horror, another laceration of the soul,” writes Fava. Yet incredibly the team continued to play on, despite being forced to field youth-team players. They even rejected a plan from their coach, Hugo Passarella, to organise a team escape through a tour of France.
While La Plata’s story has slowly seeped out in Argentina, in Europe it is barely known. It is a reminder, in a week when players from the Netherlands, Norway and Germany wore T-shirts to protest against human rights in Qatar, and protesters urged Mars Wrigley to pull Snickers from being the official Beijing Winter Olympic chocolate, of how sport and politics are intertwined.
The more you learn of the story through witness testimony, on the Desaparecidos website and the grainy video footage of the players in their canary-coloured kit from the 70s, tackling and mauling without a care in the world, the more powerful and shocking it becomes.
Rocca’s sister Araceli, for instance, is haunted by imagining the moment he was kidnapped, killed and his body dumped on the road. “I was obsessed with thinking about how you had lived it, how your fears had been,” she writes. “Did you tremble? Did you cry? Did you ask not to be killed? Did you feel the terror of powerlessness?”
Towards the end of the book Fava, whose own father was murdered by the Sicilian mafia, tries to find a method in the madness. “It was not fate that lay behind the violence, but rather a twisted mentality, the dark and bleak sensation of power, the greed and thirst of a few, their desire for impunity,” he decides. “In this, president Jorge Videla and Benedetto Santapaola – the mafia boss convicted of the murder of my father – bear similarities.”
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The last La Plata player was kidnapped and declared “disappeared” just three days after Argentina’s football World Cup victory in 1978. But the world was looking the other way. No wonder Fava writes that the tournament was the “jewel in the crown of the junta’s propaganda machine”. That, maybe, offers more food for thought. A Winter Olympics in Beijing or a World Cup in Qatar, anyone? | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jun/10/james-franco-short-story-lindsay-lohan-bungalow-89 | Books | 2014-06-10T08:34:00.000Z | Ben Beaumont-Thomas | James Franco pens short story with central character 'Lindsay Lohan' | The latest in James Franco's ever-expanding multitude of projects is a short story for the fiction issue of Vice magazine, which features a central character called "Lindsay Lohan".
The story, Bungalow 89, reads a lot less like fiction and a lot more like vignettes from his own life, as Franco visits Lohan in the Chateau Marmont hotel (from where Lohan was once reportedly banned thanks to an unpaid bill). He reads her Salinger stories, listens to her ramble about her memories, and zones out on a giant Gucci billboard of himself outside. But he still plays with the idea of whether the entire encounter is made up, writing: "Do you think I've created this? This dragon girl, lion girl, Hollywood hellion, terror of Sunset Boulevard, minor in the clubs, Chateau Demon? Do you think this is me?" The whole story is published on Vice's website.
A list of Lohan's celebrity lovers, on which Franco featured, was leaked online last year, but the Franco in the story at least is an absolute gentleman. "We're not going to have sex. If you want to come in, I'll read you a story," he tells her. " … Now we were lying in bed. I wasn't going to fuck her. She had her head on my shoulder. She started to talk. I let her."
He might need to be a little bit careful though – another actor, Scarlett Johansson, sued a French novelist for including a character in one of his books that was described as looking exactly like her. Johansson's lawyer said it was a "violation and fraudulent and illegal exploitation of her name, her reputation and her image," and that it contained "defamatory claims about her private life". The novelist, Grégoire Delacourt, called the action "rather sad … If an author can no longer mention the things that surround us, a brand of beer, a monument, an actor … it's going to be complicated to produce fiction." He added that his work was a "declaration of love".
Franco has written fiction before. His short story collection Palo Alto was published in 2011, the title story of which was expanded and adapted for the screen last year with himself in a starring role. He also published his first novel Actors Anonymous last year, which like Bungalow 89, featured the character "James Franco" in a series of are-they-real-or-aren't-they scenarios. Reviewing the book for the Guardian, Hermione Hoby wrote: "When Franco is able to forget himself he inhabits a character on the page as convincingly as he does on screen, but these moments are rare."
He has also embarked on numerous art projects alongside indie films and bigger Hollywood movies, and is currently starring on Broadway in a production of Of Mice and Men. An intimate documentary following a year in his life is nearing completion, and last year he directed a film adaptation of William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying. He and his brother Dave are currently developing a film exploring the making of The Room, a 2003 movie which gained infamy and a cult following for its hammy acting, terrible script and bizarre direction. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/oct/06/the-tin-drum-review-kneehigh-everyman-liverpool-gunter-grass | Stage | 2017-10-06T11:14:37.000Z | Catherine Love | The Tin Drum review – Kneehigh turn Grass's fable into chaotic cabaret | Günter Grass’s 1959 novel The Tin Drum begins with the words: “Granted: I am an inmate of a mental hospital.” It’s hard to know what we’re meant to make of what follows. Should we put narrative faith in this strange autobiography of a boy who never grew up? Or is it all to be taken with a large helping of salt?
There’s a similarly surreal quality to Kneehigh’s new adaptation, written by Carl Grose with a chaotic, genre-mashing score by Charles Hazlewood. Oskar’s experiences in turbulent mid 20th-century Europe are divided up among an ensemble of 10. First-person narration becomes a multi-vocal cacophony – a riot of musical storytelling.
'The church of the lost cause': inside Kneehigh's wild Cornish home
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In Grass’s bizarre fable, Oskar is born with solemn, precocious wisdom. He emerges from the womb already weary of humankind’s folly and greed. By the age of three, fed up with the games of adults, he decides to remain a child for ever. Banging on the tin drum given to him by his mother or smashing windows with his ear-shredding screams, the diminutive Oskar attempts to make himself heard in a world being rapidly swallowed by darkness.
Kneehigh seize on the novel’s folk-tale qualities, making its account of life in Danzig (now Gdańsk in Poland) before, during and after the second world war a sort of allegory for conflict. The show begins “once upon a war” – which war doesn’t really matter, the performers tell us – in a bombed-out ballroom. The Nazi party has become the shady, non-specific “Order”, led by an alluring rock-star figure. The prescient suggestion is that anyone, at any time, can fall under the spell of fascism.
Oskar is a puppet who casts quiet judgment over everything else on stage. Photograph: Steve Tanner
This being a Kneehigh show, there’s gleeful invention, the spirit of children’s make-believe and mischievous comedy buried amid the rubble of war. Performers don comedy noses and moustaches or chase one another around the stage. At other moments, the disorder is that of adult, Schnapps-fuelled merriment; one long party in the ruins of civilisation. Rina Fatania is particularly entertaining as Oskar’s life-loving grandmother, forever producing things – vodka, guns, men – from beneath her voluminous skirts.
Ever-youthful Oskar takes the form of a pale, grave puppet (delicately operated by Sarah Wright), his implacable expression casting quiet judgment over everything else on stage. The austerity of his appearance is at sharp odds with the colour and chaos elsewhere: a single point of unchanging focus in a fast-swirling world. He’s an odd, unsettling figure, childishly petulant in some ways yet disturbingly mature in others. As so often with puppets, it’s astonishing how much can be read upon his fixed wooden features.
It’s as hard to pin down Mike Shepherd’s shape-shifting production as it is to pigeonhole Grass’s novel. It’s not quite musical, not quite opera, not quite play. At times it has the feel of a cabaret, skipping restlessly from sketch to musical sketch. Hazlewood’s soundtrack has the same distracted, undecided quality, as it shuffles from aria to electronica, ballad to banger.
Naomi Dawson’s gorgeously dilapidated design is just as chameleonic, whisking us from house to toy shop to beach. Stunningly sculpted by Malcolm Rippeth’s lighting, its faded walls, decaying grandeur and scattered rubble are an ever-present reminder of the destruction human beings are capable of wreaking on one another, as well as of the beauty we have created in the world.
The production’s gorgeously dilapidated design is by Naomi Dawson. Photograph: Steve Tanner
There lies the ambivalence of both Grass’s novel and Kneehigh’s dramatisation. Both horror and beauty are here, as well as an uneasy awareness of how easily people can slide from tenderness to atrocity. As Oskar’s father, Alfred, Les Bubb is a well-meaning buffoon, a harmless figure of fun – until he joins the fascists and starts rounding up “ethnic sub-groups”. Without making any crude comparisons, Kneehigh suggest that this lesson is just as urgent today as it was in the 1930s.
What’s lacking, though, is clarity. While the onstage anarchy may be apt, evoking both the mess of war and the narrative tangle of Grass’s text, it can be overwhelming. Even with the postwar episodes of the novel stripped away, Grose’s adaptation squeezes a huge amount of plot into the two-and-a-half-hour running time, often skimming too fast over names and details. Add to that lyrics that are frequently hard to hear and it’s easy to get lost.
Some degree of confusion is only right for a story about the perplexing things that people do to one another. As The Tin Drum shows, it’s all too easy to sleepwalk into evil, or get swept away by rhetoric. A few more moments of quiet within the chaos, though, might offer pause for reflection, allowing Oskar’s tale to make the same impact as his incessant, rage-filled drum beats.
At Everyman, Liverpool, until 14 October. Box office: 0151-709 4776. Then touring. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2015/sep/03/live-qa-what-does-an-action-agenda-on-water-policy-look-like | Global Development Professionals Network | 2015-09-03T14:08:15.000Z | Katherine Purvis | Live Q&A: What does an action agenda on water policy look like? | What is the best way to get action on the problem of the global freshwater shortage - one of the most pressing challenges facing the world today?
The global water crisis has already made itself felt in a number of ways, and the problem will only worsen. But what direct action can we take to deal with the problem? And how do we make sure that the problem is at the top of the policy agenda?
Water professionals discussing this issue at a panel at World Water Week last week talked of the need to demonstrate what is actually possible. “It’s important for water professionals to demonstrate initiatives, good examples and to drive the process,” says Karin Lexen of the Stockholm International Water Institute.
There is also a need to build networks; “As a community of water professionals we need to get in there and show action [as well as] build alliances to show what can be done, ” said Dominic Waughray, head of public-private partnerships at the World Economic Forum.
So how can the water sector present its message effectively to policy makers? What are the best ways to demonstrate climate adaption and mitigation measures to leaders? And how can governments, NGOs and businesses work together to tackle the issue?
Join an expert panel on Thursday 10th September, 3-5pm BST, to discuss these questions and more.
The live chat is not video or audio-enabled but will take place in the comments section (below). Get in touch via [email protected] or @GuardianGDP on Twitter to recommend someone for our expert panel. Follow the discussion using the hashtag #globaldevlive.
The panel
Karena Albers, co-founder, Whole World Water, New York, US, @wholeworldwater and @karenaalbers
Karena is the co‐founder of Whole World Water, uniting hospitality and tourism industries to raise funds for those without clean water.
Louise Whiting, senior policy analyst, WaterAid, London, UK, @Louwahwah
Louise works on climate change policy development, climate finance tracking and water security across Africa and Asia.
Vidal Garza Cantú, director, FEMSA Foundation Monterrey, Mexico, @FEMSA
Vidal has led FEMSA Foundation since 2008. He has won the Medalha da Inconfidencia and CK Prahalad Award laureate for his work on water.
Heloise Chicou, deputy director and climate programme officer, French Water Partnership, Paris, France, @PFE_FWP
Heloise works to integrate water in climate processes such as the climate conventions (COP19, 20, and 21).
Therese Sjömander-Magnusson, director of transboundary water management, SIWI, Stockholm, Sweden, @watertherese
Therese leads SIWI’s work on water diplomacy, supporting governments and development partners to enhance cooperation on transboundary waters.
Dominic Waughray, head of public-private partnerships, World Economic Forum, Geneva, Switzerland
Dominic has led the environment and resource security agenda at the World Economic Forum since 2006.
James Williams Kisekka, project officer and consultant, Aidenvironment and Rain Foundation, Kampala, Uganda, @JamesWKisekka
James is a natural resource management professional interested in integrated water resource management, water harvesting & biomass energy | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/13/st-louis-olympics-1904-tokyo-flawed-games | Sport | 2021-07-13T07:30:37.000Z | Andrew Lawrence | Think the Tokyo Olympics are a bad idea? St Louis 1904 set the bar high | The Delta variant of the coronavirus is in full flower. Japan is under a state of emergency. Less than a quarter of Japanese population has been jabbed. In a few days’ time USA Swimming’s Michael Andrew and other anti-vaxxers will descend on Tokyo and parts surrounding to go for gold inside fan-less stadia. On one hand this could be a recipe for disaster. On the other persisting with deeply flawed ideas is very much in line with the Olympic spirit.
Consider the case of the 1904 Games, the first worldwide Olympics held outside of Europe. The decision to stage them in the US nearly scuttled the Olympic experiment as we know it. Not only was the host nation an ocean away, but the host city, St Louis, was in the midwest, making for terrifically expensive and slow travel. All together 12 countries showed, with some events playing out like US national trials (which to say the field was all-American). In the end the host nation bagged 238 medals‚ or 223 more than second-place Germany. A German-American gymnast named George Eye won six medals that year on a wooden left leg, including gold in the vault after jumping over a long horse without a springboard.
A boxing winner was caught using a false name. Thirteen runners vied for medals in the 400m on a track without lanes. Swimming heats were held in an asymmetrical lake. The entire spectacle was a bleep-show, according to David Wallechinsky’s The Complete Book of the Olympics. But that figured, given that the 1904 Olympics were also held in conjunction with the World’s Fair – which carried its own slate of events themed around the Louisiana Purchase’s centennial and other grand visions of American imperialism. One such event, titled Anthropology Days, recruited members from Pygmy, Sioux and Patagonian tribes to dance and sling mud. They were further invited to run and throw among themselves. You know, like white men competing in the Olympics – just not alongside them.
When these non-athletes underwhelmed on the track, World’s Fair organizers were swift to dismiss them as “savages” who “proved themselves inferior athletes, greatly overrated”. Pierre de Coubertin, the French historian who founded the International Olympic Committee, didn’t make it to St Louis for Anthropology Days. But, to his immense credit, the accounts alone moved him to scorn the spectacle as an “outrageous charade” that “will of course lose its appeal when black men, red men and yellow men learn to run, jump and throw, and leave the white men behind them”.
Felix Carvajal, a Cuban mailman who counted his delivery routine as ”training”, nearly missed the 1904 Olympic marathon after losing his sponsorship money in a New Orleans dice game. Photograph: Chicago History Museum/Getty Images
As a programming alternative the St Louis Games offered up the marathon, a marquee event that would no doubt showcase man’s true physical limits. But that event devolved into a freak show, too. Apart from a handful of experienced runners, many of the entrants were amateurs. Fred Lorz, a New York bricklayer, was one of eight runners to earn a spot in the Olympic marathon through a “special seven-mile race” in Queens. Felix Carvajal, a Cuban mailman who counted his delivery routine as ”training”, nearly missed the Olympic marathon after losing his sponsorship money in a dice game. After hitchhiking to St Louis from New Orleans, he took the starting line dressed to the nines in a white long-sleeve shirt, dark pants, oxfords and beret. Meanwhile, two men from South Africa’s Tswana tribe in town for their country’s World’s Fair exhibit took their places barefoot and became the first Black Africans to compete in the Olympics.
When the starting gun fired after 3pm on 30 August, the 32-man marathon field set off on a soupy midwest afternoon that saw the heat index climb to 135F. One fair official proclaimed the marathon’s 24.85-mile course “the most difficult a human being was ever asked to run over”. In addition to the route’s craggy streets and 300-foot hills, runners had to negotiate road and rail traffic and even people walking their dogs because the marathon route wasn’t roped off from the quotidian life. Worse, marathoners were limited to two water breaks – at miles six and 12 – because James Sullivan, the Amateur Athletic Union secretary turned St Louis Games organizer, was keen to observe the effects of “purposeful dehydration”, the sadist. If the lack of fluid didn’t get these runners, surely St Louis’s dusty roads – and the motorcade of judges, doctors and journalists bookending the marathoners – would choke the contestants off like amber waves of grain in the Dust Bowl – which was not terribly far off, by the way.
The cocktail of poison and brandy that led to Olympic gold
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Not surprisingly, the race quickly fell apart. Oakland’s William Garcia was first to collapse on the side of the road; dust had coated his esophagus and ripped his stomach, leading to hemorrhaging. (If Garcia had endured an hour longer, those who treated him said, he surely would’ve bled to death.) Wild dogs chased one of the South Africans a mile off-course. All the while Carvajal, the gambling mailman, got around the hydration restrictions by scamming fruit along the way. But after helping himself to too many apples at roadside orchard, he succumbed to stomach cramps.
Lorz, the bricklayer, didn’t let cramps stop him at the nine-mile mark. Instead, he hitched a car ride, waving to spectators and rivals alike as he zoomed passed them. Thomas Hicks, the Anglo-American brass worker who edged into the lead after the first mile, was so dehydrated by mile 10 that a two-man training crew scrambled to his aid and propped him up for some miles. When Hicks’s pleas for water exhausted them, they compromised by sponging his mouth with warm distilled water. When he cried for more relief around mile 18, they served him a cocktail of egg whites and strychnine – marking the first recorded use of performance enhancers in the modern Olympics. Never mind if the elixir was killing him softly.
Frederick Lorz (31) lines up with eventual race winner Thomas Hicks (20) of the United States and the other competitors before the start of the Olympic marathon race on 30 August 1904 at Francis Field on the campus of Washington University in St Louis. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
As Hicks was running toward the light, a refreshed Lorz was climbing down from an 11-mile joyride, his car overheating in the dust. Paying no mind to the Hicks handler ordering him off the course, Lorz cantered toward the stadium finish line and crossed it just under three hours as the crowd roared and chanted “an American won!” Just as Alice Roosevelt, Teddy’s 20-year-old daughter, was about to lower a gold medal over Lorz’s wreathed head, a lone spectator called him out as an imposter, the cheers turned to boos and Lorz shrugged the whole thing off as a joke.
At this point Hicks is barely hanging on. But when word of Lorz’s disqualification reached him, Hicks brightened. His two-man crew produced another strychnine eggnog (with a brandy chaser) and gave him a full-body warm-water sponge bath. That steady diet was enough to keep him putting one foot in front of the other like a zombie over the last two miles, even as a delirious Hicks believed the finish line was another 20 miles away. In the last mile he begged to lie down, chugged more brandy, and shuffled up two last hills before trundling into the stadium. His two-man crew hauled him across the finish line, his feet still pedaling when they hoisted him aloft as he was declared the winner. Guys who do that much carrying probably deserve medals of their own—for “distinguished service” at the very least. But alas the only boast Hicks’s handlers could make after the race was that he was 10lbs lighter.
After an hourlong visit with four different doctors, Hicks finally felt well enough to return to his feet and leave the grounds under his own power. “Never in my life have I run such a tough course,” he said. No question, it was the low point for a Games that historian William O Johnson Jr would pronounce “an Olympics best forgotten”. Hopefully, no one says the same after the postponed Tokyo edition. But at the moment, they’re looking a little too much like Hicks: poisoned, desperate and shambling, zombie-like, toward the finish line against better judgment – and all for the sake of spectacle. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2009/dec/08/headphone-play-audio-theatre | Stage | 2009-12-08T15:47:45.000Z | Matt Trueman | Warning: this play may contain headphones | Matt Trueman | People keep sticking things in my ears. Specifically, theatremakers and headphones. (Theatremakers being the people rather than the items poking from the sides of my face.) Whether they deliver live transmissions or prerecorded tracks, personal audio devices are threatening to become the latest must-have theatrical accessory.
This year's Edinburgh festival included several such pieces, courtesy of David Leddy and the ever-rigorous Rotozaza. In the past month alone, I've taken part in three very different theatrical events that conveyed information and instructions to participants via headphones.
First, in the Barbican's underground car park, was Slung Low's vampire-evasion simulation They Only Come at Night. Here, the voices in your head form part of the fiction itself: one is a friendly advisor, the other a malicious intruder of the airwaves. By contrast, the guiding voice in 19:29's Hall – an eerie audio tour of a run-down municipal building populated by ghostly bureaucrats and crazed architects – sat outside the narrative, variously directing you through a maze of corridors and stairwells, instructing your interaction or simply providing a commentary. Duncan Speakman's As If it Were the Last Time sent its participants out into the real world, on to the cobbled streets of Covent Garden, and transformed the present moment into something precious, something worth savouring, by asking us to look differently and behave extraordinarily.
Now, I might have bemoaned technology in live events, but that's not to say I wasn't eagerly anticipating the latest developments in this hi-tech form. My previous experiences of headphone-led theatre have been exciting: variously playful, unnerving and mischievous. However, this latest wave of audio-instructed performance has left me cold. Yes, they uncovered some interesting possibilities: I enjoyed the convergence of separate paths in Hall, where you suddenly realise the presence of other participants; and I liked the communing element of Speakman's so-called subtlemob, which involves sharing an experience with some, but not others, as if tuning into another frequency. But neither really delved into what it's like for the audience to encounter their surroundings in this new way.
In these theatre pieces, listening is a part of the overall experience, rather than the whole. The relationship between what is heard and what is seen is crucial. Where sound is transmitted live, as in David Rosenberg's Contains Violence (where the audience watches the action through binoculars from a roof top across the street, hearing the dialogue through headphones), this sound-vision relationship makes sense. The audio device becomes a way of amplifying the dialogue, like a one-way walkie-talkie.
However, when the audio track is prerecorded, the relationship becomes more complicated. First, there is the absence of the voice's owner, which, if it exists anywhere, is only in your head. Then there's the matter of pace: we are pulled along, inevitably out of sync in some way, by the soundtrack's instructions and observations.
This combination results in a curious experience: one that feels active, but is actually passive. We are told where to move, where to look, and even what to think. It's a form of submission, stripping us of agency, which can seem unnatural – but not necessarily negative.
I don't want to criticise a theatrical form before it's had a chance to flourish, but if audio-instructed performance is to thrive, it has to make the most imaginative use of the technology. In short, it can't afford to ignore the headphones: the form cannot be readily separated from the content. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/26/boris-johnson-adviser-chloe-westley-far-right-activist-anne-marie-waters | Politics | 2019-07-26T11:58:36.000Z | Peter Walker | Boris Johnson urged to dismiss aide who called far-right activist a hero | Labour has called for Boris Johnson to dismiss a new Downing Street staff member who has praised the work of a far-right, anti-Islam politician, while anti-racism campaigners expressed alarm at her appointment.
Chloe Westley, who will lead Johnson’s social media team at No 10, sent a now-deleted tweet in 2016 praising Anne Marie Waters as “a hero”. Waters, who has close links to the jailed anti-Islam activist Tommy Robinson, leads the far-right For Britain party.
The deleted tweet. Photograph: Twitter
Waters co-founded the UK branch of the anti-Islam group Pegida alongside Robinson, has links to former BNP members and has described Islam as “evil”.
She stood to be leader of Ukip before quitting the party to form For Britain. The party argues that the UK’s Muslim population is causing a crisis, as it is growing rapidly and has beliefs that cannot be incorporated into a liberal democracy.
Jon Trickett, the shadow cabinet office minister, said: “It is profoundly shocking that someone who holds these views should be at the heart of government. She should never have been appointed in the first place and Mr Johnson must now move swiftly to dismiss her.”
Matthew McGregor, the campaigns director of group Hope Not Hate, said: “Anne Marie Waters leads a far-right party with virulent Islamophobia at its core. Calling her a hero was a serious error of judgment, as Westley later admitted. This appointment is deeply concerning.”
A Downing Street source confirmed Westley’s appointment, but gave no further comment.
However, a source close to Westley said she regretted the comment and that at the time she did not know Waters’ beliefs, which she did not support or endorse, and believed were “reprehensible”.
Before the tweet was sent, Waters had been recorded while standing for Ukip in the 2015 general election calling for mosques to be closed and for a complete halt on all Muslim immigration to the UK.
She was also barred by Ukip from standing for the party in the 2016 London assembly elections because of her role in Pegida.
Westley has close links to the UK branch of Turning Point (TPUK), a pro-Donald Trump youth movement that has been accused in the US of anti-Islam views and connections to racism.
She attended the first UK meeting of TPUK and is close to several of its members. The group has been backed by some Conservatives, among them Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel, both of whom are new members of the Johnson government.
TPUK was co-founded by George Farmer, a Conservative donor and son of a Tory peer, who has been pictured socialising with Paul Joseph Watson, a senior editor at the far-right conspiracy theory website Infowars, and has frequently retweeted him. Farmer is no longer directly involved in TPUK.
Farmer has called the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, a “grade A twat” and a “virtue signalling cuck”.
In June, Westley appeared in a mock-comedy TPUK video called “Shit champagne socialists say”.
