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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/dec/20/tell-us-miscarriage-pregnancy-roe-v-wade-abortion | Society | 2023-12-20T20:33:28.000Z | Guardian community team | Tell us your story: have you experienced a miscarriage in the US? | Up to one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage, according to the National Library of Medicine. Despite its ubiquity, the experience is rarely discussed. And after the fall of Roe v Wade, many women are facing isolation and fear of retribution.
A grand jury is set to decide whether an Ohio woman who miscarried a nonviable fetus at 22 weeks should face criminal consequences. Brittany Watts, who was reportedly turned into the police after her September miscarriage, has been charged with “abuse of a corpse”. The charges sparked outrage, prompting many women around the country to recount their own miscarriages.
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https://www.theguardian.com/news/2006/jan/26/guardianobituaries.filmnews | Film | 2006-01-26T00:38:45.000Z | Kim Newman | Obituary: Pat Morita | Pat Morita, the first Asian-American to be nominated for an Oscar - as best supporting actor in The Karate Kid (1984) - has died of natural causes, aged 73. In the film he played Mr Miyagi, the janitor who tutors Ralph Macchio in martial arts. It became Morita's signature role and afforded him the catchphrase "Wax on . . . wax off".
He lost out in the Oscar stakes to the Cambodian Haing Ngor, who co-starred in The Killing Fields, but Morita's Miyagi was the only character to remain in all three sequels, The Karate Kid, Part II, The Karate Kid, Part III and The New Karate Kid, which introduced Hilary Swank as Miyagi's next pupil.
Born in Isleton, California, the son of migrant fruit pickers, Morita contracted spinal tuberculosis at the age of two and spent most of his first 10 years in a sanatorium. At 11, finally able to walk after extensive surgery, he and his family were confined to a wartime internment camp, along with most Americans of Japanese descent. After the war, he ran a Chinese restaurant, and worked with the department of motor vehicles and the Aerojet General Corporation before moving into show business as a stand-up comedian.
He billed himself, embarrassingly in retrospect, as "The Hip Nip" and performed in San Francisco, Las Vegas and Los Angeles, opening shows for, among others, Ella Fitzgerald and Johnny Mathis.
He began his screen career inauspiciously in 1967 with the role of Oriental Number 2 in Thoroughly Modern Millie, and took comic bit-parts in forgettable 1970s romps like Every Little Crook; Nanny, Where Does It Hurt?; and I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now. With only a small pool of Asian faces active in Hollywood, he also found himself in war pictures, miscast as an admiral in Midway, and drawing on personal experience for the 1976 TV movie Farewell to Manzanar, about the American wartime internment camps.
He found more success on television, first with guest spots on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, M*A*S*H and Sanford and Son, then as Arnold, owner of the teenage hang-out, in Happy Days. In 1976, he became the first Asian-American to star in an American TV series, the failed sit-com Mr T and Tina; in 1987, after becoming an iconic face through Karate Kid, he created and starred in Ohara, a shortlived, but admirable detective show. He continued to guest on programmes such as The Outer Limits and Caroline in the City, and had a role, as Hideki Tanaka, in Baywatch.
Sadly, however, the success of the Karate Kid films did not lead to more substantial roles and Morita became one of those actors who reprise their best-known schtick in increasingly obscure straight-to-video items like Collision Course, Night Patrol, Big Bird in Japan, Extralarge: Ninja Shadow, Auntie Lee's Meat Pies, Timemaster, American Ninja V, Bloodsport III, King Cobra, 18 Fingers of Death! and The Karate Dog. His biggest post-Miyagi credit was as the voice of the Emperor in Disney's 1998 animated feature Mulan. Again, he returned for the negligible, straight- to-video sequel, Mulan II.
Though in failing health, Morita continued to work, completing six films in the last two years of his life. He was married four times, finally to the actor Evelyn Guerrero, and had five children. His wife survives him.
· Noriyuki 'Pat' Morita, actor, born June 28 1932; died November 24 2005 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/01/boko-haram-step-up-violence-nigerian-army-islamist-militant-cell-broken-up | World news | 2014-07-01T17:51:17.000Z | Monica Mark | Nigerian army says Islamist cell broken up as Boko Haram increases attacks | Nigeria's military said it had broken up a Boko Haram cell that masterminded the kidnap of more than 200 girls in April, hours before a bomb blast struck a busy market in Maiduguri, the capital of the Islamist insurgents' home state of Borno.
In the first public arrest over the abductions, which sparked international outrage, police said on Tuesday they had detained Babuji Ya'ari, the cell's ringleader who "participated actively" in the kidnappings of the Chibok schoolgirls.
"Babuji Ya'ari has been coordinating several deadly attacks in Maiduguri since 2011, including the daring attacks on customs and military locations as well as the planting of IEDs [improvised explosive devices] in several locations in the town," said a defence ministry spokesman.
He said Ya'ari, a businessman who sells tricycles, had lived a double life as a member of a civilian vigilante group, whose numbers have grown as Boko Haram's bloody campaign to impose a Muslim caliphate enters its fifth year.
A soldier told the Guardian that the vast majority of Civilian JTF members – named after the elite army Joint Taskforce spearheading the fight against the militants – were neither vetted nor trained in counterinsurgency tactics.
"They are very good at giving us information because many of the Boko Haram members are people they know, people who have grown up with them," the Maiduguri-based soldier said. "But the fact of the matter is that they are not professionals – anyone can go and join them and we have no way of knowing what that person really believes."
Nigeria's military often claims arrests – some of which national and foreign security sources say have yielded valuable information. But more often, no further public information is provided once arrests have been made, and suspects rarely stand trial.
"There is no transparency at all on what happens to detainees, and that is something the military has never even attempted to rectify," said Abdullahi Wase, a criminology professor at Jos University, who has tracked military arrests for several years.
President Goodluck Jonathan's administration has been under fire for its handling of the abduction, in which the insurgents launched a three-hour attack on Chibok with barely any resistance. A confidential government report last month concluded 219 girls are still missing.
The attack prompted special forces from the US and UK to increase counter-terrorism assistance, although the US began scaling back surveillance flights to accommodate increased surveillance over Iraq late last month, US defence officials said.
Two women were also arrested in the military swoop. One, named as Hafsat Bako, is accused of coordinating the fighters' pay. "In her confession, she disclosed that a minimum of 10,000 naira [£40] is paid to each operative depending on the enormity of his task," the army said.
A suicide bomber struck Maiduguri's Monday market during the early morning rush hour. "The attack was in the area where villagers come from [the interior] to sell charcoal. There were so many dead people," a resident, Abubakar Garba, said.
Boko Haram has stepped up attacks in the week leading up to Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and less than a year ahead of elections. A bomb in a medical school in the northern capital of Kano has left eight dead, while a barrack attack killed several dozen. On Sunday, fighters killed at least 30 in four churches just a few miles from Chibok.
In the capital, Abuja, a huge bomb at a mall killed at least 24 people. "I've never seen the city quite like this before. People are just staying at home as much as possible – it's scary," said Ernest Nwokolo, a hairdresser who said business had almost ground to a halt since the bombing.
At least 2,000 have been killed this year, compared with an estimated 3,600 in the four years since the insurgency began. . | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/may/04/citizen-sleeper-review-an-evocative-cyberpunk-survival-sim | Games | 2022-05-04T08:00:02.000Z | Lewis Packwood | Citizen Sleeper review – an evocative cyberpunk survival sim | If your brain were copied and placed in a robot body, would it then have human rights? That’s the thorny issue at the heart of Citizen Sleeper, a game set on a run-down space station called Erlin’s Eye in the far-flung future. In this reality, AI is strictly controlled and artificial beings that achieve sentience are hunted down and destroyed, Blade Runner-style. But “emulated” humans known as sleepers offer a loophole, being neither fully artificial nor fully human.
Nefarious megacorporations will pay desperate volunteers handsomely for the right to emulate their brain. The person’s memories are then excised before their cloned mind is pitched into a robot body and worked remorselessly. Sleepers are a classless entity owned by a corporation, who have no idea of who they once were yet retain human feelings.
The game casts you as a sleeper who has just escaped from a life of company slavery. You arrive on Erlin’s Eye as a stowaway and must struggle to survive. Finding food is a daily necessity: despite their artificial bodies, sleepers still need to eat. More problematic is your body’s built-in obsolescence. Unless you receive regular doses of a proprietary serum, your robot body will decay – an insurance policy from your maker, Essen-Arp, to ensure that no one else can profit from company property. Worst of all, Essen-Arp wants its sleeper back and is tracking your every move.
Each day, or “cycle”, you are given five dice, which you can assign to tasks around the station, such as unloading cargo from a space freighter or helping out at a space bar. Each job has a positive, neutral or negative outcome, and the higher the number on the die the greater the chance you’ll succeed. But there’s never enough time, and never enough dice. Each day your body will degrade further, and you’re constantly forced to choose between earning money to pay for food and serum, or exploring more of the station to find new opportunities and advance the plot. As your body degrades, the number of dice you receive at the start of each cycle is reduced, piling on the pressure.
As with designer Gareth Damian Martin’s previous game, In Other Waters, you mostly interact with the world through descriptions of the things around you, rather than graphical depictions. But here the text is supplemented with some lovely character art by Guillaume Singelin, and the writing is gloriously evocative and compelling. In a sense, there’s nothing new here: the central idea of human brains in artificial bodies has been explored extensively in other sci-fi works. But although Martin draws liberally on many well-worn sci-fi staples, including gruff mercenaries and evil space corporations, he pastes together a convincing portrait of life aboard a creaking space station that feels intriguing and unique.
Clues about the history of Erlin’s Eye and the characters aboard it are steadily drip-fed, and I was compelled to see how the twisting conspiracies and tragic character arcs are resolved. Yet the tension inherent in the first half of the game is largely removed by the end, as you gradually find solutions to your synthetic body’s various problems. The finale is more of a sedate plod to the exit than a frantic dash to the finish line, as you saunter around the station tying up loose threads at your leisure.
You can easily reach one of the game’s multiple endings within a day or two – although you may want to dive back in for a second playthrough to see how different choices would have affected your journey. The characters are so well drawn, literally and figuratively, that it’s tempting to spend as much time as you can in their orbit. It helps, too, that the music is superb, vaguely reminiscent of Blade Runner’s Vangelis soundtrack at times, and it changes subtly with the decisions that you make. It’s just a shame that Citizen Sleeper fizzles out at the point where it’s set to explode. There are far more stories to tell in this fascinating universe, and this is some of the finest video-game sci-fi writing out there.
Citizen Sleeper is out on 5 May; £17.99 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/german-elections-blog-2013/2013/sep/13/angela-merkel-bavaria-german-mood | World news | 2013-09-13T16:50:50.000Z | Kate Connolly | Angela Merkel looks to Bavaria for clue to German electorate's mood | Happy cows, lederhosen and sex dungeons. German politics is boring? Well, not in Bavaria at least, where attention turns this weekend with a poll which will determine whether or not Angela Merkel gets a boost ahead of the national election.
Horst Seehofer, the son of a lorry driver, is poised to regain an absolute majority for the Christian Social Union (CSU) in a state vote which would, according to opinion polls, give fresh impetus to Merkel's chances of reelection on 22 September.
The CSU, sister party of Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU), has governed Bavaria uninterrupted for more than half a century. It is expected to secure almost 50% of the vote in Germany's richest and second most populous state, which is seen as a bellwether for the way the rest of the country will decide.
Seehofer has sought to stress Bavaria's economic success – often referred to as the "laptop and lederhosen" formula – a cosy combination of both progress and tradition, as well as pushing the image of the southern state as a healthy, robust region where the sense of general wellbeing extends even to the happy cows chewing the organic cud on its alpine pastures, and whose general prowess is reflected nowhere more soundly than in the footballing success of Bayern Munich.
Known also as the Free State of Bavaria, the region boasts not only such industrial giants as BMW and Siemens, but also the country's lowest unemployment rate – 3.8%– as well as being home to some of the country's most spectacular landscapes and half the country's breweries.
Seehofer's advisers didn't have to go far to look for suitable campaign venues: as always the state's bevy of beer halls provided the best stamping ground for the state leader, who addressed voters typically dressed in the traditional tight-fitting lederhosen, hunters' hats and flouncy dirndls (milk-maid style frocks) as they downed litre-sized glasses of beer and slapped their thighs to the heavy beat of oompah bands.
While unsurprisingly avoiding any reference to an extramarital affair which produced a child but for which he was forgiven despite Bavaria's entrenched Catholic identity, Seehofer has diligently presented himself as the politician with the working-class roots – the son of a lorry driver, his mother Grete would send him and his siblings to pick up his father's wage packet every Friday to ensure he didn't squander it in the tavern.
He has also been keen to show Bavarians that he is one of the few German politicians who can stand up to "Mutti" ("Mummy"), the nickname for Merkel, taking her to task over a benefit for stay-at-home mothers and a motorway toll for foreigners.
But Merkel will probably be looking less towards Seehofer's performance and more towards the ailing junior coalition partner, the liberal Free Democrats, with whom she governs in Berlin. The FDP is currently polling miserably, below the 5% needed for it to obtain seats in the Bavarian parliament.
The party's chances have certainly not been boosted by revelations that would have given even the New York City mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner a run for his money, after a 55-year-old FDP candidate running under the motto "Bavaria's driving force" was outed as an S&M fetishist.
Hans Müller – a deceptively quotidian name under the circumstances – was revealed as "Master HM", promoting his profile on the public online sex portal Sklavenzentrale (Slave Central) where he posed against a cross-shaped torture device commonly found in S&M dungeons, describing himself as "dominant" and "sadistic" and listing no fewer than 85 of his fetishes.
Despite such transgressions, Merkel, whose CDU is unlikely to gain an absolute majority at the national level, would prefer to continue her coalition with the FDP rather than have to embrace the next most likely scenario, a grand coalition with the Social Democrats.
But a weak performance by the party in Bavaria might prompt voters either to shy away from the risk of wasting their votes on a loser party on 22 September, or to make the tactical decision to support the FDP to the detriment of the CDU, thus jeopardising the chancellor's chances of returning to power with the party of her choice. In short, much is at stake on Sunday, when no less than 9.5 million Germans will be eligible to vote.
"The Bavarian election will give us problems regardless of how it turns out," a Merkel deputy told the Süddeutsche Zeitung, recalling the nightmare scenario for the party in the Lower Saxony poll in January, when the CDU leached so many votes to the FDP that its half-Scottish candidate lost the election. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/mar/03/glasgow-faces-reality-commonwealth-games | Cities | 2014-03-03T07:59:00.000Z | Oliver Wainwright | Glasgow faces up to reality of a divided Commonwealth Games legacy | There was an unusually electric thrill in the air at a pensioners' party in the east end of Glasgow, on a cold December evening in 2007. The elderly of Dalmarnock had gathered in a community centre to celebrate the news that their city had beaten off its rivals for the right to host the 2014 Commonwealth Games, a global jamboree to be played out on their very doorstep.
Little could they imagine that, six years later, this lowrise brick building at heart of the community would be reduced to rubble to make way for a coach park. "This place has had its heart ripped out," says Robert Kennedy, a play worker, as he shovels woodchips around an outdoor play area, across the road from where steamrollers press fresh tarmac over the site of the old community centre.
"We used to have a cafe and a chemist, two newsagents and a chip shop, but all that's been flattened. They took away our high street, leaving us without any amenities for the last three years, and what have we got to show for it? A 'transport hub'."
When Glasgow's victory was announced, it was acclaimed as the long-awaited catalyst for the regeneration of the maligned east end of the city; an area that suffers from some of the highest levels of deprivation and unemployment in the UK, where life expectancy is five years below the Scottish average.
The district of Dalmarnock was once a thriving fulcrum of empire, employing tens of thousands in its dyeworks, wireworks and steel industries, forging parts that still grace bridges around the world. Yet the progressive decline of manufacturing, exacerbated by a misguided programme of demolition in the 70s, has seen the population battered down from over 50,000 in the 1950s, to less than 2,000 today.
Dogged by high crime rates, drug-related violence and poor health, the image of the east end has been massaged by the media, and the crocodile tears of Westminster politicians, into a vicious wilderness; a place riddled with decay and ruled by jungle law. The Commonwealth Games, bringing with it sparkling stadiiums and an athletes' village, would be the cleansing salve, promoting inward investment and curing the decades of social ills.
"We have been presented with the best chance in a generation, and possibly a lifetime, to improve the lives and raise the aspirations of every Glaswegian," said Steven Purcell, the then-leader of Glasgow city council. For the country's first minister, Alex Salmond, it was the dream ticket in his bid for independence – "an opportunity to raise our sights as a nation", a televised chance for "the world to see a Scotland that is a modern, vibrant and culturally rich and diverse nation", and for "young people to know about Scotland's place in the world". But, with five months to go before the spotlight is focused on the east end, does the heroic sporting precinct, and the infrastructure laid for its all-important legacy, look and feel like the work of an ambitious independent nation?
The athletes' village for the Games. Photograph: Tom Ross/Rex
Coming from the city centre, travelling east along London Road, evidence of the imminent Games is certainly hard to miss. Squatting on the corner of a busy road junction like a car showroom on steroids, the Emirates Arena stands as a monolithic shed, presenting the street with a 200-metre long wall of grey. At its western end, the facade bulges out in a glassy curve, revealing the presence of the Sir Chris Hoy velodrome within, while the roof continues on oblivious, shooting its bulky frame out in a redundant 20-metre cantilever above a verge.
This £113m megastructure is the combined home of the athletics arena, velodrome and three full-size sports halls, as well as a gym and a luxury spa. It is topped with an oversized lid, says its architects 3DReid, in order to "unify the building and pull all its components together". As he walks me through its echoing halls, councillor Archie Graham, executive member for the Commonwealth Games, reels off the "world-class" statistics of this mindboggling venue, explaining how it saves money by bringing everything together under one roof. And yet, how it sits in its surrounding landscape has been astonishingly ill-conceived.
The new arena stands across the road from Celtic Park football stadium, creating an opportunity, one might think, for relating these two great chunks of sporting infrastructure. Instead, it turns its back on the street, while across the road Celtic are in the process of demolishing a listed Victorian board school building, one of the few historic fragments left in the area, to replace it with a combined superstore, museum and ticket office, to be clad in the same grim, grey panelling. Why not align the venues' entrances, make sense of the public realm – and even provide a pedestrian crossing? "We expect most people to come by car," says Graham. "And that's a busy main road, so it's no place to cross."
As we walk around the other side of the metallic hulk, the arena presents its main entrance to a great, grey carpet that rolls out as far as the eye can see, providing spaces for over 600 cars. Like the building, the car park is raised up on a defensive berm, surrounded by gabion walls and hedgerows, reinforcing the feeling that this alien spaceship is cut off from the surrounding streets. Graham insists the complex is conceived as a "leisure centre for the local community", but neither its form, nor its price list, suggest this is actually the case.
"The membership is astronomical," says David Stewart, a young resident and active member of the Scottish Youth Parliament, who runs youth events in the Dalmarnock Centre's temporary home, just south of the arena. "It's also really expensive to hire a space for our youth groups there, and most local people can't afford the cafe either. It doesn't feel like it's been designed for Dalmarnock."
Next door to the stadium, a purple hoarding marches around a sprawling overgrown plot, where a billboard optimistically trumpets "A Golden Opportunity, Coming Soon!" This was to be a £44m plan for a hotel, leisure and shopping complex, scheduled to bring 400 jobs to the area in time for the games, but has since been put on hold. "A hotel in the east end is unheard of," says Graham, "but we're sure it will happen, when the market picks up."
Spurring the market on its way, this part of the east end, which spreads for 840 hectares around the eastern Cuningar Loop of the river Clyde, has been under the remit of Clyde Gateway () since 2009, a government-funded urban regeneration company set up when the Games was won, to deal with the bounty that is supposed to follow such sporting mega-events. It is charged with bringing 10,000 new homes, 21,000 new jobs and an extra 20,000 people to the area over its 20-year lifespan – as well as £1.5bn of private investment.
"It's the greatest concentration of derelict industrial land in Scotland," says Ian Manson, chief executive of Clyde Gateway and former head of planning at Glasgow city council, as we drive through the swaths of land whose future he will partly determine. "Our challenge is to change the idea of 'that place is a dump', to 'wow, that's a great new place where I want to live and work'." We pass huge plots at various stages of remediation, armies of soil-washing machines cleansing decades of chromium contamination on one site, a line of gleaming new industrial sheds on another, a spanking new speculative office building on a third. We pass a majestic stone theatre at Bridgeton Cross, built in 1911 and long vacant, but now elegantly transformed into a new local library, boxing gym and offices. There are billboards fronting other empty sites, proclaiming the imminent arrival of a national business district and a low-carbon zone, illustrated with generic developer-friendly boxes dressed in glass and metallic cladding.
Aerial view of the athletes' village in Glasgow. Photograph: Picasa
"We are derisking sites to make them more attractive to business," says Manson. "Our primary role is land assembly, decontamination and providing essential infrastructure, giving people the confidence to invest here." Clyde Gateway's proudest achievement, which we drive down, is the bluntly-named East End Regeneration Route, a six-lane A-road that now ploughs through the centre of Dalmarnock, past the arena, to connect two of the city's motorways. "It puts the place on the map and gives businesses a simple, clear address," says Manson. "It opens up the area in terms of perception, as well as physically." As a pedestrian, it feels like it does the exact opposite, severing the urban grain either side of a great infrastructural barrier, driving a violent wedge between Dalmarnock and its local primary school. We come to a junction where the road intersects with a similarly scaled artery, next to the newly-upgraded station: £11m spent on what local residents call a "flashy architectural roof".
"This part of Glasgow is made up of these tightly-knit market crosses," says Manson, "so we're trying to strengthen that character." It is a sound spatial principle, but the reality of this motorway junction, to which fragments of industry cling on next to freshly-cleared development sites, couldn't be further from the human-scaled crosses that characterise historic market centres elsewhere. It feels as if the entire area has been conceived within a series of separate developable boundaries, alongside large pieces of strategic infrastructure, with little thought for how these hefty jigsaw pieces actually join together, and what it is like to experience at street level.