She moved to No 10 from the lobby group Taxpayers’ Alliance, which claims to be an independent grassroots campaign representing British taxpayers but refuses to identify its donors.
Last year, it emerged that the group, part of a rightwing network that promotes free-market capitalism around the world, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in overseas donations, including $100,000 originating from a billionaire-founded religious trust incorporated in the Bahamas.
This week, Westley tweeted that she hoped a Johnson government would abolish the TV licence, start a “bonfire of unnecessary quangos” and launch a “pro-freedom” budget.
Imagine. Boris wins. Out of the EU by Oct 31st. Pro-freedom budget, tax cuts for all. HS2 scrapped. TV tax scrapped. Bonfire of unnecessary quangos. No more billions sent to Brussels. IMAGINE.
— chloe westley (@LoveWestley) July 23, 2019
Downing Street had no comment on the tweet.
This article was amended on 28 July 2019. An earlier version stated that TPUK is headed by George Farmer. This has been corrected. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jun/08/how-we-met-he-moved-in-after-a-month-together-to-care-for-me-then-he-kept-being-amazing | Life and style | 2023-06-08T10:00:04.000Z | Lizzie Cernik | How we met: ‘He moved in after a month together to care for me – then he kept being amazing’ | Spending the summer of 2020 recovering from severe Covid-19 wasn’t something that Adelina had expected to be doing in her late 30s. Before the illness, she ran a tech consulting business and had a busy life. “The virus left me unable to breathe and I was hospitalised in March,” she says. After Covid in 2020, her relationship broke down. In an effort to regain her health, Adelina started walking and getting fitter near where she lived in Cambridge. She joined a dating app in November, writing on her profile that she liked nature and had “just about died from Covid” a few months before.
Alan, who lived in Milton Keynes, responded. “I said it was a bit of an abrupt change in tone from talking about nature walks and asked how she was doing now,” he says. Liking that he had read her profile, rather than sending a generic hello, Adelina started chatting to him. A few weeks later they agreed to meet for a walk.
“When I first saw him, I thought: oh my God, this guy looks a bit feral with his long beard,” she says, laughing. But they clicked straight away. “She was bright and bubbly, and very cheery,” says Alan. “I’m an analyst for a car company, so I’d been working at home for months. It felt like a nice change.”
Over the weeks they enjoyed more walks together and bubbled through the autumn lockdown. “It’s hard to explain but Alan just felt like home,” she says. “He’s a very empathetic person and made me feel really safe.”
At Christmas, Alan intended to see his family in Scotland but the last-minute lockdown made it impossible. They spent the festive period watching films instead at Adelina’s. “We got on so well and had so much fun.”
After Christmas, Alan returned home and Adelina began to feel unwell. She was suffering from breathlessness and exhaustion – the same symptoms as months earlier. Over the next few weeks, she became progressively worse and was in and out of hospital. “At first, nobody knew what was wrong, but by February I could barely walk and my doctor told me it was long Covid.”
Although they had only known each other for a month, Alan continued to visit regularly. “He essentially moved in to care for me, which is not something I ever expected. I assumed he would leave. He even washed me and fed me with a spoon,” she recalls.
Adelina and Alan a month after they first met, and the day she started to feel ill. Photograph: Supplied
Yet Alan says he loved their time together, especially on Adelina’s good days. “She made me laugh and, if she could manage it, we would go out and have an ice-cream in the park or get a takeaway,” he says. They became an official couple in March 2021. “She wrote me a little letter asking me to be her partner and offering me a house key,” he remembers. Adelina says she was really nervous about asking. “I didn’t want to trap him with an ill person. My friends pointed out that he kept coming back and doing all these amazing things for me.”
As Adelina’s health continued to deteriorate, she started to research treatments online. She discovered that she had a vitamin B12 deficiency and low potassium levels; factors likely to be hampering her recovery. After a series of B12 injections and iron infusions, Adelina slowly began to feel better. By summer 2022, she could return to most of her usual activities.
“I can’t believe I’m still alive,” she says. “Alan took a huge gamble coming to see me when I was ill, but hopefully the risk paid off. He made me want to fight. Having someone in your corner really means a lot.” She recently proposed to Alan on a beach in France and the couple plan to move in together soon.
“Adelina is so smart, capable and interesting,” says Alan. “She is very much her own person, but we enhance each other when we are together. She challenges me to be more adventurous and I think I calm her down at the right times.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/12/babyboomer-rage-generation-jobless-pension-triple-lock | Opinion | 2014-01-12T19:26:49.000Z | Erica Buist | Let's see some babyboomer rage about Generation Jobless | Erica Buist | If I were a babyboomer, I'd be furious. That might seem strange coming from someone who blogs about youth unemployment, a topic typically sprinkled with jealous references to how easy our parents had it (admittedly, a temptation I gave into once or twice). But this "us and them" dynamic between the generations has got to stop. And not just because, admittedly, they're beating us – this isn't me quitting because the game is unfair. I've expended enough energy denouncing David Cameron as a heartless, corporate-driven, boiled egg-faced tit; it's time for some fury from the other side. It's time for some babyboomer rage.
Every blow to the young – such as the slashing of benefits unless we're earning (despite the lack of jobs) or learning (despite the whacking up of tuition fees) – seems to come with a boost for the older generation, like a triple-lock on state pensions. Chris Huhne argues that because the voting turnout is more than 30% higher in the pensioner age group than the 18-24s, politicians pander to them to the point that we're living an a "gerontocracy". It's a clever illusion, that they're rewarding the older generations, their "loyal voters", at the expense of the young – but an illusion it is.
To begin with, triple-locked or not, pensions aren't a gift from the taxpayer. They're pre-earned. They're as much a generosity as having a party in a stranger's house, and saying: "Sorry about the damage. We triple-promise not to steal anything (else)."
But the pension triple lock isn't even decent "compensation" for the collateral damage of the youth crisis. In her smart and sensitive comment piece, Jackie Ashley argued that "an injury to one is an injury to all" because we live in families, which are by their nature multigenerational. But the injury casued to the older generations by the youth crisis is even more direct and blunt than familial concern. Has nobody noticed how often a blow to the younger generation leads to babyboomers footing the bill?
The generation we have been repeatedly told to envy are the first who have to care for the generations either side of them – not only their parents who may need help in their old age, but their adult children. When young people were stripped of job opportunities, benefits, and the affordable roofs we so naively thought would come with our degrees, we became the Boomerang Generation. In the past decade and a half, according to the Economist, about 3.2 million 20- to 34-year-olds have gone back to live with mum and dad.
It is sad for the young people who probably envisaged a more independent life and can be horrendous for their sense of self-worth – but it's not brilliant for parents either. Having their adult children back is like a middle-class bedroom tax – the government haven't fixed the economy, the housing or job markets, so they've passed the cost of the generation on to the boomers.
Aside from the financial burden, the youth crisis must pack a nasty emotional punch to the older generation because through no fault of their own, they've failed as parents, in part.
They did everything they were supposed to; they sent us to school and university, convinced us to study so we'd have the freedom to choose our careers. Yet the result is a generation facing unemployment, or career ascension so slow and internship-ridden they may never afford to buy a house or have a family of their own. Was it their aim to spawn Generation Jobless who, according to World Health Organisation, are a public health timebomb? Of course not. The most fundamental aim of parenting is surely to make sure your kid will be OK. Isn't it maddening that, despite doing everything right, they're not?
So how does a 2.5% increase in pre-earned state pensions, a cynical lunge for the rudely named "grey vote", make up for any of that? It doesn't. But by focusing all the visible damage on the young who so famously "don't vote", the generations are being divided and conquered. The "selfish, shortsighted old" versus the hard done-by young. God forbid we should all fight for the same thing – a stable economy, a functioning job market, houses we could conceivably end up buying without a nifty inheritance-tax dodge, a winning lottery ticket or an act of God. Maybe if we did, boomers wouldn't refer to their own money as "the kids' inheritance", as if they've already outstayed their welcome just by continuing to live alongside their struggling offspring.
The "mustn't grumble" generation need to start fuming along with the young. Like it or not, an angry generation of 18 to 24-year-olds is a nuisance; at this point the only clout we could claim would be a mass withholding of grandchildren. But an angry mob of babyboomers might actually effect change. Let's see some boomer rage for the raw deal we've all been dealt. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/jan/15/olivia-rodrigo-disney-stars-no-1-debut-single-beats-ed-sheerans-record | Music | 2021-01-15T18:00:09.000Z | Laura Snapes | Olivia Rodrigo: Disney star's No 1 debut single beats Ed Sheeran's record | The Disney Channel star Olivia Rodrigo has smashed UK chart records and global Spotify streaming records with her debut single. Drivers License is the UK’s official No 1, breaking the Official Charts Company’s record for the highest number of single-day streams ever for a non-Christmas song.
On 12 January, 17-year-old Rodrigo’s heartbroken epic was streamed 2.407m times in 24 hours, beating Ed Sheeran’s record for Shape of You, which received 2.274m streams in 24 hours in January 2017.
Rodrigo with her UK No 1 trophy. Photograph: OfficialCharts.com/PA
Rodrigo also repeatedly broke Spotify’s global one-day streaming records for non-holiday songs. On 11 January, Drivers License was streamed 15.17m times. A day later, it broke that record with 17.01m streams. Mariah Carey’s classic All I Want for Christmas Is You currently holds Spotify’s one-day streaming record, with more than 17.2m plays.
Hailed by Rolling Stone as an early “song of the year”, Drivers License is the UK’s biggest first-week chart debut since former One Direction band member Zayn Malik released his debut single, Pillowtalk, in 2016.
Like Malik, Rodrigo’s success hasn’t come out of the blue. She has been a staple of Disney Channel programming since 2016, and has been leading the cast of mockumentary High School Musical: The Musical: The Series for two years and writing songs for its soundtrack.
Co-written by Rodrigo and producer Dan Nigro, Drivers License is rumoured to reference behind-the-scenes activity on the show. The song documents Rodrigo getting her driver’s licence, a moment that she intended to celebrate with a boyfriend who has now moved on to another girl.
Olivia Rodrigo: Drivers License – video
Fans have assumed it addresses Rodrigo’s co-star and rumoured ex-boyfriend Joshua Bassett, interpreting lyrics about a “blonde girl” who is “everything I’m insecure about” as a reference to another cast member. Rodrigo told Apple Music’s Zane Lowe that she wrote the song while “literally crying in my living room”. On Thursday, Bassett released a single, Lie, Lie, Lie, that has been interpreted as a riposte.
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Signed to Interscope and Geffen Records, Rodrigo was born in Temecula, California and has named Taylor Swift and Lorde as her biggest inspirations. She is the latest pop star to break out of the Disney stable, following the likes of Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato and Miley Cyrus. She is also massive on the platform TikTok, with 3.5m followers.
In an interview with Billboard, Spotify’s Becky Bass, leader of its global hits playlist, described the conditions of Rodrigo’s success as a perfect storm. “You have fans hearing Lorde in it, you have fans hearing Taylor [Swift] in it, you have fans hearing Kesha in it. Most of the world can relate to a breakup – so it’s a relatable song, as well. But you layer in the drama, you layer in a really active fanbase and you get this snowball effect.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/shortcuts/2016/sep/18/everyone-looks-oliver-reed-peculiar-postcards-of-the-not-too-distant-past | Art and design | 2016-09-18T14:00:19.000Z | Emine Saner | Postcard from the past: a nostalgic glimpse into holidays of yesteryear | The not-too-distant past is a cosy place, even with tales of murderous fowl. “Are under siege by seven savage geese who attack us when we emerge from caravan,” reads one postcard with a picture of a bucolic scene on the front. “Weather good so far.” The Twitter account Postcard From The Past (@PastPostcard) has been delighting its quickly amassed 22,000 followers with glimpses of people’s long-ago holidays. A book based on the account will be published next year.
‘I suppose you heard about our plane catching fire?’ Photograph: @pastpostcard
Tom Jackson, who runs a company that makes TV commercials, set it up nearly six months ago. He had collected postcards as a child but had the idea to put them on Twitter with a snippet from the writer’s message, alongside the postcard’s image. “I began to realise that with a bit of careful selection, these very ordinary cards could have quite weird, wonderful and entertaining messages on them. They are little snapshots of people’s lives – what concerns someone enough to write it down at a cafe table and send it off? Also, I think it’s quite nostalgic – postcards have fallen out of people’s holiday routine to a large extent.”
‘Baby beautiful, like Richard.’ Photograph: @pastpostcard
Jackson has thousands of postcards he is working through, but uses about only one in 20. He started looking at Edwardian postcards but found the writing really difficult to decipher, and they felt historic, not nostalgic. He was more interested in the mass-tourism cards from the 60s, 70s and 80s. The names are of an age, too. There are Barrys and Bernards; Wendys and Sues. A tourist in Teignmouth writes: “Room has bath, shower, telephone, radio, telly, hairdryer & teamaker plus electric clock.”
‘Everyone in Paris looks like Oliver Reed.’ Photograph: @pastpostcard
What common themes emerge? “The weather is an absolute obsession. People often talk about how they’re eating well because the cards come from the time when people didn’t eat out very much, except on holiday.” One postcard, from York, relays the news: “Have had scotch eggs & salad, very nice, and fruit trifle, cup of tea. Very nice chips with the salad.”
‘We’re sunning and swimming from morn till night. The only thing missing is British talent.’ Photograph: @pastpostcard
Many of the postcards are from camping and caravan holidays, and cars often seem to break down. The other thing he has noticed, says Jackson, “is how cheerful people are. I don’t know if it’s because they’re writing cards to show everyone what a good time they’re having on holiday, but they’ll say something like: ‘It’s pouring with rain but we’re having a great time.’ There’s a lesson to learn about the British character there.”
‘Been out today buying umbrellas.’ Photograph: @pastpostcard
It’s the mysteries I like. “I do hope you haven’t had any washing go missing,” writes someone on holiday in the Lake District. A recent favourite of Jackson’s read, poetically: “We drive past where I was before” with an image of a volcanic, green landscape. “I don’t quite know what to make of that,” he says. “I think it means driving past somewhere they had stayed before, but it feels like it has a message of life in it.”
‘Hi Kids, It’s swinging.’ Photograph: @pastpostcard | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/13/parliament-betraying-voters-clean-brexit-best-option-eu-john-redwood | Opinion | 2019-03-13T11:30:11.000Z | John Redwood | Parliament is betraying voters, but a clean Brexit is the best option | John Redwood | Parliament is failing to respect the wishes of the majority in the referendum. Labour and Conservative MPs promised to implement the leave vote to get elected in 2017. The Conservative manifesto said no deal was better than a bad deal, and confirmed we would be leaving the customs union and the single market at the same time. The Labour manifesto set out a detailed and interesting new trade policy for the UK that would be incompatible with staying in the customs union and EU market arrangements.
Here’s our plan for an orderly no-deal Brexit, and delivered on time
Owen Paterson
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The leave-voting public is in despair about this parliament’s failure to agree a common line to leave. Some blame the government for negotiating badly. Others blame the opposition for undermining the UK negotiation by implying no deal is not an option and for having separate lines of communication with very different messages to the EU. All feel democracy is letting them down. It is not just the lack of enthusiasm to implement the referendum vote, but also the way many MPs have torn up their pro-Brexit election statements.
If the public had wanted to think again about their Brexit vote, or had wanted a second referendum, they would have voted Liberal Democrat at the last election. The Lib Dems made a clear offer and gave considerable prominence to their opposition to leaving. They came a very poor third on this manifesto. More recently the launch of the Independent Group, and its performance in polls, has shown low levels of support for this approach.
Leaving on 29 March will not mean leaving with no deal. There will be a range of deals. There are agreements in place for air transport to fly, for lorries to cross borders, for trade to continue under WTO rules and for cooperation to continue in various areas. As we leave, more such arrangements will be agreed. The EU has as much interest as us in continuing the trade. No EU pharmaceutical company will refuse to sell us medicines and no UK port will block their passage to our hospitals.
What we should now do is offer the EU a free-trade agreement based on the agreements the EU has with Canada and Japan. If the EU then agreed to discuss such a proposition we could continue trading tariff- and new-barrier-free on 30 March, having left the EU. The general agreement on tariffs and trade article 24 is most helpful in allowing such an outcome.
Meanwhile one of the best reasons for leaving is our ability to spend our own money on our own priorities. I want us to spend the £12bn a year we will save on better schools, more police, better social care and some tax cuts to boost our economy. I know my local schools and social care workers need more cash and more staff. Let’s abolish VAT on green products and on domestic fuel to tackle fuel poverty, and cut business rates to help the high street. We can do all this, starting on 30 March, if we now leave in accordance with the law parliament has passed, and in accordance with the majority view of electors. If we do not, many will feel cheated by democracy and turn to new parties who will stand up for Brexit.
John Redwood is the Conservative MP for Wokingham | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/oct/05/death-life-marsha-p-johnson-review-documentary | Film | 2017-10-05T10:00:21.000Z | Benjamin Lee | The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson review – trans icon inspires stirring documentary | One of the many awful decisions made in Roland Emmerich’s punishingly tone-deaf 2015 turkey Stonewall was the positioning of a fresh-faced “straight-acting” white twink as the face of the burgeoning gay rights movement in 1960s New York. In an attempt to make an unavoidably queer story more hetero-accessible, Emmerich became part of a tradition of covering up the vital groundwork done by the trans community for the rest of the LGBTQ population.
Five Came Back review – riveting Netflix history of how Hollywood took on Hitler
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In his film, there was a brief but forgettable character named Marsha P Johnson, and her blink-and-you’ll-miss-it inclusion betrayed the significance of the role she played. In this new documentary from How to Survive a Plague director David France, Johnson’s work and its legacy is finally being prioritized, a document of sorts for future generations who might otherwise have never recognized her name.
Our protagonist is Victoria Cruz, a trans activist who moved in the same circles as Johnson and has devoted much of her life to the anti-violence project, an organization that aims to investigate and prevent violence against people in the LGBTQ community. In 1992, Johnson’s body was found in the Hudson river, a suspected suicide but one caveated with incongruous details. Years later, as unsolved or unjustly ignored murders of transgender women continue, Cruz decides to investigate what led to the death of one of the village’s most influential figures.
It might sound like an unlikely complaint, but given the rich set of characters that France has to play with, there’s almost too much here for a standalone 105-minute film. It results in some slightly scattered storytelling as France tries to find a way to convey the importance of Johnson’s activism, follow Cruz’s investigation of her death, and also tell the story of fellow movement leader Sylvia Rivera. Strangely, the strand that feels least fleshed out is the life of Johnson herself, and despite a title that promises the opposite, we’re still left wanting on the details of her upbringing and her time in New York. But what France does successfully portray is the effect Johnson had on the community – the film is filled with fond recollections of her exuberance and unwillingness to back down.
There’s a remarkable through-line of courage from early trans pioneers who were recurring victims of police brutality while also being shunned by the LGBTQ majority, right through to the activists who spend their time fighting for justice for those who are murdered because of their identity. The slightly forced true-crime structure doesn’t quite pay off (the unfiltered facts of the case and the shocking police apathy to Johnson’s death work well enough by themselves) but Cruz is a compellingly low-key lead, her muted demeanor belying a life of earnest struggle. Rivera also proves to be a fascinating interviewee, her outspoken early place at the forefront of the battle for equality leading to a difficult life of alcoholism and homelessness.
Outside a courthouse that’s the setting for a case involving yet another murdered trans woman of color, an activist remarks on the feeling of being left behind, that after same-sex marriage became legal, the “privileged” felt as if the fight was over. Through an interweaving of then and now, France shows that the struggle continues and for many, progress appears to be non-existent. It’s a bittersweet film: for every strong figure willing to put their life on the line for a bigger cause, there’s another who’s been beaten or murdered as a direct result for displaying such braveness.
Given that The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson eventually found its home on Netflix, one feels that it would have worked more successfully as a series, allowing its characters and their lives more room to breathe. It would also have meant more time could be awarded to Johnson herself, whose legacy is here but whose life deserves more screen time.
The Death and Life of Marsha P Johnson is released on Netflix on 6 October. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2010/may/10/exclusive-album-preview-tracey-thorn | Music | 2010-05-10T11:53:10.000Z | Rosie Swash | Listen to Tracey Thorn's Love and Its Opposite | "Who's next, who's next? Always the ones that you least expect," sings Tracey Thorn on album opener Oh, the Divorces, as her friends' marriages drop like flies. But as breakup LPs go, Love and Its Opposite avoids detailing personal fall-outs and instead sees Thorn turn her attention to those around her. In doing so, she captures the dismay of early middle age against a background of twinkling keyboards, thrumming strings and, on occasion, beats provided by the Invisible's Leo Taylor and guitar courtesy of Hot Chip's Al Doyle.
Elsewhere, Thorn accounts for the regrets that plague the woman who "knew I just didn't want to wear that long white dress", while Hormones details the domestic war that erupts when children become teenagers: "You're stamping up the stairs and I'm crying at the kitchen sink."
Part of the album's charm lies in Thorn's voice lending romance to the drab details of dead marriages. As husky and redolent as ever, hers is a voice that lends genuine sorrow to stories of couples squabbling in Sainbury's car parks.
Love and Its Opposite also has some cracking lines, witheringly delivered by Thorn. "I pull off my ring as I push my way in," she sings in Singles Bar, before adding, "Can you guess my age in these jeans?" You Are a Lover gently criticises a woman who regularly abandons her friends when a new man surfaces. "Can you afford to dump me again, will he always be there?" she asks, without venom.
By the time you reach Come On Home to Me, with its dramatic, pitiful melody, you've come to the resolution of a mid-life crisis: "So do it all, get it done, be all there is to be, then wrap yourself in something warm and come on home to me."
Love and Its Opposite examines the mistakes people make when desperately trying to escape the lives they've created. In detailing the minutiae of intimate moments between friends, the result is both bleak and moving. Hopefully you'll agree – do let us know your thoughts below. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/feb/25/the-black-oscar-wins-that-got-away | Film | 2016-02-25T14:55:48.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | The black Oscar wins that got away | Peter Bradshaw | In 1992, conservative critic Michael Medved published a book about the movies with a title of pure provocative genius – Hollywood vs America. He took two concepts widely assumed to be synonymous and bashed their heads together. Hollywood, he said, was run by a bunch of permissive liberals whose values were at odds with mainstream American decency. (It was a sort of post-Reaganite cultural version of today’s leftie cry of Wall Street versus Main Street.)
Today, the #Oscarsowhite movement is arguing loudly that, in racial terms at least, the Academy Awards – still America’s most revered peacock display of cultural prestige – is about as progressive as a fundraising dinner for Barry Goldwater. Last year and this year, there wasn’t one black person in any of the 20 acting categories. And no black man or woman has ever won best director.
The subject of diversity and the Academy Awards is never mentioned without invoking the name of Hattie McDaniel, the African American star who was the first black woman to win an Oscar – a best supporting actress award for her role as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939). The Cocoanut Grove nightclub in the Ambassador Hotel, Los Angeles, was hosting the event in 1940, and had to be persuaded to suspend its segregationist policy for the evening to allow McDaniel in.
Hattie McDaniel receives her Oscar from Fay Bainter, 1940. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
She was mortifyingly not allowed to sit at the main Gone with the Wind table with Clark Gable and Olivia De Havilland, but at a side table. And then she was typecast as the maid 74 more times, and had the feeling that her success was being held against her in some way.
From that day to this, there has been a suspicion that black success at the Academy Awards happens in a subordinate and outlying sense.
But what might happen if the past was changed in some ways? What if we climbed into our time machine and went back and changed some of the results to give victory to the black nominees? As it happens, posterity makes a powerful argument that some performances could, or should, have been winners.
Here are some might-have-beens...
Best director
John Singleton for Boyz n the Hood (1991)
In this reality, it’s Jonathan Demme, director of The Silence Of The Lambs, who has to do the good loser face, while John Singleton, the youngest-ever director nominee, bounds up on stage to grab the statuette, to an eruption from the audience. It’s a sensational win for this director and for this film, which makes a powerful attempt to represent the new reality of the ghetto and what it means for young black men.
Lee Daniels for Precious (2009)
Kathryn Bigelow, director of The Hurt Locker, must applaud good-naturedly , as Lee Daniels makes his genial way up to collect the best director statuette for Precious, a raucously emotional, crowd-pleasing, crowd-moving picture. It tells the story of an illiterate and abused teen who enrolls in an alternative school. Daniels’s tumultuous Oscar win focuses attention on women’s issues of weight, self-esteem and self-image, and Daniels is widely praised for this forthright handling of this material.