Sadly, this broad-brush approach follows a long tradition of crass planning, continuing Glasgow's irrepressible hunger for roadbuilding. In 1945, the radical Bruce report proposed a system of arterial motorways, converging to form an inner ringroad that would bulldoze through much of the city's historic fabric. It advocated the wholesale demolition a great deal of the centre – including the cherished Central Station, Mackintosh School of Art and Kelvingrove Gallery – in pursuit of a "healthy and beautiful city", drugged by the megalomania of postwar planning. Presenting the road as an ordering device, a highway plan of 1965 declared that: "The very nature of this motorway will define the city into understandable units, each with its own identity … from this it will be possible for the citizen to experience what the city means, how it functions and what it symbolises." The residents whose communities it has sliced through know all too well what such infrastructure symbolises – that their neighbourhoods can be sacrificed for the good of growth. Nor has it helped more recent attempts at icon-building: further west, the variously contorted metallic visitor attractions by Zaha Hadid and Norman Foster lie marooned in a sea of asphalt, severed from the city by the roaring Clydeside Expressway.
Public protest meant only the northern and western flanks of the ringroad were ever built, yet the plan has lingered on like an undead council officer, a malevolent spirit who still drives the direction of infrastructure. The southern flank was finally completed in 2011 as the controversial M74 extension, carving through some of the city's poorest estates, and now the east end Regeneration Route almost completes the choking embrace. While other developed cities tear down or bury their urban motorways, Glasgow presses on regardless as though the 1950s never ended – in a city that has some of the lowest levels of car ownership in the UK.
Walking around the forlorn landscape of fences, sheds and roaring roads that has been inflicted on Dalmarnock, it comes as a surprise to turn a corner and find something of a model housing development, standing opposite the new arena's blank cliff-face. Driven by a consortium of volume housebuilders, and designed by the ill-fated architecture practice RMJM – recently forced into receivership before being rescued by an investment company – the athletes' village did not bode particularly well on paper. Yet with its gently curving streets of brick and timber clad terraces, views of the river framed by projecting gable ends and striking cubic townhouses, it has the generously-planned feel of a modern Dutch suburb.
Working with the housebuilders' standard semi-detached plan types, the architects reconfigured the units to form terraced lengths. A handsome pair of strippedback brick apartment buildings will frame a forthcoming bridge across the river, leading to a woodland park beyond. "Looking at London and Manchester to Delhi and Vancouver, the majority of athletes villages favour big apartment blocks," says Ed Monaghan, chief executive of the City Legacy consortium that built the village. "But in 2009, that market had completely disappeared."
Here the financial crisis had beneficial effects, sparing this riverside site from the kind of eastern bloc concrete behemoths that now loom across Stratford's Olympic site in east London. Instead, the 700 homes – 400 will be available at affordable rent – are arranged as home zone streets and waterside "steadings", with on-plot parking and neighbourly back gardens, while floodable landscaping means the place is threaded with little canals and attenuation ponds.
It promises to be a mixed community, with a new 120-bed care home given pride of place on the corner, and has that rare quality for a games dormitory of feeling like a place you might actually want to live. Indeed, on the first day of sales, 80% of the first batch of units were sold, at prices ranging from £75,000 for a one-bed to £200,000 for a four-bed.
Sir Chris Hoy at the velodrome named after him, in Glasgow. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA
The place is still lacking any meaningful connection with the existing neighbourhood of 1970s and 80s semis (not helped by the brutal imposition of that Commonwealth shed), but a second, post-games phase promises to bring back the shops along the main street – and the much-mourned community centre, thanks to an energetic local campaign.
"I wanted to get away from the negativity surrounding the Games," says Yvonne Kucuk, a community organiser and Labour councillor for the area, who set up the People's Development Trust to ensure maximum local benefit from the regeneration machine. "Instead I thought, 'what can we squeeze out of it?'" After what she describes as a seven-year battle, Kucuk secured £3m for the new centre, which has been designed by local architect William Gunn to house a community hall, cafe, GP surgery, chemist and children's nursery. As well as 60 new jobs, it will provide a welcome screen from the looming arena.
"The regeneration agencies are obsessed with the economic legacy, building these huge roads that split our communities," she says. "But you've got to take the people with you. The Dalmarnock Centre will be the only social legacy of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Once the confetti's blown away, we'll go in and grab it." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2023/jul/10/nicky-campbell-notifies-police-after-being-falsely-identified-in-bbc-presenter-scandal | Media | 2023-07-10T11:35:54.000Z | Haroon Siddique | Nicky Campbell notifies police after being falsely identified in BBC scandal | Nicky Campbell has made a crime report to the police after being falsely accused of being the male BBC presenter who allegedly paid a vulnerable teenager for sexually explicit images.
Campbell said he had had a “distressing weekend” after being falsely named as the household name who it is claimed paid £35,000 over three years to a young person who used the money to fund their crack cocaine habit.
Neither the Sun, which broke the story, nor the BBC have named the presenter in question, leading to speculation on social media as to his identity.
Over the weekend, Campbell posted a screengrab on Twitter of a tweet that contained a photograph of him and the words: “This is the BBC host who paid [a] teenager for sexually explicit photos,” and a screengrab of the Metropolitan police’s website, saying: “Thank you for contacting the Metropolitan police service to report your crime.”
On Monday, Campbell told listeners to his BBC Radio 5 Live programme: “Worse things happen at sea, as they say, but it was a distressing weekend – I can’t deny it – for me and others falsely named. Today I’m having further conversations with the police in terms of malicious communications and with lawyers in terms of defamation.”
Under the Malicious Communications Act, it is an offence to send an electronic communication that is grossly offensive or that is false and known or believed to be false by the sender if the sender’s purpose is to cause distress or anxiety to the recipient. Defamation is a civil action that, if proved, leads to the payment of damages to the victim.
The Twitter account from which the offending message originated has since been deleted.
In his Twitter post highlighting the accusation, Campbell said: “I think it’s important to take a stand. There’s just too many of these people on social media. Thanks for your support friends.”
Campbell’s fellow BBC presenter Jeremy Vine indicated that he too was taking legal action. Responding to a now-deleted tweet, he wrote: “I’ve passed screenshots [of] your messages about me to a lawyer. They are seriously defamatory. They are completely and utterly untrue.” In a further tweet, he said: “I let loads of stuff go on here – but not this. I’ll be in touch soon.”
Other BBC presenters have posted on social media to quash speculation.
Gary Lineker tweeted: “Hate to disappoint the haters but it’s not me.”
Rylan Clark wrote: “Not sure why my name’s floating about but re that story in the Sun – that ain’t me babe. I’m currently filming a show in Italy for the BBC, so take my name out ya mouths.”
The BBC has confirmed that the staff member in question has been suspended. The corporation’s director general, Tim Davie, said he was “wholly condemning the unsubstantiated rumours being made on the internet about some of our presenting talent”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/media/media-blog-australia/2014/oct/16/channel-ten-apologises-for-sexist-family-feud-game-show-questions | Media | 2014-10-16T03:08:17.000Z | Amanda Meade | Channel Ten apologises for sexist Family Feud game show questions | The Ten network has apologised for broadcasting sexist questions on Family Feud after the game show implied a woman’s job was cooking and cleaning and a man’s job was building and plumbing.
Host Grant Denyer asked contestants to “name something people think is a woman’s job” and the “correct answer” according to a survey of 100 people was cooking, followed by cleaning, nursing, hairdressing, domestic duties, dishes, receptionist and clothes washing.
Family Feud’s answers to the question “name something people think is a woman’s job”. Photograph: Supplied
The contestants – two families pitted against each other in trying to guess the most obvious answers – suggested ironing and childcare as suitable jobs for women.
Earlier, Denyer asked them to “name something people think is a man’s job” and the “correct” answers were: builder, plumber, mechanic, carpenter and being a tradesman.
Ten may be the only network with a female head programmer, in Beverley McGarvey, but that clearly didn’t help when the programming department cleared the episode of the pre-recorded show for broadcast. This is not live TV, but heavily edited.
After an outcry on Twitter on Wednesday nights viewers labelled the show misogynist, Ten issued a statement on Thursday morning.
“Network Ten apologises for including two questions relating to what people think is a man’s job and a woman’s job in the episode of Family Feud which aired last night,” a spokesman said.
“The questions were ill advised and should not have been included in the show.
“The survey results are determined by 100 people and we understand they are not reflective of all Australians.”
An old-fashioned format first seen here in 1977, Family Feud was revived this year by Ten with former Seven weather man and game show host Denyer. The US format had last appeared on Nine as Bert’s Family Feud in 2006 and 2007 hosted by Bert Newton.
It could be worse. In the US this week a woman called Joyce was asked: “If you could change one part of your husband’s body, what would it be” and she said “his penis”. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/dec/01/diverse-player-list-makes-scale-of-damage-clear-in-lawsuit-against-world-rugby | Sport | 2023-12-01T20:00:24.000Z | Andy Bull | Diverse player list makes scale of damage clear in lawsuit against World Rugby | Andy Bull | It isn’t a secret any more. The identities of 207 more of the players involved in legal action against World Rugby, and the English and Welsh national unions, have been revealed, and, for the first time, the size and scale of the damage done is becoming clear to the public. It is a diverse list, a mix of men and women, amateurs and professionals, from a range of eras, with various conditions. But they have three things in common: they have all been diagnosed with neurological damage, they all allege it was caused by rugby, and they are all seeking damages from the authorities, accusing them of negligence.
Some played for the British & Irish Lions, some for England, some for Wales. Phil Vickery is one, Gavin Henson another, Mark Regan a third, Colin Charvis a fourth, Ian Gough a fifth, Harry Ellis a sixth. Some, like Duncan Bell, Paul Volley and Paul Sampson, were stalwarts of club rugby, and will be known, and loved, by many who follow the domestic game. Others were recreational players, people you won’t have heard of but who you might well have lined up with, or against, if you were ever a weekend player yourself.
Phil Vickery and Gavin Henson among rugby players in brain injury legal claim
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There are 42 more who are still protected by an anonymity order, because of the concerns about the effect disclosure would have on their mental health. That tells you what a hard moment this must be for many of the men and women whose names have just been made public. The revelation came about, in part, because the defendants chose not to object to it. It was better, they reckoned, to have all the names come out at once instead of allowing them to be released one by one in the media, which is what has been happening for the past three years.
The defendants seem to be tired of fighting the case on TV or in the papers; they want to do it in court instead. Court 75 of the Royal Courts of Justice, to be specific, a low-ceilinged, strip-lit room, with a stopped clock on the wall. Susan Rodway KC, representing the claimants, turned to check it, at one point, when trying to decide how much time she had to work in, and found it was useless to her.
The proceedings themselves have stalled too. The claimants have provided more than 5,000 pages of documents. Senior master Jeremy David Cook seemed, when he first took his seat, a little bewildered by the walls of ringbinders piled up around him. “We should begin with a little housekeeping,” began Rodway. “You should have four binders …” but even this point, the very first of the day, seemed to be open to debate. “I have rather a lot,” Cook replied, casting about at the teetering piles of files. “A huge number, actually.” After five minutes of back-and-forth it turned out that the four binders had, by some kind of binary fission, multiplied into 12 because they were so voluminous.
Unfortunately the medical records required (and previously requested) by the defence during disclosure weren’t among them. This, Cook said, meant “a fundamental and conventional feature was missing” from the submissions. Cook said that there was no doubt in his mind that the case was suitable for some form of group litigation, but that its exact structure still needed to be agreed, and that couldn’t happen until everyone had access to the medical records. As it was, the defence hadn’t yet been able to come up with its own ideas about which cases among the hundreds ought to be put forward as best representative of the rest. He set a date for the next hearing in late April.
Gavin Henson, pictured in action for Wales against Ireland in the 2005 Six Nations, is among the new names revealed to be part of the lawsuit. Photograph: Tom Jenkins/The Guardian
Cook spoke in hot spurts punctuated with exasperated sighs. He had the general air of a hungry man enduring a waiter’s long explanation about the menu when all he really wanted to know was whether he could please have a cheese sandwich. He had, he explained, expected all this to be settled already. “It seems to me,” Cook continued at one point, “to be absolutely basic.” Across the back rows, the defendants’ legal team all nodded their heads in synchronised agreement. World Rugby, the RFU and WRU, are fielding first and second and third XVs of suited and booted lawyers and assistants, and they all wanted to mark the claimants’ homework.
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They are bullish. But you wonder if they are really listening to their own press statement, which said, “We must not forget about the people and players at the heart of this case. The legal action prevents us reaching out to support the players involved, but we want them to know that we care deeply about their struggles, that we are listening and that they are members of the rugby family.”
Kind words. But they will sound awfully hollow to some of the suffering players unless they are followed by caring actions. World Rugby, the RFU and WRU may think they have a case to fight, but in doing so they can’t lose sight of the fact that they have a game, and a lot of wounded men and women, to look after too. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2015/jun/25/black-minority-ethnic-people-shortchanged-mental-health-services | Healthcare Professionals Network | 2015-06-25T06:45:11.000Z | Samir Jeraj | Black and minority ethnic people are shortchanged by mental health services | Ramone is in his mid-20s and with his family emigrated to the UK around 10 years ago from eastern Europe. He developed a severe mental illness that requires long-term care, but is not eligible for treatment. This means that when he becomes extremely ill, he is sectioned (usually by the police) and admitted to a mental health unit where he is medicated to a point where he can be released, with no care afterwards. This pattern has repeated itself for six years.
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People from some black and minority ethnic (BME) backgrounds are more likely to use crisis mental health care. Racism, poor mental health services and stigma are often cited as the reasons for this inequality. However, once in crisis care, many people like Ramone find the care they are offered does not work for them. His was one of dozens of stories we collected at the Race Equality Foundation to show the experiences of BME people, and was used as evidence by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) in their review of mental health crisis care.
What we found mirrored much of the CQC’s findings. People had generally had bad experiences in a crisis system that left them feeling disempowered. They often didn’t believe staff would be caring and compassionate. When asked whether they had complained, they normally responded that they felt nothing would change as a result.
Services such as the police, A&E, social services and the benefit system did not work together to help people affected by mental illness. In fact, these were holding them back, as they were caught in a cycle without the support they needed to work towards recovery.
Where individual staff and services did work together, the results transformed lives. However, in many of the situations we encountered, this had not happened and people had only received crisis care to make them safe in the short term. Left in a state of crisis, there was a failure to address the underlying causes of their distress.
As in other parts of the mental health system, we found that BME people were not being offered psychological “talking” therapies. Instead, medication continued to be the most common treatment, with some people spending years on heavy medication with severe side-effects. Non-compliance usually resulted in individuals being sectioned, yet many were never given the option of a slow, supervised reduction of their medication.
However, we did find some things could really help. Stable housing that supports people to work on their recovery is significant. James, who had been homeless, told us that he would have died on the streets if he hadn’t found his way on to a housing scheme for BME people with severe mental illnesses. Access to benefits, volunteering and work also helped people to recover and prevent future crises.
Black men face inequalities in cancer care
Patrick Vernon
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Many of those we spoke to had experienced, or continued to experience, racism and other forms of discrimination. Having an environment in which they felt able to be themselves was really important for their recovery.
One clear message, also echoed in the CQC report, was that people were happier and more satisfied with services provided by voluntary organisations. However, in some areas, local mental health services had disappeared because of cuts. Someone told me they felt their area has been left “high and dry” following the loss of a local service and its skilled staff. This adds to the already strong sense expressed to us by people from BME communities that their mental health is not a priority.
If we want to close the inequalities in mental health for BME communities, we need to make health services work for them. That means listening, particularly to those who are currently in the system and their carers. It also means supporting the voluntary and community organisations that are meeting the needs of communities and individuals. Without this, it will be impossible for BME people to have confidence in crisis care. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/apr/18/george-floyd-killing-chauvin-trial-verdict-protests | US news | 2021-04-18T18:39:23.000Z | Lois Beckett | George Floyd killing: protests flare as Americans await verdict in Chauvin trial | Protests against police killings flared across the US this weekend, from Minneapolis to Chicago to Portland, as Americans wait for a verdict in the trial of the white police officer charged with murdering George Floyd last year.
Closing arguments are expected in the Derek Chauvin trial on Monday. The most serious charge the former Minneapolis officer is facing in Floyd’s death is second-degree murder, but the jury might choose to find him guilty on third-degree murder or manslaughter, or acquit him altogether.
Chauvin has pleaded not guilty to murder and manslaughter charges, arguing that he was following the training he received during his 19 years on the force.
Benjamin Crump, a civil rights attorney representing the families of Floyd and Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old shot to death in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, by a white police officer during a traffic stop on 11 April, as the Chauvin trial played out, said a guilty verdict for Chauvin could set a precedent in the US.
“The outcome that we pray for and Derek Chauvin is for him to be held criminally liable for killing George Floyd, because we believe that could be a precedent,” Crump told ABC’s This Week on Sunday. “Finally making America live up to its promise of liberty and justice for all. That means all of us – Black people, Hispanic people, Native people – all of us.”
Maxine Waters, one of the most influential Black members of Congress, joined protesters in Brooklyn Center shortly before a curfew on Saturday night, and spoke to them about the need to see accountability for Chauvin.
“I hope that we’re going to get a verdict that says, guilty, guilty, guilty,” Waters said. “And if we don’t, we cannot go away.
“Not manslaughter, no,” Waters added. “This is guilty for murder.”
Protests erupt in US cities over police violence as riot declared in Portland
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Minneapolis is braced for potential citywide protests if Chauvin is acquitted or convicted on one of the lesser charges, with buildings across town boarded up, and national guard troops already in place across the city.
The outcome in the case is expected to resonate nationwide, particularly in cities that have seen continuing demonstrations over police violence.
In Chicago, at least 1,000 people demonstrated in Logan Square on Friday night, in the wake of the public release of a video showing the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
Activist groups in Chicago said that multiple young people at the protest were arrested and at least one 17-year-old seriously assaulted by police. Two young people were arrested, including the 20-year-old son of a Black Lives Matter Chicago organizer, according to the Chicago Tribune.
“There are literal children dying every single day in the city of Chicago, and not just because of the lack of funding that goes to Black and brown communities, but because of the excess funding put into the Chicago police department,” said Alycia Kamil, a 20-year-old organizer with Good Kids Mad City, who attended the Friday night protest.
Kamil said there was an obvious irony in seeing violent police crackdowns on young protesters in Chicago and elsewhere.
“You see youth protesting that they aren’t being protected, that they aren’t being funded, that they’re being murdered by the police, and the reaction is more violence,” Kamil said.
Hundreds of people were expected to gather on Sunday for a “peace walk” in Little Village, the predominantly Latino south-west Chicago neighborhood where Adam lived and was killed. Other vigils were being held around the city to call out racism, and remember Adam and others killed by police.
A man faces the Minnesota state troopers standing guard outside the Brooklyn Center police station after a police officer shot and killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on 12 April. Photograph: Kerem Yucel/AFP/Getty Images
In Portland, the fatal police shooting of Robert Douglas Delgado, a 46-year-old white man and longtime resident, sparked new volatile protests on Friday night.
The protests in Brooklyn Center, a suburb of Minneapolis, was quieter on Saturday night. In an apparent change in police tactics from earlier in the week, officers did not appear en masse to confront protesters. The police headquarters was shielded behind a double layer of fencing. Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, had spoken out earlier on Saturday, calling the reports of police violence towards journalists at Brooklyn Center earlier in the week “unacceptable”.
Dozens of American news organizations had signed on to a letter on Saturday outlining “widespread intimidation, violence and other misconduct directed at journalists” who have been covering the protests in Minnesota, including the treatment of a CNN reporter who was thrown to the ground and arrested. As she was being detained, a Minnesota state trooper reportedly yelled at the reporter, who is Asian American, “Do you speak English?”
Chauvin himself chose not testify at his trial, which featured 10 days of evidence by the prosecution against him, including hours of meticulous testimony by Dr Martin Tobin, and only two days of witnesses called by Chauvin’s defense.
Waters, a California congresswoman, said she had come from Washington to Minneapolis to join the protesters who have demonstrated for a week over the killing of Wright as the Chauvin trial played out.
“We all need to sustain this movement,” Waters told the crowd. “We cannot stop, we cannot hesitate, but we must say every day, every hour that we are going to persist.”
The California congresswoman also noted that she had been pushing for police reform since the 1970s, when she spoke out over the killing of Eula Love, a Black mother in Los Angeles.
While she would like to see Congress pass police reform legislation, Waters said, she was not certain it would get through: “The right wing, the racists, are opposed to it.”
“I know this,” she added. “We’ve got to stay in the street.”
Oliver Laughland contributed reporting | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/apr/11/five-of-the-best-books-about-siblings | Books | 2024-04-11T11:00:29.000Z | Sophie Ratcliffe | Five of the best books about siblings | From the Marx Brothers to George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss, siblings have a funny way of stealing the show. In Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, brothers and sisters are the “first evidence” and “last confirmation” of love – but in other books, riding solo wins out. “Part of the joy of being a novelist,” writes Cólm Tóibín, in the LRB essay collection, Sisters Come Second, “is to erase all trace of siblinghood”. The US calendar marks 10 April as National Sibling Day, but Europeans who choose to celebrate have a little longer to wait (it’s 31 May ).
Just Above My Head by James Baldwin
A brother, for Baldwin’s narrator, Hall Montana, is both a person and a means of comparison. “One’s little brother begins his life,” he reflects, “within the sturdy gates of one’s imagination … he is everything that you are not … Your life can now be written anew on the empty slate of his.” When that once-little brother is found dead “in a pool of blood”, Hall must relearn what his own life means. Blood and bloodlines dominate Baldwin’s musical, painful final novel. Against a sweeping backdrop of Harlem, Africa and Korea, Baldwin’s cast of siblings, friends and lovers tell a story about the families that are given to us, and the ones we create for ourselves.