Steve McQueen for 12 Years a Slave (2013)
Steve McQueen with his best picture Oscar. Photograph: Xinhua /Landov / Barcroft Media
Actually, Steve McQueen did not win the director Oscar for 12 Years a Slave, but at the evening’s climax accepted the best picture Oscar in his capacity as co-producer. Would things have been that different if McQueen had won, and made Alfonso Cuarón, director of Gravity, stay in his seat when his name as best director was read out? Perhaps not. But it might have given McQueen a more direct tribute, and emphasise more clearly his authorial and creative status. At any rate, this powerful picture helped to break modern Hollywood’s taboo on the subject of slavery.
Best actor
James Earl Jones for The Great White Hope (1970)
Instead of George C Scott refusing a best actor for Patton, James Earl Jones accepts it for his performance in a film explicitly about racial conflict and white paranoia. He plays a fictional version of the black boxer Jack Johnson, beating every opponent, black and white. Humiliated racists and press pundits yearn for a “great white hope” to defeat him and when that doesn’t work, they seize on a way to destroy him through his personal life – his relationship with a white woman. James Earl Jones’s victory at the Oscars ensures that succeeding generations realise he is not just a gorgeous voice.
Paul Winfield for Sounder (1972)
What would happen if Native American campaigner Sacheen Littlefeather – authorised by Marlon Brando to refuse any Oscar for The Godfather on his behalf – had been forced to stay in her seat? And instead the Academy had honoured Paul Winfield for Sounder? It’s the story of a black family of sharecroppers in the Great Depression (Sounder is the name of their dog). Winfield played the father, sent to prison camp for the petty theft of food, and he must finally tell his son that he must break away from the family if he wants to better himself through education. It was a performance that everyone found devastatingly emotional. An Oscar for Winfield’s performance might have advanced the debate around race. He was admired by Martin Luther King Jr’s widow Coretta Scott King and went on to play King himself.
Dexter Gordon for Round Midnight (1986)
This was the year Paul Newman won best actor for Scorsese’s The Color of Money – a plausible enough choice, but not the best performance of Newman’s career. How much more interesting if the Academy had given the Oscar to another nominee, Dexter Gordon, for his portrayal of the fictional jazz sax legend Dale Turner in Bertrand Tavernier’s Round Midnight. Turner is playing clubs in 50s Paris and battling with alcoholism, but finds a redemptive friendship with a young French fan, played by François Cluzet. Gordon was himself a legendary jazz musician and not a trained actor, but he is at ease on screen; his hoarse, slow delivery has its own kind of musicality and he is a commanding presence. If ever there was a time for the Academy to give best actor to a non-professional this was it – something to compare with the best supporting actor Oscar that Cambodian doctor Haing S Ngor won for The Killing Fields. It would also have been a way of honoring the vital and enormous African American contribution to American culture in the form of jazz.
Morgan Freeman for The Shawshank Redemption (1994)
Perhaps you thought that Morgan Freeman was the winner – actually it went to Tom Hanks playing the notorious Holy Fool, Forrest Gump. But would things have been different if Freeman had won it? In this famous prison movie, based on the 1982 Stephen King novella, he is the hero’s friend Red and the film’s narrator; his utterly distinctive voice confers a kind of wisdom on the whole movie. Maybe an actual win for Freeman would have meant – along with much-merited praise – a more concerted discussion around the way black characters keep getting cast in essentially sacrificial or subordinate roles, which mean that their wisdom is something to be offered up for the white character’s personal journey. An Oscar might have been a way of summarising this tendency, but also encouraging screenwriters to develop away from it. Of course, Freeman might have won if he had been entered in the supporting category, but his character is surely important enough for the main prize.
Best actress
Dorothy Dandridge for Carmen Jones (1954)
Dandridge was in good company among the also-rans that year – Audrey Hepburn for Sabrina, Judy Garland for A Star is Born and Jane Wyman for Magnificent Obsession. The winner was Grace Kelly in The Country Girl; not something for the hall of fame. Dandridge’s Carmen Jones was widely lauded as passionate, vibrant, sexy and confrontational. An Oscar for Dandridge might have made her an imperishable star.
Diahann Carroll for Claudine (1974)
In the real world, Ellen Burstyn won for her performance in Scorsese’s Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore – incidentally beating out Faye Dunaway, up for Chinatown. But how about if it went to Diahann Carroll for Claudine? This is a big emotional drama, with strains of good-natured comedy, focusing on relationships and family. Claudine is a single black woman with six children, who has to conceal from the welfare inspectors any income she may be receiving from odd jobs or indeed support from boyfriends. It’s a role for a strong African American woman taking the lead, and an Oscar for Diahann Carroll could have struck a blow for intersectionality before that term was current.
Angela Bassett for What’s Love Got to Do with It? (1993)
This was the year that Holly Hunter won for The Piano – a mannered performance in a very classy, literary film about which I am a bit agnostic. Getting Angela Bassett up on stage would have given the Academy audience something simpler, but possibly more powerfully energetic and direct. Bassett played a fictionalised version of Tina Turner, but always insisted that the film was in essence correct, including the way she was abused by husband Ike. This would have been an Oscar to honour a powerful figure in the music industry and a strong black woman.
Viola Davis for The Help (2011)
So how far have we come since Hattie McDaniel’s win at the Oscars? The 2011 Oscar best actress Oscar went to Meryl Streep for her bells-and-whistles impersonation of Margaret Thatcher. What about if it went to Viola Davis instead in this story of black domestic staff in civil rights era America? Well, it might have reawakened the debate that attended our fantasy award to Freeman for The Shawshank Redemption. Davis plays Aibileen, the black nanny and friend of the white lead (Emma Stone), and she is the all-wise narrator. A win for Davis might have re-focused attention more clearly on race, on the coy euphemism of that phrase “the help” – as opposed to “the servants”. But it might also have underscored a new argument: that this is a tradition that should be reclaimed by black studies and black history, something to show that African Americans were decent, hardworking and aspirational, preparing the way for their children to go to college and enter careers other than service.
Best supporting actor
Howard E Rollins Jr for Ragtime (1981)
John Gielgud got it for his outrageous scene-stealer as Dudley Moore’s droll butler in Arthur. Ragtime was Milos Foreman’s much admired and awarded movie version of the EL Doctorow novel, and Howard Rollins was up for his supporting role as Coalhouse Walker, the brash and undeferential father of an abandoned baby on whom a prosperous white family takes pity, along with the baby’s mother. Rollins was a hugely admired and accomplished actor – who also starred in A Soldier’s Story (see below). Would an Oscar for him have changed his life? As things stood, he became addicted to drugs and alcohol, which led to him being fired from the TV version of In the Heat of the Night. An Oscar might have steered Rollins away from that – or just make it happen more quickly. Whatever the truth, an Oscar for Rollins might have been just as worthwhile as Gielgud’s prize.
Adolph Caesar for A Soldier’s Story (1984)
This was the year non-professional actor Dr Haing Ngor won (see above). But how about A Soldier’s Story, a powerful, muscular film from director Norman Jewison about that great unmentionable: segregation. Caesar plays a black US army sergeant who is murdered: Howard Rollins – to whom I have already given a fictional Oscar for Ragtime – plays the investigating officer who is obstructed at every turn. An Oscar for Adolph Caesar might have boosted this movie: something to be compared to A Few Good Men.
Samuel L Jackson for Pulp Fiction (1994)
What a lively year 1994 was for supporting actor nominations, and I hugely enjoyed Paul Scofield’s performance in Quiz Show and Martin Landau’s in Ed Wood (the ultimate winner). But an Oscar for Samuel L Jackson in Pulp Fiction would honour a performance which is just iconic, part of movie history. He drew on blaxploitation history and reinvented it, creating a black male role which was beyond “strong”. A comic masterpiece. His acceptance speech would also surely have been a marvel.
Eddie Murphy for Dreamgirls (2006)
This may not have been a vintage year for best supporting nominees and the memory of Alan Arkin’s winner for the overpraised Little Miss Sunshine is already, I suspect, a little clouded. In retrospect I would have preferred to see an Oscar for Eddie Murphy in Dreamgirls (Jennifer Hudson won best supporting actress for this film) playing James “Thunder” Early, a volatile singer with similarities to James Brown. On first release, I found myself underwhelmed by the way that part was written, but on a second viewing his performance had energy and consistency. An Oscar for Murphy would be something to honour a terrific comic who created a distinctive Hollywood career for himself.
Best supporting actress
Juanita Moore for Imitation of Life (1959)
If I really could go back in time and change one single Academy Award it would be to remove the statuette gently but firmly from the hands of Shelley Winters (the winner for The Diary of Anne Frank) and give it instead to Juanita Moore, nominated for her wonderful performance in this movie, directed by Douglas Sirk. In its way, it goes to the heart of the diversity issue more directly and powerfully than anything else. Again, it’s a maid role: she is Annie, a single mother who gets a job as “help” to Lana Turner, a widow and would-be actress with a young child herself. But the point is that Annie’s daughter has very fair skin, and grows up wanting to “pass” for white. Racial identity assumes tragic dimensions in this utterly absorbing movie and Moore is superb.
Alfre Woodard for Cross Creek (1983)
Alfre Woodard is a powerful, vibrant acting presence who has won a string of awards in her career, including Emmys, SAG awards and a Golden Globe, and dozens of screen credits, including 12 Years a Slave. It would have been good for Woodard to convert her best supporting actress nomination for Cross Creek into an Oscar. (It actually went to Linda Hunt, for The Year of Living Dangerously.) Woodard is Geechee, a local Florida woman who helps Mary Steenburgen’s author, Marjorie Rawlings, fix up her dilapidated house. This was her breakout role.
Margaret Avery for The Color Purple (1985)
Margaret Avery’s performance in the key role of the singer Shug Avery in Spielberg’s The Color Purple is much admired, fondly remembered and Academy Award-nominated for best supporting actress. When Oscar night rolled around, the prize went to Anjelica Huston for Prizzi’s Honor. Oprah Winfrey was also nominated for The Color Purple. It is inconceivable that an Oscar for Winfrey would have made much difference to her remarkable career – or that her acting turn in The Color Purple was all that memorable. But an Oscar for Avery might have been something to savour.
Marianne Jean-Baptiste for Secrets & Lies (1996)
Juliette Binoche got it that year for the all-conquering The English Patient. Not her best performance by a long way. How much more interesting and exciting for this prize to go to Marianne Jean-Baptiste for her outstanding performance in Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies. She is Hortense: the surname is Cumberbatch, incidentally, in an era before that name went global. Hortense is an optometrist who tracks down her birth mother (Brenda Blethyn) – only to find that she is white. It really is a great performance in a film which is about race, but not confined to race. Jean-Baptiste’s performance is unshowy, intelligent, deeply felt. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/sep/11/american-pastoral-review-ewan-mcgregor-no-match-for-philip-roth | Film | 2016-09-11T08:12:40.000Z | Jordan Hoffman | American Pastoral review: Ewan McGregor no match for Philip Roth | One poorly thought-through action can have a devastating ripple effect. So learns Mary Levov, the 16 year-old domestic terrorist in Philip Roth’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel American Pastoral, and so, I fear, has Ewan McGregor, who decided an adaption of this rich, layered and elusive text would be good material for his directorial debut.
McGregor directs himself as Seymour “The Swede” Levov, the golden boy of 1940s Weequahic, the Jewish section of Newark, New Jersey. A living, breathing example of excellence and assimilation, Swede was the sports titan and pillar of local industry who attained legendary status with his peers when he married Dawn, a non-Jewish former Miss New Jersey. Taking over his father’s glove factory in downtown Newark, Swede earns enough to buy a piece of American paradise – a small farm just a short drive from the city. Here Dawn can raise cows and their daughter Mary can frolic in sun-dappled meadows. As Woody Allen once joked “had I been born in Poland or Berlin I’d be a lampshade right now,” but everything seems to have gone the right way for Swede.
But if American Pastoral is about anything it’s about how perception is just guess work. What we think we know is likely wrong, and no amount of examination, extrapolation or investigation is going to get at the actual truth. So who knows why young Mary, whose pre-teen years are marred by stuttering and perhaps some confused sexual feelings toward her father, became a raging, angry left-wing radical. Sure, it was the 1960s and those Jefferson Airplane records and copies of Rampart’s got a lot of kids’ blood boiling, but not everyone blew up the local post office and killed a man.
The bulk of the film dwells on Swede and Dawn dealing with the after effect of their daughter’s actions and subsequent disappearance in the hard left underground. The closest thing to exciting film-making comes once Swede is approached by a young woman (Valorie Curry) who knows of Mary’s whereabouts and shakes him down for some cash. These tawdry scenes are quite effective as they give McGregor something active to do to show his frustration, guilt and grief. The rest of the movie consists mostly of people just talking.
That won’t be too surprising to readers of the book, as part of its strength is how it plays with time and reliability. Those unfamiliar with the source material or how Roth can dwell on one concept for paragraphs at a time with some of the greatest prose in the English language may find themselves making the “get on with it gesture” in their seats. When we do meet up with Mary again in her third act persona, Dakota Fanning, who is quite strong as the angry bleeding-heart teen, is quite out of her depths masquerading as a ghostly spiritual being.
What we have on our hands is a dud, but there are a few grace notes that save it from being an unmitigated disaster. (As far as terrible idea Roth adaptations, Ernest Lehman’s Portnoy’s Complaint’s position is secure.) Swede’s glove factory ends up being at the epicentre of the Newark race riots and while McGregor’s reliance on newsreel footage is cheesy (and sets up similar shots of the Moon landing, Woodstock and another use of Buffalo Springfield’s For What Its Worth on the soundtrack, so help us all) it does touch on how well-meaning liberals react in the face of potential revolution. Swede proudly boasts his factory employs “80% Negros,” but yanks his daughter back in fear when she tries to give a black power salute to a group of men who may or may not be forming an angry mob.
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The best moment in the entire film is when Swede proudly shows how a glove is made, from dark leather shipped from Africa, turning a white girl’s hand a similar shade to one of his devoted black workers, who then tests it out by making a fist. There are signifiers flying all over the place and McGregor is wise enough to let them stay in the background. The unfortunate thing is that it’s the foreground that’s so dull. Jennifer Connolly acts her guts out in a monologue sequence that is airless and uninspired. And as the movie drones on the most engaging thing is trying to figure out just what is up with McGregor’s accent. American excellence may be an unattainable dream, but sometimes the facade will appear real to outsiders. This production is not such a case. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/21/spanish-socialists-re-elect-pedro-sanchez-to-lead-party | World news | 2017-05-22T11:07:27.000Z | Sam Jones | Spanish Socialists re-elect Pedro Sánchez to lead party | Pedro Sánchez has regained the leadership of Spain’s bitterly divided Socialist party seven months after being ousted in a coup that laid bare the faultlines within the PSOE and left its status as the main opposition party in jeopardy.
On Sunday night, Sánchez took 50% of the vote, sailing past his main rival, Susana Díaz, the president of the PSOE stronghold of Andalucía, who took 40%. The former Basque president Patxi López finished third with 10%.
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The PSOE has been in the hands of a caretaker administration since October, when Sánchez stepped down after powerful factions within the party rebelled against his refusal to allow Mariano Rajoy’s conservative People’s party (PP) to form a government.
Despite huge internal and external pressure, Sánchez insisted the PP was simply too corrupt to run the country.
Following his resignation, the PSOE abstained from Rajoy’s investiture debate, returning the PP to office and ending the 10-month political stalemate that had left Spain without a government after two inconclusive general elections.
Sánchez has spent the past few months criss-crossing the country, addressing the PSOE’s grassroots supporters and urging the party to move to the left.
He hailed his victory as an example of “democracy, participation and transparency” and vowed to make the PSOE a credible winning party once again.
“To the millions of progressives who may or may not have voted Socialist, we say the PSOE will be an effective opposition, and one that defends the social majority who are sick of PP corruption and who are suffering job insecurity and inequality as a result of the PP’s cuts,” he said.
A further recent slew of corruption scandals involving former senior PP figures in Madrid’s regional government has served to vindicate Sánchez’s stance.
But the bickering and disarray in the PSOE’s ranks has also allowed the anti-austerity Podemos party to seize the political initiative – and increase the pressure on its socialist rivals – by calling for a vote of no confidence in what it describes as Rajoy’s “parasitic” and corrupt government.
Díaz, who was backed by party heavyweights including the former PSOE prime ministers Felipe Gónzalez and José Luis Zapatero, had called for a more pragmatic approach to dealing with the PP and blamed Sánchez’s attempts to forge alliances with Podemos and the centrist Ciudadanos party for the PSOE’s worst general elections results since Spain’s return to democracy.
Antonio Barroso, an analyst at the political risk advisory firm Teneo Intelligence, said Sánchez would struggle to unite a PSOE still reeling from months of infighting.
PSOE candidate Susana Díaz concedes defeat to Pedro Sánchez at the party’s headquarters in Madrid. Photograph: Javier Lizon/EPA
“You’ve had a very bitter fight – including the ouster of Sánchez – and he’s also burned a lot of bridges internally,” said Barroso.
He added that although opinion polls suggested Sánchez would be the PSOE’s best bet as leader in a general election, the party’s internal troubles remained a huge liability.
“That’s the paradox for Sánchez: even though opinion polls make him the most competitive candidate for the Socialist party, the internal divisions of the Socialist party handicap him electorally,” said Barroso.
“Voters don’t like divided parties and if he’s not able to unite the party, he won’t be able to effectively use the supposed popularity that opinion polls have given to him.”
Rajoy, said Barroso, would remain in a strong position as long as the Socialists continued to slog it out with each other. While calling snap elections to take advantage of the situation would appear obvious and opportunistic, the prime minister could later use Sánchez’s apparent intransigence as an excuse to send Spain back to the polls.
“He could say: ‘These people are blocking things and trying to create instability.’ That would be a very strong argument to use if he goes for early elections.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/feb/02/requiem-review-bbc1-horror-cliches | Television & radio | 2018-02-02T22:00:05.000Z | Sam Wollaston | Requiem review – heavy on the Hammer horror cliches | An isolated manor, surrounded by clipped yews and enveloped in an eerie soundscape. A man enters the house – a country-gent type chap – and there are more creepy sounds inside. “Hello, who’s here?” he calls out, and peers into the cellar. Then he seems to become possessed and starts smashing mirrors. Is it his own image he can’t face? Next, he leaps off the roof to his death.
Bloody hell, Requiem (BBC1) doesn’t hang about. No gradual crescendo here, it’s straight into full horror, with deferential echoes of films in that genre. You could be forgiven for thinking you’d landed somewhere in The Omen franchise. Echoes of the past, skeletons in closets, loss and bereavement, will all play their part in Requiem.
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To London, where Matilda Gray (Lydia Wilson) is breaking through as a cellist, though her personal life is going less well. She is due to take up a prestigious residency in New York but then her mother inexplicably and shockingly also kills herself, in front of her daughter. A knife across the throat in the car park of the Royal Festival Hall this time, blood spattered on brutalist concrete. Two horrifying suicides and we’re not even 15 minutes in.
Guess what: they’re connected. Among her mum’s things, Matilda finds newspaper cuttings about a girl who disappeared in Wales, 20 years earlier. So instead of New York, she goes to Penllynith, and arrives just in time for the funeral of the man who jumped. That’s where the spooky house is, and when Matilda goes inside, it feels familiar …
As does much of Requiem, which is written by Kris Mrksa, who took his cues from Don’t Look Now and Rosemary’s Baby. As well as the cellar and the smashed mirrors, there are things that go bump in the night, a locked room, a banging door, a recurring dream (or is it a memory?). Plus, an insular, suspicious rural community and woods, with birds to come. Homages or cliches: sometimes the line is a blurred one.
It is scary. It might have been scarier still if there were a little more sotto voce between the full-on fortissimo Hammer horror, for the imagination to get to work. The spooky soundscape, commanding those hairs to stand, is also too much. To be fair, it does ease off and allow itself (and us) to take a breath, and the narrative to settle. And then, creeping around the shadowy areas between reality and imagination, memory and dreams, it is more worrying, more powerful, more compelling.
Wilson is captivating, too - platinum, layered, subtler than the piece she is playing. The other star, also haunting and beautiful, is Wales. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/nov/08/scotland-draw-england-debut-match-women-european-championship | Football | 2016-11-08T21:10:25.000Z | Tony Leighton | Scotland draw England for debut match at women’s European Championship | Three days before England face Scotland in a World Cup qualifier at Wembley the women’s teams were drawn to meet each other on what will be an historic occasion at next year’s European Championship finals in the Netherlands.
In what will be the first match in a major competition for Scotland, Anna Signeul’s team will take on the auld enemy at Utrecht on 19 July at the same time that Group D’s other two teams, Spain and Portugal, play each other in Doetinchem.
“I hope that the Scotland men win on Friday, that would be very good,” Signeul said. The coach is Swedish but, after 11 years in charge of Scotland’s women, she is fully conversant with what these matches mean to players and fans alike. “I didn’t know how big the rivalry was when I came to Scotland in 2005,” she said, “but I sure do now!”
She found out in Nicosia in March 2011, when a 2-0 Cyprus Cup victory over England ended a run of 17 straight defeats over a span of 34 years. The players’ celebration at the final whistle told Signeul all she needed to know about Scotland-England encounters.
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“Playing against England inspires the players,” she said. “England are very difficult team but this game will bring out the very best in our players. They’ll show what big hearts they have and the pride that these derbies are so much about.
“It’s exciting, even more so because we play the first game against each other. Hopefully there will be supporters there from both countries, and we will do everything we can to go out and produce a good performance and result to start the tournament in the best way possible.”
Mark Sampson was not at the draw as he was at home awaiting the overdue birth of his first child. The England coach’s assistant, Marieanne Spacey, travelled to Rotterdam and was as exited about the draw as Signeul.
But while the Scotland coach is aiming for a quarter-final place at least at the 16-team tournament, Spacey is going for gold after seeing England win bronze at last year’s World Cup finals in Canada, six years after a silver at Euro 2009.
“My first emotion was excitement when I knew we would get Scotland in our first game,” Spacey said, “and I’m sure the players must feel the same. They play with and against the Scotland girls in the Super League, so there’ll be some friendly rivalry and banter leading up to the finals.
“The expectation on England has grown since World Cup and we’re embracing that expectation, because the girls really believe we can achieve something special at this tournament.”
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England and Scotland will be looking for pay-back against Spain, who beat Signeul’s team in the qualifying play-off final for Euro 2013 and then went on to beat England in the first group match at the tournament in Sweden.
“We won’t hark back, we’ll look forward,” Spacey said but Signeul will take a more heartfelt approach to meeting Spain. It was in the last few seconds of the play-off second leg that Scotland were beaten and the coach said: “It was the last kick of the game. I have never felt so physically sick. It was just like my heart broke – I couldn’t stand up. So it would be very nice to beat them.”
Portugal are the lowest ranked team at the tournament but Signeul said: “They are a good, technical team who could be very dangerous opponents.”
Euro 2017 fixtures
Group A Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway. Group B Germany, Sweden, Russia, Italy. Group C France, Iceland, Austria, Switzerland. Group D England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal.
Group stage: match one
Sunday 16 July Holland v Norway (Utrecht), Denmark v Belgium (Doetinchem)
Monday 17 July Germany v Sweden (Breda), Italy v Russia (Rotterdam)
Tuesday 18 July France v Iceland (Tilburg), Austria v Switzerland (Deventer)
Wednesday 19 July England v Scotland (Utrecht), Spain v Portugal (Doetinchem)
Match two
Thursday 20 July Holland v Denmark (Rotterdam), Norway v Belgium (Breda)
Friday 21 July Germany v Italy (Tilburg), Sweden v Russia (Deventer)
Saturday 22 July France v Austria (Utrecht), Iceland v Switzerland (Doetinchem)
Sunday 23 July England v Spain (Breda), Scotland v Portugal (Rotterdam)
Match three
Monday 24 July Belgium v Holland (Tilburg), Norway v Denmark (Deventer)
Tuesday 25 July Russia v Germany (Utrecht), Sweden v Italy (Doetinchem)
Wednesday 26 July Austria v France (Breda), Iceland v Austria (Rotterdam)
Thursday 27 July Portugal v England (Tilburg), Scotland v Spain (Deventer)
Quarter-finals: Saturday 29 July Winner A v Runner-up B (QF1, Doetinchem), Winner B v Runner-up A (QF2, Rotterdam)
Sunday 30 July Winner C v Runner-up D (QF3, Tilburg), Winner D v Runner-up C (QF4, Deventer)
Semi-finals: Thursday 3 August QF1 v QF4 (Enschede), QF2 v QF3 (Breda)
Final: Sunday 6 August (Enschede) | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/feb/11/tsb-10-year-fixed-rate-mortgage | Money | 2015-02-11T17:34:06.000Z | Hilary Osborne | TSB targets small-deposit buyers with 10-year fixed-rate mortgage | TSB has opened a new front in the mortgage price war, launching a 10-year fixed-rate mortgage aimed at customers who have only 5% of the purchase price to put down as a deposit.