Siblings by Brigitte Reimann review – rebel with a cause
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Siblings by Brigitte Reimann
Set in the 1960s in what was then the German Democratic Republic, this tense, slim autobiographical novel spans three days in the life of Elisabeth, a painter, as she reflects on her relationship with her brother Uli. The narrative flickers between her memories of their childhood, with all its postwar hardship and her agonising realisation that her beloved brother is planning to defect to the west. A brilliant exploration of what happens when “the myth of sibling love” collides with political ideals, rendered in a sparkling new translation by Lucy Jones.
Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
A cult 60s coming-of-age tale, Cassandra at the Wedding feels very much of its time. Shades of the phoney-hating Holden Caulfield hover around our cool-eyed narrator, as she heads home to “hook-and-zip” her twin sister into her wedding gown, and “take over the bouquet while she received the ring, through the nose or on the finger”. Cassandra’s penchant for brandy, uppers and angst make for increasingly untethered behaviour, and the novel unfurls like a bacchanalian comedy of errors, with plenty of poolside action.
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Mayhem by Sigrid Rausing
Rausing’s account of her brother Hans’s and sister-in-law Eva’s struggles with drug addiction is, in many ways, an ordinary story. The “individuality of addicts”, Rausing writes “is curiously erased by the predictable progress of the disease”. But in this case, the Rausing family’s Tetra Pak fortune, and the grim circumstances around her sister-in-law’s death, created something more seemingly sensational, and her family’s life swiftly became the stuff of tabloid headlines. This is a thoughtful and compelling memoir about guilt, boundaries and the fictions of memory – “the stories that hold a family together, and the acts that can split it apart”.
Home Fire by Kamila Shamsie
A girl begs the authorities to be allowed to bring her twin brother’s body home. The state resists. The story of Antigone is reshaped here for the 21st century, and on a global stage. This time the actors are not warring factions in Thebes but a young man drawn into Islamic State, his family in the UK, and the press that shapes and moulds their stories. With moving characterisation and elegant prose, Shamsie paints a tragedy of faith, loyalty and family on a grand canvas, but stays true to her all-too human characters.
Loss, A Love Story by Sophie Ratcliffe will be published on 15 April by Northwestern University Press. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/23/farmer-wants-a-revolution-how-is-this-not-genocide | Environment | 2017-09-22T22:34:26.000Z | Susan Chenery | Farmer wants a revolution: 'How is this not genocide?' | The kurrajong tree has scars in its wrinkled trunk, the healed wounds run long and vertical under its ancient bark. Standing in front of the homestead, it nestles in a dip on high tableland from which there is a clear view across miles and miles of rolling plains to the coastal range of south-east Australia.
Charles Massy grew up here, on the sweeping Monaro plateau that runs off the eastern flank of Mount Kosciuszko, an only child enveloped by the natural world, running barefoot, accompanied by dogs and orphaned lambs. Fifth generation, he has spent his adult life farming this tough, lean, tussock country; he is of this place and it of him. But when his friend and Aboriginal Ngarigo elder Rod Mason came to visit he discovered that a lifetime of intimately knowing the birds, trees and animals of this land wasn’t significant at all.
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The tree is probably a lot older than 400 years. Rod told him that when the old women walked their favourite songline tracks they carried seeds of their favourite food and resource plants, and sowed them at spirituality significant camping places. His front garden was one such ceremony place – there would have been a grove planted, and the women had stripped the bark from the tree to make bags and material. This old tree represented a connection to country “deeper than we can imagine, and linking us indivisibly with the natural world”, he writes in his book Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth.
Part lyrical nature writing, part storytelling, part solid scientific evidence, part scholarly research, part memoir, the book is an elegant manifesto, an urgent call to stop trashing the Earth and start healing it. More than that, it underlines a direct link between soil health and human health, and that the chemicals used in industrial agriculture are among the causes of modern illness.
It makes a world war look like a little storm in a teacup. And we are in denial
“Most of our cereal crops, the soybeans, the corn, are all predicated now on the world’s most widely used chemical which is glyphosate [Roundup],” Massy says. “There is mounting evidence that it is one of the most destructive chemicals ever to get into the system. Its main effect is on the human gut and our entire immune system.
“When you look at the As – autism, ADHD, all the other auto-immune diseases – their take off is a 95% correlation to these chemicals being introduced. The evidence is that it affects the gut and the immune system, though it is not the sole factor, and it is a complex thing. But it is that gut that drives our whole immune system, it is our second brain.”
‘There is mounting evidence that it is one of the most destructive chemicals ever to get into the system,’ Charles Massy says of Roundup. Photograph: Rene van den Berg/Alamy
He says that when you spray insects with insecticides you kill off the predators so you have got to have more powerful chemicals next time because the pests come back stronger.
Massy is among scientists who believe we have entered a new geological epoch, the life-threatening Anthropocene, where human impact has permanently altered the Earth’s geology and sustaining systems, causing ecological destruction and extinction of species. “It is the greatest crisis the planet and humanity has ever faced,” he says, sitting at his kitchen table in country New South Wales. “It makes a world war look like a little storm in a teacup. And we are in denial.”
Tall, lean, fit, with white hair crowning a face that has spent a life outdoors, Massy looks more like the establishment grazier he is rather than a powerful advocate for revolutionising everything about the way we farm, eat and think about food. We are at a tipping point, he says, and if we it ignore we are “history”.
Massy spent eight years going to his office in an outbuilding behind the house in the early hours of morning to write before a day of working on the farm; the 569-page book is his life’s work; the big picture, the long view both historical and into the future that pulls together the latest international scientific research and thinking on climate change, regenerative farming, industrial agriculture and the corporations driving it.
He writes: “While consuming more resources than the Earth’s systems can replenish, we are hurtling towards multiple calamities. We are degrading the air we breathe, denaturing the food we eat and water we drink and lacing them with a witch’s brew of deadly poisons.”
We have lost touch with the land, we manipulate the Earth to our own ends, we dominate it and are ultimately destroying it. Aboriginal people, he says, saw it differently, as something to be nurtured and nourished, a living entity. He calls their custodianship “one of the greatest ever sustainable partnerships between humankind and the ecosystems they occupied”.
The farmer, scientist and author at home on his property, Severn Park. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Then white Australians brought what he calls the mechanical mind and the European mind. “It is a totally different continent to anywhere else in the world. It works totally differently to that young landscape of Europe with humidity and rich soils. Until we throw off the European mechanical mind we are going to continue to stuff the joint. It is not something inanimate that you can belt. It is almost like being with a lover, you have got to nurture it and care for it.”
Now 65 and “a fossil” Massy is, by his own admission, a “biophilia”, filled with the wonder and delight of nature. “I believe one cannot gain true ecological literacy without a great empathy with, and understanding of, nature and how it functions. Thus one’s heart also needs to be involved.”
But his own journey and awakening was slow and stumbling. He was at university when, at the age of 22, his father had a heart attack and he came home to manage the merino and cattle property. Well-intentioned and diligent he read the books, he sought advice, he learned. “I thought I was running a pretty good show.” His wool was being bought for fabric by “the top guys in Italy. We were the first group to breed animal welfare-friendly sheep.” But he now realises he was “blind” and “oblivious”, he saw the landscape “as if through a glass darkly”.
He writes: “I completely overlooked the most important of all factors, the keystone of the whole operation: that our farm was a complex and dynamic series of ecological systems, and that our landscape actually functioned in specific but sensitive ways.” He made mistakes; he assiduously ploughed a paddock just before a huge storm came and washed the topsoil away, “I had cost the landscape perhaps a thousand years of topsoil.” Like many other regenerative farmers he reached the conclusion he had to make a big shift when something “cracked” his mind open.
If people ate truly nutrient-rich food out of healthy soil, you would slash the national health bill straight away
For Massy it was the years of drought, 1979 to 1983, that plunged him into depression and major debt. He finally understood that he needed a completely different mindset and management approach if he was going to come to terms with the reality of drought. “The land, soils, micro-organisms and other creatures and vegetation are adapted to this,” he writes. And so he began his journey towards enlightenment. After 35 years he went back to university and completed a PhD in human ecology, consulting everyone from scientists to Aboriginal elders.
We are driving in his ute across the plateau, cloud shadows dancing across the big-sky landscape, kangaroos and wallabies bouncing along, kelpies on the back to muster the healthy sheep. The paddocks are strewn with great monolithic rocks, 400m years old. There are birds and wildlife that have returned since he became a holistic farmer. Deep in the soil the bugs, microbes and fungi are sourcing nitrogen and nutrients. Change has to literally be grassroots, food health comes from the ground up, the health of people is entwined with the health of landscapes and soil. “The minute you fertilise and spray all that biology is gone. The vital thing about regenerative or organic farming is this healthy living dynamic soil. Landscapes with diverse arrays of plants are nutrition centres and pharmacies with vast arrays of primary and secondary compounds.”
As the dogs bound away to herd the sheep, he says, “One of the big ideas I discovered going back to uni was this concept which I came to, that our natural complex systems will self-organise themselves back to health. I think it is one of the biggest ideas. I think it is as big as evolution. It has only just emerged with physics and chemistry and computers and stuff. The Earth itself it is a self-organising regulating system.”
The human element is the problem, the learning how to live tuned to its rhythms, to get out of its way, to listen to the land. “I say confidently that not many farmers can read the landscape. For them to change they have got to admit they have been wrong for most of their lives. The thing that is challenging about it is that you have got to be totally flexible to adjustment and really get your mind into how nature works and be able to change tactics.”
He tells the story of the grasshoppers. Before he began holistic grazing the property was regularly hit by plagues of wingless grasshoppers. “They turned an OK season into instant drought. They thrive under degrading management, bare ground provides them with egg beds. But once we began our biodiverse plantings plus holistic grazing we have not had a grasshopper attack since.
The entrance to Severn Park: ‘Now we have got 10 invaluable native grass species I never thought I would see on our property,’ Massy says. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
“Ecological grazing yields total ground cover, higher cover, deeper roots, more moisture absorption plus more biologically alive soils; it means nematodes and other creatures eat the grasshopper eggs. You get excited when you see a new plant species suddenly emerge again. Now we have got 10 invaluable native grass species I never thought I would see on our property.”
The winter nights are cold on the plateau and, with a glass of red wine and before an open fire, Massy is unrepentant about criticising the big-end-of-town companies that promote chemicals in industrial farming, and the governments that don’t act. In the book he says unhealthy food “is not just poisoning us but is also, confoundingly, making us obese as well”. Now he says “when you are eating that McDonald’s crap even though you are bloated your body is still hungry because your organs are not getting nutrients.
“If people ate truly nutrient-rich food out of healthy soil, you would slash the national health bill straight away. The big chemical companies and big food companies know exactly what they are doing. It is now causing millions of deaths – tell me why that is not genocide?”
But just as nature find its own solutions, culling, reorganising, so too is Massy offering answers, a “toolkit” of how to change.
“This combines the best of Old Organic – namely its respect, empathy and reverence for Mother Nature – with the best of modern, ecologically simpatico science and Earth-empathic thought.” The kind of people who make the change, he found, were those with strong belief in community and healthy food that does not come from contaminated soil.
What lies beneath “is a burgeoning mass of life and activity that is 10-fold that above the ground; fungi bacteria, and other organisms have begun to create and sustain an entirely different, living absorbent soil structure; the very heart and essence of healthy farming and landscape function. The secret is to simply restore healthy landscape function and allow nature to do the rest.”
Massy agrees that he is “not naive enough to think it would be a nice seamless shift. I think we are going to see some pretty frightening stuff.”
But for him, a defining moment came when, while sitting against an old snow gum, he heard the “beautiful, piercing song of a reed warbler” returning after a long absence from this area. It was, he says, a “metaphor for us humans to once more become the enablers, the nurturers, the lovers of Earth”.
Call of the Reed Warbler: A New Agriculture – A New Earth is published by University of Queensland Press ($39.95)
This article was amended on 24 September 2017 to clarify that Roundup is a herbicide and not an insecticide. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/oct/25/we-are-railing-britain-embraces-the-joys-of-the-humble-train-set | Life and style | 2020-10-25T05:30:45.000Z | James Tapper | Lockdown inspires hobbyists model railways scalextric hornby | It started with a standard Scalextric set: two slot cars, some track, a 10-year-old boy and his enthusiastic father. Six months later, Ben Martin has a 75ft raceway in his loft and a growing collection of cars.
“I went down a rabbit hole with my son,” Martin said. “There was a time when the postman was bringing track every day. He was laughing, ‘What’s all this about?’ But you can never have too many straights. It’s fulfilling a childhood dream. I played with Scalextric with my brother and I always wanted a track in the loft that lived there, that you could use whenever you wanted, not just taking over the living room for a few days before your parents made you pack it up and maybe get it out months later.”
Martin is not alone. Slot cars, model railways and model-making have boomed during the pandemic. Hornby, that stalwart of the British hobbyist industry, said last month it had seen far higher sales between April and August than expected. Peco, which makes tracks and scenery, is struggling to keep up with demand. And hobby shops have seen a huge increase in customers.
Hattons has supplied customers in Widnes and beyond for decades, and Richard Davies, the managing director, said sales had been “a blur”.
Hornby saw sales increase dramatically during lockdown. Photograph: Guy Bell/Alamy
“We’ve been inundated with orders,” he said. “Last year, people were buying three and a half items on average, but in March and April that went up to seven or eight. We were about 50% up.
“The whole crisis has prompted people to take a look at how they use their time – people think they’ve been spending too much time at work, and now they want to make the model railway that’s been on their mind for the last 20 years.”
Some are new model enthusiasts, like the Martin family. Others, such as Chris Chewter in Oxfordshire, are established hobbyists who have had more hours to invest in getting a little closer to perfection.
For the last five years, Chewter and his daughter have been recreating Tetbury station in Gloucestershire, which was a victim of the Beeching railway closures.
The layout is a “small piece of utopia where the sun is always shining and the world is Covid-free”, Chewter said. “I’ve always wanted to take a real location and model it as close to scale as I possibly could. There’s something about making a model when it looks like it’s been shot by a Bond villain’s shrink-ray that captures my imagination.”
Steve Haynes, Peco’s sales and export manager, said: “It appeals to people who have artistic flair, to people who have a technical mind because they like the electronics, to people who have an interest in history. It stimulates the mind.”
Peco had to shut its factory in Devon for five weeks at the start of the pandemic. “Now we’re trading at a much higher level this year than we were last year, even with that disruption,” Haynes said. “We’re recruiting more staff and we’re still behind the curve – the demand is relentless. Some of our retail customers have seen more business than at Christmas.”
It helps that model railways now have a stamp of celebrity approval, and geek culture is not merely tolerated but feted. Rod Stewart was proud to show off his extraordinary reconstruction of an American city to Railway Modeller magazine last year. The sprawling layout of 1940s cars, trains and skyscrapers is 125ft by 23ft, and he is reportedly shipping it back to Essex from Beverly Hills. Musician Jools Holland, another enthusiast, has recreated the Channel tunnel and 1960s London.
Singer Rod Stewart’s amazing American diorama. Photograph: Steve Crise/PA
“There are plenty of people showing off their model railways on Instagram,” Davies said. “When I was 15, I was embarrassed by my model railway. I didn’t want anyone at school to know about it. It seems like we’ve moved forward.”
Hornby, which owns many of the brands in British model shops, had been in the doldrums for some time, but its fortunes turned a corner after Lyndon Davies took over as chief executive three years ago. Stock market rules prevent him from revealing details before its interim results in November, but he is ebullient.
“Whenever there’s a national crisis, people turn inwards and look for things of comfort,” he said. “And we’ve tried to give people more fun.”
Hornby now makes Scalextric models of Batman and Joker cars, and Del Boy’s Reliant van from Only Fools and Horses. The track was more reliable now, Davies said, and customers also liked controlling their trains and cars with mobile phone apps.
“I had a race with my grandson, he had Superman, I had the Reliant Robin,” Davies said. They have a range of Yellow Submarine buses and trains that has launched in time for Christmas.”
“It’s so wholesome and innocent, and there’s absolutely nothing negative about it,” Ben Martin said. “It’s not like screen time. Everyone is interested. We’ve had load of visitors in the loft, from six-year-olds to my uncle in his 70s.
“But I’m done now. I’ve got enough track. We’ve started collecting Star Wars figures.”
This article was amended on 25 October 2020 to add a photographer credit to the main image. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/jun/26/education-system-run-by-marxists-jason-clare-takes-aim-at-liberal-senator-over-comments-on-teachers | Australia news | 2022-06-26T05:13:37.000Z | Paul Karp | Education system ‘run by Marxists’: Jason Clare takes aim at Liberal senator over comments on teachers | The education minister has blasted Senator Hollie Hughes for “crazy” comments blaming the Liberals’ low youth vote on “Marxist” teachers.
On Sunday Labor’s Jason Clare responded to the remarks, made by the New South Wales senator at a Sydney Institute federal election postmortem on Tuesday.
Voters under 55 abandoned the Coalition at the May election, with age and education levels the two biggest factors in the swing that delivered Labor majority government.
Asked how the Liberals could hope to recover the lost youth vote, Hughes said that “one of the issues … [is] we’ve got an education system that’s basically run by Marxists”.
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“When kids are at school and they’re being taught all this absolute leftwing rubbish, that’s where they’re leaving school and that’s where they’re landing,” she said.
“When you’ve got a problem in your education system it’s going to take a generation to fix it.
“Maybe their parents need to turn their internet off, limit it to one hour a day, and stop them using the car to make them get public transport.”
This comment prompted an interjection from the audience warning Hughes not to “denigrate young people that way”.
Hughes concluded her answer by noting she has three children who she said “don’t have any comprehension of the impact of what they want to talk about”.
Senator Hollie Hughes blames Marxist teachers for the fact that so many young people rejected the Liberal Party at the election. pic.twitter.com/mr8pdJ6GJU
— Matt Burke (@matttburke) June 25, 2022
Minutes after proposing to limit children’s internet usage, Hughes told a later questioner the Liberals “need to do better at social media”.
“The Greens were so successful, their social media campaigns were unbelievable and nobody knew they were happening except people they were targeting.”
Clare told Sky News that conservatives “used to say that the reds are under the bed”.
“Now, apparently the commies are in the classroom. This is just crazy, isn’t it?
“[It’s] more denial from the Liberal party. If they think that they lost the election because all teachers are Marxists, then I don’t think they’re looking in the right direction.”
In March the acting education minister at the time, Stuart Robert, started a war of words with public school teachers by claiming independent schools did not accept “dud teachers”, sending the “bottom 10% of teachers dragging the chain” into the government system.
The conservative side of politics has often complained about student activism on issues including climate change, with former prime minister Scott Morrison urging striking students to be less activist and some claiming climate alarmism is causing mental health problems in school age children.
Australian voters have sent Peter Dutton a clear message; he would be silly to miss the cue
Katharine Murphy
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In her Sydney Institute speech alongside the former Wentworth MP Dave Sharma, Hughes also lashed out at “modern Liberals” who she said campaigned with “no Liberal branding” in a sign of “abandonment of core Liberal party members”.
“If they wanted to be so independent they should have run as one. By claiming to be modern Liberals every other colleague, is, by inference, outdated, old fashioned or a dinosaur.”
Hughes warned if MPs “move from Liberal to Liberal-lite, you’re just a teal without the cult following”.
Hughes, who has been promoted to shadow assistant climate change minister, also blamed the election loss on “luxury issues”, including climate change and trans rights.
“When people are secure in their jobs, paying mortgage is not a problem, the kids are happy at school, and everything ticking along, they have time to think about other things,” she said, referring to such voters as “doctors’ wives”.
Hughes blamed the “disproportionate” focus on trans issues not on Warringah candidate Katherine Deves, but on the religious discrimination bill, which was a “legacy of Malcolm Turnbull”.
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Hughes took aim at Liberal moderates who crossed the floor to support amendments to protect LGBTQ+ students by observing “disunity is death” and claiming the lower house rebellion was “fuelled by duplicity and out and out lies to the prime minister’s [Morrison’s] face”.
When one questioner asked how to restore John Howard’s broad church, Sharma said conservatives had to be “goodwilled and constructive” to help liberals re-enter parliament.
Hughes replied: “We can have a broad church, but you don’t need to go the whole, full width of the circle of the political spectrum.
“It [the Liberal party] is centre right, and it should stay on that centre right side of the political spectrum – if you’re not centre right, you’re not in the Liberal party.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/feb/01/comedians-tribute-jeremy-hardy-died-mark-thomas-jack-dee-mark-steel | Stage | 2019-02-01T15:05:58.000Z | Chris Wiegand | 100% filled with mirth!' Comedians pay tribute to Jeremy Hardy | Jack Dee: ‘He was satirical without being a smartarse’
Jack Dee
Politics was central to Jeremy’s character but what made him unique was that he could be compassionate without being right-on, caring without being pious, and satirical without being a smartarse. He was 100% filled with mirth and that gave him licence to bring political topics into his comedy without ever seeming didactic or preachy. That’s a lesson to so many of us. He could get so much content past you while he was making you laugh – then on the way home you’d really start thinking about it.
I first saw him when I ventured into the Comedy Store in 1986. He was transfixing. It’s an intimate club and he was there in his cardigan with a pint of beer talking about the world. He opened my eyes to the new world of comedy that had emerged in a way that I hadn’t appreciated through watching TV. I got to know him on the circuit and we became friends. In any conversation we had – whether he was talking about what was going on in my life or his – he never lost his sense of mischievousness. When we made Jack and Jeremy’s Real Lives [for Channel 4 in 1996] it was a chaotic, hectic time – I would be laughing so much when we were writing it, and then he was always able to make something funnier than it ever appeared on paper.
Mark Thomas: ‘The conscience of the comedy world’
Mark Thomas. Photograph: Steve Ullathorne
Jeremy was one of the first comics I ever saw. I loved what he did so much that when I started out I found myself impersonating him. He was very gracious ... he came up to me and said: “Oh Mark, you’ve got your own voice.” Watching him was like watching a masterclass. He showed you what you could do and made you want to up your game. He was head and shoulders above every else – one of a small handful of comics that other comics go and watch.