The lender said borrowers would be able to lock in to a rate of 5.69% until 2025 at a loan to value of up to 95% of their property’s price. It is the only 10-year fix at that level.
Most of the battles between lenders have focused on price, with banks and building societies revising rates down on a regular basis. In the past seven days, several lenders including Barclays and Nationwide have cut mortgage rates, and figures from the Bank of England show it has never been cheaper to take out a new loan.
TSB’s fee-free deal lacks a headline-grabbing interest rate but is likely to be welcomed by first-time buyers looking for long-term security with the option of moving on. As well as being the longest-term fix available to borrowers with a small deposit, thedeal is part of TSB’s Fix and Flex range, meaning borrowers are allowed to pay off their loan without penalty after five years.
David Hollingworth, of the mortgage brokers London & Country, said the launch “shows how lenders are trying to appeal to niche groups in order to compete because competition is so strong”. He said lenders were leapfrogging each other at the top of the best-buy tables in an attempt to build their market share.
In recent days, 10-year fixed-rate deals have had some of the biggest reductions. First Direct cut its rate by 0.6 percentage points on Friday to 2.89% for current account holders, and Nationwide is offering the same rate to existing mortgage customers looking to switch deals. These loans demand deposits of 35% and 30% respectively and have arrangement fees of almost £1,000.
Figures from the Bank of England offering a snapshot of the average rates on offer show that after rising slightly in the middle of last year the cost of two- and five-year fixed-rate loans has fallen since the autumn. In January borrowers with a 25% deposit were typically being offered loans around 0.2 percentage points cheaper than last October, while those with a 5% deposit have seen bigger falls – the cost of a five-year fixed-rate deal at 95% fell by half a percentage point.
Over the past year, the average cost of a two-year variable rate deal – one that is linked to the Bank of England base rate or the lender’s standard variable rate (SVR) – has dropped from 2.82% to 1.64%.
Borrowers with bigger deposits are being offered even better deals than those recorded by the Bank’s figures. HSBC has a discount mortgage with a starting rate of 0.99% for borrowers who have a 40% deposit, or that much equity in a house that they are remortgaging, and a two-year deal at 1.19%.
However, even those with small deposits are seeing rates fall. “Across the board rates are low,” said Andrew Montlake, of the mortgage brokers Coreco. “Whether you have a 40% deposit or 10%, the lenders are just battling it out for business.”
Montlake said rates were the best in a generation. “Two-year fixed rates are heading towards 1%, while five-year rates are heading towards 2% – it’s just extraordinary.”
Last week the Council of Mortgage Lenders suggested rates could remain low for some time to come. It said banks and building societies were benefiting from inflows of cash from savers, which they could lend cheaply, plus the availability of cheap money on the wholesale funding market.
“Obviously, there may be some bumps in the road, and market volatility could affect funding rates,” it said. “However, if these bumps can be successfully negotiated, the outlook will be for low mortgage rates to continue.”
Brokers said lenders were still applying strict criteria to would-be borrowers, and some were tightening their rules, with Santander announcing it would no longer lend more than 4.49 times salary to first-time buyers.
However, Hollingworth said borrowers should not be deterred. “Lenders do want to lend, so it is worth a go,” he said. “They don’t want to attract you in to say no.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/may/17/new-band-warpaint | Music | 2010-05-17T14:28:37.000Z | Paul Lester | New band of the day – No 788: Warpaint | Hometown: Los Angeles.
The lineup: Jenny Lee Lindberg (vocals, bass), Emily Kokal (vocals, guitar), Theresa Wayman (vocals, guitar), Stella Mozgawa (drums, keyboards).
The background: They're called Warpaint, RZA from the Wu-Tang Clan has been to see them live and their debut EP was titled Exquisite Corpse, but don't expect abstract, extreme avant-rap or horrorcore hip-hop from this lot. A cross between Cannibal Ox and Gravediggaz they are not. They're right at the opposite end of the musical spectrum to that. They're an all-female ambient rock four-piece from LA whose softer, more solemn moments recall those pioneers of aching alt-country – Cowboy Junkies and Mazzy Star. And even when they raise the temperature and ramp up the pace, they could hardly be accused of rocking out. Of the tracks that we've heard by them, Elephants has harsher textures and more strident instrumentation, as though Grace Slick was warbling over early Banshees: they can seem variously like a band from the original hippie era, a post-punk band, and a band from the 90s alternative scene. In fact, Beetles makes us think of a 60s girl-group gone grunge. Burgundy is slow and solemn, with limpid washes of sound, a gentle patter of drums and filigree of guitar, the susurrating female vocals clearly from the Rachel Slowdive or Hope Sandoval school of singing as barely exhaling. Billie Holiday is country-ish, with a bit of the melody from Motown standard My Girl interpolated halfway through. Krimson is perhaps titled after King Crimson, a band Warpaint admire, and the long track, possibly their best, has several changes that sustain the attention. It's where US art-rock meets pop, like Sonic Youth's Teenage Riot sung by the Shangri-Las. Finally, Stars is dappled with ripples of guitar alongside more of those sighing-close-to-expiring vocals.
For a band that sound as though they're barely working up a sweat, they're causing quite a stir. They were apparently one of the hits at this year's South by Southwest, and they're a magnet for big-name (well, big-ish name) thesps and alt-rock stars: everyone from the late Heath Ledger to Billy Zane loves them, and former Red Hot Chili Peppers guitarist John Frusciante didn't hesitate when he was invited to mix their EP. Their debut album, due this summer, will, the band say, be a blend of longer songs – they're one of the only acts we've ever come across, apart from the Flaming Lips, to publicly admit to liking Yes – and pithier, poppier stuff; more acoustic and yet with plenty of electronics and keyboards. "We're going for an overall underwater mood," they promise, vaguely, adding that it will also be more visual – they want to pursue a soundtrack-y direction, the films they'd ideally score being Poltergeist and Days of Heaven. So imagine a poetic study of transient laborers from early-20th century Texas haunted by demonic apparitions from a televisual netherworld, and that's what Warpaint's album will theoretically conjure up.
The buzz: "Warpaint respect the balance between stirring (yet soothing) sounds and their surrounding stillness" – BBC.
The truth: It's spectral alt-country with post-rock textures, is what it is.
Most likely to: Exude a ghostly energy.
Least likely to: Desecrate a burial ground with liquid swords.
What to buy: Rough Trade will be releasing the band's debut album in late summer.
File next to: Slowdive, Mojave 3, Cowboy Junkies, Mazzy Star.
Links: myspace.com/unicornkid
Tomorrow's new band: Lucinda Belle Orchestra. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/aug/13/in-brief-wichita-lineman-how-it-was-breathe-reviews | Books | 2019-08-13T08:00:44.000Z | Alexander Larman | In brief: The Wichita Lineman; How It Was; Breathe – reviews | The Wichita Lineman
Dylan Jones
Faber, £10, pp288
It might seem hubristic to write a book about one song, no matter how good it is, but Dylan Jones’s lively and revelatory study of Jimmy Webb’s impossibly moving ballad Wichita Lineman amply justifies its existence. Made popular by Glen Campbell, the song was recorded in an unfinished form, but, as Jones authoritatively explores its creation, reception and near-mythic aftermath, one understands why none other than Bob Dylan referred to it as the greatest song ever written. As Jones eulogises its greatest couplet – “And I need you more than want you/ And I want you for all time” – it is impossible not to want to listen to it again.
How It Was
Janet Ellis
Two Roads, £16.99, pp448
Janet Ellis’s follow-up to her fine debut novel, The Butcher’s Hook, deals with tension between generations, exacerbated by a long-buried secret. As Marion Deacon sits dutifully by her dying husband Michael’s bedside, she thinks about the shortlived love affair she had decades ago, as even greater tragedy befalls her family. Ellis has a knack for depicting the way in which families struggle to communicate, while the use of multiple narrators enables her to parcel out information right up until the affecting conclusion. Despite being somewhat overlong, How It Was remains engaging and readable.
Breathe
Dominick Donald
Hodder, £8.99, pp528
Dominick Donald’s debut novel is set in a miserable 1952 London, where the streets have been reduced to rubble by bombs, literal and metaphorical fog has overtaken everything and PC Dick Bourton finds himself investigating a particularly unpleasant series of murders. It takes undeniable courage to introduce John “Reg” Christie, one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers, into the mix of a crime procedural, but Donald’s grim, brilliant book justifies his presence by sustaining the ghastly plot reversals and suffocating tension until the climax.
To order any of these books for a special price go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/feb/13/khaled-hosseini-us-book-bans-interview | Books | 2024-02-13T11:00:11.000Z | null | Author Khaled Hosseini on book bans in the US: ‘It betrays students’ | Khaled Hosseini, one of the world’s top authors, has slammed book bans in Florida and elsewhere in the US as a betrayal of students and their right to a good education.
According to a PEN America report released late last year, US public schools had about 5,894 book bans from July 2021 to June 2023, with more than 40% in Florida. Often, the authors whose books are targeted are “frequently female, people of color, and/or LGBTQ+ individuals”, PEN said.
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“Banning books doesn’t protect students, I think it betrays them,” Hosseini told the Guardian in an interview.
Hosseini compared the trend in the US on banning books – driven largely by social conservatives and Republicans – to the rise of authoritarian regimes in Europe in the 1930s. “This is the 21st century; I thought this happened in Europe in the 1930s,” Hosseini said, referencing the steady increase in literary censorship.
He added: “It’s vital living in a democracy that students are exposed to ideas, are allowed to think critically and can hear voices that aren’t their own. They should learn they will share the world with people who don’t look like them and sound like them. Books are a wonderful conduit for that.”
A school board in Brevard county, Florida, recently voted to keep Hosseini’s The Kite Runner novel on its shelves after he wrote the committee a heartfelt letter asking them not to ban his work.
Hosseini’s novel, which tells the story of a young boy growing up in 1970s Kabul, spent two years on the New York Times bestseller list before selling over 8m copies worldwide. Set against the backdrop of war-torn Afghanistan, it delves into complex themes like friendship, betrayal and familial tension.
It’s vital living in a democracy that students are exposed to ideas, are allowed to think critically and hear voices that aren’t their own
In the school year 2021-2022, it was one of the most banned books in the US.
For the last few months, The Kite Runner has joined a growing list of titles “under review” or challenged by school boards nationwide.
About 40 books still await formal consideration in the Brevard county district. Their future as part of the school curriculum, or even their accessibility to students who desire to pick up a copy, hinges on the outcome of the district’s selection committee.
Hosseini was warned in January that his book was being contested by a school board committee in Florida and was advised it could be powerful to write to them directly.
The news was no surprise; the Brevard chapter of Moms for Liberty, the rightwing parents’ rights group, submitted an objection to The Kite Runner in 2022. They said the book, along with other bestselling titles like Slaughterhouse-Five, contained sexual content, “racially divisive” rhetoric and criticisms of Christianity, which made it inappropriate for students.
Hosseini decided a letter was the best way to convince the school board to re-evaluate their decision and advocate for his book’s continued inclusion.
“In a drawer in my office desk sits a stash of manilla envelopes,” he began.
“Inside each are some of the writings I have collected over a span of nearly 20 years – and that I continue to. They have come to me from high school students from all across the US. In these writings, the students share with me often quite poignantly what impact reading The Kite Runner has had on their lives.”
Hosseini continues to describe his novel’s impression on young readers since its publication in 2003. From offering them their first glimpse into Afghan culture to helping them navigate complex situations at school and home, it’s clear his writing has had a durable and palpable impact.
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The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. Photograph: Riverhead Books
“The Kite Runner has spoken to these students; it’s connected with them in a real way,” he told the Guardian. “It’s an enormous privilege to know that the words I put on paper can have a positive impact.”
Hosseini was thrilled to be notified that his book would be returned to shelves in Brevard county due to his letter but was then quickly notified of another ban in a different district.
Like many other authors – George M Johnson, Maia Kobabe, Ellen Hopkins – book bans continually threaten and challenge the work of writers across the US.
Johnson, writer of the 2020 memoir All Boys Aren’t Blue, similarly won a school board appeal when their mother read a powerful statement on their behalf at a meeting in New Jersey.
“Our books are not introducing teens to hard topics. They are simply the resource needed so they can understand the hard topics they are living out day to day,” Johnson’s mother said.
The ban was overturned and the book stayed in the library, but not all authors who directly appeal to school boards are met with the same reception.
As a father himself, Hosseini acknowledged the parental impulse to safeguard children. But, he firmly believes the vast majority of high school students are far more sophisticated than these parents spearheading the bans are giving them credit for.
Banned books like The Kite Runner, he maintains, can appropriately and constructively challenge students in the US and beyond.
“Books open the world for us; they are an incalculable, immeasurable gift,” he added.
“Read things you agree with and things you don’t – it’s my hope that this unpleasant patch we’re going through is a reflection of a political moment and it will pass.” | Partial |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/04/corbyn-brexit-wars-eu-fudge-bananas | Opinion | 2018-03-04T10:00:43.000Z | Stewart Lee | The Brexit culture wars are driving me bananas | Stewart Lee | On 10 May 2016, in the closing days of the Brexit campaign, at an impromptu speech in Cornwall, lying Boris Johnson again invoked the Brexiters’ foundation myth that the EU sought to ban bendy bananas. But voters who backed leaving the EU in order to get back the bendy bananas, which had not been taken off them anyway, must surely now be wondering, privately, if it was all worth it.
Last Monday, Jeremy Corbyn reluctantly declared his own “bespoke customs union” Brexit fudge with all the enthusiasm and conviction of a man held at gunpoint saying how well he is being treated. “The option of a new UK customs union with the EU would need to ensure the UK has a say in future trade deals,” he mumbled. “Also, I am allowed to coddle an egg on alternate Tuesdays.”
Apparently Corbyn’s Own Brexit Fudge ™ ® was offered to preserve the soft Irish border with Northern Ireland, as it will be impossible to re-bend a straightened Euro banana should a straight Irish banana need to cross into Northern Ireland, perhaps as part of an Irish child’s snack box, an Irish chimp’s dinner or as an Irish clown’s comedy prop.
I wondered if McCarthy was right. Was it “end times for the Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown of the Oxbridge comedy establishment”?
Some Tory Brexiters have an almost blind faith in the idea that there may be some form of as yet nonexistent technological solution; Bernard Jenkin, interviewed by an increasingly scruffy Dobby the House Elf on Newsnight on Tuesday, said Wilf Lunn, the extravagantly mustachioed novelty bicycle inventor from Vision On and Magpie, was already working on a bespoke Border Banana Detector and Straightener ™ ®.
Lunn’s Borderbananandetecto-straightorbendomatic ™ ® would detect and straighten, or bend, any bananas crossing the border, so they would be the right banana type for the segment of the Irish island they were bound for. Jenkin’s attempt to demonstrate a prototype Borderbananandetecto-straightorbendomatic in the Newsnight studio backfired spectacularly after it lunged at political editor Nicholas Watt’s face and tried to peel it.
Honestly! You couldn’t make it up!! It’s an increasingly difficult time to be a comedian!!! (And before I forget. Message to Bernard “Jenkin”: Jenkin is a French name. No one is called “Jenkin” here. Your British name is Jenkins. Bernard Fucking Jenkins. So start using it.)
But Corbyn’s Own Brexit Fudge ™ ® is as impossible a proposition for the EU in its own way as Boris Johnson’s pre-referendum fantasy of the magic cake that grows again, no matter how much of it you eat; an idea the massive liar surely gleaned from a visit to one of the cloud lands at the top of the Faraway Tree, before sliding back down the slippery slip with his friends Darius, Marina, Petronella, and the Saucepan Man.
Whether you are a kamikaze-hard Brexiter or a diehard traitor Remoaner, the precision-applied works spanner of Corbyn’s Own Brexit Fudge ™ ® means hard Brexit is far less likely. Banzai! Boris Johnson’s dream of bendy bananas for ever withers on the banana vine, a cowed people cowering for eternity beneath the blow of the straight banana, a straight banana squished on a human face – for ever. But the culture war continues.
Last Monday, on the Twitter, the Mad Max writer and Milo Yiannopoulos cheerleader Brendan McCarthy called me a “decaying Morrissey impersonator and leftwing donut-eater” and declared: “It’s end times for the Oxbridge comedy establishment as their own Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown lashes out at an indifferent public.”
While I never knowingly eat doughnuts, “lashing out at an indifferent public” is a reasonable description of the impression I strive to create live, and detractors often inadvertently illuminate exactly the effect I aim for, their harshest criticisms helping me to sculpt the on-stage character of Stewart Lee.
But as I stood, on the 194th date of my current 220-date tour, on stage in Dartford last Sunday, in the first half-full theatre of the run, my hyperacoustic ears still ringing from a catastrophic sound operator error at Hereford Courtyard on Thursday, the room somehow just would not quite catch fire. I wondered if Mad Max McCarthy was right. Was it indeed “end times for the Roy ‘Chubby’ Brown of the Oxbridge comedy establishment”?
In April last year, the Daily Telegraph, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express, Breitbart, the Spectator, ShortList and Spiked all ran the same demonstrably false story saying I was experiencing mass walkouts because of doing anti-Brexit jokes. This wasn’t the case, even in archly Eurosceptic Lincoln, although, to be fair, the people there may have struggled to find the exits without hard-working east Europeans to show them the way and carry their cauliflowers around. The only walkout of the tour was a very funny man in Canterbury, who shouted “I’ll wait for the DVD” as he left, but I don’t think his departure, unlike David Cameron’s, was Brexit-related.
Last year it was fun doing anti-Brexit material on tour. Brexiters in the room had won the referendum, after all, so as a Remoaner I was in a position of weakness punching up at them, as the comedian is required to be. Laughing Brexiters would come up afterwards and magnanimously get me to sign their books and DVDs “to a Leave-voting c*nt”, an amusing transaction that genuinely renewed my faith in humanity nightly. We could all be friends after all.
But on Monday, after Corbyn proposed his hard Brexit-sinking “bespoke customs union”, it seemed like no one was going to get exactly what they wanted out of Brexit now. There probably weren’t any winners, certainly not the Leave voters of Leave-voting Dartford, now condemned, even their figureheads agree, to an even less prosperous future.
So on stage in Dartford, I didn’t feel I quite understood how to pitch the Brexit stuff any more. In a situation where no one will win there were no winners to aim at. It was not clear any more which way was up, and I no longer knew which direction to punch upwards in.
Stewart Lee’s Content Provider continues to tour until April, when it is abandoned over three nights at the Royal Festival Hall | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/aug/26/authors-favourite-words-video-alphabet | Books | 2013-08-26T08:38:00.000Z | Sally Gardner | Authors' favourite words – a video alphabet | a-whoring – Ruby Wax
ambivalent – Rick Gekoski
Budongo – Gill Lewis
confusion – Peter Hook
discombobulate – Sally Gardner
elbow – Melvin Burgess
ephemeral – Rawi Hage
fud – Ian Rankin
fantoosh – Alexander McCall Smith
glaikit – Damian Barr
grey – John Taylor
hand – Fabulous Baker Brothers
implement - Stephen Collins
ineffable – Neil Gaiman
joy – Patrick Ness
labyrinth – Michelle Paver
mnemonic – Tim Lott
ordinariness – Amit Chaudhuri
plop – Tony Ross
quixotic – Sarah Churchwell
plakkopytrixophylisperambulantiobatrix – Alasdair Gray
rodomontade – Ann Widdecombe
stramash – Frank Cottrell Boyce
scunnered – Kirsty Gunn
Thermos – Kay Ryan
unnaturalness – Samantha Shannon
verve – Charles Fernyhough
victoria – Patricio Pron
welp – Rupert Thomson
xenobiotic – Steve Jones
yes – Gavin Esler
Zulu – Shadow Titan | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/nov/25/care-homes-foreign-workers-tories-plans-limit-immigration | UK news | 2023-11-25T19:25:32.000Z | Shanti Das | ‘Many care homes wouldn’t be here without foreign workers:’ fears over Tories’ plans to limit immigration | For years, Mike Padgham just couldn’t get the staff. When he would post job ads for vacancies at his five care homes in Yorkshire, he’d get very few responses.
But early last year, the government opened a new immigration route, expanding the health worker visa scheme to include care workers. Since then, Padgham’s company, St Cecilia’s Care Group, has hired 32 overseas staff members – mostly from India, Ghana and Zimbabwe.
It’s not a “cheap fix”, Padgham says: the company covers the costs of recruitment, and when they arrive, the staff are paid the same as their UK colleagues.
Mike Padgham has worked in the care sector for 34 years. Photograph: Jim Varney
But without the overseas recruits, he believes at least two of his care homes, unable to meet minimum safe staffing levels, would have faced being forced to close.
“It’s a lifeline at the minute,” he says. “Many providers wouldn’t be here today if these staff from overseas weren’t there.”
The story of St Cecilia’s is repeated across the country. Nationally, more than 123,500 people have arrived to work as care workers and senior care workers since the route was opened.
But last week, Padgham, who has worked in the sector for 34 years, saw headlines that left him fearing for the future.
Immigration minister Robert Jenrick has drawn up plans to restrict foreign health and care workers to bringing one relative each to the UK. Some reports suggest the Home Office could ban them from bringing dependants altogether. Other plans being considered include a cap on the number of NHS and social care workers hired from abroad, and changes to the minimum salary overseas workers must be paid.
The proposed policy changes, drawn up under ex-home secretary Suella Braverman, have not been confirmed. But they are being pushed by Jenrick in response to high net migration figures – a record 745,000 in 2022 – which prime minister Rishi Sunak is under pressure to bring down.
Padgham believes a cap on care worker numbers, or a restriction on dependants, would spell disaster. “If that option isn’t available, it will put people off,” Padgham says. “How can you go to another country, work for someone and leave your family around the other side of the world? It’s a big ask. It’s a big deterrent.”
Changes to minimum salary thresholds would be a “double whammy”, he says. St Cecilia’s and other care providers rely on cash from councils, whose budgets – determined by central government funding – are already tight. Currently overseas care workers must be paid at least £20,960 a year. Increasing this – without significant extra investment in social care from the government – would make the cost of hiring from abroad unsustainable, Padgham says.
He is not alone in his fear. This weekend, the government’s adviser on immigration warned that while the proposed policy changes might reduce headline migration figures, they could devastate social care.
‘It’s very dangerous to play around with the numbers on the social care route’: prof Brian Bell, chair of the Migration Advisory Committee. Photograph: Sarah M Lee/the Guardian
Professor Brian Bell, chair of the government’s Migration Advisory Committee, told the Observer that implementing policies to reduce migration without addressing workforce problems in social care could “massively harm” the sector. “Until that missing piece is solved, I personally would say it’s very dangerous to be playing around with the numbers on the social care route,” he said.
Professor Martin Green CBE, chief executive of Care England, said such changes could force some providers out of business. “If the government places a cap, refuses to allow dependants into the country or changes the pay requirements for overseas staff, which will make them more expensive, this will lead to more care services struggling to get staff and potentially reducing the amount of care they are able to provide,” he said. “In some cases [it] may lead them to exit the market.”
Talk of limiting dependants comes amid heavy pressure from the right wing of the Conservative party to reduce net migration. The Tories have repeatedly promised to bring the figure down to the “tens of thousands”. Targeting health and care workers is an obvious choice: they are by far the biggest users of the skilled worker visa route, with 143,990 arriving via the health and care visa last year, along with 173,896 dependants.
It is possible that changes to rules on dependants might not have the devastating impact on hiring that some fear. It’s not yet clear whether any restrictions would apply only to care workers or to other health workers too. But Madeleine Sumption, director of the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, said: “I think it is quite likely in the case of care workers that there are enough people around the world who are willing and interested in those jobs that the UK will still be able to recruit care workers.” If the same rules were to apply to people higher up the skill spectrum, such as doctors, things could become more difficult, she said.
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Beyond the practical impacts on the health and social care sector, the policy proposals have been attacked over the potential ramifications for individual families.
Mictin Ponmala, 38, a nurse originally from India who would have been affected by limits on dependants.
Unison, the union, said the policies “demonised” migrant workers while Migrants’ Rights Network said: “Separating families for the sake of arbitrary figures is cruel.” The Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants argued that restrictions on dependants would “rip families apart” and “make people’s lives worse”. “Low-paid migrant workers are being treated as disposable economic commodities,” Caitlin Boswell, policy and advocacy manager, said.