Whatever he was talking about – socialism, politics, Ireland, racism – he was able to make it funny, but he was always provocative. He was fearless and compassionate, and those two things absolutely went together. As a campaigner he took the boldest steps, he didn’t care about what were fashionable causes. Morally, he would commit to something and then go the logical, rather than the career distance. I loved listening to him on Radio 4. His musical (mis)interpretations on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue were genius, and it may have been jolly japes on The News Quiz but he had a way, in each episode, of flipping something on its head and making you think. He was wonderfully self-effacing and cynical, but he never stopped believing in change and that we could be part of it. He was like the conscience of the comedy world.
Angela Barnes: ‘Beautifully silly but saying something’
Angela Barnes. Photograph: Ed Moore
Growing up as a Radio 4 comedy nerd, Jeremy was my hero. His was one of the voices I loved to hear on the radio. It’s standup comedy that is really saying something but is also beautifully silly. I always admired how he could be angry in such a funny way. It was genuine, righteous anger but he made it so accessible. And he put his money where his mouth was: he didn’t just talk about politics, he went out there and campaigned. Jeremy had no ego: if you were funny, he laughed at your jokes. When I started doing comedy and got to be on The News Quiz it was surreal and quite nerve-wracking, but he was so supportive. It felt like sitting next to an old friend, and that’s exactly how he treated me.
‘He put his money where his mouth was’ … Jeremy Hardy at a Stop the War Coalition event after the publication of the Chilcot report in 2016. Photograph: Gareth Fuller/PA
Phill Jupitus: ‘Comedy is a poorer place without him’
Phill Jupitus. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian
Sometimes you see a comic and know you couldn’t do what they’re doing, and there is something a bit dispiriting about it – but watching Jeremy made you think “Why am I even bothering?”!
I first met him in the mid-80s when we both did an audition on the same day. He was this ordinary bloke in a cardigan, talking at you in a very level way, but there was a lyricism to him that constantly blindsided you. He had an uncompromising political side and was no sellout. He wasn’t a careerist but an activist who did comedy.
Once, Jeremy wrote something absolutely terrible with a Sharpie about the director general of the BBC on the wall of the Radio Theatre. It caused something of a stink. He got caught in the crossfire when the BBC was attacked for being too biased, but he was a proper voice for challenging what was going on – and not in a ham-fisted way. He was subtle but at the same time he could take the gloves off and be very, very direct. For such a miserable sod, it was always a joy to work with him. Comedy is a poorer place without Jeremy.
‘An ordinary bloke in a cardigan, with a lyricism that blindsided you’ … Hardy recording Just a Minute in 1994. Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
Mark Steel: ‘A perfect friend’
Mark Steel. Photograph: Andy Hollingworth
I first saw Jeremy do comedy in the early 80s in Edinburgh. He was doing 20 minutes in a little church, to 30-odd people. He’d just started out but was clearly so on top of it. Quite quickly he was on the comedy circuit, which was so much smaller than it is now – a dozen magnificently shambolic clubs around London. One of the frustrating myths about that time is that it was all political and you just had to slag off Norman Tebbit to get a laugh. But the circuit was really music-hall variety – often you’d be the only comic on the bill, alongside a juggler and some peculiar acts.
People also say that comedy was all middle-class then, but it was really tough – they used to sling bottles at you. There would be a really working-class audience, mostly blokes, and then there was Jeremy, with his cardigan, and he’d come on and always win them over. He was brilliant at jokes, rather than routines, which came later. There was a great bit he did about how, coming from his sort of background, he’d be jealous of working-class kids because they’d get a bike for their birthday but his dad would come in and say: “Son, as it’s your birthday, I have bought you a fountain pen so you may keep a diary like Samuel Pepys.”
Jeremy was a perfect friend because he was brilliantly warm but also utterly, outlandishly appalling. He would say the most outrageous thing because it would get a laugh. If you’re a comic, there’s no one you’d rather be around than someone like that.
Tim Brooke-Taylor: ‘The best worst singer I’ve ever heard!’
Tim Brooke-Taylor. Photograph: BBC
I worked with Jeremy for about 20 years on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue. He was not only a good comedian but a sharp and intelligent man whose originality and provocations added an extra element that was needed, turning our sometimes smug comedy into great satirical comedy. You never quite knew which way he would leap – which was infuriating, but absolutely necessary. He stuck to his principles and still got the laughs.
We went on tour together, so I spent 24 hours a day with him, and he was always sharp and always thoughtful and affectionate. He was also the best worst singer I’ve ever heard. I remember doing a Clue charity show at the Royal Albert Hall and we had a huge orchestra accompanying us for One Song to the Tune of Another. Jeremy started singing and the look on the musicians’ faces was the funniest I’ve ever seen. I always used to wave a white flag while he was singing and duck out of the way just before he turned round to see what I was doing. Was he really that terrible? Yes! But he was able to laugh at himself very much, and I admired him for that. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2014/jul/13/nashville-robert-altman-dvd-philip-french-classic | Film | 2014-07-12T23:06:01.000Z | Philip French | Nashville – Philip French on Robert Altman's barbed-wire birthday card to the States | After wartime service as a bomber pilot, Robert Altman (1925-2006) served a long apprenticeship making industrial films, episodes for TV series and some cheap features. Then M*A*S*H, his satire on the absurdity of war, brought him the 1970 Palme d'Or at Cannes and overnight fame. His career thereafter was that of an unpredictable maverick, fiercely hostile to the Hollywood system, a bitter social critic in the tradition of Mark Twain.
Although he spent most of the 1980s filming small-cast chamber plays, he worked in every genre, and his characteristic mode was the widescreen movie with a large ensemble cast, a multiple soundtrack, overlapping dialogue and an openness to improvisation. His masterpieces in this vein are McCabe and Mrs Miller, The Player, Short Cuts and, supremely, Nashville, his barbed-wire-edged birthday card to the United States as it approached its bicentennial year.
In the 60s and 70s, Hollywood had helped shift country music (often condescended to as redneck blues) into the cultural mainstream, giving it an ambivalent political resonance in pictures such as Bonnie and Clyde and Five Easy Pieces. In Altman's movie some 24 characters descend on its southern mecca, home of the Grand Ole Opry, in the wake of the Kennedy and King assassinations, the Vietnam war and Watergate. They're dreamers, exploiters, loners, stalkers, groupies, performers, stars and would-be stars. A dubious populist presidential candidate (his slogan "New Roots for the Nation" heard, though he's never seen) is in town to attend a fundraising meeting and persuade the country stars to appear in an open-air concert at the Parthenon, a neoclassical building erected for the nation's first centenary.
The cast wrote their own songs (the most heavily ironic being Henry Gibson's patriotic number with the refrain "We must be doing something right to last 200 years", the most popular Keith Carradine's Oscar-winning I'm Easy). The singers are based on, or are composites of, leading country performers, and their paths cross and re-cross over five days, leading to the climactic rally. It's a dazzling, emblematic portrait of America in 1975, both trapped in amber yet still vitally alive. The screenwriter, Joan Tewksbury, a former Altman assistant, went on to direct a single feature, Old Boyfriends (1979). The DVD/Blu-ray has a commentary by Altman himself. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/feb/27/macbeth-review-neon-tinted-remix-harrowgate-theatre-imitating-the-dog | Stage | 2023-02-27T08:00:45.000Z | Catherine Love | Macbeth review – neon-tinted remix plays like a cinematic thriller | For many productions of Macbeth, the witches pose a problem. These supernatural beings can easily become unwittingly comedic, or simply fail to convince. Imitating the Dog come up with a striking solution: in their version the witches become the storytellers. With nightmarish clown grins painted on their faces, these three tricksters circle the Macbeths, stepping in and out of all the other roles in the drama. They not only prophesy the future, they manipulate it.
The company has taken a gleefully irreverent approach to the play, chopping up the text, adding in chunks of narration and jamming Shakespearean verse alongside contemporary, expletive-laced speech. The action is relocated from Scotland to Estuary City, a fictional, neon-tinted gangland. The focus is still firmly on the Macbeths, who are reimagined as damaged teenagers who just want to escape the gutter but, no matter what they do, remain trapped within the world of violence projected on the imposing screens behind them.
Moody … Matt Prendergast, Laura Atherton, Tamrakar and Westerby. Photograph: Ed Waring
Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks’ fast-moving production, with its moody lighting and flickering backdrop of vivid images, turns the play into a cinematic thriller. Some added backstory and flashbacks bring new shades to the two protagonists: the horror of their childhoods makes sense of the Macbeths’ desperate attempts to secure their power, after they’ve killed their way to the top of the mafia hierarchy. Benjamin Westerby and Maia Tamrakar are compelling as the scrappy youngsters, depicted less as murderous conspirators than as toughened survivors playing by the rules of the only game they’ve ever known.
However, other elements of this version falter. In particular, the purpose of the witches’ asides to the audience is unclear. They make references that seem to promise some kind of political critique – suggesting Macbeth was originally a piece of royalist propaganda, or describing Estuary City as “the world’s biggest freeport” – but these never go anywhere. Likewise there are tantalising snippets of meta-commentary that ultimately do little other than make explicit what could be left to interpretation. While these weird sisters make effective narrators, not everything needs to be told.
Macbeth is touring until 6 May | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/may/12/our-kind-of-traitor-review-ewan-mcgregor-le-carre-potboiler | Film | 2016-05-12T20:30:08.000Z | Mike McCahill | Our Kind of Traitor review – Ewan McGregor gets smart in Le Carré potboiler | The insecurity of the modern world has brought John le Carré back out of the shadows. Following Tinker Tailor redux, A Most Wanted Man and the crackerjack hokum of TV’s The Night Manager, this mid-list potboiler finds the author trading shamelessly on western suspicions about Mother Russia, tossing troubled couple Naomie Harris and Ewan McGregor into the geopolitical cut-and-thrust after they befriend vodka-gulping heavy Stellan Skarsgård during a make-or-break Moroccan getaway.
Director Susanna White favours a generic spy-movie look: those chilly blue filters surely need resting now. Yet she works smartly with her actors: while Skarsgård wolfs down great handfuls of scenery, McGregor effectuates a thoughtful transformation from ineffectual tourist to man in the field. Not even the gifted adaptor Hossein Amini (The Two Faces of January) can convince us it’s anything more than second-string le Carré – meat and potatoes, where others have brought us caviar – but we’re still reeled in, patiently and capably. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/oct/21/uk-housing-sales-fall-but-real-horror-story-yet-to-come | Business | 2022-10-21T13:26:06.000Z | Zoe Wood | UK housing sales fall but real ‘horror story’ yet to come | The number of homes sold in September fell by nearly 40% as transaction levels returned to normal following the big spike caused by the Covid stamp duty holiday, with experts suggesting the real “house sales horror story” is still to come.
Across the UK, 103,930 transactions were recorded in September, which was 37% lower than the same month in 2021, but roughly the same amount as in August, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) figures show.
The report said the number of completed deals has been stable in recent months, with the overall number still higher than before the pandemic. However, the housing market was thrown into disarray by the disastrous mini-budget on 23 September, which caused a rise in the long-term borrowing costs that underpin mortgage deals.
Home loans were already getting dearer after this year’s run of Bank of England base rate increases. But about 1,700 deals were withdrawn amid the shock from the mini-budget (which was largely reversed this week by the new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt). New mortgage products are much more expensive.
The cost of the average two-year fixed mortgage reached 6.55% on Friday, the highest since the financial crisis in 2008, while the average five-year deal is 6.43%, according to the data firm Moneyfacts.
Sarah Coles, senior personal finance analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said the September figures suffered from comparisons with a year ago when the end of the stamp duty holiday led to a rush to complete transactions. “The real house sales horror story will play out in the coming months,” she said.
Sales completed in September were largely agreed around June, when demand had started to drop back a little, as rising prices persuaded some to rethink, Coles said. However, while mortgage rates were rising, the average two-year fixed rate was 3.61% at the time so for an awful lot of buyers, monthly payments “still felt within the realms of affordability”.
“Sales agreed in the coming weeks are likely to look far uglier, as the chaos unleashed by the mini-budget pushed mortgages well out of reach for an awful lot of buyers,” said Coles, who pointed to the fact that the average two-year fixed rate is almost three percentage points higher than the June figure.
“We can expect this to hit completion figures towards the end of this year and into the beginning of 2023, when today’s sense of mounting dread feeds into the figures.”
Some homebuyers who already have a mortgage in place may be pressing ahead with their purchase while others may choose to sit it out for a while to see what happens to mortgage rates and house prices in the coming months.
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Jason Tebb, the chief executive of property search website Onthemarket.com, said its data showed sentiment remained positive in September with nearly 80% of sellers confident they could complete a sale within the next three months.
“We wait to see what impact further political events and the appointment of another prime minister will have on buyer and seller sentiment,” he said. “As interest rates and the cost of living continue to rise, buyers have less buying power so new properties coming to market must be priced realistically.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/jul/11/wonka-prequel-movie-trailer-timothee-chalamet | Film | 2023-07-11T16:32:28.000Z | Benjamin Lee | Wonka: first trailer for Timothée Chalamet’s chocolatey prequel | The first trailer for Wonka, a prequel to Roald Dahl’s beloved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, has given us a look at Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet in the lead role.
The Dune and Call Me by Your Name actor stars as a young version of Willy Wonka, the eccentric chocolate mogul, before he opens his factory, having spent “seven years traveling the world perfecting” his craft. The film also stars Hugh Grant as a CGI Oompa Loompa with Olivia Colman, Sally Hawkins, Rowan Atkinson and Keegan-Michael Key filling out the cast.
“To work on something that will have an uncynical young audience, that was just a big joy,” Chalamet said in May. “That’s why I was drawn to it. In a time and climate of intense political rhetoric, when there’s so much bad news all the time, this is hopefully going to be a piece of chocolate.”
Wonka’s director, Paul King, who was also behind the two Paddington movies, has already heaped praise on Chalamet’s performance.
“I think what’s so remarkable about his performance is not only that he is funny and mischievous and quite mysterious, as well – just like the Willy Wonka that people will know – but also, he brings such heart to the role and he’s a brilliant actor,” King said to People. “He’s incredibly emotionally intelligent and can bring a great deal of emotional truth to the role.”
King also said the film is a way of celebrating “old-time musicals” with “a couple of really big numbers”.
The character of Willy Wonka has been played by Gene Wilder in the 1971 movie and by Johnny Depp in Tim Burton’s 2005 revision. The film follows a hit adaptation of Matilda released in 2022 and precedes a wave of new Dahl properties to be released on Netflix after the streamer struck a major deal with the author’s estate in 2021 with Taika Waititi and Wes Anderson attached to the first releases.
Chalamet will also be seen this year in the big-budget sci-fi sequel Dune 2 and as Bob Dylan in the biopic A Complete Unknown.
Wonka will be released this December. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/apr/09/the-stopped-heart-julie-myerson-review | Books | 2017-04-09T09:00:04.000Z | Hannah Beckerman | The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson review – a deeply chilling ghost story | Haunted houses can be a difficult trick to pull off in fiction: it is testament to Julie Myerson’s skill that her 10th novel features a haunted house that is not only entirely believable but deeply unsettling.
The two leading characters of The Stopped Heart are separated by a hundred years of history. In the present day, Mary Coles and her husband, Graham, are moving into a rundown Suffolk cottage to escape the emotional aftershocks of a family tragedy. A century before, 13-year-old Eliza occupied the house with her parents, her sprawling array of siblings and James Dix, a red-haired stranger who arrived at the house during a violent storm and has yet to leave.
It is not long before Mary starts to sense the cottage’s history: “A little way away she can see a man. Red-haired. Young. Her heart stirs at the sight…” Mary finds her sightings both comforting and disturbing. Meanwhile, Eliza’s younger sister, Lottie, is having visions too, albeit none of her family believes in them.
Reading this is like watching a film and shouting at the screen while a character fails to notice the murderer hiding
This is a novel in which events are experienced by those who are ill-equipped to understand them, whether due to immaturity, social context or the ravages of grief, placing the reader in a position of omniscience. And this is where Myerson’s skill really delivers: through Eliza’s naivety, it is the reader who senses James’s menacing psychopathy. Through the dual narrative, only the reader understands the significance of Lottie’s visions. And by standing outside Mary’s grief, it is the reader who fears on her behalf the attentions of her neighbour. So meticulously does Myerson draw these characters and so intricately does she interweave the narratives that reading the novel is like watching a film and shouting at the screen while a character fails to notice the murderer hiding under the bed.
The Stopped Heart is an eerie and disquieting ghost story about the nature of male desire, teenage rites of passage and how grief can shift the prism through which we perceive both the past and the present.
The Stopped Heart by Julie Myerson is published by Jonathan Cape (£7.99). To order it for £6.79 go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/oct/06/heathrow-to-challenge-third-runway-verdict-using-climate-pledge | Environment | 2020-10-06T17:08:08.000Z | Gwyn Topham | Heathrow to challenge third runway verdict with climate pledge | Heathrow will argue in the supreme court this week that its proposed third runway would only ever be built in accordance with Britain’s climate commitments, as it seeks to overturn a court of appeal verdict that stopped the airport’s expansion plans.
A two-day hearing starts on Wednesday which could allow Heathrow to proceed once more with building an additional runway.
The expansion plans were approved in principle by parliament in 2018, under Theresa May’s government. Legal action by climate campaigners initially failed to force a judicial review. However, in a landmark judgment, the court of appeal ruled in favour of the case brought by the environmental litigation charity Plan B and Friends of the Earth.
Judges found that ministers had failed to take adequate account of Britain’s climate commitments under the 2015 Paris climate agreement when drawing up the aviation national policy statement (ANPS) which permitted Heathrow expansion.
The new government under Boris Johnson, a long-time opponent of the third runway, accepted the court ruling in February, leaving Heathrow to challenge it alone.
The airport will argue that the runway will be bound to comply with Britain’s carbon targets when it seeks to obtain planning permission, regardless of whether the then transport secretary, Chris Grayling, adequately took account of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.
The hearing will be conducted by video conference because of Covid-19 restrictions, and streamed live online. The verdict is not expected to be delivered until at least January.
Tim Crosland, the director of Plan B, said the government could “at least see a problem in admitting it’s not taking the Paris agreement seriously, given that maintaining the Paris temperature limit is vital to our collective future … Heathrow Airport Limited, however, has no such concerns.”
A Heathrow spokesperson said the airport fully expected to be held to account over climate obligations through the planning process, and that the ANPS made clear that approval for its runway “would be refused” if it had a material impact on the UK’s ability to meet its carbon reduction obligations.
”We’re appealing to the supreme court to allow this thorough planning process to proceed as it was designed.
“Given the timescales required to deliver complex infrastructure of this scale in the UK, it’s critical that we get on with laying the groundwork today for future operations that will be essential for a successful global Britain in the decade after Brexit,” they added.
The battle for expansion comes despite the pandemic leaving Heathrow with only a fraction of its normal air traffic and requiring just one runway to operate.
The Unite union is balloting for a strike over plans by Heathrow to impose pay cuts of up to 20% on long-serving workers, which the airport has defended as a means to preserve jobs.
John McDonnell, the Labour MP for the neighbouring Hayes and Harlington constituency, accused Heathrow of exploiting the pandemic to reduce wages, adding: “There is no excuse for the company imposing permanent wage cuts when we know that this crisis is temporary.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/nov/19/novak-djokovic-claims-seventh-atp-finals-title-with-demolition-of-sinner | Sport | 2023-11-19T19:45:37.000Z | Tumaini Carayol | Novak Djokovic claims seventh ATP Finals title with demolition of Sinner | The greater the stakes, the greater the performance from Novak Djokovic. This has always been one of the key pillars of Djokovic’s success as he has swept up all of the significant titles in sight so many times over, and it has also been perfectly demonstrated throughout another triumphant week in Turin.
Five days after Jannik Sinner played some of his best tennis to edge past Djokovic after three exhausting hours in their round-robin battle, Djokovic simply elevated his level to heights that Sinner could not match as he routinely defeated the Italian 6-3, 6-3 to win the ATP Finals title.
At this point in Djokovic’s career, almost every triumph comes with another record. The Serb has now won seven ATP Finals titles, breaking his tie with Roger Federer. He continues to head towards his own century with 98 titles, a distinction achieved only by Jimmy Connors (109) and Federer (103) in the men’s game. On Monday Djokovic will enjoy a ridiculous 400th week at world No 1, now 90 weeks greater than Federer in second place.
ATP World Tour Finals: Djokovic claims record seventh title – as it happened
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Throughout this season, Djokovic has frequently made clear that the biggest tournaments were his priority, an ethos he has faithfully lived up to: Djokovic has won four of the five biggest titles this year – the Australian Open, French Open, US Open and ATP Finals – with only an inspirational performance from Carlos Alcaraz at Wimbledon stopping him having it all. He finishes the ATP season with seven titles and a handsome 55-6 win-loss record.
1:46
ATP Finals: Djokovic beats Sinner to claim record seventh title – video
Djokovic arrived in the final after producing one statement performance against a youngster, Alcaraz in the semi-final, dropping only five games to his closest adversary. Less than 24 hours later, Djokovic simply picked up where he left off.
The improvements that Sinner has made to his serve have rightfully garnered significant attention over the past few months and particularly this week, yet it was Djokovic’s serve that dominated throughout, again showing how the shot has been transformed in recent years. He served spotlessly, slamming down seven aces in the opening set and conceding only two points on his serve against one of the best returners until he led 6-3, 3-2.
Similarly, Sinner is known as one of the biggest, cleanest hitters in the world and Djokovic is still sometimes categorised as a defence-first player, yet the reigning champion started the match demolishing forehands, another significant adjustment he has made in the latter part of his career. After four games, and with the decisive break secured, Djokovic’s average forehand speed read 86mph compared with Sinner at 74mph. Djokovic suffocated his opponent with his depth, sharp direction changes and relentless, clean ball-striking.