Net migration to UK hit record 745,000 in 2022, revised figures show
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Mictin Ponmala, 38, a health worker from India who lives in Luton, might never have come had restrictions on dependants been in place.
For him and many of his international colleagues in health and social care, “the only reason” they picked the UK was the fact that core family members were allowed too, he says. Pay rates are better in the Middle East and Australia, where numbers of migrant health and care workers are also high. But family restrictions there are stricter.
“Not allowing dependants will have a negative impact. People will think about leaving the UK, and some people won’t come,” says Ponmala, who works as a nurse in the NHS. Three months after he arrived in the UK, his wife, who also works in healthcare, followed. They have since had a son.
“It’s not a matter of money. It’s life,” he says. “Preventing families from reuniting is a denial of human rights.”
The Home Office declined to comment on the plans or the concerns. The Department of Health also declined to comment. The government is expected to announce migration measures in the coming weeks.
Padgham appealed for ministers to ditch any plans to target health and social care. He understands the “political pressure” to reduce migration but said: “You can’t cut off the supply and still underfund social care and expect things to work.
“Do they want waiting lists to be longer? Care providers to go out of business? People not to get the care they need? That’s the result of the policies they’re discussing.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/nov/18/british-tv-cop-drama-luther-idris-elba-remade-us-audiences | Television & radio | 2014-11-18T18:07:32.000Z | Lanre Bakare | British TV cop drama Luther to be remade for US audiences | Neil Cross’s award-winning British cop drama Luther is going to be remade for US audiences.
Fox is reimagining the series, which starred Idris Elba as the obsessive police detective John Luther.
Elba (executive producer) and Cross (writer/executive producer) are both on board for the project, which has reportedly received a seven-figure sum for its pilot.
The project will be overseen by BBC Worldwide Productions alongside 20th Century Fox Television and Chernin Entertainment.
Fox will attempt to transfer the success of the original UK series – it won eight Emmy nominations, while Elba won a Golden Globe in 2011 – to the US.
However, other adaptations of British dramas, namely Broadchurch, which Fox renamed Gracepoint, have failed to take off.
Cross has recently headed up NBC’s pirate drama Crossbones, which he created and executive produced, while he has also spoken of possibly making a film prequel of Luther.
“I’ve written the script and we hope to get the film made next year,” he said at the Edinburgh television festival. “It will follow his career in the earlier days, when he is still married to Zoe, and the final scene in the film is the first of the initial TV series.”
Luther is also being adapted for Russian audiences. Renamed Klim, it will air next year and run for eight episodes.
Meanwhile, Fox is also remaking Austrian comedy Braunschlag, about a struggling small town and its mayor. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/feb/07/kaylea-titford-welsh-teenager-spina-bifida | UK news | 2023-02-07T14:39:34.000Z | Helen Pidd | Kaylea Titford: how ‘fiercely independent’ Welsh teenager ended up dying in bed | It was an image that no one in Mold crown court will forget: a teenage girl sitting up in her filthy bed, head slumped forward, surrounded by dirty incontinence pads made for puppies. Kaylea Titford, a “funny” and “fiercely independent” 16-year-old who was so good at basketball that she had try-outs for the Paralympics, was dead.
A police officer wearing a bodyworn camera made his way around her cluttered bedroom, every surface covered. There were teetering piles of detritus, one topped with a dirty deep fat fryer, grease dripping down the side. There was a pressure washer, an old fridge, McDonald’s cups, a two-litre bottle of Dr Pepper and an uneaten cake, bought for Kaylea’s birthday two weeks earlier.
It was more of a “dumping ground” than a teenager’s bedroom, said one witness. “It had the look of a storage facility”, said PC Liam Donovan. He noticed the hoist above her bed was covered with cobwebs and fly faeces.
Two strips of fly paper hung from the ceiling, with 110 insects trapped. Milk bottles and fruit juice cartons filled with urine surrounded Kaylea’s bed. There was faeces on the floor of her en suite bathroom. The smell was worse than anything Donovan had ever encountered, making him retch.
Kaylea herself, lying on “puppy pads” sodden with urine, was clearly very overweight: morbidly obese, it turned out, weighing 146kg (22st 13lb), despite being just 1.45 metres (4ft 8in) tall. Her legs were unusually short, a symptom of the spina bifida she developed in the womb, along with hydrocephalus (water on the brain). When police rolled her over, maggots wriggled where she had been lying.
Kaylea Titford’s bedroom. Photograph: Heddlu Dyfed Powys police/PA
The jury had to watch the footage of this horrendous scene of the Titford family home in Newtown, Powys. Sitting behind bulletproof glass in the dock, Kaylea’s dad, Alun Titford, looked away from the screens. On the video, Titford was never in the bedroom where his daughter lay dead. It was one of his five other children, a young adult, who let in the paramedics and police officers. Titford sat at the bottom of the stairs smoking. Kaylea’s mother, Sarah Lloyd-Jones, remained upstairs.
Both parents were ultimately charged with killing Kaylea, accused of manslaughter by gross negligence. In December, a month before the trial, Lloyd-Jones, who had their first child aged 16, had pleaded guilty. Her partner continued to protest his innocence, saying that while he had been intimately involved in Kaylea’s care when she was little, he had stepped back once she entered puberty, leaving it all to Lloyd-Jones. “I just didn’t feel comfortable,” the 45-year-old told the jury.
It was difficult to understand his defence. Under cross-examination by the prosecuting barrister, Caroline Rees KC, he admitted he was jointly responsible for Kaylea’s care. He blamed everything on his “laziness”. Not helping out with the food shopping or the cleaning or the cooking. Not washing Kaylea or helping her go to the toilet with dignity. He left everything to Lloyd-Jones. He did not even open the post.
In his closing speech, David Elias KC, defending Titford, sought to persuade the jury that just because Titford had agreed in the witness box that he was as much to blame for Kaylea’s death as his partner, “does not mean he is legally responsible” for it. In the run-up to her death, Titford had been working long hours for 15 days straight, said the barrister. But Kaylea’s mum also had a job, as a care worker.
Titford’s case was weak and contradictory. Interviewed after his arrest in October 2020, he told detectives that Kaylea had not left her bed since the first lockdown in March 2020. Yet giving evidence he tried to claim that she was able to get herself out of bed and into her wheelchair until shortly before she died.
The evidence suggested otherwise. Not least because when she died on 9 or 10 October 2020, Kayleigh was 20kg (3st) too heavy to fit in her wheelchair. Police found it in the kitchen, the seat stained with faeces and piled up with dirty pillows.
Kaylea’s wheelchair in the kitchen of the family home. Photograph: Heddlu Dyfed Powys police/PA
Titford insisted he had not noticed anything wrong the last time he went into her bedroom, on 27 September 2020, 13 days before she was found dead on 10 October. That was her 16th birthday, and he said he gave her a hug and a kiss.
He did not pull back her duvet to reveal her sore-covered legs, or her feet, which a podiatrist examining photos of her dead body said were the worst he had seen in 30 years of practice. Or her toenails, which she could not reach because of her morbid obesity and mobility issues, and had not been cut for six to 10 months.
It was “laziness” again that caused him to text Kaylea to be quiet when he heard her screaming the night before her body was found, rather than go downstairs to see if she was OK. “If you have a bad chest, stop screaming,” he wrote to her shortly after 10.30pm on 9 October 2020, explaining to the jury that she had a cold.
At 8am the next morning, her mother discovered Kaylea dead in bed. By the time a paramedic arrived 10 minutes later, rigor mortis had already set in.
In interviews with police, Titford blamed the Covid lockdown for the fact Kaylea had not seen a medical professional in the nine months before she died. Covid, the prosecution suggested, provided a useful cover for Titford, allowing the family to “hide her away”.
Newtown High, the mainstream school she attended, was shut from March to September 2020. The school repeatedly phoned Lloyd-Jones to ask why Kaylea had not turned up for the autumn term, only to be given various excuses, such as Kaylea hurting herself falling out of her wheelchair.
Pre-Covid, Kaylea had enjoyed school, though had complained of bullying, the court heard. Madeline Ottoway, who worked as Kaylea’s teaching assistant from when she was 11 to 14, told the jury Kaylea was “fiercely independent and on occasion stubborn … she didn’t like asking for help”.
She wheeled herself around buildings and took part in sport. Basketball was a particular favourite. At one point, Kaylea was signposted to the Disability Sport Wales pathways programme, which scouts potential Paralympians, and attended a sports day at Maldwyn leisure centre in Newtown along with national performance coaches.
A hoist above Kaylea’s bed. Photograph: Heddlu Dyfed Powys police/PA
But as her weight increased, Kaylea had become less keen on sport, said Belinda Jones, another learning support assistant: “As she got older her attitude to sport changed and she wasn’t as enthusiastic as before. I feel it was because of her weight. She was getting bigger for her wheelchair and she used her hands to push the wheels on the wheelchair to get around. Her legs were very tight.”
Kaylea’s obesity was key to the trial, the prosecution argued, because it was her weight that stopped her being mobile, particularly once she outgrew her wheelchair. Her parents were responsible for her diet, with Titford admitting that the family would eat takeaways four or five times a week.
They knew Kaylea had been overweight since she was three, when she was in the heaviest 1% for her age, and had been referred to a dietician while at primary school. She was known to social services and until 2012 was classed as a “child in need”, which meant she was considered unlikely to reach a reasonable standard of health or development without intervention.
Between the ages of eight and 12, the family managed her weight quite well, the court heard, but let it slide after that, when she was admitted to hospital for a series of operations and was able to help herself to food in the kitchen.
During lockdown Kaylea put on an extra two or three stone, Titford accepted, but said he “didn’t really think about” her weight when ringing for another Chinese takeaway (his favourite). He did not consider her to be dangerously heavy because “I just thought she was big like the rest of the family”. Titford himself is a slight man who looks far older than his 45 years. He personally did not eat much, he told the jury.
But it was her diet and inactivity that ultimately killed Kaylea. Her cause of death was recorded as resulting from “inflammation and infection in extensive areas of ulceration arising from obesity and its complications, and immobility in a girl with spina bifida and hydrocephalus”.
A jury found her parents could and should have managed her weight, and that her morbid obesity was a significant contributing factor to her death. They will have to live with that knowledge for ever. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/14/tippi-hedren-interview | Life and style | 2014-02-14T14:00:00.000Z | Rosanna Greenstreet | Q&A: Tippi Hedren | Tippi Hedren, 84, was born in Minnesota. She began her career as a model. Alfred Hitchcock spotted her in a television commercial and put her under contract, making the film The Birds in 1963 and Marnie the following year. When Hedren rejected Hitchcock's advances, he refused to release her from the contract, which held her back. She has continued to act, but for more than 40 years she has also run Shambala Preserve, an exotic animal sanctuary in California. She has been married and divorced three times; her daughter is actor Melanie Griffith.
What is your earliest memory?
Beautiful blue lights on the Christmas tree at our Lutheran church in Morningside, Minnesota.
What is the trait you most deplore in yourself?
Almost all of them.
What is the trait you most deplore in others?
Pomposity.
What was your most embarrassing moment?
A fabulous makeup man's artistic capabilities in making my eyes look mesmerising also blurred my contact lenses and took away the ability to read the cue cards at a film festival where I was presenting an award. I couldn't read the foreign names. Horrifying.
What is your most treasured possession?
My beautiful child Melanie, and grandchildren Alexander, Dakota and Stella.
Where would you like to live?
I'm here, at the Shambala Preserve with the big cats I have been rescuing for 41 years.
What do you most dislike about your appearance?
I wish I was taller.
What is your favourite smell?
I have no sense of taste or smell due to an accident in the 60s. Used to be opening a can of coffee, Joy by Patou, rain, puppies – I miss them all.
What is your favourite word?
"Daughter."
What would be your fancy dress costume of choice?
A magnificent gossamer gown, silver slippers, a wrap of roses and a magnificent young man on my arm carrying a magnum of Cristal and two Lalique champagne glasses.
What is the worst thing anyone's said to you?
"She'll never be happy."
Is it better to give or to receive?
Are you kidding?
What do you owe your parents?
Mostly my strength (not muscles).
To whom would you most like to say sorry, and why?
My daughter, for all I wasn't to her.
What was the best kiss of your life?
My first love.
What has been your biggest disappointment?
Not being able to bring my career back into place.
If you could edit your past, what would you change?
Nothing. I've learned from all of it.
If you could go back in time, where would you go?
I wouldn't. I'd go into the future.
What is the closest you've come to death?
Working with lions and tigers while filming the movie Roar.
What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
A whole ton of money, to solve the problem of keeping the rescued big cats at the reserve safe.
What is the most important lesson life has taught you?
Don't depend on anyone or anything.
Tell us a joke.
Life. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2007/aug/10/drama.worldcinema1 | Film | 2007-08-09T23:04:54.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | Fanny and Alexander | Ingmar Bergman's Fanny And Alexander from 1982 is being revived for a special limited season in London. It's a gripping, richly conceived family drama, faintly atypical in its extrovert dramatic and comic devices, and with an electrifying touch of the supernatural. In provincial Sweden in 1907, the two unhappy children of the title have to leave the paradise of their prosperous family home, with all its warmth and gaiety, when their father dies; to their horror, their beautiful mother (Ewa Fröling) has accepted a marriage proposal from the cold and disagreeable Bishop (Jan Malmsjö) who presided over their father's lavish, almost state funeral.
This wicked stepfather abuses the children, and an icy duel develops between him and the proud and sensitive Alexander, played by 10-year-old Bertil Guve. (Guve dominates the screen, as haunting in his way as Björn Andrésen in Death In Venice; watching the film again 25 years later, it is notable how very little Fanny has to do.) And all the time, the spirits of the dead return to dominate the dreams and fears of the living. Bergman's story is Dickensian in its extravagant emotional power - with a hint of Charlotte Brontë - and there is some Chekhov in its melancholy. "How is it one becomes second-rate?" moans one insolvent uncle. "How does the dust fall?" There's no dust on this vivid classic. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2024/mar/15/gadirova-becky-downie-olympic-slots-british-gymnastics-championships | Sport | 2024-03-15T12:23:11.000Z | Tumaini Carayol | Opportunity knocks for Olympic slots at British gymnastics championships | It was not until the final routines of the last rotation at the Tokyo Olympics women’s team final that the world of gymnastics took note of Great Britain’s emergence as one of the sport’s leading countries. Even as the competition unfolded and their rivals began to fall, Britain’s performances were initially obscured by the drama surrounding Simone Biles as she removed herself from the competition. A year later, Britain consolidated their success with a silver medal at the world championships in Liverpool.
This weekend, the best gymnasts in the country will converge again at Liverpool’s M&S Bank Arena for the British gymnastics championships, which act as one of the final selection events for the Paris Olympics. One of the key questions over the coming months leading up until the Games is whether Britain, no longer the underdogs hidden from view, can continue to build on their success with a team capable of battling the best in the world once more.
Brilliant Biles is dominant again: can anyone keep her from all-around title?
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The absence of two significant names in Liverpool is a major blow to those ambitions. Last year at the world championships in Antwerp, Jessica Gadirova, already world champion on the floor exercise and the all-around bronze medallist in 2022, established herself among the elite by debuting the extremely difficult “Cheng” vault. She qualified for the all-around final in third place, edging out the previous champion, Rebeca Andrade.
But just before the final, Gadirova was forced to withdraw with a knee injury that was eventually diagnosed as a torn anterior cruciate ligament, a catastrophe nine months before the Olympics. Gadirova, the talismanic force in the women’s team success, will play no role in Liverpool, nor at the European Championships. Her twin, Jennifer, who contributed to two major medals, is also absent with injury. With the team due to be picked at the end of May, the pair’s chances of competing in Paris are remote. Without them, Britain will have to show their depth. Barring disaster, Alice Kinsella and Ondine Achampong have positioned themselves as essential contributors for the Olympic team, but beyond them there are three spots up for grabs and a world of opportunity for whoever seizes the moment in the final selection events, which end with the European Championships next month.
Ondine Achampong in action in 2022. She is virtually guaranteed a place in Paris. Photograph: Jonny Weeks/The Guardian
By far the most fascinating contender is Becky Downie, who, at 32, is attempting to qualify for her third Olympics. Downie, a European champion and world medallist, made her Olympic debut in 2008 and non-selections in 2012 and 2021 have not stopped her from persevering. In the past her age may have marked her as an anomaly, but she is now rather a reflection of the changing face of professional gymnastics, with more and more women breaking down the unscientific and outright damaging myths that have dominated the sport for decades by achieving longevity.
Beyond Downie, the picture is even more opaque. The surprise comeback of Amelie Morgan, a member of the Tokyo bronze medal team, provides a reflection of the uncertainty and opportunity in the absence of the Gadirova twins. Morgan shifted to college gymnastics after Tokyo, but is back to compete for a place in her second Olympics. Meanwhile, Georgia-Mae Fenton and Ruby Evans, who have been part of teams since Tokyo, will also be competing for a spot in Paris.
In the men’s field, Max Whitlock, Great Britain’s greatest gymnast, continues his return as he looks to compete in a fourth consecutive Olympics and chase his fourth Olympic gold, having dominated the pommel horse over the past two Games.
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There will be four world champions competing for a spot on the men’s team. Jake Jarman, last year’s winner in the vault, has positioned himself well for a first Olympics, while Joe Fraser, the 2019 parallel bars champion, and Giarnni Regini-Moran, the 2022 floor gold medallist, are coming back from injury.
There was a time when their pedigree alone would have virtually guaranteed a spot, but these days the standards are high, the competition is strong and there are even younger, fresher gymnasts fighting for places on the team. Over the coming weeks, we will see where they all land. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/mar/14/spain.alqaida | World news | 2004-03-14T01:37:22.000Z | Sandra Jordan | Focus: Massacre in Madrid | By midnight Friday the florist at the Cementerio Jardín had run out of flowers. Throughout the night, bodies were ferried in by van and hearse from central Madrid, first to a temporary morgue in a sports stadium and finally to this complex of seven funeral parlours, a crematorium and a graveyard. The commuter town of Alcalá de Henares, previously best known as the birthplace of Cervantes, was hard hit by Thursday's attacks.
'At least 40 victims were from here,' said a policeman standing guard at the entrance. 'We're not sure of the numbers yet - there are still more bodies in the stadium.' As he spoke another hearse pulled up.
Two women approached the officer. 'We're doctors, where should we go?' they asked. Families and friends had been paying their last respects at all-night wakes. Psychologists, doctors and Red Cross staff were on stand-by to assist the bereaved. Some needed medical assistance, others a kind word or a blanket.
This was the busiest day in the cemetery's history. Red-eyed mourners smoked too much and shivered in the morning drizzle. Some women wore too much make-up to compensate for lack of sleep. Others wore none at all. Men cried.
Jorge Rodriguez Casanova had spent the night in 'Velatario 4', his coffin closed because of the wounds sustained. His grieving relatives, mother Isabel, and four siblings - the youngest a four-year-old brother - had spent the night in this sterile room decorated to look like a sitting room. A glass panel separated them from Jorge's casket. He was 22, a student at Salesians College, Madrid. He had idolised the footballer Zinedine Zidane; inside the coffin was a No.5 Real Madrid shirt.
Huge wreaths stood on easels outside. At first they seemed to be mixed up - some were dedicated to a classmate, others to a loving father and husband. Friends explained: Jorge's father, Francisco Javier Rodriguez Sanchez, had also been killed in the blast. His body was in 'Velatorio 5', awaiting cremation in the afternoon. The pair had left home together and taken the train to Madrid, Jorge to attend his classes, Francisco to his job at the Banco Central.
'They didn't always take the train, sometimes Francisco drove,' said his brother-in-law, Andrés Rodriguez. 'He was charming. Tall, nice, handsome. So was Jorge.' Some of Jorge's friends, a group of four young men, stood outside crying. Did he have a girlfriend? 'Muchas,' they said, raising smiles.
The friends had been up all night. 'We didn't find out he was dead till 6am the next day,' said Ruben, an unemployed truck driver. 'He'd been hospitalised and he was very disfigured.'
By 8.30am the car park was full but more bleary-eyed mourners continued to pile in. For many, this was not their first funeral of the weekend. The chapel could only accommodate a fraction of the people and each mass was dedicated to all the victims. The first funeral was for Rodolfo Benito, 27, an engineering student. Half an hour later it was Jorge's turn.
Hundreds of people followed his coffin up a hill, stopping by a bank of nine open vaults. The ceremony was brutally swift. There was just time for an 'Our Father' before his coffin slid into its tomb. The family moaned. As three cemetery employees glued a lid to the mouth of the crypt, Jorge's mother screamed: 'Hijo Mio! My son! I love you. I love you!' She had to be carried out. The mourners returned to the funeral home to wait for Francisco's cremation. 'Madrid has become like Belfast, Tel Aviv, New York,' said family friend Victoria Lozano. 'But we have to continue. I will vote tomorrow. We are not afraid.'
After each funeral, cleaners prepared the parlours for the next corpses. By midday the complex was overflowing with more than 2,000 mourners, politicians, cameramen and undertakers. Antonio Rejo had come for the funeral of Carlos Tortosa Garcia. 'This was the fault of Bush and Blair,' he said. 'It's because of our involvement in Iraq. Aznar is Bush's shoe-shine boy. I will vote against the Partido Popular tomorrow.'
Psychologists and aid workers wandered among the shattered people, handing out water and comfort. 'I expect we'll have a long night,' said Maria Secco, spokeswoman for the Movement for Peace. 'There will be at least 30 funerals throughout all of this.' A spokeswoman for the cemetery told The Observer there would be nine funerals today. But with 40 of the dead still unidentified, she expected more bodies to return to Alcalá de Henares. 'I think we have a hard week ahead of us,' she said.
Across the road the florist had managed to get more flowers from outside Madrid. His family worked ceaselessly to make wreaths. He'd drafted in his lawyer daughter to help. 'This is not a pleasant job,' said Elena Carrasco, 27. 'It's been desolate here. People have been coming in crying, they don't know what they're saying, they're beside themselves. We won't get over this, there are too many dead.'
By yesterday afternoon the total of the dead left by the blast had reached 200. The toll had stopped at 199 on Friday night with the death of a seven-month-old baby girl, but finally - inevitably - reached its grim double century with the death of a man who had been taken to a Madrid hospital a day after the blast. However, hospital officials warned, with at least another 20 people seriously injured in hospital, numbers could climb even higher.
The question now, for Spain, and for the rest of Europe, focuses on the simple issue of who was responsible for these deaths, which represent one of the worst civilian massacres in Western Europe for decades. If the bombings were the work of the Basque separatist group ETA, then they represent a problem of massively - and unexpectedly - expanded dimensions, but one that is unlikely to have repercussions beyond Spain's borders. If, on the other hand, the attacks were the work of al-Qaeda, they would show that Islamist terrorists have built up a sophisticated and effective infrastructure within Europe that might be used to equally deadly effect elsewhere.
It is increasingly clear who José María Aznar's government wants it to be. Late on Friday night, the Spanish radio network, Cadena Ser, reported that Mr Aznar's foreign minister, Ana Palacio, had sent instructions to all her country's ambassadors instructing them 'to exploit those occasions that arise to confirm ETA's responsibility for these brutal attacks'. Her telegram left the foreign ministry at 5.28 on the afternoon of the bombings.
In Sunday's general election Aznar's centre-right People's Party could capitalise handsomely on its leader's determined repression of ETA and its apologists if Thursday's bombings are shown to be their work. But, if the attacks were to be laid at the door of Islamists, they could have just as powerful an effect in reverse - focussing the attention of the electorate on Aznar's Middle East policy, and in particular his unpopular support for the invasion of Iraq.
But there is no reason why the truth should not go hand in hand with the interests of the government, especially in this instance. Since the fall of General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, ETA has felt that its cause is best served by a strategy of polarisation with the government, which is easier to sustain when there are hard-liners in power.
Arguably, the most powerful reason for blaming ETA is the timing of the attack - just three days before a Spanish general election. On Wednesday, the day before the bombings, pamphlets that made a specific reference to the Spanish national railway company were distributed on the streets of San Sebastian, the Basque country's most militantly nationalist city, by ETA sympathisers. The pamphlets declared: 'Spanish interests in the cross-hairs: sabotage Renfe.'
Nor was this the first sign that ETA had developed an unhealthy interest in the railways. Last December 24, an ETA suspect, Garikoitz Arrueta, was arrested in San Sebastian. He was carrying a ticket for Madrid and a sports bag containing 25 kilos of high explosives.