Novak Djokovic’s forehand power was in evidence against Jannik Sinner. Photograph: Tiziana Fabi/AFP/Getty Images
What on earth can you do when the best returner and defender of all time is also outserving and outhitting you? As Djokovic’s game flowed towards the end of the first set, he won 14 points in a row to establish a set and a break lead as he hunted a second break.
Still, Sinner fought hard. Down 0-2 and 0-30 on his serve, Sinner did incredibly well to survive another break point in a lengthy deuce game and somehow keep himself in the match. Moments later, Djokovic responded by slamming down three aces, an unreturnable serve and holding to love in a minute.
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His failure to take his chances on Sinner’s service games led to a nervous final few games, with Djokovic trailing 15-40 and 0-30 in consecutive games. Each time the contest could have become more complicated, though, Djokovic methodically recovered, he held serve and continued his march towards yet another significant title.
For Sinner, this has been an incredible week as he has further elevated himself among his peers. He has shown that he continues to grow into an increasingly complete player, he has become mentally tougher and he has positioned himself as a clear contender for the biggest tournaments in the year.
The problem for the best young players is that even as they make meaningful strides, so does Djokovic at 36 years old. His commitment to working on his craft and continuing to grow as a player, even after all he has achieved, is astounding and the consequences are clear: as Djokovic continues to rack up big titles, so few players have shown that they can stop him.
Meanwhile, Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Rajeev Ram of the US defeated Horacio Zeballos and Marcel Granollers to defend their doubles title at the ATP Finals. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/06/andy-murray-jo-wilfried-tsonga-wimbledon-match-report | Sport | 2016-07-06T19:46:19.000Z | Kevin Mitchell | Andy Murray beats Tsonga in five-set thriller to reach Wimbledon semi-finals | The vapour trails of Roger Federer’s extraordinary comeback against Marin Cilic were still fresh on Centre Court when Andy Murray fought through the gloaming to survive a brutal five-set examination of his resolve by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga for a place in the Wimbledon semi-finals against Tomas Berdych on Friday.
It was by far his toughest match of the tournament – rightly so, against the highest-ranked player of the five he has faced – before he prevailed 7-6 (12-10), 6-1, 3-6, 4-6, 6-1 in three hours and 53 minutes of high drama. Murray looked set at two sets to one and 4-2 up, before his troubles deepened to the point of minor crisis as Tsonga – who came from two sets down to beat Federer here at the same stage five years ago – blossomed in the fading light on Centre Court.
Andy Murray struggles to find sense of equilibrium before tipping the scales
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If the plot goes to script, the seven-times champion Federer awaits in Sunday’s final, although Milos Raonic might have something to say about that in Friday’s other semi-final. But nothing is certain about this tournament.
As with Cilic, who drove Federer to the limits of his talent at the start of their match, nobody had told Tsonga he was supposed to roll over like a good underdog, and he simply refused to go away.
Murray, the world No2, remains a warm favourite to win his second title here, and that has nothing to do with the absence of Novak Djokovic, the man he beat to lift his first Wimbledon trophy, but who seems to have suffered an emotional and physical collapse after winning his fourth major in a row in Paris in May. The Serb, though, was on Federer’s side of the draw; Murray has had probably his easiest run to the final weekend in 11 visits to Wimbledon. A tough match against Tsonga was good preparation for the closing stages.
He is playing the best tennis of his career, better than 2012, when he broke through at the Olympics then Flushing Meadows, better than in 2013, when he won Wimbledon with a bad back. On that a range of critics and friends are in agreement, from his Davis Cup captain, Leon Smith, to John McEnroe, making his usual noises in the commentary box as well as helping Raonic find his best tennis on grass.
Tsonga, the perennial underachiever of the modern game,had conceded beforehand Murray was the better player, with the higher ranking and more to show for his efforts over the years. Yes, he said, Murray had the sharper backhand; he moved more quickly, perhaps. But he backed his own forehand power, as well as his serve. And, in a whirlwind opening, Tsonga’s prognosis was not far wrong.
However, after a stout start, the Frenchman looked to be going the way of the British wildcard Liam Broady, 32-year-old Lu Yen-hsun, Australian trier John Millman and his combustible compatriot Nick Kyrgios, who detained the Scot a total of seven hours and 17 minutes.
What a contrast it has been to Murray’s French Open campaign, where his opening two matches against rank outsiders took five sets each. Here, under the renewed guidance of Ivan Lendl, his concentration and sharpness have been not just impressive but irresistible. Apart from dropping serve here and there, he has rarely looked in trouble.
Tsonga did break back on his way to forcing a tie-break in the first set but, apart from that, struggled to get in the contest. Murray’s serving and groundstrokes gave the world No12 few chances in the second, where he took three of four break opportunities in a clinical deconstruction of Tsonga’s tennis. Then there was a blip. Tsonga broke and held for 4-1. Earlier, Federer had come back to win from two sets down for the 10th time in his career, one more than Murray’s mark, but, whatever his undeniably excellent skills and commitment, Tsonga is not in that class. He has made such a fightback four times – and that is the way it stayed.
One exchange summed up the higher ambitions of both players: at the end of a 14-shot rally that dragged both players to all corners of the court in the first point of the seventh game, Murray found a running forehand winner to leave Tsonga nonplussed at the net and the crowd agog. It has to go in the tournament’s top 10. Serving big and going for the lines, Tsonga hung on to take the third.
In the fourth, Tsonga, for the second time in the match, came in behind his second serve to save one of three break points in the sixth game, but then hit long, and Murray was in sight of the line. Tsonga blew three break points but converted a fourth with a pinpoint winner to level at four-all and Murray was livid with himself. He had three chances to break back in the ninth game, but Tsonga, serving near his best, held.
Murray was ranting at himself now, and getting no dividend from it. Ivan Lendl looked down impassively from his box. Tsonga, on fire, broke with a searing backhand winner and served out for two sets all.
After winning the first game of the fifth set, Murray turned to his box, jabbed the side of his head with his finger and said: “I am not going to lose this match.”
Andy Murray gives himself a pep talk after the first game of the fifth set. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian
Even at 3-0 up in that fifth, there was no rest for Murray as Tsonga pounded one big forehand after another, but more of them were missing the target. Brave but visibly tiring, the Frenchman found his Scottish friend a most stubborn foe. It was all guns blazing at the finish. Murray struck his 13th ace to hold to love for 5-0; Tsonga hit two for 5-1; The final shot of a wonderful match was a 14th Murray ace.
Roger Federer fights back and moves a matter of aces from an 18th major
Kevin Mitchell
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“The end of that fourth set was really tough, to lose it 6-4 was hard. I tried to use all my energy at the start of the fifth to get myself pumped up,” he said. “I got the early break and managed to hang on to it. Berdych will be very tough. He’s been to the final here. He’s beaten Djokovic and Federer at Wimbledon. I’ll need to play well.”
Since the start of Queen’s – where he won a record fifth title two weekends ago – Murray is unbeaten on grass this summer. He would love to make it an even dozen wins on Sunday afternoon. He will be relieved, though, that he made it to 10 on Wednesday night. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2018/dec/19/society-has-a-duty-to-help-poor-students-university-leaders-on-tuition-fees | Education | 2018-12-19T12:46:38.000Z | Anna Fazackerley | Society has a duty to help poor students': university leaders on tuition fees | With student numbers continuing to rise, UK universities thought that tuition fees – currently set at £9,250 a year – had lost their political heat. But last year’s general election proved them wrong: Labour pledged to abolish tuition fees and students came out in force to vote. The government responded by setting up an independent review into fees and funding in post-18 education, and universities are nervously awaiting its verdict, due early in the new year. The Office for National Statistics has changed the way student loans are accounted for, potentially raising government borrowing estimates by about £12bn a year.
In the latest of our 2VCs interview series, Anna Fazackerley spoke to Prof Nick Petford, vice-chancellor of Northampton University, and Prof Ennio Vivaldi, President of the University of Chile, about the hot topic of fees.
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Northampton is one of Britain’s newest universities, having gained university status in 2005. Although it does do research it relies heavily on income from student fees. The university earned a gold ranking in the recent teaching excellence framework and claims its brand new campus – still being built – will break the mould of what higher education can be.
The University of Chile, based in Santiago, is the oldest public university in the country and ranks highly in Latin America. Alongside Britain and the US, Chile had some of the highest university fees in the world, relative to its wealth. However, there were huge student protests in 2011, railing against high student debt, unaffordable fees and a concentration of student enrolments in private rather than public universities. Chile’s last president, Michelle Bachelet, won her 2013 election campaign thanks in part to a pledge to make higher education tuition free for all students by 2020. This has yet to happen, but free tuition vouchers are now offered to the poorest 60% of students. However, 85% of students are still concentrated in private universities in the country.
How reliant is your university on tuition fees?
Like most UK vice-chancellors, Petford is alarmed by rumours that the fees review could recommend cutting fees from £9,250 to £6,500, at least for non-science subjects. With no compensatory funding from government – something many consider unlikely in austerity Britain – this would mean a 14% cut to Northampton’s cost base. “There would be no way we could move forward as a university without significant redundancies,” he says frankly.
Petford points out that this isn’t the only financial missile heading for newer universities. A “totally unexpected” increase in employee contributions to the Teachers’ Pensions Scheme could mean his university having to find an extra £2m a year from next September. “These pressures are very destabilising and could be potentially catastrophic for some universities,” he says.
Vivaldi explains that in Chile the government’s “gratuidad” (free tuition) vouchers for the poorest 60% of students don’t actually cover the real costs of teaching. “A lot of universities in Chile are losing money,” he says. However, the impact is being felt differently at his university because for a long time before this scheme the institution offered free tuition for poor students, bearing the additional costs themselves, to make their student body more diverse.
Should the state support the costs of having a higher education?
In the big student protests of 2011 in Chile students argued that every individual had a right to higher education and the state should support them. I ask the VCs whether they were right.
Petford is pragmatic: if we want up to 50% of our young people to go to university, that would be a huge cost to the taxpayer. University education can’t ever fit the economic definition of a public good, he adds, because it isn’t available to everyone – universities choose who they let in – and institutions compete. Besides, he thinks that it is right that the individual who benefits from a degree should contribute to its cost. “Ideally I’d like to see a model where the student pays half, the state pays 40%, and the businesses who benefit from the skills of graduates pay a levy of maybe 10%,” he says.
Vivaldi is deeply uncomfortable with the idea of your university life being a shrewd personal investment. “I believe thinking about it like you would a 50-year-old man buying an apartment and making money from renting it out is intellectually criminal. You cannot think of an 18-year-old kid as someone who is making an investment so that he will make more money later.” He thinks countries need a public discussion about what universities are for.
Petford is supportive of Vivaldi’s comments, so does he think Britain is too obsessed with graduate salary outcomes?
“I think there is a danger of that,” he agrees. “I don’t think there is a problem with students knowing what the return on their investment could be sometime in the future as the data is there. But if university funding were to be moderated using that data that would be a real problem.” He stresses that universities like his mustn’t be penalised “in some crude way” for preparing students for public sector careers in nursing or teaching, where salaries won’t compete with graduate jobs in the commercial sector.
Do fees put off poorer students?
Vivaldi recalls politicians in his country feeling satisfied that more young people from poor backgrounds were taking out loans and going to university. “But that is what the 2011 explosion was about. So many students were in debt and they didn’t know how to pay for it and they felt many private universities were giving titles that were good for nothing,” he says. “It is a duty of society to help poor students but it is a much more complex issue than just giving them a voucher to pay for university fees.” He argues that state school education was destroyed during Pinochet’s dictatorship and reversing the inequalities in the system will take time and effort.
'Universities shouldn't be comfortable': vice-chancellors on campus protests
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Petford is angry that British politicians – and especially Labour politicians – are “cherry-picking data” to support their claim that poor students are being put off by fees. “This is fake news. It’s a real myth,” he says. He points out that according to Ucas statistics, students from the most disadvantaged areas are now 78% more likely to go to university than 12 years ago, despite the introduction of fees.
But he adds that the recent abolition of the maintenance grant is a different issue, and argues the government should reinstate that in full immediately. “Hardship is in the here and now, with day-to-day living costs.”
Are student number controls something universities have to stomach in return for government support?
In Chile universities are subject to strict number controls, just as UK universities were until the government lifted the cap in 2015. Vivaldi finds this frustrating, arguing that it is absurd that a public university should be prevented from setting up a medical school to provide much-needed doctors because they cannot increase student numbers. He is angry that students who would prefer to go to a public university like his – which has many times more applicants than places – are “forced” to go to private universities.
There is speculation in the UK that if the government has to step in to subsidise universities following a cut in fees it may limit student numbers to control costs. Petford is strongly opposed to this. “The strength of our current system is that it does allow universities to expand if they wish to. And it allows individuals with ambition to go to university.”
Should you pay different fees for different subjects?
Another rumour doing the rounds about the UK fees review is that the panel wants differential fees. One leak has suggested that arts and humanities courses might be capped at £6,500, while Stem courses, which typically command much higher salaries and cost more to teach, could cost up to £13,000. Petford says he is “not a fan” of this idea, warning that differential fees have made the Australian system much more complicated and bureaucratic. Even deciding how to judge subject costings is tricky. “Who’s to say looking at the supply side like this is the right way? What about demand?” he says. “If you believe the politicians and their industrial strategy then what we need is more scientists and more engineers.”
Vivaldi says that in Chile they have differential fees already, but not through some planned strategy. “There was a policy of every man for himself and each faculty found the best way to survive for many decades,” he says. “They set whatever fees they wanted and usually science or medicine would be higher than humanities as the salaries are higher.”
Petford argues that if universities are forced to charge less than they need for certain subjects they may try to add extra costs much like budget airlines do. “Universities would have lots of add-ons. If you were studying arts you could put extra charges on top for materials or canvas; environmental sciences could charge for equipment or field trips.”
Can politicians deliver on promises to abolish fees completely?
Bachelet promised free higher education for all in her 2013 campaign. But the economy slowed dramatically after her election and this pledge was deemed unaffordable, at least in the short term. Instead “gratuidad” has focused initially on students from the poorest 60% of families, and Vivaldi describes free tuition for all students as a distant target.
2VCs on ... are university degree models stuck in the past?
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Petford argues that Labour’s 2017 manifesto pledge to abolish tuition fees would also be prohibitively expensive. “The costing is something like £10bn a year. That is small change when put against their borrowing pledges which run to the hundreds of millions. If they have an appetite for that level of debt it could happen.”
Does competition make for better universities?
Vivaldi says that the main regulator in Chile ruled in 2005 that traditional public universities would have some privileges, but the market should be opened extensively to new competitors. “That was a very primitive idea of natural selection and competition. I don’t agree that rivalry is the engine for making universities better. I can prove we benefited more when we collaborated with each other than when we compete.”
Petford agrees entirely. “I don’t think universities should be competition-free, but we shouldn’t be pushed into any higher levels of marketisation and rivalry than we are seeing now.” He warns that differential pricing would push universities further down this route and that this would be harmful.
What about value for money?
Petford tells Vivaldi that there is a “huge emphasis” on measuring whether students are getting value for money in the UK now.
“Value is exactly what universities should be about, but in a way that is entirely different from what you can buy,” Vivaldi replies. “The idea of knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing is pertinent in this discussion.”
He adds: “The UK has some of the very best universities in the world, so if you go wrong that would be very bad for everyone. I would like to leave your country with a message: please be very careful about the decisions you make now.”
Nick Petford
Nick Petford Photograph: Jo Fraser
What was your first degree and where did you study?
Geology, Goldsmiths.
What advice would you give your 18-year-old self?
Stop treating the house like a hotel and be nicer to your sisters.
What would you like for Christmas?
World peace, but mostly a Bluetooth record player.
What is your insider tip for people visiting Northampton?
The Cultural Quarter including the excellent Royal & Derngate Theatre and All Saints’ Church.
What is your new year’s resolution?
Go paperless at meetings (again).
What do you most admire about Chile?
It’s not Bolivia.
Ennio Vivaldi
Ennio Vivaldi Photograph: University of Chile
What was your first degree and where did you study?
M.D., University of Chile.
What advice would you give your 18 year old self?
Support Salvador Allende, but be much more emphatic in preserving democracy to avoid a coup d’état.
What would you like for Christmas?
Peace. Christmas carols. And stuffed turkey.
What is your insider tip for people visiting Santiago?
Museo de la Memoria, Museo de Arte Contemporáneo and Casa Central de la Universidad de Chile. Then visit the Chilean seaside, especially Pablo Neruda’s house at Isla Negra.
What is your new year’s resolution?
Reinforce support for noble causes like education and gender equity.
What do you most admire about the UK?
Firstly, my two-year-old granddaughter who was born there. Secondly, the British elegance in the use of language (“value for money” being a notable exception). Thirdly, the NHS. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/aug/27/its-not-you-its-me-how-the-affair-broke-up-with-itself | Television & radio | 2018-08-27T12:00:41.000Z | Hannah Verdier | It’s not you, it’s me: how The Affair broke up with itself | When The Affair first slinked on to the screen it was a weekly delight full of intrigue, cinematic seaside beauty and relationship troubles. Dominic West was ruggedly hateful as Noah, the self-obsessed novelist rather unbelievably juggling two pouting women: his wife Helen (Maura Tierney, her face plastered with a look that said she was barely tolerating him) and troubled waitress Alison (Ruth Wilson), who was doing the dirty on Cole (the never-not-sexy Joshua “Pacey from Dawson’s Creek” Jackson).
If ever there was an ideal place to indulge in a midlife crisis, it was the idyllic Hamptons holiday town of Montauk. As a backdrop to the characters’ complicated lives, it served up farmer-boy realness and beautiful locations in which to hump. Add in the “Who killed Scotty Lockhart?” mystery after Cole’s brother was run over in the dead of night and The Affair was gripping perfection, told from multiple perspectives in which the characters’ brains always cooked up ways to imagine themselves hotter, more moral and better dressed than other people saw them.
At its height The Affair had moments of greatness, none better than when Helen abandoned the dirty washing and let loose on a day out. In a flash of the ultimate mom rebellion that viewers had been willing her to display, she didn’t even take her hair foils out before she hit the booze, pranged the car and was arrested for DUI. But the show floundered because of one major problem: the characters were all so detestable that it was hard to care about them. Noah set out his stall as a berk early on, his annoying face lighting up every time he saw an attractive woman, like a spaniel about to mount a stranger’s leg. By the end of season two, he had delivered one of the most vomit-inducing scenes in the show when he spotted two women making out in a hot tub and decided to go in for a slather, only to find one of them was his irksome teenage daughter Whitney.
Sure, he got his comeuppance when he had to spend three years being threatened by the quintessential looming prison warder (a terrifying Brendan Fraser) after he was – spoiler alert! – banged up for the Lockhart murder, but redemption was short-lived. When he was found stabbed (sadly not fatally) on the kitchen floor, nobody cared who did it, as long as it had been done. Also, that multi-viewpoint technique began to grate. Noah imagined Alison in her floral dress riding a bicycle along a sun-drenched beach, when in real life she was in a massive cardie.
But wait: the new season is displaying a return to form. Alison is feared dead, giving the show a new shot of intrigue and more Cole and Noah interaction. At last, entitled princess Helen has a reason to be as miserable as a Marilyn Manson fan stranded on Love Island because her upgrade of a boyfriend (one of the few likable characters) Vik is seriously ill. And Noah, of course, is making moves on his boss in the bar after going all Dangerous Minds on his students. Proof, then, that The Affair is not quite ready to (adopts Fiona Apple warble) sink back into the oceaaaan, yet. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/02/australia-commercial-surrogacy | Opinion | 2013-09-02T03:05:00.000Z | Jenni Millibank | Paying for birth: the case for (cautious) commercial surrogacy | Jenni Milibank | In the last 30 years, we have seen 26 public inquiries into surrogacy in Australia. In recent years all states and territories have liberalised their laws to allow for unpaid surrogacy to occur with the assistance of licensed fertility providers, and to provide for intended parents to acquire legal status. But our system is still not working.
In 2010-11 there were just 16 recorded surrogacy births within Australia, while 394 babies were born in India to Australian citizens – the majority of them almost certainly via commercial surrogacy. We need to make big changes to allow surrogacy to be more accessible at home, rather than exporting our fertility needs to other countries.
The fundamental principles of fairness and safety require the informed and continuing consent of all participants in surrogacy, especially of the birth mother. When most surrogacy involving Australians is taking place offshore, it's plainly not accessible and also may not be safe, or not as safe as it would be onshore. Nor, where poorer countries are the providers, is it necessarily fair.
Despite remarkably little regulation in the United States, surrogacy agencies and clinics have adopted a fairly common set of practices and standards, including psychological screening, counselling and support services. Research consistently shows that US surrogates are not impoverished or motivated by financial concerns, and are largely satisfied with their experience.
In contrast, Australian women are expected to take surrogacy on as altruistic act and can only be paid a very limited amount for documented expenses. This drives people to evade the system, masking unlawful payments onshore, or going offshore to India and Thailand, resulting in reduced or zero access to professional support services and ethical safeguards.
The more work I do on assisted reproduction, the more I see that professional support services are an important part of informed consent and the decision-making processes of parents. In the rare instance when things go do go wrong, such as in the Re Evelyn case in 1998, it usually involves informal arrangements in which none of the parties had any screening, counselling, or legal advice before the arrangement, nor any support services during or after it.
Ideally, governments should provide screening, matching and counselling services, but if, as is currently the case, they don’t, it may be better to have commercial providers taking on this role rather than no one at all.
A major argument against payment to surrogates is that it may act as undue influence that impairs informed consent. This is an important consideration. Surrogacy works when a woman voluntarily undertakes a pregnancy and is happy to relinquish a baby she does not regard as her own. If she has agreed only because of money and not because she regards that baby as someone else’s, everything falls apart. But in addition to guarding against payments that are too high, we should be asking whether surrogates are paid too little.