On March 1, two more ETA suspects fell into the hands of the security forces in the city of Cuenca, east of Madrid. They were driving a van containing half a tonne of bomb-making material. Though they are reported to have since told investigators that they planned to bomb either an industrial estate or a ski resort in north-eastern Spain frequented by the royal family, they had with them a map which hinted at another story. On it, the town of Alcalá de Henares was ringed and it was from there that the three trains bombed on Thursday set off.
Late on Friday, two Basque news organisations received calls denying responsibility on behalf of ETA. Sources at the Basque radio and television corporation, EiTB, which received one of the calls, said the caller's voice had been recorded and matched that of one of two hooded figures who appeared in a video sent to the corporation last month in which ETA announced it was declaring a truce in Catalonia.
But, as the chief prosecutor of the High Court in Madrid, Eduardo Fungairiño, noted yesterday, there has been confusion in the past over whether Basque guerrillas were behind attacks that provoked a national outcry. In 1987 an ETA splinter group carried out the organisation's bloodiest previous operation - an attack on a supermarket in Barcelona that left 21 dead. 'It was said it could not be ETA, and yet it was,' Fungairiño said.
Some investigators have speculated on the possibility of a similar internal division behind Thursday's atrocity, but if ETA has produced a splinter faction then no hint of it has so far reached the Spanish or Basque media. In addition, Thursday's attacks had a series of characteristics that were at odds with ETA's normal 'modus operandi'.
For a start, there appears to have been no warning. In addition, the organisation does not have strong record of attacking crowded public places. It is true that more than a third of its victims have been civilians but, apart from journalists, politicians and kidnapped businessmen, most have come into the category airily dismissed as 'collateral damage' - bystanders caught up in attacks directed at ETA's prime target, the officers of the armed forces and members of the security forces. The group still uses a Marxist-Leninist rhetoric and it would signal a remarkable change in its strategy if it were shown to have bombed trains bringing mainly working-class passengers to the capital.
ETA is - or was thought to be - greatly weakened. Last year, it killed just three people. There are also considerable doubts about whether it has the operational capacity to have carried out such an elaborate and meticulously executed serial bombing. Only three days before the attacks, the conservative daily ABC carried a report that said ETA's 'military' apparatus had been weakened more than any other part of the organisation.
'In the last two years four of its top leaders have been arrested and five of the sections that come under them - recruitment, intelligence, training, transport and reserve units - have been hit', ABC said.
By contrast, what has so far leaked out seems to point to an Islamist connection. The liberal daily El Pais reported yesterday that a van containing detonators and recordings of verses from the Koran which was found abandoned at Alcalá de Henares on Thursday had been definitively tied into the attacks. Early on Friday, it was discovered that a knapsack removed from one of the trains contained another bomb. The device was defused by police bomb disposal experts.
El Pais said traces were discovered in the van of the same explosive used in the knapsack bomb - Goma 2 ECO. This is a substance which ETA has used in the past. But for several years now, the Basque organisation has employed its stores of different explosive, Titadyne, robbed from a warehouse in France in 1999.
Two other details from the examinations of the knapsack bomb and the van have struck investigators as unusual. One is that the detonators in the knapsack bomb were made of copper, and not, as is usual with ETA, of aluminium. The other is that whoever used the van did not change its number plates, something that ETA always does. So was it al-Qaeda?
Much has been made of the unreliability of the claim lodged with a London-based Arab-language newspaper by the so-called Abu Hafs al Misri brigade of al-Qaeda which also - falsely - claimed responsibility for the synagogue attacks in Istanbul and the black-out on the east coast of North America last August. But a bogus claim does not mean that the latest massacre was not the work of other Islamic militants.
It would not be the first time that Islamist terrorists had struck at Spanish inter ests. Last May, they bombed a Spanish cultural and social centre in Casablanca. Again, though, there is considerable doubt about al-Qaeda's ability to carry out such an operation in Spain. So far, the only indications of Islamic militant activity have involved logistical cells whose job, it was thought, was to supply forged passports and safe houses to guerrillas operating elsewhere in Europe.
There are, moreover, several details of the massacre in Madrid that do not fit with al-Qaeda's track record to date. Osama bin Laden's followers have tended to strike at symbolic targets, be they the Twin Towers or Africa's oldest synagogue, and it is hard to fit the working-class suburbs of eastern Madrid into that mould.
The evidence so far available also suggests the men or women who planted the devices that exploded in Madrid got off the trains before they were wrecked. At least one witness has spoken of seeing a passenger leave without his bag.
Goma 2 ECO, which is manufactured in Spain, was certainly not used in the Casablanca attack and, if it is hard to see ETA using left-over supplies for such a major operation, it is even harder to see al-Qaeda acquiring it in the first place. Because of the risk of its falling into terrorist hands, Goma 2 ECO is only manufactured to order for specially licensed companies, most of them in the construc tion industry. It is transported from the factory near Burgos to its destination under Civil Guard escort and any that remains unused has to be returned to the factory, also under Civil Guard escort.
'Regardless of whether it was ETA or al-Qaeda,' said one investigator yesterday, 'the group responsible has departed from key elements of its normal operating method'.
And the wake of this deadly change, Spain has been left reeling. Teams of specialists - forensic experts and pathologists - were last night continuing their grim attempts to identify the corpses. Priests blessed the living and the dead. Bodies were being given numbers and a file made of possessions found nearby. 'Some of the unidentified are just an arm, or a stomach or a piece of flesh,' said one rescue worker.
It has left the nation in a state of shock. As one demonstrator said on Friday night: 'Thank God I didn't lose friends or family today. But what does it matter? They were all my family. What happened was inhuman.'
· Additional reporting by Ben Deighton in Valencia and Tracy Rucinski | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/25/homeless-number-people-sleeping-rough-england-rises-almost-a-third-in-a-year | Society | 2016-02-25T10:53:57.000Z | Amelia Gentleman | Number of people sleeping rough in England rises by almost a third in a year | The number of people sleeping rough in England on any one night has doubled since 2010 and increased by 30% in the last year, with an estimated 3,569 people now sleeping on the streets across England, according to new government figures.
Homelessness charities described the figures as “scandalous” and “shocking”, and called on the government to launch a new national rough sleepers strategy.
London had 940 people sleeping on the streets on one night in autumn 2015, when the snapshot count was taken, a 27% rise on 2014. Westminster has the highest number of rough sleepers anywhere, with 265 counted.
The number of people with mental health problems sleeping rough has risen dramatically, tripling in London from 711 people with an identified mental health support need over 12 months in 2009-10 to 2,343, in 2014-15.
Crisis said the figures were a “stark and sobering wake-up call”. “There are practical and immediate measures the government can take to tackle rough sleeping and other forms of homelessness. With the average age of death for rough sleepers being just 47, they must act now,” the charity’s chief executive, Jon Sparkes, said.
In 2014-15, 17 of the 25 people sleeping rough in London who were known to services and who died while sleeping on the streets, were known to have mental health needs. Four in 10 rough sleepers now have a mental health problem, and this rises to over half of rough sleepers from the UK. Most rough sleepers with mental health problems are homeless for longer because they find it harder to access support.
Sixty-two percent of the homelessness professionals who responded to a survey conducted by the charity St Mungo’s said they had noticed an increase in the number of people with mental health problems sleeping rough in their area.
The report notes that many specialist homelessness mental health teams have shrunk or been closed as a result of funding cuts. Major cuts to subsequent homelessness prevention projects began in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008 and on average, local authority funding for services for helping vulnerable people avoid homelessness was cut by 45% between 2009-10 and 2014-15, according to the St Mungo’s report, Stop the Scandal.
Howard Sinclair, chief executive of St Mungo’s, said he was concerned by “both the shocking, unprecedented rise in people who are sleeping rough, and evidence that more of this group are struggling with poor mental health”. “Few would disagree that it’s nothing short of a scandal that people with mental health problems are sleeping rough. Not only that, but this incredibly vulnerable group are more likely to remain in dangerous and unhealthy situations for longer,” he said.
The figures come as little surprise to many working in the sector, who have noted a visible rise in the number of tents in parks and people in sleeping bags outside theatres and shops in central London and other big cities. But they mark a dramatic reversal of much of the progress made in the first decade of the century towards eliminating rough sleeping entirely.
St Mungo’s is writing to the prime minister to ask him to launch a new national rough sleeping strategy, with targets for reducing the number of people sleeping rough, and a commitment to focusing on the links between mental health and rough sleeping.
In London, 43% of people sleeping rough are from the UK, 36% are from central and eastern Europe, with 18% of the total from Romania. Around 14% were female and 12% under 26.
Homelessness minister Marcus Jones said: “No one should ever have to sleep rough, which is why we have increased central funding to tackle homelessness over the next four years to £139m.”
Crisis welcomed some “positive steps” made by the government towards tackling homelessness, but in its annual report on homelessness it raised “serious concerns” about the impact of welfare and housing reform on homelessness. Local authorities told the charity that caps to housing benefit allowances and the 2012 extension of the shared accommodation rate to everyone under 35 renting privately (meaning you can only get help with rent up to the rate of renting a single room in a shared house) have made it harder to help people out of homelessness. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/sep/20/tony-abbott-warns-against-unconscionable-renewable-target | Australia news | 2017-09-19T23:00:57.000Z | Paul Karp | Tony Abbott warns against 'unconscionable' renewable target | Tony Abbott is reportedly threatening to cross the floor to vote against a clean energy target, warning Malcolm Turnbull it would be “unconscionable” for the government to do anything to further encourage investment in renewable energy.
Abbott told Sky News on Tuesday evening the government had to address market failure by providing base-load power and building coal-fired power stations.
“If we can have Snowy 2.0, let’s have Hazelwood 2.0, and get on with it,” he said, drawing a comparison between the prime minister’s support for pumped hydro power and calls within the Coalition for a new coal-fired power station.
Tony Abbott says dumping clean energy target would help Coalition win election
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Abbott said there was “no chance” that the Coalition party room would support a significant increase in the amount of renewables in the system, warning that Liberal MPs had “extremely serious reservations” about a clean energy target.
Asked whether he would support a CET, he replied: “It would be unconscionable, I underline that word unconscionable, for a government that was originally elected promising to abolish the carbon tax and end Labor’s climate change obsessions to go further down the renewables path.”
Abbott has been ratcheting up pressure on the government not to adopt the clean energy target recommended by the chief scientist, Alan Finkel.
His latest comments are the clearest signal that he would cross the floor over the issue, joining the Nationals MP George Christensen in leading a potential backbench revolt – although the government could still pass the policy if it reached a bipartisan agreement with Labor.
The Liberal MP Craig Kelly, who chairs the backbench committee on environment and energy, said his position on a CET would depend on how it was structured but he did not rule out crossing the floor.
“There is a real concern amongst a considerable number of us that if we adopted a CET in a specific format, it would put pressure on electricity prices,” he said. “That is something we couldn’t accept.”
Kelly believes the renewable energy target should be frozen for a number of years and increased more steeply closer to 2030 to meet Paris agreement commitments.
Energy analysts and power companies have said that high-efficiency low-emissions coal power stations are not commercially viable and may not be until 2030 and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation has called it a “risky investment” the government should steer clear of.
But in an opinion piece on Wednesday Abbott claimed the unviability of coal power stations was not an instance of market failure but “government failure” because coal had to compete against $3bn a year of subsidies that give the renewables sector an “unfair advantage”.
On Tuesday Turnbull shot back at Abbott’s earlier comments that policy encouraging renewables risked “de-industrialising” Australia.
“I won’t comment on that other than to say we have a renewable energy target that was actually put in place by Tony Abbott in 2015, it is legislated,” Turnbull told 4BC Radio. “And that is in place until 2020. What we’re looking at is the future policy after 2020 to 2030.”
Abbott said that “green religion” had been allowed to trump common sense “for the best part of a decade and a half”, including his two years as prime minister when the RET was legislated. “Knowing what we know now we should’ve gone a lot further than we did.”
He appeared to blame his colleagues for his decision not to scrap the RET, saying that when he was party leader he did not have “the luxury of a personal view” but he had “never been a true believer in this stuff”.
Asked if he would scrap the RET immediately, Abbott said the government had to respect investments made under the existing system owing to sovereign risk, but there should be “no further subsidies, no additional renewables”.
Sound and fury signifies a lot – that's what the week in #auspol tells us
Katharine Murphy
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In the opinion piece he explained the government should try to legislate a freeze in the RET, even if it was blocked by the Senate, because it would help the Coalition have a “legislative fight” with Labor, not just a rhetorical one.
Abbott said climate change was “significant” but “by no means the greatest moral challenge of our time”, as it was described by Kevin Rudd.
Turnbull wants to keep AGL’s coal power station Liddell open beyond its planned 2022 closure but has shown less enthusiasm for building new coal power stations.
On Tuesday he said a HELE coal-power station could be built in north Queensland if the LNP’s Tim Nicholls were elected “and the state decides to build one”. Such a project would qualify for funds from the northern Australia infrastructure facility, he said.
AGL has warned that keeping Liddell open for an extra decade could cost $900m.
Labor has focused on lowering energy prices through increased intervention in the gas market, calling on the Turnbull government to increase transparency to help manufacturers facing rising prices and tight supply. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/2018/jul/02/genius-crossword-no-181 | Crosswords | 2018-07-01T23:01:53.000Z | Ifay | Genius crossword No 181 | Definitions in 10 of the clues produce solutions that are one letter too long for the grid. Wordplay in these clues leads to the solutions required for the grid entry. All are real words. Taken in order, clockwise from the top, these surplus letters spell out an appropriate three-word phrase, which should be written in the box indicated in the entry form.
Deadline for entries is 23:59 BST on Saturday 4 August. You need to register once and then sign in to theguardian.com to enter our online competition for a £100 monthly prize.
Click here to register.
Click here to access the print version | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/feb/06/the-last-of-us-recap-episode-four-why-on-earth-is-the-ground-churning-like-that | Television & radio | 2023-02-06T22:00:03.000Z | Andy Welch | The Last of Us recap episode four – ambush in Kansas City! | This article contains spoilers for The Last of Us TV series. Do not read unless you have seen episodes one to four …
After the heartbreaking spectacle of Bill and Frank’s two-hander, here we saw Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) return to centre stage as they embarked on an epic road trip and adjusted to life post-Tess.
All was going swimmingly until they got to Kansas City, where the highways were blocked and they needed to find a detour. Of course, this being The Last of Us, nothing can go to plan. After a quick gunfight, in which Joel swiftly took out two of their attackers, a third took advantage of Joel’s poor hearing to creep up and get the better of him. Thankfully, Ellie, who had been pleading for a gun, had squirrelled one away while rooting around at Bill’s place and used it, saving Joel. I’m sure he wanted to be disappointed, but how could be anything other than pleased. Later, he gave his ward a few pointers on stance and grip for her troubles.
Ellie, meanwhile, said she had killed before. Whoever could she mean? (I don’t think she was referring to that trapped infected she stabbed in the head in the bunker.)
We then met Kathleen (Yellowjackets star Melanie Lynskey), leader of a local band of revolutionaries who have seemingly risen up to overthrow the Federal Disaster Response Agency (Fedra), which has control of the city, and dismantle the quarantine zone. The group’s rule is every bit as terrifying as Fedra’s, with Kathleen hellbent on finding Henry (Lamar Johnson) and his kid brother, Sam (Keivonn Woodard). Quite why isn’t clear (something about giving information to Fedra), but she does talk to the doctor about her brother being beaten to death, and reels off a list of names of people she is looking for – “collaborators” – later rushing back to the cell to calmly shoot the doctor dead. She may have an utterly unthreatening voice, but don’t be fooled – this is one ruthless individual.
As the militia searched high and low for the boys and the mystery outsiders we know to be Joel and Ellie, we saw a strange undulation in the ground. Never a good sign, especially in the survival horror genre … “When do we tell the others?” said Kathleen’s beardy right-hand man, Perry (Jeffrey Pierce). “Not yet,” said Kathleen. “Let’s handle what we have to handle. We can deal with this after.” That definitely sounds like a sensible suggestion that won’t come back to bite you.
Perry (Jeffrey Pierce), right-hand man to Kathleen, leader of the revolutionaries. Photograph: HBO/Warner Media
Ambush city limits
As Joel and Ellie made their way to the top of that terrifying looking staircase – I was fully expecting something to be waiting for them as they ascended – Ellie seemed shocked to learn a bit more about her travelling partner. Joel was so quick to spot the earlier ambush because he had done similar things with Tommy and Tess in the past. He is also 56, and his hearing is probably even worse than he has let on, a result of firing too many guns.
Ellie wasn’t the only one with questions, though, with Joel picking up on something Ellie had said earlier about hurting people. “What did you mean that it wasn’t your first time?” he asked. “I don’t want to talk about it,” came her reply, while his attempt at reassurance fell flat when he admitted that this life doesn’t get any easier as you get older. It’s the nearest they have come to a normal conversation and, ultimately, bonding. Thanks to the minimal script and excellent performances from Pascal and Ramsey, it’s wholly believable.
They drifted off, but Joel’s hearing is totally kaput – not even his glass-on-the-floor trick stopped Henry and Sam sneaking up on them. What a sight to wake up to; two boys holding pistols. Let’s hope they are not as dangerous as Kathleen believes them to be. I have a feeling they’re not …
Notes and observations
Joel (Pedro Pascal) and Ellie (Bella Ramsey) must adjust to life post-Tess. Photograph: HBO/Warner Media
One person commenting on the recap of the first episode suggested it was ridiculous that petrol-powered cars still worked in a world without petrol production, correctly stating that fuel has a shelf life. It was nice for that to be addressed here, with Joel explaining why he and Ellie had to stop to siphon petrol so often. “It’s basically water.” Bleak_T_W, I hope you enjoyed that one.
I liked Joel’s attempt at explaining how siphons work. Something, something gravity is about the extent of my understanding, too.
Ellie’s book, No Pun Intended: Volume Too, is straight from the video game. It was an artefact first seen as a collectible in The Last of Us Pt I and later the expansion spin-off The Last of Us: Left Behind. It was written by Will Livingston.
The Hank Williams song that played in the truck was the aptly titled Alone and Forsaken.
Lincoln, Massachusetts, where Joel and Ellie picked up Bill’s truck, is about 2,500 miles from Jackson, Wyoming, where they are heading. On a good run, with efficient fuel and no militia roadblocks, it would take about 39 hours to drive.
If you think eating 20-year-old tinned ravioli is bad, here’s a video of someone eating 90-year-old canned soup.
Jeffrey Pierce, who plays Perry, provided the voice of Tommy in the video games. He was cast as Joel’s brother after initially auditioning for the part of Joel.
The closing song was a cover of New Order’s True Faith by Lotte Kestner. (That link is safe, but a word of warning to anyone hoping to find out more about that cover version: spoilers abound and the YouTube comments section is not your friend!)
What did you think of episode four? Enjoying things so far? Who are Henry and Sam? What is that underground? Have your say below …
This article was amended on 21 June 2023. A previous headline referred to an “ambush in Kansas”, rather than Kansas City, which is in Missouri. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/sep/25/barbara-ehrenreich-obituary | Books | 2022-09-25T17:33:52.000Z | Eric Homberger | Barbara Ehrenreich obituary | While having lunch one day in the 1990s with Lewis Lapham, the editor of Harper’s magazine, and discussing whether it was possible to live on the lowest wages, Barbara Ehrenreich, who has died aged 81, leaned across the table and told Lapham: “Someone ought to do the old-fashioned kind of journalism – you know, go out there and try it.”
Lapham smiled, perhaps thinking about the exploits of earlier US writers, Jacob Riis and Upton Sinclair, and George Orwell with his 1933 book Down and Out in Paris and London. He suggested the person who should do it was her.
It seemed an interesting idea for Ehrenreich, who had a fair share of academic honours, and a PhD in molecular biology, but was at the time carving out a new kind of radical journalistic career. Lapham warmed to the idea that she should try living on the wages available to the unskilled in prosperous America.
Out of that lunch came Ehrenreich’s book Nickel and Dimed: Undercover in Low-wage USA (2001). It proved to be a bestseller, and the following year Granta published a UK edition with an introduction by Polly Toynbee, whose books following a similar path in Britain appeared in 1971 and 2003.
Ehrenreich’s quest began in Key West, Florida, in 1998, and ended in Minneapolis in the summer of 2000. Proposing to spend one month in different locales, she presented herself to potential employers as a divorced homemaker re-entering the workforce. Then aged 57, she was rather older than the other women who were also seeking work as house cleaners, waitresses or shop assistants. Her PhD would not exactly help, and so it had to be suppressed.
She knew that she was only visiting the world that others inhabited full-time. But she made it clear in her book that hers was not an attempt to “experience poverty”. She was certain that there would be no Shazam moment when she revealed her “true” upper middle-class self. She had advantages, of course: she was white, a native English speaker, and she had a car. But she learned that the only thing which made her “special” was her inexperience.
What emerged from her research was an impressive and heartfelt analysis of the dilemmas confronting American women as she encountered them working in deadend jobs for $7 an hour, and an appreciation of why they did not fight for higher pay and better conditions for themselves and their fellow workers. She came to understand why poor, undereducated women, often carrying heavy debt burdens, could not risk their families being placed in a worse financial position by being summarily sacked for demanding more money or seeking representation by a union.
Born and brought up in Butte, Montana, a blue-collar mining town, she came from a family whose gospel had only two rules: never cross a picket line, and never vote Republican. Barbara was the daughter of Isabelle (nee Oxley) and Ben Alexander. Her father studied at the Montana School of Mines and took a PhD at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. He was a copper miner who became a senior executive at the Gillette Corporation. By the time the family had settled in Los Angeles, her parents had divorced.
Barbara studied physics and chemistry at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, graduating in 1963. Five years later she started on her PhD at Rockefeller University in New York City. With her husband John Ehrenreich, whom she married in 1966, she authored an account of the worldwide student movement, Long March, Short Spring (1969). It was followed by another co-authored study, The American Health Empire (1970).
In 1970 she gave birth to a daughter, Rosa (two years later she would have a son, Ben), finding herself the only white patient in the public clinic. Her labour was induced, she felt, because the doctor wanted to go home. That experience made her a feminist.
She found work in New York as an analyst in the city’s Bureau of the Budget and moved to an assistant professorship at the Old Westbury campus of the State University of New York. The move from being a graduate student to a proper academic job, baby in arms, brought Ehrenreich into contact with other women similarly trying to balance parenting, academic research and full-time teaching.
Increasingly she turned towards the experience women had of the American health system. It became her primary research interest, and a collaboration with Deirdre English, a feminist journalist and academic, proved fruitful.
For the remainder of the 70s, Ehrenreich began to carve out a presence at conferences, and she was able to place essays, op-eds and feature articles in leading American newspapers and magazines, especially those, such as Mother Jones, with a radical readership. On campus and at events sponsored by the US government, she felt increasingly confident with her marketable mix of scholarship, advocacy and activism.
The women’s health movement was attracting wider interest, and Ehrenreich’s For Her Own Good: 150 Years of Experts’ Advice to Women (1978), co-authored with English, was detailed and written with passion.
Ehrenreich wrote or co-authored more than 20 books, on a wide range of topics. Virtually no feminist advocacy group founded in the 70s could do without her presence. When Michael Harrington formed the Democratic Socialists of America in 1982, he invited Ehrenreich to serve as co-chair.
It was in the pages of the Nation, and among the editorial board, which included Ehrenreich, Eric Foner, Lani Guinier, Tom Hayden, Toni Morrison and Tony Kushner, that the left’s stalwarts engaged with the most pressing issues of the day. And it was in the pages of the Nation that Ehrenreich published Rediscovering Poverty (2012), in which she argued that Harrington’s influential and much-admired work on poverty in the US, The Other America (1962), was designed to comfort the already comfortable and blamed those who were most disadvantaged by the US welfare system.
Ehrenreich argued that there was a double message in Harrington’s book: “we” – always the presumptively affluent readers – needed to find some way to help the poor, but that opened the floodgates to the idea forcefully urged by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in an influential report in 1965, that the heart of the problem lay in the “Negro family”, “clearing the way,” Ehrenreich argued, “for decades of victim-blaming”. Her relations with Harrington were difficult.
It was also in the Nation that in 2000 Ehrenreich published the essay Vote for Nader, which became one of the signal moments in the civil war between the American left and the Democratic party centrists, whose candidate, Al Gore, was in the process of losing his presidential bid to George W Bush.
In 2007 Ehrenreich donated an extensive archive of her career as an author, including correspondence and notebooks, to the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library of the History of Women in America, in the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University.
She was divorced from John Ehrenreich in 1977. A second marriage, in 1983, to Gary Stevenson, ended in divorce 10 years later. She is survived by Rosa, Ben, three grandchildren and two siblings, Benjamin and Diane.