Women who undertake pregnancies for others in surrogacy arrangements are performing labour (in both senses) and they are undertaking risks. Paying nothing does not protect or value this role.
In Australia, altruistic surrogacy undertaken through licensed fertility services means that doctors, nurses, social workers, counsellors, scientists, technicians, storage facilities, receptionists, cleaners and delivery people are all paid. So are shareholders. Only the birth mother is not.
There are a range of ways that surrogates could be paid within a regime of fair compensation that still guarded against improper inducement. In the UK the fertility regulator recently set a flat compensation payment of £750 ($1,100) per cycle for egg donors in recognition of the pain and risks they undertake. Payments of £15,000 are also regularly accepted by courts in the UK as reasonable compensation for surrogates, although there is no set guideline. Setting a clear minimum (representing a labour based contribution or compensation for risk and burden) would provide certainty if accompanied by proper screening protocols and regulation to guard against unfair inducement.
There are important concerns about commercial surrogacy practices that go beyond the question of how much money is paid and go to who is paid for what. Problematic practices in surrogacy common in both developed and developing economies include high multiple birth rates (which are dangerous to babies and surrogate); enforceable contracts (which can prevent surrogates from having control over their pregnancy, and which compel relinquishment after birth), and the widespread use of anonymous egg donors. None of these are mandated by commercial markets, but they are strongly associated with them.
An Australian system of compensated surrogacy could avoid such risks. We would continue to centre the informed and continuing consent of the birth mother through important safeguards such as ensuing that she has full control of pregnancy care and decisions, and that consensual relinquishment of the baby and her parental status occurs only after the birth. We already have very high clinical and ethical standards operating in tandem with government regulation to prevent multiple embryo transfer and to record donor identity. Commercial surrogacy could be contained within the existing successful framework of health regulation in Australia rather than distorting clinical and legal practice, as it has arguably done in other countries with far less regulation. This doesn’t mean copying commercial markets – it means learning from them.
An Australian system which allowed for advertising, professional intermediaries and payment, if carefully regulated, would be safer and fairer than the now widespread practice of Australians travelling overseas for surrogacy. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/nov/09/ccj-insurance-claim-natwest-driving | Money | 2016-11-09T07:00:02.000Z | Anna Tims | A minor shunt that brought my credit rating crashing down | I was involved in a minor shunt while driving more than two years ago. It was my fault so I notified my insurer, NatWest, and was told it would settle with the other driver’s insurer.
Months later, I received a letter informing me a county court judgment (CCJ) had been made against me for an unpaid insurance claim of £10,000. This was the first I had heard about the debt or the court case.
A claims-handling firm contacted by NatWest said it had contested the claim for repairs from the third party. The other driver then filed for the judgment.
So much time has elapsed that the CCJ can no longer be removed from the register. NatWest held its hands up and sent me a £750 goodwill payment. However, thanks to the CCJ, I have been refused credit, an application for a bank account has been turned down, and my business expansion plans have been set back. NatWest considers the case closed. TS, London
The most frightening aspect of this case is the fact that a CCJ can be issued against someone without their knowledge. CCJs are meant to be a last resort for creditors wanting to recover a debt. If a court finds in their favour a charge can be put on the debtor’s home and the judgment remains on their credit file for six years, making it almost impossible to obtain a mortgage or even a phone contract. Defendants are notified of court action via an address supplied by the creditor and if they do not respond within 14 days the judgment is passed. This means that if the address is incorrect or out of date they lose their chance to argue their case.
Last year 740,000 CCJs – 85% of the total – were signed off by courts to recover alleged debts in the absence of the defendants, many of whom, like you, owed nothing to anyone.
NatWest, which took more than two months to respond to me about your saga, says an “avoidable internal misunderstanding” caused the third-party insurer to take the legal route. “Unfortunately, over the course of six months, the third party insurers issued no warning to us that they were considering legal action,” says a spokesperson. “The only communication was the legal summons, issued directly to the policyholder once legal proceedings had begun, which unfortunately was not received.”
Since you only have a year to get a contested CCJ removed from the court register, you have been deprived of the chance to clear your name, but NatWest says it has “worked hard” to get it hidden so it will no longer affect your credit rating. It will consider more compensation if you can prove that your business has been compromised.
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/lifeandstyle/2018/aug/27/why-i-came-out-as-being-poor | Life and style | 2018-08-27T10:00:40.000Z | Stephanie Land | Why I came out as being poor | For nearly a decade, I thought it was obvious that I was poor.
Cashiers saw me and knew, without asking, that I’d pay for my groceries with food stamps. My car was always the oldest in the parking lot when I brought my daughter to ballet classes – the family there by scholarship, by the good graces of the owners. I sat on the entryway benches with all the other moms, listening to them complain about their husbands working so much. “I’m practically a single mom,” they’d say, exasperated. I clenched my jaw and stared at the floor.
Every Friday afternoon my kindergartener’s backpack was filled with free food for the weekend. The local parent-teacher association always had an in-depth discussion over what to include. I didn’t tell them that I knew, firsthand, that the granola bars were inedible; I didn’t want to make the other parents uncomfortable knowing there was a “food bag” recipient in the room.
That fear of being singled out never left me; I wore it like a weighted vest. I felt the stigma of poverty every hour, even in my own home, but I never admitted to friends how desperate my situation was.
I stared potential landlords down with a seven-year-old standing next to me and a baby on my hip, asking to apply for a tiny studio apartment I could barely afford. I spoke to a dozen secretaries at local churches, asking if they had funds to help me pay for childcare. I went hungry and bounced checks to order pizza for dinner.
Struggling to take care of my daughter on my own, I needed whatever government assistance I qualified for – a few hundred bucks a month in food stamps, free school lunches, childcare vouchers and coupons for milk and cheese – while I simultaneously worked as a maid, juggling 10 clients between going to class to put myself through college. Very few of my friends knew. They didn’t know the work I put into finding these resources – hours on the phone, standing in line, handing over thick packets to prove my need.
I felt the stigma of poverty every hour, even in my own home, but I never admitted to friends how desperate my situation was
These food stamps, coupons and vouchers were not resources the public deemed vital to my survival. They were handouts, donations – alms. We call aid programs “entitlements” but, for those who depend on them, they feel less like rights and more like privileges given, or yanked away, at the caprices of a cold and unsympathetic state. The hours I spent applying for food stamps, Medicaid and childcare vouchers became akin to begging.
When I saw the letter of acceptance for Snap – the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, popularly known as food stamps – it was a moment of gratitude, and brief catharsis and relief. Still, I knew it wasn’t a socially acceptable means to feed my family with. I saw the memes friends posted, chastising people on welfare.
One friend who worked as a grocery store clerk (paid $7.25 an hour and unchanged since 2009) took it upon herself to list the junk food people bought with their Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards, the debit cards used to pay with food stamps: “Funyuns? On food stamps? Really?”
During this time, the government proposed legislation limiting who qualified for government assistance and attempted, in the process, to further stigmatize those already using benefits. We were accused of buying junk food, lobsters, steaks.
Meanwhile, another acquaintance shared a letter to the editor written by a man proclaiming that people on food stamps should be sterilized and given bags of beans, rice and powdered milk.
Eventually, I made my way out of poverty.
After I sank deep into debt to get a bachelor’s degree in English, I stubbornly held myself accountable to it. Maybe because I felt obtaining a higher education was a privilege I couldn’t afford, and that the debt affected not only my future, but my daughters.
This hindsight made me work harder than ever, late into the night, from home and with a baby sleeping on my lap. Gone were the days of cleaning houses. I put my degree to as much work as possible as a freelance writer. Even if it meant filling content for a local events calendar, technically I was getting paid to write words. These gigs gradually grew into ones with paychecks bigger than I’d had in years. I carried myself like a professional, even stood a little taller.
Cashiers didn’t assume I would pay with food stamps as much anymore, but those days burned bright in my memory. I began to think that, maybe if I wrote pieces about the battles people in poverty face, it would cause others to share their stories.
The prospect of publicly admitting my economic struggle to make ends meet meant gnawing on my fingernails the morning an article was published. By disclosing that I needed government assistance, I thought I’d open myself up to scrutiny in every social interaction. Now it felt as if there was a “welfare” label hanging over me, flashing like a neon sign. Would my friends judge me for joining them for lunch? If they saw me out on a rare dinner date? Would I be chastised for wasting money on a babysitter? I felt like what most people considered self-care was, for me, indulgent and even selfish.
Seeing my words – “I’m on food stamps” – out there for everyone to read made me sink a little into the floor. “Serves you right for getting an English degree,” one commenter remarked. But he just read this in a nationally respected publication, I thought. Still, the comments perpetuated the feeling that I was undeserving of most things, even a college education.
Most people don’t see themselves as sitting on that bottom rung as a defense mechanism. The more they blame poor people for their poverty, the further they feel from being in the same place. Even the working poor who qualify for food, childcare and housing benefits don’t see themselves as such. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps! They see their situation as temporary.
This creates a boundary around what people will do, how much they are willing to swallow their pride, to ask for help. Some might borrow money from family, or ask to move their wife and children into an apartment over their parents’ garage. Others will ask friends for donations or their church congregations for offerings. But some, like me, didn’t have this cushion under them, and I think it’s hard for people to realize how much that invisible place to land is a huge privilege when you find yourself falling into depths you weren’t able to plan for.
The system is designed not to wean people off public assistance but to trap them instead, a phenomenon called the “benefits cliff” or “welfare cliff”. I was told several times that $100 a month too much in wages kept me from receiving five times that in benefits. There aren’t any gray areas – you either qualify or you don’t.
In working your way off government assistance, the safety net disappears. A 2014 report from the Illinois Policy Institute discovered a higher earned income “would have to be approximately triple before [a] single parent can make up the difference”. The system is designed to keep minimum-wage workers who are just under full-time status barely afloat. A 50 cent an hour raise could mean a loss of childcare funds, and families who thought they were moving their way up the ladder can find themselves once again falling to the ground. In some states, welfare recipients aren’t allowed to save money – even a couple thousand in the bank disqualifies you.
Most legislators and average voters don’t see what a huge gap those on assistance must successfully soar across in order to get to the other side. This is not laziness. It’s the consequence of being set up to fail. But as I began writing candidly about my life, I tried to show people that anyone could find themselves in a situation where safety net programs became their last option.
A journey through a land of extreme poverty: welcome to America
Read more
Anyone could get laid off; anyone could have their hours cut, and feel their stomach lurch as they watch their wages drop; anyone could encounter a medical emergency that clears their life’s savings in a matter of weeks and leaves them with punishing debt.
After publishing that first article, a surprising amount of comments and messages came from others who admitted to the same feeling of living life over a great chasm with only a wobbly suspension bridge to keep you from falling. They admitted to the same head-spinning fear of any movement, any upset, any wrong step could plunge one’s foot between the slats of the bridge.
For people in poverty, every day is like that. Yet they are expected to live this way while being told to work harder. What they need to hear instead is: “It’s okay to sit down for a second, you deserve some rest.”
Stephanie Land is the author of Maid: Hard Work, Low Pay, and a Mother’s Will to Survive, out in January 2019 | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/feb/19/sunderland-sack-head-coach-michael-beale-after-two-months-in-charge | Football | 2024-02-19T15:51:46.000Z | Louise Taylor | Sunderland sack Michael Beale after two months in charge | Sunderland are seeking their 22nd manager in 22 years after sacking Michael Beale on Monday two months after appointing him as Tony Mowbray’s successor at the Stadium of Light.
The former Rangers and QPR manager won four of his 12 games after taking charge on 18 December and leaves the Championship club 10th in the table, four points adrift of a playoff position.
Birmingham manager Tony Mowbray to take time off for medical treatment
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It is understood tensions had been rising behind the scenes since the 43-year-old Londoner began voicing his concern at his young team’s lack of an experienced centre-forward. Sunderland’s 27-year-old owner, Kyril Louis-Dreyfus, had fallen out with Mowbray when the latter publicly emphasised this glaring flaw in the club’s recruitment blueprint.
Compounding his growing political problems at boardroom level, Beale never won the hearts and minds of Sunderland supporters. His unpopularity only rose after Saturday’s 2-1 defeat at Birmingham, now managed by Mowbray. Beale appeared to snub Trai Hume when he substituted the defender in the 88th minute. Television footage shows Beale ignoring his player’s outstretched hand. He apologised for that oversight on social media, denying he had refused to shake hands while also praising Hume and his professionalism.
After making his name as an admired coach while serving as Steven Gerrard’s assistant at Rangers and Aston Villa, Beale has found life as a No 1 tougher. He was sacked by Rangers last October after less than a year in charge at Ibrox and found things even less straightforward on Wearside.
Louis-Dreyfus and his director of football, Kristjaan Speakman, had initially wanted Will Still, the 31-year-old Reims head coach, to succeed Mowbray but balked at the compensation the Ligue 1 club were demanding. It remains unclear whether they will make a second attempt to lure Still to the Stadium of Light.
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Speakman will feel under pressure to get this latest appointment right and put Sunderland back on course for the promotion to the Premier League Louis-Dreyfus craves while appeasing an increasingly disgruntled fanbase. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2023/dec/13/the-50-best-tv-shows-of-2023-no-6-the-last-of-us | Television & radio | 2023-12-13T10:00:10.000Z | Gwilym Mumford | The 50 best TV shows of 2023: No 6 – The Last of Us | Can a show be considered one of the year’s best, and also a harbinger for television’s demise? On paper, The Last of Us stands for just about everything wrong with TV as it exits its golden age and moves towards an era of mass-produced slop. An adaptation of – shudder – a video game? About that laziest of horror tropes, the undead. Produced by HBO, a network once synonymous with blue-chip drama, but now more concerned with franchise spin-offs like House of the Dragon and its forthcoming Harry Potter revival? Yikes.
That’s why you should never judge a show by its logline. The Last of Us might, in theory, have been all of the above, but it was also the sort of beautifully realised series that could hold its own against any of the big beasts of the golden age of TV. It was a big show that revelled in small, human moments, a family drama by stealth, a blockbuster with a brain and a beating heart.
Granted, it all started as post-apocalyptically as you’d expect. There were the familiar scenes of day zero: frenzied crowds, downed planes, soldiers on the streets, as the scope of the epidemic – caused, we learned, by a parasitic fungus that turns anyone unlucky enough to come into contact with it into a mushroom-sprouting monster – became clear. Familiar too was the post-apocalypse: ruined, vine-covered buildings; bodies bundled on to fires to prevent infection; hordes of marauding monsters (not zombies, we should add: the “infected” in this show are very much living) laying waste to anything that moved.
As recognisable as these tropes were, what elevated The Last of Us above the end-of-days fray was how believable it all seemed. The show’s most fantastical elements – the giant toadstool monsters, for example – were used exceedingly sparingly: whole episodes flew by without us seeing a clicker or a bloater at all. And the reactions of the people caught in the middle of this chaos and terror felt entirely authentic.
It helped that the source material – Neil Druckmann’s two-game series – was such a rich and textured work in the first place, allowing the show to deepen well-realised plotlines and characters. For the series, Druckmann was joined by Craig Mazin, who made unimaginable horror imaginable with Chernobyl, and pulled off a similar trick here, always ensuring that this world felt logical and lived-in, no matter how grim things got.
Tiny but profound gestures … Bella Ramsey as Ellie in The Last of Us. Photograph: HBO/Warner Media
And things really did get grim. In the brutality stakes, the undead didn’t hold a candle to the living, with military dictatorships, ruthless roaming militias and – most indelibly – a horde of cannibals fronted by a paedophilic cult leader, continually upping the awfulness. Still, almost all the show’s characters, no matter how reprehensible, had some underlying rationale: most of the time they were as broken and scared as anyone else. Every time The Last of Us seemed about to topple over into full-blown sadism, the show’s sense of humanity won out.
Much of that was down to its two leads: Pedro Pascal as the utterly broken smuggler Joel and Bella Ramsey as Ellie, the teenager he is tasked with chaperoning across the ruined United States due to her immunity against infection. As they battled bandits, starvation and sepsis, the pair’s relationship started to feel uncannily real, often communicated wordlessly in tiny but profound gestures and glances.
If The Last of Us was just nine episodes of Joel and Ellie silently trudging through crumbling cityscapes (and yes, that did make up a lot of the show), it would have made for pretty great TV. But the show had bigger ideas. Its third and best episode, the one that cemented its place in the end-of-year Top 10s, abandoned the larger plot altogether for a standalone story about the blossoming romance between a gruff survivalist (Nick Offerman) and a man who fell into one of his traps (what a meet-cute!)
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This was the episode that, if you were a particularly cynical exec, you’d chop. But its existence was part of what made The Last of Us a richer, deeper show than anyone could ever have expected – one that just might not spell the end for TV after all. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/08/valeria-luiselli-interview-lost-children-archive | Books | 2019-03-08T10:58:42.000Z | Emma Brockes | Valeria Luiselli: 'Children chase after life, even if it ends up killing them' | Afew years after Valeria Luiselli began writing Lost Children Archive, her third novel and the first she has written in English, she broke off to write something more urgent. For months, Luiselli, who was born in Mexico and lives in the United States, had been volunteering as an interpreter for undocumented child migrants appealing for asylum in the US. It was heartbreaking and hard, and none of those she helped to find pro bono lawyers has, in the years since, been given permanent leave to stay. Luiselli’s writing stalled and in a fever she wrote Tell Me How It Ends, a non-fiction account of the terrible plight of these children. “I couldn’t think or write about anything else. That book was personal testimony to what I was seeing.”
What she was seeing was this: traumatised children who had entered the country, unaccompanied, aboard La Bestia – “the beast” – a network of freight trains on the roofs of which half a million Central Americans ride annually. It is terrifically dangerous. Those who don’t fall on to the tracks risk death from exposure, overhanging branches, or rape and violence from smugglers, thieves and police who attack people onboard. “There is a saying about La Bestia,” writes Luiselli. “Go in alive, come out a mummy.” But of course, “children do what their stomachs tell them to do. They chase after life, even if that chase might end up killing them.” If and when they finally reach the US, they fall into the hands of immigration officers known to shout: “Speak English! Now you’re in America!”, and a new nightmare begins.
The act of bearing witness would, ultimately, become the driving force behind the novel to which she returned. Lost Children Archive, longlisted for the Women’s prize for fiction this week, started out as an angry screed, overly didactic and too bogged down in politics. What it became, in its final iteration, is a wonderfully subtle story in which the experience of migrant children is filtered through the delicate, funny, effortlessly poetic account of a family’s road trip from New York to the Mexican border, in which the central couple’s marriage disintegrates even as they strive to document the disintegration around them.
There are many memorable lines. The narrator kisses a man who isn’t her husband before reprimanding herself. “No, he’s not interesting, he’s just beautiful, and his beauty is of the most vulgar kind: indisputable.” Of the experience of migrant children, she says: “A child refugee is someone who waits.” The narrator and her husband, both writers, are engaged in answering the question “What does it mean to document something, an object, our lives, a story?” And its corollary, “What does it mean when those lives go undocumented?” But then there is their five-year-old daughter chanting from the back seat of the car and in distant echo of her parents: “The point is, the point is, the point is always pointy.”
Children on the Mexican side of the US-Mexican border. Photograph: Haydn Denman/Alamy
The point is, as Luiselli herself came to realise, “fiction needs to breathe,” and so while Lost Children Archive is a deeply political novel, as long as she was “using it as a vehicle for my own rage, stuffing it with everything from children’s testimonies to the history of American interventionism in central America” – she laughs at this failed attempt – “it just wasn’t working. There’s a different way of assuming a political sense in fiction, I think.”
Fierce political engagement is something Luiselli identifies with the female line of her family. Her grandmother had nine children and devoted herself to helping indigenous Mexican communities, while her mother moved to Chiapas for a few years to join the Zapatistas. Luiselli herself grew up largely outside Mexico – her father was a diplomat and her mother worked for NGOs – and now, post-divorce, lives in New York with her 10-year-old daughter, 20-something niece, and a mother who drops in all the time. “It’s a matriarchal house,” she says. “My daughter came down the stairs one day, not long after her dad had moved away, and said: ‘OK, I get it mum; this is the all-woman house now.’” She shrugs. “Maybe!”
Because of her peripatetic childhood, Luiselli felt a strong compulsion to write her first books in Spanish, largely as a political act. She had learned to write English before Spanish and her Spanish was, by the standards of her generation, odd. “It was kind of stiff; it didn’t have the inflections of people my age, or of Mexican Spanish generally, which is very playful and streetwise, almost like rhyming slang. And I was never able to play those language games. I spoke older Spanish.”
After a period spent in South Africa, where her father opened Mexico’s first embassy in the country after Nelson Mandela’s election, Luiselli went to a boarding school in India, an idealistic place that offered young people scholarships to promote world peace. It was attended by around 200 teenagers from 90 countries, Luiselli says, and “we were expected to do a lot of social work. I think that experience, early on in my life, meant that academic expression was always linked to a deeper commitment to the community around me.” She returned to Mexico for college, before moving to New York to attend graduate school at Columbia University and begin work on her first novel, Faces in the Crowd (in Spanish Los Ingrávidos).
Stories are told in a way that is never humanising of the people involved. It’s either ‘surges’, or ‘masses’
Novel-writing, says Luiselli, is not something she can detach from her everyday life. She was married to the Mexican novelist Álvaro Enrigue, and it seemed natural to incorporate the end of a marriage into a novel, completed in the aftermath of her own. When she went back to look over the journals and notes that informed Lost Children Archive, she saw that the germ of the story had been there from the outset – “a story about children and parents; children listening to the stories that their parents tell them”.
The combining of “the most quotidian, banal, everyday scenes” with the horror of unaccompanied minors at the border was not, she says, a strategy to help readers identify with the action, but merely a representation of the jumble of life as it is. One of the worst expectations of fiction, she says, is that it be “relatable”.
“I find that, I’m sorry, bullshit. Something is good because it really speaks to me; because it really forces me out of myself, to take an imaginative step outward and into another. But that idea of relatability is very much in the culture of teaching literature. The other idea is that something is good because it teaches empathy. The bar is so low! If you’re going to devote your life to something as questionably useful as literature or art, I think there’s a commitment that you make to understanding others, their minds and souls, as a minimum standard.” She pauses. “That said, maybe it’s true that we have to work from the bare minimum because it seems like it is difficult for a lot of people to imagine being in someone else’s life.”
Faces in the Crowd tells the story of two characters in Harlem who feel themselves to be slowly, inexorably, disappearing. In her second novel, The Story of My Teeth, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award, Luiselli combines traditional storytelling with some of the avant-garde devices that reappear in Lost Children Archive – photos, documents, even an intervention by another writer, all of which, as the New York Times review noted at the time, make it a “porous” book born of a “shared vision”.
Luiselli is hostile to flat representation, nowhere more so than in the treatment of migrants, or other victims of trauma. When she lived in Mexico, she says, she held unfashionable views about the popular novels based on the drug wars there, “most of which reproduced the violence. I had a political sense that it was parasitical,” she says. Torture porn. “Yes.” And the same goes for the representations of migrants.
Central American migrants ride La Bestia, or the Beast, Mexico, 2018. Photograph: Luis Gutierrez/AP
“Stories are told in a way that is never humanising of the people involved. It’s either ‘numbers’, or ‘surges’, or ‘masses’, or ‘caravans’. Or it is the absolute victim kind of story that completely others them – it’s not a person with agency. I’ve spoken to many mothers who decide to immigrate here, seeking asylum, and they have very strong politics. And the way that they are political is never understood or coded into the narrative. It’s always about this poor mother who had to leave; it’s never her decision or her agency. Even when there’s an attempt to humanise, it goes overboard in terms of victimisation.”
In Tell Me How It Ends, Luiselli recounts the story – tenderly, unhistrionically – of a teenage boy whose asylum claim she helped elucidate for the court, and who had in his possession a rare item: evidence of his persecution in the form of a police report he had filed in his native country, detailing the risk he was at from gang members who threatened him, shot his best friend, and followed him home from school. (The police did nothing, at which point he decided to leave.) This piece of paper assumes talismanic properties for the boy and, writes Luiselli, “he unfolded it gently, slowly, treated it with the same careful precision a surgeon might”, before offering it to her as proof he isn’t lying. Then he puts it back in his pocket “like a lucky charm”. In the flatness of her delivery, the horror of the boy’s story becomes somehow more vivid.
If there is one benefit of the Trump administration, she says, it is that “comfortable liberal people have woken up politically. Sometimes it feels a little bit late, particularly with immigration, because the Obama administration was not great. But I do see in the younger generation a more committed political engagement that goes beyond Twitter ranting and into building organisations.”
Luiselli herself is involved in running a fiction workshop for young female asylum seekers in a detention centre in upstate New York, a tricky task given the legal pressures on them. (Nothing they write can risk contradicting or complicating the account they first gave to officials at the border, a stricture she has circumvented by having them create a zine and work on “collective writing”). The thoughts one is left with after reading Luiselli – the horror of being lost and alone; wondering how would my child fare out there in the desert? – come together in her latest novel with this overarching question of how to preserve that which has been lost. “It is a novel about documentary form and the politics of that. It is about who is included and excluded.”
It is also about the value of fiction itself. “Sometimes a little light can make you aware of the dark, unknown space that surrounds it, of the enormous ignorance that envelops everything we think we know,” writes Luiselli in the novel. “And that recognition and coming to terms with darkness is more valuable than all the factual knowledge that may ever accumulate.”
Lost Children Archive is published by 4th Estate (£16.99). To order a copy 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. Valeria Luiselli will discuss her novel at the Southbank Centre, London SE1, on 19 March at 7.30pm (tickets £12). | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/nov/30/the-best-crime-books-and-thrillers-of-2016 | Books | 2016-11-30T12:00:17.000Z | Mark Lawson | The best crime books and thrillers of 2016 | Crime writing turned up in unexpected places this year. The usually mystery-sniffy Man Booker prize shortlist found a place for Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project (Contraband), a smart amalgam of legal thriller and literary game that reads as if Umberto Eco has been resurrected in the 19th-century Scottish Highlands. Ian McEwan also blurred genre boundaries in Nutshell (Jonathan Cape), an ingenious rewrite of Hamlet as a murder story in which a foetus is both detective and possible victim.
The crime reader’s dream of a long, labyrinthine novel that you never want to finish is magnificently fulfilled by Six Four by Hideo Yokoyama (Riverrun). This Japanese super-seller, translated by Jonathan Lloyd-Davies, is a police-procedural conspiracy thriller involving two disappearances that also rivetingly dramatises the mindsets and lifestyles of contemporary Japan.
Among more familiar practitioners, The Trespasser (Hodder & Stoughton), the sixth in the Dublin Murder Squad sequence by Tana French, will introduce new readers to a phenomenal crime writer. Readers of her first five will be thrilled to go deeper and darker into the mind of Detective Antoinette Conway, the co-star of French’s previous best, The Secret Place, as she investigates an apparently simple murder case while questioning personal and professional beliefs. After publishing new adventures for Sherlock Holmes and James Bond, Anthony Horowitz returns to original work with Magpie Murders (Orion), a lovely puzzle in which a writer of sleepy English sleuth stuff may have buried nastier scenes from real life in his latest manuscript.
Deeper and darker into the mind of Detective Antoinette Conway … Tana French. Photograph: Kathrin Baumbach
Although busy as a TV showrunner (Fargo, Legion), Noah Hawley has thankfully found time to continue his suspense fiction career with Before the Fall (Hodder & Stoughton), which, like its predecessor, The Good Father, uses a family catastrophe – in this case, a private plane ditching in the sea – to explore wider US tensions: a plotline involving a political campaign manager eerily previews Donald Trump’s triumph.
A writer popularised by TV, Ann Cleeves, confirms that she is the best living evoker of landscape, with Cold Earth (Macmillan), the seventh book in her Shetland series, in which a landslide reveals crime. The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware (Harvill Secker), meanwhile, channels Agatha Christie’s murders at sea in a satisfying contemporary direction as a travel journalist doubts what she has seen on a cruise.
There were noteworthy crime debuts from Sanjida Kay, whose Bone by Bone (Corvus) turns unnervingly on how far a mother should go to protect her child, and Susie Steiner. Her Missing, Presumed (Borough Press) starts with the sudden disappearance of a woman whose loved ones may have an intriguing variety of reasons to mislead the police.
On the eve of Hull becoming UK City of Culture in 2017, the local tourist board probably won’t thank David Mark for Dead Pretty (Mulholland), his fifth crime novel set in the city, where savage extremes of wealth and poverty are the background to killings. A former reporter, Mark brings rare insight into urban undercurrents.
Disappearances in Susie Steiner’s Missing, Presumed. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian
Several old lags defied the relentless book-a-year pressure of the market to remain fresh and inventive a long way down the shelf. Taking a breather from his DI Tom Thorne novels, Mark Billingham finds a clever and affecting twist on the classic “closed circle” crime story with Die of Shame (Little, Brown): when a member of a rehab support group is murdered, police are left to interrogate fellow addicts, who keep secrets and tell lies with ease. Val McDermid reaches the landmark of 30 published novels with Out of Bounds (Little, Brown), in which a car crash reopens an old crime. It’s a showcase for McDermid’s deft plotting and psychological canniness.
Some of the longest-running police series still energetically walked their beat in 2016. Peter’s Robinson’s 23rd DCI Banks novel, When the Music’s Over (Hodder & Stoughton), bravely entwines two controversial storylines: one is about a Savile-like sex criminal; the other tells of an Asian gang alleged to be grooming girls. Although Ian Rankin is clearly struggling to find ways of re‑employing the retired John Rebus, the 21st in the series, Rather Be the Devil (Orion), thoughtfully explores the strange co-dependent relationship between the cop and his longstanding rival, aging gangster “Big Ger” Cafferty. Similarly, Love You Dead (Macmillan), the 12th Peter James novel about DCI Roy Grace, expands the backstory of the detective’s missing wife with compelling results.
Snowfall in St Peter’s square, Rome … Robert Harris’s Conclave tells of secrets and spies at the Vatican. Photograph: Gregorio Borgia/AP
James’s book features a so-called “black widow” killer – a woman whose lovers come to suspicious ends – and this metaphor seems to have gone viral among writers this year. It provides plotline and title for Chris Brookmyre’s Black Widow (Little, Brown), featuring his appealing-appalling journo-hero Jack Parlabane, and dealing with the internet’s effect on reputation. In The Black Widow (HarperCollins), Daniel Silva, an increasingly impressive Washington-based novelist, dramatises an Islamist attack on Paris. Silva wrote most of the book before the Bataclan attacks, yet in its account of how such events might be thwarted, the story still feels ahead of the game.
The potential impact on cities of terrorism has understandably become a key theme of recent thrillers. The possibility of a global holy war underlies Conclave (Hutchinson), in which Robert Harris saves the Vatican thriller from the grip of Dan Brown. In contrast, Crisis (Bantam), an enjoyable and informative debut by BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner, looks more broadly at western insecurities.
Any of the above titles, if given as a gift, would leave the recipient more inclined to kiss than to kill you. However, those seeking a present that is seasonal in content as well as intent are well served by a British example of a tinsel-mystery subgenre that is more common in the US. Murder Under the Christmas Tree (Profile) collects late-December tales from practitioners late (Conan Doyle, Christie) and living (Rankin, McDermid). And The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories (Faber) is a box of crackers from PD James, a writer still viscerally missed by her readers.
Save at least 30% on this year’s critics’ choices when you buy at the Guardian Bookshop. Visit bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Support the Guardian and its journalism with every book you buy this Christmas. *Free UK p&p for online orders over £10. Minimum £1.99 p&p applies to telephone orders.
Best book lists of 2016
Best fiction
Best crime and thrillers
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https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/may/29/angela-hartnett-chicken-mushrooms-cumin | Life and style | 2013-05-29T12:04:10.000Z | Angela Hartnett | Angela Hartnett's chicken with mushrooms and cumin recipe | Ihave a cupboard full of spices, and every now and again I force myself to try different combinations. Roast chicken is great with lemon and rosemary, but for a change, try it with cumin – it's really delicious. Toast the seeds first and add a touch of star anise if you fancy extra spice.
(serves 3-4)
3 tbsp olive oil
4 chicken thighs
4 chicken drumsticks
Pinch of rock salt and pepper
Large pinch of cumin seeds, crushed
300ml vegetable stock, or water
250g chestnut mushrooms, cleaned
2 tbsp flat-leaf parsley, chopped
Heat the oil on medium in a large lidded pan, season the chicken with salt and pepper and colour, uncovered, on both sides for about five minutes (you may need to do this in two batches).
When all of the chicken is browned, add the cumin seeds and toast in the pan.
Add the stock – or water – cover the pan and cook for 20 minutes.
Roughly chop the mushrooms and add them to the pan about five minutes before the chicken is cooked, and replace the lid.
Serve the chicken garnished with the parsley and with steamed cabbage or a green salad.
Angela Hartnett is chef patron at Murano restaurant and consults at the Whitechapel Gallery and Dining Room, London. Twitter.com/angelahartnett | Full |
http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2015/aug/11/the-200-year-old-painting-that-puts-europes-fear-of-migrants-to-shame | Art and design | 2015-08-11T12:28:47.000Z | Jonathan Jones | The 200-year-old painting that puts Europe's fear of migrants to shame | Nearly 200 years ago, Théodore Géricault painted a masterpiece of pity that puts modern Europe to shame.
The Raft of the Medusa (1818-19) is one of the most startling and powerful paintings in the world. It is also a call for compassion, humanity and common decency. Striking in reproduction, it is truly harrowing in real life, all 7x5 metres of it, looming over you in the Louvre. Darkness is literally eating up this painting; a deathly shadow seems to suck you into it. There is a black hole of horror at its heart.
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And now I have to ask: why can’t we modern Europeans show the same compassion and humanity that made our forebears flock to see this protest against callous indifference to people abandoned at sea?
The Medusa was a French navy ship that got into trouble off west Africa in 1816. About 147 people were put off the ship on an open raft, in a heartless decision that contemporaries blamed on the recently restored French monarchy. They were cast helplessly adrift at sea, just as so many migrants making the perilous attempt to cross to Europe have in our time been cruelly left to drift in unseaworthy craft by unscrupulous people traffickers. Only 15 people survived the raft of the Medusa.
Géricault’s painting depicts a tragedy in the Atlantic rather than the Mediterranean – otherwise, the parallels with today’s migrants are terrifying. But there is one appalling difference. Géricault can imagine what it was like to be in this catastrophe. His painting is a monumental attempt to force the spectactor to feel the horror of these events and the suffering of these people. We refuse that empathy to people who die trying to cross borders, who are drowned at sea or killed trying to get through the Channel tunnel.
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The Raft of the Medusa breaks the border between art and life. It is literally so large that the action seems to burst into reality, spilling out of the frame. Standing before it you feel the sea surge towards you. In this disturbing experience of looking, the anguish of the people on the raft becomes vivid and immediate. We are there beside them. As one young survivor hopefully tries to signal to a distant ship, an old man sitting among the dead has already given up hope. The mass of humanity is arranged as a pyramid of hope and despair, from those who struggle to keep going and are excited about the ship on the horizon to pitiable corpses half-slipping into the sea.
Géricault makes us feel the loss of each of the dead and the pain of each of the living. This painting is an act of empathy for our fellow human beings. But where is such empathy today?
A few days ago, Leoluca Orlando, the courageous reforming mayor of Palermo who has fought organised crime for decades, broke ranks with this generation’s callous dishonesty to speak the truth.
Migrants in Calais. Photograph: Zoltan Balogh/EPA
“In the future, the European Union will be held responsible for this genocide, exactly like we held Nazi fascism responsible for genocide 70 years ago,” he said. “It’s not possible to stop human mobility in the world and if you try to stop it with violence, we are responsible for genocide.”
Meanwhile, as the British government tries to convince voters it is “doing something”, its language has become shamefully callous. Vile words about “swarms” of “marauding” migrants are brutal. But they reflect a cynical calculation that British public feeling too is brutal, just as it appears to be across much of the continent, while only southern Europeans such as Orlando, who see the real tragedy of our time up close, occasionally tell the human truth about it.
Are we really, as a nation, so heartless that when desperate people risk their lives to try and get in our country we don’t ask why, but merely resent the interference with holidays and hassle for lorry drivers?
Probably only racism can explain such a deep intolerance, such a terrifying inability to imagine oneself in the place of others.
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Why is America so different? Republican presidential candidates are currently competing in offensiveness to Latin American migrants but they’re on a loser – President Obama’s embrace of Latin voters and tolerance of migration was a winning factor in his second presidential victory. America is becoming an ever more plural society, while Europe closes doors and turns a blind eye to the terrible deaths of people trying to cross borders for a better life. Your poor and huddled masses? They are not welcome here.
Is it some ancient echo of the mercantilist European economic theories of 350 years ago that imagined national economies as closed systems? Yet it is, today, economically illiterate to believe that migration is bad for the (globalised) economy. It is obviously good. It is creative.
We have lost the basic human decency that should be synonymous with Europe, and Britain.
The Raft of the Medusa condemns us. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jan/30/misunderstood-macquarie-takes-another-go-in-uk-water-industry-southern | Business | 2022-01-30T19:25:03.000Z | Jillian Ambrose | Sink or swim: Macquarie plunges back into crisis-hit UK water industry | The UK’s water industry has for years promised to clean up its reputation for pollution incidents, leaks and murky financial dealings. Yet once again, it is hoping for a clean start.
In total, water companies spilled raw sewage into coastal bathing waters more than 5,500 times last year, prompting a another investigation by the Environment Agency and the industry regulator, Ofwat, in November.
Weeks later, Ofwat raised a red flag over the financial health of three of Britain’s biggest water companies – Southern, Yorkshire and SES. The regulator expressed concern about “weak levels of financial resilience” and levels of customer service that lagged behind the rest of the industry.
For Southern, the resilience report gave a snapshot of the company’s financial health before an equity injection from a familiar character in the water sector’s chequered history, the Australian investment bank Macquarie.
Macquarie gained notoriety for its role as the owner of Thames Water between 2006 and 2016, when it attracted fierce political scrutiny for extracting billions in shareholder dividends while Thames’s debt soared. By 2018 the Labour party had called for the sector to be returned to public ownership.
But five years after selling out of Thames, the Australian infrastructure investor was given the regulator’s blessing to return to run one of the most troubled water companies in the industry – a move that raised eyebrows in the industry.
The £1bn in fresh equity for Southern over the summer followed Ofwat’s decision to enforce a record £90m fine against Southern for deliberately pouring sewage into the sea, and came with a promise to invest a further £2bn over the next four years.
Macquarie has not stopped there. Within months of its return to the UK’s water sector, it agreed to invest £130m in green bonds issued by a subsidiary of Affinity Water, and £120m in Anglian Water’s debt. The passive investments are part of the bank’s sprawling set of investments in UK infrastructure.
Macquarie owns the Green Investment Bank, which was set up with UK taxpayer funds and controversially privatised four years ago. Under its ownership, GIB’s profits more than quadrupled to £144m for the year ending March 2021, compared with the year before. It has paid a total of £174m in dividends to Macquarie, which also owns gas networks, airports and telecoms service companies across the UK.
Aileen Armstrong, a senior director at Ofwat, said the regulator had “really welcomed the money coming into the regulated business” while being “clear about the expectations on what the company needed to do for customers.
“We have wanted to see a turnaround, and a component of that is an equity injection into the company, which is what this transaction did. We have been very clear – and would be with any prospective new owner – about what we expected of the regulated company and the need for a turnaround in the operations there,” she said.
One senior industry source said Ofwat’s decision to give Macquarie its blessing to return to the water industry showed “just how desperate they were” after Southern’s record pollution fine and its troubling financial position.
“Southern was not an attractive prospect for investors, and the company’s management was, perhaps unsurprisingly, on its knees. Investors would not have been falling over themselves to take a share of Southern,” the source said.
However, Martin Bradley, the head of Macquarie’s “real assets” team in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said his bank was happy to return to the UK’s water industry despite “misunderstandings” over its ownership of Thames and the concerns over Southern’s financial health.
“We didn’t pay a premium for Southern Water,” he said. “We invest in long-term infrastructure, and there’s nothing more long-term than the provision of utilities like water. This is what we do, and we think we’re quite good operators.”
Macquarie’s spell at Thames was far from blemish-free. In 2017, the water company was fined £20m after admitting it dumped 1.4bn litres of raw sewage into the River Thames at six sites in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire between 2013 and 2014. The water company’s finances were also a cause for alarm, with Macquarie criticised for selling Thames with almost £11bn of debt after a decade in which the bank paid itself £1.6bn in dividends, ran up a £260m pension deficit and paid next to no UK corporation tax.
A former senior Thames employee said of Macquarie: “Were they an effective, focused investor? Absolutely. But can you expect them to operate a utility in the public interest? Well, only if you are certain that the regulatory framework rewards the good behaviours and penalises the bad. Ofwat hasn’t always done that.”
The characterisation of the Australian bank as a “vampire kangaroo”, or an aggressive asset stripper, has sometimes been unfair, he added.
“They did extract more out of the company than would be ideal, but it was in full sight of the regulator. And where it made sense under the regulatory framework for Macquarie to invest in Thames, they were happy to invest too,” he said.
Macquarie’s interests in the water sector are part of a more than £50bn of investment in UK infrastructure that it has either arranged or invested directly since 2005. These include Cadent, which is the UK’s largest gas distribution network operator, as well as the operator of Aberdeen, Glasgow, and Southampton airports and the broadcast service provider Arqiva.
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“We didn’t need to convince the regulator,” Bradley said of Macquarie’s return to the UK water industry. “Ofwat has said they’d be keeping a close eye on the situation at Southern Water. They expect us to deliver, and we expect to deliver.”
The former Thames employee said that at the end of the day, Macquarie was driven entirely by the bottom line and the letter of Ofwat’s regulation.
“They were always in it for the money, and they were able to use the regulatory regime to take an aggressive approach at times,” he said. However, there have been concerns for some time that there has been “underspending in areas that Ofwat didn’t measure” that has led to “an accumulation of problems over decades”.
Armstrong said there had already been “quite a lot of change in the regulatory regime since Macquarie was last in the sector”.
“Over the last few years we’ve been very clear about making sure there is financial resilience in the sector and that the companies are focused on delivering good operation performance,” she said. Hopefully this time, Ofwat has been clear enough. The regulator can wash its hands of the past only so many times. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/jul/24/film.filmnews | UK news | 2007-07-24T22:52:01.000Z | Charlotte Higgins | New tax breaks see British film industry 'firing on all cylinders' | It was not so long ago that the British film industry was regarded as a national embarrassment, churning out little but turkeys, and barely registering at the Oscars. But in 2006, according to a study from the UK Film Council, the British film industry contributed £4.3bn to the economy - up 39% on 2004. It also contributed, overall, £1.1bn to the exchequer in tax revenues.
"The British film industry seems to be firing on all cylinders," said John Woodward, the council's chief executive.
"On one end of the spectrum we have smaller films like [Andrea Arnold's] Red Road and [Ken Loach's] The Wind that Shakes the Barley that get us prizes at Cannes. Then there are the medium-size films like The Queen and The Constant Gardener that get us to the Oscars. Finally, there are the juggernauts, like Harry Potter and James Bond, the real blockbusters."
By 2010 it is estimated that 11% of global film production will be sited in the UK.
Oxford Economics, which was co-commissioned by the council and Pinewood Studios to produce the report, attributed the leap in success to the introduction this year of new tax incentives for those making films in the UK.
Mr Woodward said: "The system was turbulent in terms of its creation in 2004 but it works. People are using it and the cheques are coming back from the Inland Revenue."
Studio scenes in the next Bond movie are likely to be shot wholly at Pinewood Studios (Casino Royale was partly shot at Barrandov studios, Prague) as a result of the UK's tax incentives.