Barbara Ehrenreich, journalist and activist, born 26 August 1941; died 1 September 2022
This article was amended on 27 September 2022. A phrase to acknowledge Deirdre English’s co-authorship of Barbara Ehrenreich’s 150 Years of Experts’ Advice to Women (1978) was added, their general collaboration having been noted earlier in the piece. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jan/26/readers-recommend-share-your-songs-about-cheating | Music | 2017-01-26T20:00:06.000Z | Guardian music | Readers recommend: share your songs about cheating | What does the word “cheating” mean to you and how have musicians summed this up in song?
You have until 11pm on Monday 30 January to post your nomination and make your justification. RR contributor George Boyland (who posts as sonofwebcore in the comments) will select from your recommendations and produce the playlist, to be published on 2 February.
Here is a list of all songs previously picked and therefore ineligible for the series.
If you want to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions – and potentially blog about the process/selection for the Guardian – please email [email protected] with the subject line “RR guru”, or make yourself known in the comments.
Here’s a reminder of the guidelines for RR:
Tell us why it’s a worthy contender.
Quote lyrics if helpful, but for copyright reasons no more than a third of a song’s words. If sharing links, make sure there is appropriate copyright permission.
Listen to others people’s suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist.
If you have a good theme, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist from readers’ suggestions, please email [email protected]
There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at the Marconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded” (picked for a previous playlist so ineligible), “donds” and other strange words used by RR regulars.
Many RR regulars also congregate at the ’Spill blog. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2016/jul/12/the-secret-life-of-pets-beats-tarzan-to-the-top-of-the-tree-at-uk-box-office | Film | 2016-07-12T16:16:15.000Z | Charles Gant | The Secret Life of Pets beats Tarzan to the top of the tree at UK box office | The winner: The Secret Life of Pets
With back-to-back declines of just 20% and 24%, The Secret Life of Pets has held up remarkably well, reaching £22.3m after 19 days. It will soon overtake Zootropolis (£23.8m) to become the biggest animated film of the year so far – a title it may concede to Pixar’s Finding Dory after it opens at the end of the month.
Pets grossed £3.62m over the three-day weekend period, shrugging off the challenge of an Andy Murray Wimbledon final. This year, only The Jungle Book has taken more in its third frame. A year ago, Minions stood at £27.6m at the same stage of its run, on its way to a total of £47.8m. If Pets maintains a similar decay rate, it would reach an impressive £38.6m.
Second place: The Legend of Tarzan
The Legend of Tarzan: ‘It’s an adventure movie, it’s not there to educate’ Guardian
Swinging into second place with £2.76m plus £809,000 in previews, The Legend of Tarzan has delivered solid numbers. Following a lengthy development process, Harry Potter director David Yates was attached in 2012. Budget wrangling delayed filming until June 2014, filming wrapped in October that year, before a lengthy post-production period. Its production budget is a reported $180m, suggesting that Warners probably had higher box-office aspirations for the film when it was greenlit. However, Tarzan is a well known character across multiple territories, and it’s too soon to be projecting the final profitability on the film.
Battle for third: Now You See Me 2 v Absolutely Fabulous
Now You See Me 2 has earned third place with box office of £2.96m. However, the film landed in cinemas last Monday, giving it four extra days of play that have been added into that total. Strip out the previews, and the illusionist caper’s weekend number drops to £1.6m. In other words, third place really belongs to Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, which posted weekend takings of £2.32m.
The original Now You See Me began its run in July 2013 with £2.9m, including previews of £1.1m. It went on to enjoy warm word of mouth, eventually reaching £11.21m.Absolutely Fabulous’s second weekend decline is an OK 43%. Distributor Fox will take particular heart from the midweek result last week. The film debuted with £4.04m, and took £2.32m in the second session. With a total of £9.78m so far, that means it grossed a robust £3.42m during Monday-to-Thursday last week.
The Bollywood hit: Sultan
With £1.05m, including previews of £445,000, Sultan is the biggest Bollywood hit of the year so far. Written and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar (Gunday), it’s the story of a fictional mixed martial arts star played by Salman Khan (Dabangg). Khan’s last movie, Prem Ratan Dhan Pavo, kicked off last November with £912,000 including previews of £187,000. Stripping out the previews numbers, Sultan’s debut falls short of that result. Khan also starred last year in Bajrangi Bhaijaan, which began with £758,000 and no previews.
With Central Intelligence one place above Sultan in the chart, that means six movies grossed £1m or more, which has happened only three times this year.
Indie alternatives: The Neon Demon and Maggie’s Plan
Many indie cinemas have turned to mainstream fare such as Absolutely Fabulous to keep the tills ringing this summer, and arthouse hits have been thin on the ground. The last one to open above £100,000 was Whit Stillman’s Love & Friendship, which landed in May. The weekend saw two new contenders arrive: Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon and Rebecca Miller’s Maggie’s Plan.
Nicolas Winding Refn on The Neon Demon: video interview Guardian
The Neon Demon debuted with £127,000 from 120 venues, including previews of £9,400. For comparison, Refn’s last movie Only God Forgives kicked off with £466,000, including £10,500 in previews, from 188 cinemas. Site average was £2,478, compared with £1,058 this time around. Only God Forgives had the benefit of Ryan Gosling in the starring role, plus the box-office bounce provided by Refn’s previous film, Drive. The Neon Demon, starring Elle Fanning, enjoys an IMDb user rating of 7.0/10 and a MetaCritic score of 51/100.
Maggie’s Plan landed behind The Neon Demon, with £103,000 (including previews of £3,700) from 80 cinemas. Given the tighter rollout, its site average of £1,282 is a bit healthier. Director Miller’s previous film The Private Lives of Pippa Lee debuted on just 25 screens, grossing £44,500 on its way to a total of just under £200,000. Before that, The Ballad of Jack and Rose was even smaller, grossing £23,000 in total.
Both The Neon Demon and Maggie’s Plan saw takings dip significantly on Sunday, suggesting they were hit by the finals of Wimbledon and Euro 2016. That pattern was witnessed by all films with an adult audience skew.
The future
The Hard Stop – watch the trailer for the documentary about the Mark Duggan shooting Guardian
Takings are overall 6% up on last weekend, and an encouraging 21% up on the equivalent session from 2015, when Ted 2 was the highest new entrant. The big release for this week – Ghostbusters – is already in cinemas, since Sony opted to push it out on Monday. It will be joined on Friday by Ice Age: Collision Course. Hard to predict, for the UK, is action comedy Keanu, from Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele – the film has already grossed more than $20m in the US, where the pair are big TV stars. Alternatives include French lesbian romance Summertime, Danish comedy Men and Chicken and British documentary The Hard Stop.
Top 10 films, 8-10 July
1. The Secret Life of Pets, £3,624,751 from 612 sites. Total: £22,261.438
2. The Legend of Tarzan, £3,570,350 from 507 sites (new)
3. Now You See Me 2, £2,964,641 from 483 sites (new)
4. Absolutely Fabulous: The Movie, £2,316,349 from 640 sites. Total: £9,779,204
5. Central Intelligence, £1,342,004 from 440 sites. Total: £5,680,743
6. Sultan, £1,048,417 from 121 sites (new)
7. Independence Day: Resurgence, £782,975 from 487 sites. Total: £10,910,774
8. The Conjuring 2: The Enfield Case, £401,155 from 352 sites. Total: £10,312,076
9. The Neon Demon, £126,996 from 120 sites (new)
10. Me Before You, £126,907 from 268 sites. Total: £9,285,210
Other openers
Maggie’s Plan, £102,534 (including £3,680 previews) from 80 sites
Weiner, £16,679 (including £5,509 previews) from 13 sites
Cold War 2, £10,966 from nine sites
Ponyo, £7,720 from 38 sites (reissue)
Hide and Seek, £1,989 from one site
The Wait, £1,553 from four sites
A Poem Is a Naked Person, £141 from two sites
Thanks to comScore. All figures relate to takings in UK and Ireland cinemas.
This article was amended on Wednesday 13 July 2016. We mistakenly said that Dakota Fanning stars in The Neon Demon. Its star is Elle Fanning. We also said The Neon Demon debuted at 80 cinemas, in fact it opened in 120. These errors have been corrected. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/apr/26/chris-columbus-childrens-novel-house-secrets | Life and style | 2013-04-26T22:00:01.000Z | Elaine Lipworth | Chris Columbus: My dad said, 'Don't do a job you hate' | The new children’s book House of Secrets was written by a first-time novelist but there are already predictions that it will be a runaway bestseller. The author, Chris Columbus, has had a firm finger on the pulse of pre-teens ever since Macaulay Culkin was left home alone to defend the house from bumbling burglars. Best known as a film-maker, Columbus directed that 1990 comedy as well as other blockbusters including Mrs Doubtfire and the first two Harry Potter films. He is the undisputed king of family films.
The director’s literary debut is an adventure about a family who move into a spooky house once owned by a mysterious pulp-fiction author. The parents go missing and the children find themselves trapped inside a dangerous imaginary world. Written with a co-author, Ned Vizzini, the book started life as a screenplay and was shelved for years by Columbus, who decided it would be too expensive to produce: “I re-read it and it hit me that it would be a good idea for a novel.”
JK Rowling describes House of Secrets as a “break-neck, jam-packed, rollercoaster of an adventure”. The story – about the adventures of Eleanor and Brendan Walker (named after two of Columbus’s four children), and their sister, Cordelia – is an engrossing page-turner and the writers have been commissioned to deliver a trilogy. “Jo [Rowling] loved it,” says Columbus, who sent his friend an early manuscript. “Why would I not go to her? She wrote me a long email and said: ‘It is too fast-paced. You’ve got to slow down, deepen the characters, work on the complexity.’ We took her advice to heart.
“I’ve raised four children so I have amassed 20 years of dinner conversations, fights, kids snapping at each other and the intense love they have for each other. I am just writing based on my own experience as a father.”
We are meeting at the filmmaker’s aptly named 1492 Pictures in San Francisco, although it turns out that the director was not named after the explorer Christopher Columbus. His father, Alex, the son of Italian immigrants, named him “Chris not Christopher, because of a long-lost wish by his father to have a Chris in the family.” (Columbus’s grandmother had refused to inflict the name on any of her 12 children.) The director has made the best of it. “Most people think I’ve changed it to Chris and I say to them, ‘Are you insane?’”
Decidedly un-Hollywood, Columbus and his wife of 30 years, Monica, a former dancer, have raised their family in northern California rather than Los Angeles. “I’ve always maintained a distance from Hollywood,” he says. “It’s intoxicating and it’s fun, but when I’m there I always feel like I’m crashing the party. I feel I’m getting sucked into that world.”
Columbus bounds into the room to greet me with the same energy as his dog, an affectionate Pomeranian called Gizmo (named after the creature in the 1984 film Gremlins, for which he wrote the screenplay). Wearing black-framed glasses, dressed in a purple polo shirt and jeans, the director exudes youthful exuberance.
Is life for the Columbus kids – as I imagine – constantly entertaining? “Well, maybe I was the most fun dad in the universe during the golden years of Harry Potter, when we were living in England, because they were all young,” he says. “Then they became teenagers and now I am like a functioning idiot, as every parent is. They want their own space and you have to say no, so you’re not fun. My youngest daughter, Isabella, is 16 so she’s having a lot of kids over to the house and we can’t leave. I have to keep an eye on all of them, I don’t want kegs rolling down the driveway.”
Columbus grew up poor and says he and his wife have taken care not to spoil their children. “My wife brought up all four kids. We’ve never taken a trip alone away because we wanted to be there for them. You see so many Hollywood kids being raised by nannies, and a lot of them are miserable.”
On a white board behind the desk is a complicated-looking production schedule listing various projects at different stages of development including Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, which is out this summer. (He directed the original 2009 Percy Jackson film.) His cluttered desk is covered with DVDs, books and family photos. Brendan, 20, and Violet, 19, are both at New York University, where Columbus also studied. His eldest daughter, Eleanor, 24, a recent NYU film school graduate, is working for him in a new company set up to foster young filmmakers.
There were no concerns about employing his daughter – on the contrary. “It’s not a vanity position. She is essentially running the new company with me because her taste in material is so good. She convinced me to read Harry Potter all those years ago, so I read the books in one weekend. I called my agent, and he said: ‘Well, get in line, there are 25 directors ahead of you!’”
Columbus was responsible for casting Harry Potter, including the three central stars – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. He says he learned a sobering lesson about child actors from his experience with the notoriously troubled Culkin clan, making Home Alone. “I was much younger and I was really too naive to think about the family environment as well. We didn’t know that much about the family at the beginning; as we were shooting, we learned a little more. The stories are hair-raising. I was casting a kid who truly had a troubled family life. With Potter, I realised that you have to cast the family as well.” None of his own children, incidentally, lean towards acting, although Eleanor played Susan Bones in Harry Potter and has appeared in several other films.
In hindsight, would he have cast another actor to play Kevin in Home Alone? Columbus leans forward and shakes his head. “I have no idea. But Macaulay is a very talented guy. I saw him on the London stage in 2001 in Madame Melville and I think he has the opportunity to put his life back on track. It’s not too late for him.”
Any advice for Culkin, now 32? “He should take a lesson from Daniel Radcliffe, who has got away from the partying side and devoted his life to doing good, solid work. That’s what’s healthy about being in England and not being in Los Angeles,” he says.
“Actually I think Dan is going to be the new Ron Howard,” he says, referring to the Oscar-winning director and former Happy Days child star.
I think Dan will be directing great films someday and he’s someone that every child actor should look up to. He should have a self-help seminar for young actors.”
Columbus, an only child, was born in Spangler, Pennsylvania. His father was a coal miner, his mother, Irene, worked in a factory. When he was three the family moved to Ohio “for the promise of a better life” when Alex Columbus got a job in an aluminium factory. “You’re above ground so you don’t have the promise of black lung or the mines caving in so that really was a step up. My father always said, ‘Don’t ever do a job that you hate,’ which meant that he hated his job.
“I grew up with very little but the only things I cared about were books, comics and movies, which were relatively cheap entertainment back then,” says Columbus, who won a scholarship to NYU and fell in love with films.
At the end of his first year, however, “I stupidly forgot to renew my scholarship by signing a few slips of paper, so I had to work in the factory that entire summer.” He wrote 20 pages of a screenplay while working the nightshift, “writing between giant rolls of aluminium, hiding from my foreman. It was pure incentive to get the hell out of there.” His teacher at NYU passed the work on to an agent who took him on. “It saved my life. I benefited from the terrifying reality I faced of having to live and work in that factory for the rest of my life in that town, if I didn’t make it.
I can’t give that to my children, but I say, ‘Do something you really love.’” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/13/uae-cop28-president-sultan-al-jaber-to-keep-role-as-head-of-national-oil-company | Environment | 2023-01-13T08:47:40.000Z | Fiona Harvey | UAE’s Cop28 president will keep role as head of national oil company | Sultan Al Jaber, the government minister for United Arab Emirates who will preside over this year’s crucial UN climate talks, will retain his roles as head of the country’s oil company and sustainable energy businesses, UAE has confirmed.
Campaigners have been angered by the decision, revealed by the Guardian on Wednesday and confirmed on Thursday by the UAE government, which they see as a clear conflict of interest, with some likening it to putting a tobacco company head in charge of an anti-smoking treaty, and warning it could jeopardise the negotiating process and hasten climate breakdown.
UAE will host this year’s Cop28 UN climate summit in Dubai. The fortnight-long talks, starting on 30 November, are viewed as vital to try to put the world on track to limit global heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, a target that scientists have warned is in imminent danger of being lost forever.
Al Jaber is minister for industry and advanced technology, but is also chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), which is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, and whose plans for new drilling will amount to the second largest expansion of oil and gas production planned globally.
A Cop28 spokesperson for UAE said: “Dr Sultan [Al Jaber] has a long career serving as a diplomat, minister, and business leader across the energy and renewables industry, including as the founding CEO of Masdar, a global renewable energy leader, and ADNOC. To deliver a just energy transition, a deep understanding of energy systems is essential. His experience uniquely positions him to be able to convene both the public and private sector to bring about pragmatic solutions to achieve the goals and aspirations of the Paris climate agreement.”
The spokesperson said: “Dr Al Jaber has helped accelerate adoption of renewables as founding CEO and current chairman of Masdar, the world’s second largest renewable energy company with clean energy investments in over 40 countries, operating three of the world’s largest and lowest-cost solar plants. As ADNOC CEO, he has spearheaded investments of $15bn over five years in decarbonisation strategy and new low-carbon solutions.”
Two other top officials have been appointed. Shamma Al Mazrui, will act as youth climate champion, and Razan Al Mubarak as UN climate change high-level champion, leading efforts to bring businesses to the summit with stringent commitments to cut their greenhouse gas emissions.
Tony Blair, the former UK prime minister, who has worked closely with the UAE government in the past, welcomed the appointments.
He said: “Domestically and internationally, the UAE has shown leadership in climate investment and innovation. It is already one of the largest investors in renewables at home and abroad and is an innovator in technologies crucial to the energy transition, such as carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen.”
He added: “Al Jaber brings deep diplomatic and commercial experience through his work as the UAE’s special envoy on climate change and as chairman of Masdar. I am confident that Dr Sultan has both the standing and the capability to offer groundbreaking leadership for Cop28.”
The Cop president plays a vital role in the annual climate talks, acting as an “honest broker” among bickering governments, and with a large degree of latitude in determining the direction of the talks and what issues are given priority and negotiating time.
But campaigners have been dismayed that the talks will be overseen by an oil executive.
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Romain Ioualalen, global policy manager at the campaigning group Oil Change International, said: “This is a truly breathtaking conflict of interest and is tantamount to putting the head of a tobacco company in charge of negotiating an anti-smoking treaty.”
“ADNOC’s investment decisions in the next few years will make it the second largest expander of oil and gas production globally, despite clear warnings from the International Energy Agency and the UN that any new oil and gas production is incompatible with limiting warming to 1.5°C. ADNOC will surely tout its investments in renewable energy but the reality is that the climate talks will be run by the CEO of a company betting on climate failure. These are the worst possible credentials for an upcoming Cop president.”
Zeina Khalil Hajj, the head of global campaigning at the pressure group 350.org, said the decision risked “jeopardising the entire UN climate progress. We are extremely concerned that it will open the floodgates for greenwashing and oil and gas deals to keep exploiting fossil fuels.”
Chiara Liguori, a climate adviser at Amnesty International, urged the government to rethink. “The fact that the UAE is a major oil producer does not bode well for the outcome of Cop28, and the appointment of the head of the national oil company will heighten concerns that the UAE will use its presidency of the climate conference to foster fossil fuel interests,” she said.
“There is still time to reverse course. Sultan Al Jaber should resign from his role with the state oil company, and the UAE’s Cop28 leadership team should include phasing out fossil fuels among its priorities for the conference.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2019/jan/01/how-to-get-better-at-french-victor-hugo-becomes-a-sex-god-in-my-mind | Education | 2019-01-01T08:00:14.000Z | Emma Beddington | Victor Hugo becomes a sex god in my mind' – how to get better at French | Iused to think I was pretty great at French: I could handle a subjunctive and disdained the myriad mangled pronunciations of “millefeuille” on Masterchef. I lived in French-speaking Brussels for 12 years and have a French husband who still tolerates me misgendering the dishwasher after 24 years. My inflated sense of my abilities was bolstered over the years by compliments from surprised French people. Admittedly, the bar is pitifully low for Brits speaking a foreign language: like Samuel Johnson’s dog walking on its hind legs, it’s not done well but people are surprised it’s done at all.
In recent years, however, I have let things slide. My French has become trashy: it’s the language of reality and cooking shows (my staple French televisual diet) and easy chat with indulgent friends. I fear I speak French like Joey Essex speaks English, and since we moved back to the UK this year things have got worse. My only French conversation here is with my husband and it runs a well-worn course: who should empty the bin; why we have no money; which of our teenage sons hates us more. When I try to express something complex, I get stuck mid-sentence, unable to express my thoughts clearly. Words that used to be there, waiting to be used, are awol and I have developed a horrible habit of just saying them in English. My husband understands, so who cares?
But I care. I can’t bear to lose my French; it’s part of who I am. I even wrote a book about it, for God’s sake. I want to speak the language of Molière, if not like Molière then at least like a reasonably articulate adult. So I resolve to not just stop the rot but reverse it. This will involve a multi-pronged approach: online lessons plus conversation classes, supplemented by a diet of French podcasts and reading, including my third attempt at Les Misérables.
Au boulot – to work!
Week one
I take the Institut Français’s online test to check my level. It doesn’t seem difficult but my result – “first step to C1” – is mortifying. I assumed I had C1 (the second-highest level of European official language qualification) in the bag, but if this test could talk it would be saying: “Bof.”
My first online lessons cheer me up: Frantastique (a learning platform developed with the Institut Français, tagline: “Surrender to French”) is a riot. In my first session, I watch a short cartoon in which anarchic aliens incomprehensibly revive a naked, frozen Victor Hugo (beard preserving his modesty), after which I answer grammar and vocabulary questions about it. I enjoy it so much, I do seven lessons in one sitting: Victor visits the alien canteen, but the lack of mustard makes everyone so angry they head to Earth to find more. I’m not sure what I’ve learned – aliens love mustard? – but I’m keen for more.
One-to-one conversation classes at the Alliance Française (which has the mission of promoting French language and culture abroad) are a more serious affair. Christine Grimaud-Brown, my teacher and the director of the York branch, sends me an article on the 21st-century perception of time, no less, to prepare for our first session. It starts off as a relaxed chat and Christine doesn’t correct my mistakes (I secretly yearn for this), but we soon get into fairly abstract territory and speaking to a stranger makes me raise my game. I can tell this will be useful.
For extra speaking practice, I try the Alliance Française’s Café Conversation, a twice-weekly chat for French speakers, with a native facilitator. Anything goes, topic wise: on my first session, we cover cricket (including whether French has a word for “wicket”), pantomimes and green energy; later discussions range from Alzheimer’s to cemeteries and Christmas cake. Levels vary although, broadly, the demographic is at the upper end of the scale: my French is tested explaining “piñata” (“a paper animal in which sweets are placed. One strikes the animal with a stick”) and “Hamilton” (“a popular musical of the American revolution utilising le rap”) to other attendees and to universal confusion. I love it, though, and show off dreadfully.
On my morning dog walks, I plunge into the rigorous world of Le Nouvel Esprit Public, a geopolitics podcast featuring the kind of French intellectuals who would dip Melvyn Bragg in their café au lait and eat him for breakfast. They speak in fluid, impassioned sentences about the US midterms or the Italian budget. It’s exactly the kind of French I aspire to. I also enjoy Passions Médiévistes, in which medievalists describe their esoteric research, but it precipitates a minor existential crisis: why aren’t I researching dragons in medieval prayer books? “J’ai raté ma vie,” (my life is a failure) I mutter, Frenchly.
Week two
Frantastique continues to entertain: Victor Hugo throws a wild party and the aliens hold a pro-mustard demo (“Liberté, Fraternité, Moutarde,” reads one placard). Regrettably but predictably, I have become obsessed with my marks. The questions aren’t difficult but I keep making stupid mistakes, to my own fury. Occasionally I feel hard done by: one afternoon my husband comes home to find me incandescent, brandishing a screengrab of a wood-burning stove.
“What’s this?” I hiss angrily.
“Er, un poêle?”
“It’s not a four is it? I lost a mark for not calling it an oven!”
My conversation class with Christine is about art, so I read the heap of articles she provides, then write an excruciatingly bad essay. It reads like the work of a pretentious but dim 12-year old. “What is art?” I say clunkily, before attempting to describe a Marina Abramović performance (“She washes the bloody bones of a cow for three days”), giving myself the giggles. In class, though, I really enjoy our discussion, and occasionally feel my lazy synapses creak into action, finding the right word or expression.
My reading is patchy. Gaël Faye’s excellent novel Petit Pays, about the genocide in Burundi, teaches me “threadbare”, “calabash” and “serval” (admittedly, I don’t know what the last two actually are). Les Misérables, however, induces instant deep sleep and – now that Frantastique has transformed Victor Hugo into a tiny, naked sex god in my mind – floridly peculiar dreams.
Week three
I test some new podcasts, including Vieille Branche, a series of interviews with older, outspoken and fascinating French public figures (I especially enjoy 88-year-old S&M mistress Catherine Robbe-Grillet). At the other end of the spectrum, I fall in love with Entre: tender, funny conversations with Justine, a sparky and delightful 11-year-old grappling with school, friendships and family. Each episode is five to 10 minutes long, perfect for learners.
In class, we discuss fake news. I feel relaxed talking to Christine, but I notice she has a skilful way of pushing me into expressing more complex ideas with her questions. “Does society still care about truth?” she asks. Or: “Is national character a product of language or vice versa?” Sometimes I answer fluently; sometimes I end up stumbling and stuck.
There are signs of progress. I finally stagger up a level on Frantastique, despite my constant blunders. At Café Conversation, in my capacity as class swot (fayot), I am asked to translate “pick your brain”, “quirky” and “allotment” and as I slalom between shoals of tourists when I leave, a hissed “Pardon” comes to my lips rather than the usual Yorkshire tut.
Week four
My Frantastique experience draws to an ignominious close as I cravenly resort to cheating on the spelling of “environnemental”. Worse, I get 47% one day, due to my apparent inability to follow simple instructions conjugating the imperfect. I will miss Victor, and Gérard, a drooling, mustard-crazed alien blob on whom I have a bit of a crush.
Has my French improved? My general knowledge certainly has: I know more about Breton medieval government, the artist Paul Sérusier and Armenian politics than I ever anticipated. On one glorious occasion in class, I supplied a word Christine had forgotten (“légiférer”, legislate). I have barely started Les Misérables, but already have some vocabulary that would be handy if I were a low-ranking cleric in Restoration France.
Even so, when I retake the Institut Français test, I get that maddening “first step to C1” again. J’suis dég, as I would say in Joey Essex French. I’m gutted, but I shouldn’t be. “At your level, progress is much more subtle,” Christine reassures me. I do think something has started to shift: now when my husband and I watch the news, I find myself moved to launch into fluent sentences of Gallic vitriol at the sight of Jacob Rees-Mogg rather than Anglo-Saxon expletives. Better still, I have been powerfully reminded what I love about France and French: that fiercely cerebral public culture and the sheer beauty of its words. In one podcast someone casually uses “lacustre” (lacustrine, meaning of or relating to lakes); it’s so lovely I have to stop and write it down. By Victor Hugo’s beard, I will rise above my trash French and become the kind of person who says lacustre.
Jupiter, king of the gods ... to be jupitérien is to be haughty in the manner of Emmanuel Macron. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo
How to sound ‘with it’ in French …
From vloggeuse to startupeur or swag, most “hip” French words are English ones: chatbot, queer and cosplay all entered the Petit Robert dictionary this year. But here are a few that keep a Gallic flavour.
Mecspliquer To mansplain. A mot-valise (portmanteau word) composed of mec (guy) and expliquer (to explain).
Lourd Literally “heavy”, and generally used to mean tiresome, but now, in an adult-bamboozling plot twist, it means good, pleasing. C’est du lourd or ça envoie du lourd = it is impressive. The verlan (backwards slang) version, relou, is still used to mean annoying, or a pain. All clear? Clair comme de l’eau de boudin (as clear as black pudding water, another great expression).
PTDR Pété de rire, literally “broken with mirth”, the French LOL. Although, of course, most French people use “LOL”.
Pécho To seduce, get together with, hook up. Verlan of choper (to seize or get).
J’ai le seum I am displeased/angry/disappointed.
J’ai failli pécho ce gars, mais il a commencé à me mecspliquer ma propre thèse doctorale. C’est archi-relou, j’ai le seum. I nearly hooked up with this guy, but he started to mansplain my own PhD thesis to me. It’s such a pain, I’m gutted.
… and how to sound like an intellectual
Give your conversation a soupçon of Left Bank va-va-voom.
Langage épicène Also known as écriture inclusive, this controversial but increasingly popular typography style uses a point médian, a sort of decimal point, to create gender-neutral nouns. So a person reading this would be un·e lecteur·rice and the person writing it would be be un·e journaliste (or un·e idiot·e). Last year the French prime minister, Édouard Philippe, banned the point médian in official documents with an inflammatory declaration that “the masculine is a neutral form”.
Jupitérien From Jupiter, king of the gods. Applied to Emmanuel Macron’s presidential style (he used the term to contrast with the more down-to-earth approach of his predecessor, François Hollande), it implies a degree of deliberate distance and grandeur and is now used by his critics to suggest he is haughty or arrogant. Telling a teenager to call you “Monsieur le Président” = jupitérien.
Cartésien My go-to word to sound intelligent in French. Derived from philosopher René Descartes, it’s used generically to mean “logical” or “rational”. Du point de vue purement cartésien (from a purely rational perspective) is a good (inflammatory) start to a sentence in a French argument.
Charge mentale Mental load or burden. A hot topic of feminist debate following the publication last year of cartoonist Emma’s Fallait Demander – You Should Have Asked – on women’s experience of continually having to anticipate and meet their families’ myriad needs. The Twitter account @chargementale collates some of the most egregious examples of paternal ineptitude encountered by doctors in French paediatrics.
J’ai commencé à voir tout le temps des crabes autour de moi I started to see crabs around me all the time. Not an everyday expression, but handy if you wish to reproduce Jean-Paul Sartre’s ill-advised 1970s experiment with mescaline. Life as a French intellectual is a dangerous business. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/08/trigger-warnings-arent-the-campus-censorship-woe-opponents-believe | Opinion | 2015-12-08T11:45:33.000Z | Jessica Valenti | Trigger warnings aren't the campus censorship woe opponents believe | Jessica Valenti | We’ve heard it many times before: college students are coddled, politically correct children who can’t take a joke, enjoy a holiday or even fulfill the requirements of a class without wanting professorial hand-holding. The proof of this round generalization of an entire generation? Trigger warnings.
Trigger warnings don’t hinder freedom of expression: they expand it
Lindy West
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For the past few years, trigger warnings – a written or verbal heads up that the content of an assignment, article, movie, etc might contain material potentially upsetting (“triggering”) for trauma survivors – have been at the center of conversation around young people, most of it quite negative. But a new study shows that the actual use and influence of trigger warnings are so low as to be almost nonexistent.
As it turns out, the whining babies afraid of some imagined slight weren’t college students after all.
According to the National Coalition Against Censorship, while over 60% of college instructors think that trigger warnings “pose a threat to academic freedom”, only 7.5% of them say that students have tried to require the practice on their campus and 15% had students request warnings in their courses. But the most shocking number, considering the years of panicked hot takes on the subject, is that of the people surveyed, less than 1% said their institution requires trigger warnings.
As Jesse Singal at New York Magazine points out, the national debate on college students and trigger warnings has always seemed to lack hard evidence, instead relying on a small number of anecdotes to fuel the outrage. One that comes up again and again, for example, is how Oberlin College released a document explaining triggers and how to avoid them in the classroom. But when faculty raised important and understandable questions, the administration pulled the language about trigger warnings from the document.
Students didn’t storm the administration building in protest; there wasn’t a huge uproar on campus. Teachers simply voiced concerns and those concerns were heard – not quite the campus controversy pundits seem to want it to be.
I understand the worry around mandated trigger warnings, and agree with feminists like Roxane Gay, who writes that the practice offers an illusion of safety that’s not really there, and Tressie McMillan Cottom, who notes that warnings aren’t affixed to the real sites of oppression on campus. I also believe, as someone who has suffered from PTSD, that people’s triggers are so varied it’s near impossible to anticipate what might cause a reaction.
Trigger warnings on classic literature are one small step from book banning
Jen Doll
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It’s a subject that absolutely does need thinking about, conversation and debate – but not at an overblown level that paints college students with such a broad brush, and not at the expense of what is really happening at universities across the country.
Another interesting statistic from this new study is that nearly a quarter of instructors surveyed say that at some point they’ve provided a “warning about course content” – not a trigger warning, or a college-mandated statement. Just a heads up in the syllabus, presumably – as my colleague Lindy West put it – to treat students, especially those from marginalized communities, with a modicum of “respect and humanity”. How controversial. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/jun/25/oil-firm-petrofac-tory-donor-ayman-asfari-refusing-pay-bill | Business | 2018-06-25T12:42:45.000Z | David Pegg | Oil firm headed by Tory donor refused to pay £14m consultancy bill | A multinational company run by a major Conservative donor has refused to pay a consultant it hired to advise on a potential contract in Saudi Arabia after the Serious Fraud Office launched an investigation into its activities, according to court documents.
The oil and gas services company Petrofac, headed by Ayman Asfari, had received an invoice from Urbania International Management Consultancy for 71m UAE dirhams (£14m).
However, in court papers filed in Jersey, Urbania alleged that Petrofac refused to settle its bill after the SFO launched the investigation into the oil company’s activities, arguing it would not be “appropriate” to make the payment.
Asfari has donated almost £700,000 to the Conservatives since 2009 and is a member of the Leader’s Group, an elite circle of donors who are invited to private lunches with the party’s leaders in exchange for donating £50,000 a year. Asfari’s wife, Sawsan, has also donated at least £100,000 over the past three years, according to the Electoral Commission.
He is also one of the prime minister’s business ambassadors, holding meetings on behalf of the British government while travelling overseas.
The SFO has been investigating allegations of large-scale bribery in the oil and gas industry for two years. In May last year, Petrofac announced that Asfari and its chief operating officer, Marwan Chedid, had been arrested by the SFO and questioned under caution. Its shares fell by more than £630m after the announcement.
Both were subsequently released without charge. Asfari, Petrofac’s chief executive, remained in post but was excluded from all matters relating to the SFO investigation, while Chedid was suspended. Chedid has since left the position.
According to documents filed with the royal court of Jersey, a services agreement stipulated that if Petrofac won a contract to supply work to the Fadhili gas programme in Saudi Arabia, Urbania would receive 1.25% of the contract’s value as a fee for its services.
The services included helping to develop a winning proposal to secure the tender and providing advice on regional requirements, market conditions and laws, according to the judgment of the Jersey court.
Following the award of the contract to Petrofac, Urbania submitted an invoice for its work. On 10 May 2017, Paolo Bonucci, the group head of business development at Petrofac, told Amer Samhoun of Urbania the company had “already started processing it”. Two days later, the SFO announced its investigation into Petrofac.
In August, Petrofac’s legal advisers, Freshfields, sent Urbania’s representatives a letter stating that the invoice would not be paid.
“In light of the SFO’s investigation extending to Petrofac’s agents, it is not considered appropriate, at this point in time, for Petrofac to authorise payments of Urbania’s outstanding invoice,” they wrote.
Four days later, Urbania started legal proceedings against Petrofac, which argued that court proceedings should be stayed and the dispute resolved by arbitration instead. The royal court sided with Urbania and declined to stay the proceedings.
Petrofac said: “This court decision related to a dispute on a point of Jersey law between ourselves and a provider of technical support services with whom we no longer have a relationship. We were disappointed by the outcome but respect the royal court of Jersey’s decision.”
Urbania’s lawyers said the company “has no knowledge as to why Petrofac failed to make payment on time” and said there was no suggestion of any wrongdoing by its client.
The SFO’s investigation into Petrofac was launched as a result of a separate bribery and corruption investigation into the Monaco-based oil and gas services company Unaoil, which has denied any wrongdoing. Urbania has no connection to Unaoil, according to the Jersey judgment.
If you would like to pass on information in confidence, you can send a message via the Guardian’s SecureDrop service. See how here | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/mar/14/boris-johnson-to-give-televised-partygate-evidence | Politics | 2023-03-14T14:25:50.000Z | Jessica Elgot | Boris Johnson to give televised Partygate evidence | Boris Johnson will give his first televised evidence next Wednesday on whether he misled parliament over Partygate, the privileges committee has announced.
The committee, which is chaired by the Labour MP Harriet Harman, has said the former prime minister has accepted an invitation to give evidence at 2pm on 22 March.
His appearance will come after an interim report by the cross-party committee found there was significant evidence he misled MPs over lockdown parties, and that he and aides almost certainly knew at the time that they were breaking rules.
The damning report includes one witness saying the then prime minister told a packed No 10 gathering in November 2020, when strict Covid restrictions were in force, that “this is probably the most unsocially distanced gathering in the UK right now”.
Other new evidence includes a message from a No 10 official in April 2021, six months before the first reports of parties emerged, saying a colleague was “worried about leaks of PM having a piss-up – and to be fair I don’t think it’s unwarranted”.
The session will be held in public and includes questioning from all of the committee’s members – four Conservative MPs, two Labour and one SNP.
Johnson has also been offered the chance to provide written evidence to the inquiry setting out his response, should he wish, in advance of the oral evidence session.
Any response will be published, the committee said, and added that it had already disclosed all evidence submitted to the inquiry so far to Johnson “under secure conditions”.
The interim report published last month was intended to give Johnson notice of lines of inquiry before he testifies later this month.
“There is evidence that the House of Commons may have been misled in the following ways, which the committee will explore,” the report said, giving four examples, all backed up by lengthy footnotes.
A formal finding that Johnson deliberately misled parliament could result in him being suspended. Under parliamentary rules, an exclusion of 14 days or longer would mean Johnson’s constituents could seek a recall petition to remove him as their MP, a viable occurrence given the slim majority in his west London seat of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.
Johnson – who was forced out as prime minister last summer after Conservative MPs tired of repeated controversies – responded to the report with an immediate and orchestrated fightback, seeking to discredit the findings and the committee. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/14/their-system-is-broken-the-people-caught-up-in-home-office-it-chaos | Politics | 2024-03-14T15:00:27.000Z | Diane Taylor | ‘Their system is broken’: the people caught up in Home Office IT chaos | Jorge Gomez, a Nicaraguan refugee, says he has called the Home Office more than 100 times to try to sort out the problems he has had with proving he has the right to work in the UK.
A rugby player who previously played for his national team in Nicaragua, Gomez, 28, fought for four years before he was granted leave to remain in the UK on the grounds that he had experienced political persecution in his home country.
He believed that after he was recognised as a refugee in December 2022 his troubles would be over. More than a year later he was still struggling. This time the issue was IT-related.
Gomez is one of tens of thousands of migrants and refugees who have been victims of a Home Office database fiasco, according to documents leaked to the Guardian. The problem has merged the identities of people within a huge government database, meaning people logging on have found photographs or visa details often relating to complete strangers attached to their records.
The Home Office initially delayed sending Gomez his biometric residence permit (BRP) for four months, until April 2023. He applied for three jobs but was unable to take up any offers as he had no proof of his right to work. When he eventually received his permit, he was unable to generate a reference number, known as a share code, which allows prospective employers to confirm a person’s legal right to work in the UK. His online account has never worked.
“The Home Office’s digital system is completely broken. They have been playing ping pong with me instead of sorting this out,” he said. “I have called them more than a hundred times. I feel so vulnerable because when I log on I still don’t have a share code and it says I’m not eligible to work even though I am. I feel that the Home Office has damaged my life and my mental health.”
Gomez is not alone. A refugee from Zimbabwe told the Guardian that her identity and photograph had been mixed up with that of another woman. “When I logged into my account last November I found my photo had been removed and there were three photos of another woman in its place. I thought my identity had been stolen,” she said.
“When I called the Home Office and told the official what I was seeing on the screen, they said: ‘I’m not seeing what you’re seeing.’ I was made to feel as if I was imagining it,” she added. “Each time I rang them I was given a different explanation of what had happened. It reminds me of the Post Office scandal. Because of this system we are being made to feel like failures although it is the system that has failed us.”
Agnieszka Maciak, from Poland, said she spent three months unemployed because she was unable to sort out problems with her online account. “I got a job offer and logged on to my settled status but found my photo with somebody else’s visa,” she said.
One refugee received three different BRP cards with his name on, each one bearing a different national insurance number. His case worker described the system as “a mess”. “Sometimes one parent in a family will get the card and NI number and the other won’t, meaning they can’t apply for benefits,” she said.
A Swedish woman who works at a UK university described her experience as “Kafkaesque” and said she was in a constant state of stress.
She has pre-settled status as an EU citizen and was informed this status was being extended, but when she logged on to the system she had “a nasty surprise to find a message saying I don’t have the right to reside in the UK”. She said: “I have the right to access NHS treatment but was sent a letter from the NHS saying I will have to start paying for my treatment. The whole system is Kafkaesque and there’s nothing you can do.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The impact is predominantly on the efficiency of our own processes. Steps have been taken to mitigate any risks for people and address the issues as quickly as possible.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jun/23/pina-bausch-rite-of-spring-dancing-at-dusk-senegal-african-dance | Stage | 2020-06-23T14:28:48.000Z | Lyndsey Winship | Sun, sand, human sacrifice: Rite of Spring danced on a beach as the world shut down | Dresses rippling in the wind, sand beneath their feet, a sky fading to a heathery dusk as dancers sway and thrash to the urgent, ominous chords of Stravinsky’s music. This is Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring as it’s never been seen before.
Earlier this year, proving yet again that some remarkable moments can come out of global crisis, 38 dancers from 14 African countries gathered at the Ecole des Sables, a dance school an hour from the Senegalese capital, Dakar. They were there to recreate Bausch’s 1975 masterpiece, a reinterpretation of the infamous Ballets Russes work depicting the pagan ritual of a sacrificial maiden dancing herself to death.
This new project – devised by Bausch’s son Salomon and Ecole des Sables’ director Germaine Acogny, known as the “mother of African contemporary dance” – hoped to bring a different energy to the 45-year-old dance work. Made with London’s Sadler’s Wells, it was to be premiered in Dakar on 25 March, before touring to Bausch’s home town of Wuppertal in Germany and London in April and May. But then coronavirus upturned all that.
‘A beautiful adventure’ … Mohamed Y Shika at Ecole Des Sables. Photograph: Abdoul Mujyambere
“It was a real shock,” says dancer Serge Arthur Dodo, speaking via translator over video from his home in Ivory Coast. “That morning we had our first complete run-through and it went well. The month and a half of hard work was paying off. We were performing in 10 days’ time so we were really excited when we all went for lunch. And then they made the announcement and all public gatherings and performances were forbidden. It was a total contrast to the emotions of the morning. It felt like everything was in slow motion.”
In the background, however, things were on fast-forward as the show’s producers hastily remade their plans – including dealing with a shipping container full of peat that had just arrived at a nearby port as part of the set – and began trying to book everyone flights home before borders closed. This was made more difficult because the dancers’ passports were in Paris waiting for visas for the European tour; three were unable to beat the clock and are still in Senegal.
Six weeks earlier, the young company were strangers tackling a completely new way of moving. Now, as a group bonded over their “beautiful adventure”, as Togolese dancer Anique Ayiboe puts it, there was huge disappointment. Then Salomon Bausch proposed a final run-through on the beach, which was captured by a documentary film crew who were following the dancers.
Intense performances … dancers Gloria Biachi and Serge Arthur Dodo. Photograph: Polyphem Filmproduktion
Performing on sand had its own challenges. “It was really stressful trying to do these movements,” says Ayiboe, who danced the role of the Chosen One. “But once the music started and the girls started to enter the stage, we just went for it.” Dodo adds: “There was this last push of doing it all together.” It’s certainly an atmospheric setting, the ruffling wind and vast sky adding to the elemental character of the piece, humans at the mercy of nature. The moment brings some intense performances from the dancers.
Dodo admits they didn’t really grasp the enormity of the situation immediately. There was still a birthday party planned for that night, and a trip to the swimming pool the next day. But, amid their farewell celebrations, they performed their own rituals that recognised the gravity of their circumstances. “We made a massive fire and gathered around it and prayed,” says Dodo, “for the health of everybody on the team, for us to come back together and for the world as a whole. And the day after, we sacrificed a sheep and it was a moment to pray and eat and share the meat. That moment around the fire was a very strong moment.” Ayiboe calls it “an exceptional response to this very exceptional situation”.
You can’t help but see the parallel with the Rite of Spring, with its story of sacrifice – albeit of a very different kind – and the power of ritual, community and the forces of nature. “In Africa as a whole, [animal] sacrifices are part of cultural tradition,” says Dodo. “So we feel that link when we’re performing the piece.” Ayiboe agrees: “When I dance the Chosen One’s solo, there’s a very strong connection between my traditions, my culture and the dance.”
“The way I see it,” adds Dodo, “it’s not about doing something, but living it. So when we’re performing that piece, we’re not pretending. We’re living our traditions.”
Dancing at Dusk: A Moment With Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring will be available to rent from the Sadler’s Wells website, 1-31 July. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/21/lord-rennard-why-sexual-harassment-matters | Opinion | 2014-01-21T06:00:00.000Z | Polly Toynbee | For all Lord Rennard's supporters: a guide to sexual harassment, and why it matters | Polly Toynbee | What are the women whingeing about? If a grown woman can't handle a hand on her knee, she's probably not fit for the rough and tumble of the workplace. Men do try it on, but surely the women could politely tell the portly peer with the wandering hands that they're not interested. Why quite such a fuss when nothing much actually happened? Either these four women are over-sensitive or else they must be part of some conspiracy.
That's the gist of one side of the argument among Lib Dem peers who cheered Lord Rennard last week, two to one in his favour. Now the stand-off has been put back on ice: another inquiry and a disciplinary procedure to see if he brought the party into disrepute by refusing to apologise. He says he can't, for fear of being sued. Others say Nick Clegg should have sat him down and cobbled together one of those non-apologies that go "Sorry if some people have taken offence". But with blood boiling on both sides, this only freezes the dilemma. The party is in disrepute.
One MEP said Rennard's behaviour was no different to the bottom-pinching Italian men of yore. But most Rennard defenders adopt the kind of "common sense" attitude that has dogged every attempt to improve women's position since the suffragettes. Remember David Cameron's patronising "Calm down, dear" – there it was again in Clegg's complaint today that the argument around Rennard was "shrill". Such mild put-downs are harder to confront than full-frontal misogyny.
But these cases are deadly: Rennard's reputation is shot, but his four women accusers stand disbelieved, with their claims not "beyond reasonable doubt". With QC Alistair Webster's report being secret, all we are left with is the impression that one man's evidence seems to have carried more weight than four women complainants, sharia style.
For those who had never heard of Lord Rennard, in the teacup of the Lib Dem party he is a storming figure. Magician of Lib Dem byelection victories, many senior figures owe their selection, election or preferment to him. Few forget the whisker-thin Clegg-Huhne leadership contest when the Christmas post delayed the postal ballots. Those votes were heavily pro-Huhne, but the Clegg side demanded they be ignored: Rennard adjudicated in Clegg's favour.
So Rennard had immense power over the four women aspiring to be Lib Dem candidates. If he did what they claim, then surely only that power would have given this physically unprepossessing man the nerve to try his luck with younger more attractive women. Did an implied "come up and see my target seat" let a political supremo make passes at women well out of his league – or did they make it up and risk all for mischief?
Sexual harassment is all about power. When that phrase first flew across the Atlantic, we didn't know how to pronounce it: harassment or harassment? Nor did we know how bad it had to be before it counted, along the continuum all the way to rape. Back then groping, pinching and outright sexual threats were commonplace. New girls – and "girls" we were – were warned of the worst leches, that it was not safe to be alone in their offices. But no one complained because no one would listen, and it would mark you down as trouble and no fun. In a 1980s newsroom where I was the only woman editor, other women came to me wondering what to do about an editor who promoted via his bedroom and demoted those who refused. A man with power at work over a woman can never have a fair and equal relationship: how will it end, what happens to her if they break up? Whose job is at risk? Never his.
Costly employment tribunal cases taken by brave women may make men more circumspect. As cases are now unearthed from yesteryear, some complain they're from another age, another culture: if so, any culture change is only because some women dare to call out their abusers. But read the evidence from the Everyday Sexism Project and the change looks cosmetic, with more than 10,000 complaints about workplace harassment received last year – still so insidious, with victims so vulnerable.
How will women in politics feel on hearing these four complainants only suffered "behaviour that violates their personal space and autonomy"? Westminster remains a man's palace, its 22% women MPs too few to tip the balance. Neither Tories nor Lib Dems learn from Labour that the only way women break past men's barricades is with women-only shortlists and quotas. Douglas Hurd voiced what both parties think when he said last week that things are "slightly ludicrous" when parties think "there ought to be more women in this or that sphere of our life".
Tory politicians' use and abuse of women subordinates is well documented. The Lib Dems were always bad on women: around Jeremy Thorpe was a curious closet-gay coterie unwelcoming to women. Oddly, that unfriendly-to-women aura remained in not-gay David Steel's milieu. Lib Dem women's voices are few, with no uprising over this. Labour may promote more women, but more than one cabinet minister needed his women staff protected from slobbery kisses and aggressive fumblings.
Power may be an aphrodisiac, but it certainly gives otherwise unappealing men the chutzpah to imagine so. Touching up women at work is a way to exert power, often an act of aggression to keep them in their place: underneath it all, women's realm is the bedroom. The politics of sex are too difficult to navigate, men complain. At work, as at home, the only etiquette question is who has the power. And what women hear again from the Lib Dems is, "Not you." | Full |
Subsets and Splits