Oxford Economics found that the UK film industry employs 35,000 people, and directly contributes £435m gross in tax. It costs the tax payer £120m in tax relief and £55m in direct support to film-makers through the Film Council.
The report estimated that if tax relief were abolished the industry would, in the medium term, atrophy, causing the exchequer a loss of about £350m a year. The number of films made would drop by 75% and GDP would be reduced by £1.3bn. The skilled workforce that the industry attracts, many from overseas, would melt away to find employment elsewhere.
The report covered economic activity arising from film production in the UK; and from distribution and exhibition of films made in the UK. But it also looked at wider economic effects such as the benefits to tourism. It attributed one in 10 visits to the UK to the impact of films, from Harry Potter to Miss Potter.
Merchandising - books, games and toys associated with UK films - was worth £345m, the report said.
Piracy was the biggest challenge to the industry, according to Mr Woodward, with 20% of all viewings of films based on pirated material.
Eric Fellner, who with Tim Bevan runs the UK's most successful production company, Working Title, said: "It's a shame that while there's such a massive increase in tax revenue from films, on the cultural and artistic side of our business the government is threatening 5% cuts to Arts Council England." | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/apr/01/this-is-england-beloved-uk-drama-is-the-tonic-australia-needs-right-now | Culture | 2020-03-31T16:30:02.000Z | Katie Cunningham | This Is England: beloved UK drama is the tonic Australia needs right now | First there was This Is England, the movie. Set in 1983 in the UK, it followed a group of young skinheads who become divided by the far-right politics creeping into their subculture. At the centre of it all was 12-year-old Shaun, a semi-autobiographical character based on the director Shane Meadows’ youth.
This Is England didn’t do much at the box office but it was enough of a critical success that Meadows was able to revive the cast of characters for a TV spin-off. He made three miniseries to follow the film – This Is England ’86, This Is England ’88 and This Is England ’90 – which charted where that friendship group went next in their lives.
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Over the years, we see them fall in and out of love, go from skins to Stone Roses-worshipping ravers, endure jobs they hate, burn down their lives and then build them up again. Shaun, the star of the movie, steps back somewhat to become part of a wider ensemble. The series is excellent and while it’s beloved in the UK, it doesn’t seem to have found a huge audience here in Australia. Luckily, though, it and the film are now streaming on Stan (bar This Is England ’90, which is mysteriously absent from the catalogue).
Thomas Turgoose as Shaun in This Is England. Photograph: Sportsphoto/Allstar
You’ll need to start your This Is England journey with the film, but don’t take its mood as an indication of what’s to come in the series. While the movie is sombre and a little bit arthouse, the series is funny and endearing. Which is kind of strange, given the topics it tackles: suicide, rape, abuse, addiction and violence all make up major plotlines. Some scenes are truly harrowing.
And yet, nothing I’ve seen on TV has ever moved or delighted me quite like This Is England. There is so much heart and so much to cheer for here – especially the characters, who are complex and flawed and often giant fuck-ups, but also entirely lovable. You truly root for them, especially Woody and Lol, the couple at the centre of the group.
Chanel Cresswell, Thomas Turgoose, Vicky McClure and Danielle Watson in This Is England. Photograph: Film4/Sportsphoto/Allstar
Identity, belonging and redemption are the themes the show returns to over and over. But it’s about class, too, and how this largely working-class group of young people forge lives to a backdrop of Thatcher and parents who variously hurt them, let them down or loom as reminders of what they don’t want to become. The world around these characters and the cards they are dealt often seem unjust. But the gang keeps going despite it all – often, it’s the strength of their friendships that pull them through.
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True to life, there aren’t neat and tidy resolutions for every character. But rewatching This Is England this year, I ended the last episode filled mostly with hope. There’s a strange comfort to watching these characters go through the worst things a person can experience and emerge on the other side. Seeing them find happiness between the bullshit is life-affirming, not depressing. It feels like a testament to human resilience, our ability to adapt and the ways we manage to survive even the cruellest of blows. Things fall apart, everything changes, but the world goes on. Maybe, in these times, we can take it as a reminder: this, too, shall pass.
This Is England is now streaming in Australia on Stan | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/17/horse-racingroyale-pagaille-should-target-gold-cup-advisor-cheltenham | Sport | 2021-02-18T00:09:00.000Z | Chris Cook | Talking Horses: Royale Pagaille owners told to target Gold Cup | Royale Pagaille’s Cheltenham target should be the Gold Cup itself, according to the racing manager to the horse’s owners. No final decision will be made for some weeks, but the news is a significant boost for anyone who wants to see steeplechasing’s rising star in the biggest race at next month’s Festival.
“Given his prominence in the betting for the Gold Cup, I would like to see him take his chance in it this year,” Joe Chambers told the Guardian on Wednesday. Chambers has long represented the interests of Rich and Susannah Ricci, whose pink and green colours have regularly made it to the winner’s enclosure during recent Festivals, but never yet in the Gold Cup.
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Back in the autumn, Royale Pagaille’s name was barely known outside the Herefordshire stable of his trainer, Venetia Williams, who had initially had some trouble finding a buyer after paying €70,000 for him at an auction in France in 2018. But a run of three increasingly impressive successes have put the seven-year-old plenty third in most betting lists for the Gold Cup, with no major bookmaker offering bigger than 10-1.
“He has experience and the trip should not be a problem,” Chambers said. “But his best form to this point has been on flat tracks. The way I look at it is, let’s find out that he handles Cheltenham in the Gold Cup, rather than the National Hunt Chase.”
Royale Pagaille has been such a slow burner that he still qualifies as a novice over fences, despite having his first run in a steeplechase almost three years ago. As a result, he still has entries in what would normally be regarded as easier races at next month’s Festival, though he has now been taken out of the Marsh Novice Chase on the grounds that the distance of two and a half miles would be too short.
He also seems unlikely to contest the Brown Advisory, formerly known as the RSA, because the Riccis already own the hot favourite for that race in Monkfish, based in Ireland with Willie Mullins. That leaves the marathon National Hunt Chase that, Chambers agreed, might become more attractive if the Cheltenham ground looked like drying out, on the basis that it would allow Royale Pagaille to make more use of his stamina.
Royale Pagaille's new handicap rating after his Peter Marsh romp at @haydockraces is 1⃣6⃣6⃣. Not bad for a novice! 😍
Two-time Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Al Boum Photo is on 1⃣7⃣5⃣ pic.twitter.com/y9RhAumiyD
— Racing TV (@RacingTV) January 26, 2021
A final decision appears unlikely before final entries must be made on 14 March, two days before the Festival. “My personal opinion would be to go for Gold this year. The outcome depends on a discussion between Susannah, Rich and Venetia,” said Chambers, who joked: “I’ll have my say and they will promptly ignore it, in all likelihood.”
Williams has seemed inclined to take a cautious approach and used the phrase “Let’s not get carried away” in the days after Royale Pagaille won Haydock’s Peter Marsh by 16 lengths.
The Riccis have had some bad news this weekwith Benie Des Dieux being ruled out of the Festival after failing to please in her home work. Chambers said: “We’ll have very few novices travelling over, for one reason or another. They haven’t hit the standard or they’re injured.
“But we’ll still have quite a strong team in the round, thanks to Chacun Pour Soi, Monkfish, Min, Hook Up in the Mares Novice Hurdle, and Royale Pagaille and hopefully a couple of horses in the handicaps.”
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Last seen in the Mandarin at Newbury, Cuban Pete (4.15) gave himself no chance of getting home that day by racing freely from the outset and jumping out to the right on occasion, including twice at the cross fence. He was well beaten by the winner but stuck on bravely to be third of 14.
A switch back to a right-handed track seemed essential, bearing in mind he is a three-time winner at Hereford, and I can give him another chance at Sandown on Thursday. His rivals are interesting without being compelling. Jepeck’s effort will be worth monitoring as the Anthony Honeyball yard has its first runners since January.
Gastara (4.50) benefits from a major jockey upgrade as Johnny Farrelly’s runner makes his handicap debut. Kevin Brogan takes over in the saddle from a claiming amateur whose last winner over jumps was 15 years ago, which can’t have been ideal for a horse who takes a strong hold. The hood is fitted and the well-related Gastara ought to have a few pounds in hand if he can be persuaded to behave.
At Leicester, someone else likes Hot Smoked (1.30), down to 6-1 from the opening 10s. She showed promise when last seen over fences, just finding Taunton a bit sharp last spring. She should be sharper for her reappearance over hurdles and the handicapper has given her a chance. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2014/aug/19/no-guts-no-heart-no-glory-review | Stage | 2014-08-19T11:40:38.000Z | Lyn Gardner | Edinburgh festival 2014 review: No Guts, No Heart, No Glory – full of sweaty, sweary joy | The young woman is talking quietly about happiness. Her happiness depends on her parents' happiness. When they are happy, she is happy too. It becomes clear that what they want for her – an arranged marriage – may not be what she would choose for herself. She would like to go to university and have a career. But if that choice makes her parents unhappy will it make her unhappy too? It's complicated, particularly when you're 16 and just discovering who you are and what you want to be.
Choosing for yourself and self-determination drive this latest piece from Common Wealth, the company who burst into our consciousness on the Edinburgh fringe last year with Our Glass House, a searing show in a real house that made the audience bear witness to domestic violence. No Guts may not have that show's visceral impact, but it is full of the frustrations, joy and bravery of its subjects.
It takes place in a boxing gym on the outskirts of Edinburgh and focuses on a group of Muslim girls telling us about their lives as they train. A girl practising her left hook cuts against all the media stereotypes. The image of the girls skipping and dodging the rope as it turns suggests young women who are nimbly defying the expectations that family and society may place upon them.
This is a show about difference: the way they sometimes feel different at school; how suffocating it can be to live in a community where you know that everything you do will be reported back to your family and that eyes are on you everywhere you go. How sometimes you feel oppressed by being different and sometimes you want to be different and make a difference to the world.
One of the things that makes No Guts so moving is the strong feeling that these Bradford girls own this material fully, that they live it every day. Watching them pummel the punchbags is like watching them try to fight their way through and find answers about their own lives and how they feel about the world. What's fascinating is that it isn't angsty and downbeat, but full of a sweaty, sweary joy at the sheer possibilities of the world, and what it means to be 16 and know that they are in your grasp. You just have to box your way through, avoiding the punches and delivering a few of your own.
Bradford's Muslim women boxers enter the ring | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/29/lou-reed-last-interview | Music | 2013-10-29T18:03:57.000Z | Hanna Hanra | I met Lou Reed – and he was charm personified | In August this year, just two months before his death, I was invited to interview Lou Reed (full disclosure: it was a joint interview with the Quietus). It was an opportunity I couldn't pass up, but one I was also wary of accepting: after all, Lou didn't always get on too well with us journalists.
Lou was being interviewed with his longtime friend and collaborator, the photographer Mick Rock. A book, called Transformer after Reed's 1972 album, had been published of Mick's photos, charting Lou's transformation from underground pin-up to cult icon between 1972 and 1980. I was, understandably, quite nervous. I fully expected to turn into my stammering, scarlet-faced teenage self, as I was a huge fan. I first bought Transformer on cassette at the age of 12 because I liked the cover, and I have now been listening to Lou's music for 20 years. He became a huge influence on my life, from how I dressed and the colour(s) of my hair to – at least to some degree – the course of my career.
Our turn to speak to Lou came at the end of a long press day, when subjects have invariably been weathered by answering the same questions over and over. After an anxious four-hour wait, Lou appeared with his wife, Laurie Anderson. "The thing I like about Lou," his manager had told me during the wait, "is that he could have had any girl he wanted, but he loves Laurie so much." Gazing through the glass partition, I could see them talking sweetly between the interviews. "Don't mention David Bowie's album," his publicist warned, half-jokingly, as the interviewer before me left. "The last guy who did that got the wrong side of Lou."
People always say you shouldn't meet your idols, that you'll only be disappointed. But when I walked in the room a peal of laughter greeted me. "Finally!" he leaned back. "What I've been waiting for – a woman!"
He was looked delicate. Quite startlingly so: traces of his liver transplant were easy to spot, and a huge bandage covering his belly was revealed when he used the edge of his shirt to clean his glasses. Still, his eyes – glassy and bright – danced around the room and softened as they fell onto my (lucky) T-shirt (which I wore especially) and his face, although creased like a well-loved toy, was still very handsome. He was sparkly, witty and happy to talk about the past. It was almost unnerving. "I was a product of Andy Warhol's Factory," he said. "All I did was sit there and observe these incredibly talented and creative people who were continually making art, and it was impossible not to be affected by that." On Andy, he said, "he was somebody who created himself. You know, there he was as a balding commercial artist who took himself off to God knows where and reinvented himself as this guy in a leather jacket and a wig."
We talked a while about the wig. "I asked him about it because I thought it made him look older," he said, smiling, "and Andy said: 'well that's fine because when I do get older it'll be perfect.'" A bit like Robert Johnson's story, he was asked [see footnote]. "I wish I could tell you it was like that for me. You know, that I heard a voice at midnight say, 'Lou … Lou … this is what you'll be doing for the rest of your life'".
Lou was obviously thrilled to be with Mick, the pair riffing off each other and going over Mick's documentation of the past, particularly some of the clothes he wore back then. "It was Angie Bowie who gave me the studded jacket and those velvet pants, but really it was just a more glamorous version of what I was wearing."
"It's funny," he added, "I see women doing now what I was doing then, like painting patterns on their fingernails, and it makes me laugh." And then, somehow, we got onto tattoos. "Back then one person would, say, get a tattoo on their dick and everyone would say 'how's your dick doing?' Now everyone's got their dick tattooed."
It wasn't all light. As we talked about modern art, he seemed bored. Or, more to the point, keen to express his boredom. "[Back then] it was punk rock the way it should be: adventurous. It was about being creative, offering something different. The problem is that no one is really making great art any more." So what was his main thrust in the beginning, his driving force? "I was trying to smash through things. Music should come crashing out of your speakers and grab you, and the lyrics should challenge whatever preconceived notions that listener has." And how does that compare to now? "We are living in a compressed age where people are perfectly happy to listen to the worst kind of recorded shit imaginable. And who buys albums anymore? People are too busy downloading singles or just single tracks and that isn't very healthy. I see people watching movies on their phones or iPads, and don't they realise that they're missing so much?"
As I left the dark womb of the recording studio, I took stock of what had just happened. I'd met my punk rock hero, and he wasn't an arsehole. Just a really sweet, funny old man. Maybe he couldn't be bothered to be an arsehole anymore – and that's quite punk in itself, isn't it?
The following footnote was added to this article on 31 October 2013: Julian Marszalek from The Quietus would like us to clarify that he posed several of the questions asked during the interview described above, at which both he and Hanna Hanra were present. These include the ones about Robert Johnson, Lou Reed's driving force at the onset of his career and how that compares to now. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/apr/05/familyandrelationships6 | Life and style | 2008-04-04T23:06:21.000Z | Pete May | The Family Challenge: Pete May takes his wife and children to a family session of tae kwon do | The family
"Tae kwon do was started in Korea on April 11 1955 by Grand Master General Choi, ninth dan," repeats my nine-year-old daughter over breakfast.
"Hmm. They have good titles, don't they?" muses my wife, Nicola.
We know about the grand master because nine-year-old Lola and seven-year-old Nell take tae kwon do classes at school. Tae kwon do translates as "the art of hand and foot". This martial art has clearly captivated them, judging by the stances and punches that punctuate our walk to school. They are now experts in blocking, front-kicks and side-kicks. Should they ever ignore the tenet "I shall never misuse tae kwon do", they could probably have their dad on his jelly-belly in seconds.
Lola is cramming for her first grading (belt-test) session. She has to learn the five tenets of tae kwon do: "Courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control and indomitable spirit."
When the kids discover that we've arranged a family session, there's a mood of incredulity merged with amusement. Clearly, my daughters believe that their dad's body is less a temple and more a repossessed home.
The training
We're being taught in the gym at Drayton Park School in London by the girls' instructor, Michael Williams (a third dan). Encouragingly for us oldies, Michael, known as "sir" in class, only took up tae kwon do when he was 36. "I looked at myself and I was not in as good a shape as I needed to be," he says. "Tae kwon do rejuvenates the body."
Michael tells us how it applies the principles of science to t he body and that most of the martial arts we see in films such as The Matrix are tae kwon do.
It's a very polite sport. We form a line and, turning towards Michael, make a small bow with our fists clenched before taking up the "charyeot" attention stance, with our feet one-shoulder-width apart.
He begins with some gentle warm-up exercises followed by a circular jog around the gym. Nell looks bemused, but pleased to see her parents struggling to do something she can do easily.
Then he produces a blue pad, which he holds and invites us to kick. I hop on one leg in an ungainly fashion, but do eventually manage to make contact with the pad. Nicola seems more athletic, thanks to her daily cycling. ("It's like kicking baked beans off a supermarket shelf!")
Perfecting my punch - "jirugi" in Korean - is easier. It's probably something innate in my Essex DNA. My right arm is thrust forward with my fist at shoulder-level. My right foot is forward, and my left arm is bent, with my clenched fist turned upwards at my waist.
"Dad, you can do it!" exclaims Lola, in the amazed tone of someone who's just seen a chimpanzee at a typewriter complete the entire works of J K Rowling.
Next we practise blocks. Michael comes at us with his pad, sometimes from above, sometimes from below. A high block is made at eye-level. My arm has to be bent at the elbow and the block is made with the forearm. "Don't put your arm too close to your head, or they'll hit each other," warns Michael.
When he lunges at Nicola with the pad, she makes the same "Wooah!" sound as when she nearly spills green tea over her computer keyboard.
We perform back-kicks on the pad and then try them on a board that separates when kicked powerfully. "See if you can break this, and think about how you feel," says Michael. At my third attempt, it snaps, and I feel like I should be in The Matrix.
As our session ends, we perform the customary act of turning away from our teacher and adjusting our clothing before turning back and bowing again, saying "taekwon".
Going solo
"Mum, you were embarrassing!" declares Lola, a little heartlessly, as we walk home.
"Well, my tracksuit bottoms kept falling down. I had to staple them up," says Nicola. It's just as well we had to turn away when adjusting our clothing.
Lola explains why you should punch with a straight arm. "This is a dead-fly punch," she says, mimicking a bent-arm punch.
"It's really good that Michael took it up at 36. With something like yoga, you always feel you should be at guru level by now," muses Nicola at dinner.
We're still discussing tae kwon do over breakfast, helping Lola revise the five tenets for her forthcoming grading, where she'll hopefully get a yellow tag. Nicola allocates us all a characteristic and we have to shout it out after a count of three. "Courtesy!" shouts Nell. "Integrity!" yells Lola. "Self-control and perseverance!" adds Nicola.
And, for the first time in my life, I find myself shouting "indomitable spirit!" as I grapple with the poached eggs.
· Tae kwon do Impact runs classes for adults, schools and tots, www.tkdimpact.com, email [email protected], or call Michael Williams on 07946 221244. For private lessons, or information on school classes and clubs in your area, call Master Nardizzi on 07957 617097. Yearly membership of Tae kwon do Impact costs £27. An average session costs £4.50 for tots, £6.50 for children and £7.50 for adults.
· Pete May's latest book, There's a Hippo in My Cistern, is published by HarperCollins on June 2. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/12/even-if-hate-me-dont-take-labour-over-cliff-edge-tony-blair | Opinion | 2015-08-13T06:34:16.000Z | Tony Blair | Tony Blair: Even if you hate me, please don’t take Labour over the cliff edge | The Labour party is in danger more mortal today than at any point in the over 100 years of its existence. I say this as someone who led the party for 13 years and has been a member for more than 40. The leadership election has turned into something far more significant than who is the next leader. It is now about whether Labour remains a party of government.
Jeremy Corbyn profile: 'He talks like a human being, about things that are real'
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Governments can change a country. Protest movements simply agitate against those who govern. Labour in government changed this country. I don’t just mean the minimum wage, civil partnerships, massive investment in public services, lifting millions out of poverty, or peace in Northern Ireland. I mean we changed the nation’s zeitgeist. We forced change on the Tories. We gave a voice to those who previously had none. We led and shaped the public discourse. And, yes, governments do things people don’t like, and in time they lose power. That is the nature of democracy.
But in a thousand ways, small or large, which anyone in government can describe, being in power can make a difference to those we represent. The reality is that in the last three months the Labour party has been changed. Its membership has virtually doubled. Some will have joined in shock at the election result; many more are now joining specifically to support the Jeremy Corbyn campaign; some with heavy organisation behind them. These last two groups are not many in number, relative to the population. But, relative to the membership of a political party, they’re easily big enough to mount a partial takeover. The truth is they don’t really think it matters whether Labour wins an election or not. Some actually disdain government.
So this is directed to longstanding members and those who have joined but without an agenda. They’re still a majority and they have to exercise leadership now to save the party. It doesn’t matter whether you’re on the left, right or centre of the party, whether you used to support me or hate me. But please understand the danger we are in.
With Corbyn as leader it won’t be a defeat like 1983 or 2015 at the next election. It will mean rout, annihilation
The party is walking eyes shut, arms outstretched, over the cliff’s edge to the jagged rocks below. This is not a moment to refrain from disturbing the serenity of the walk on the basis it causes “disunity”. It is a moment for a rugby tackle if that were possible.
This is not the 1980s. This is by many dimensions worse and more life threatening. Michael Foot was never going to win a general election in the UK. But Michael was a towering figure who had been a major cabinet member in the previous Labour government. Tony Benn was never going to be PM; but he was a huge political character who again had long experience of government.
The unions in the 1980s were, by a majority, a force for stability and sense. There were constituencies so solidly Labour that nothing could shake them from their loyalty. The party that assembled after the 1983 defeat knew its direction. Maybe we didn’t know how far or how fast, but we knew, and the new leader Neil Kinnock knew, that we had to put aside the delusion that we had lost two elections because we weren’t leftwing enough and start to modernise. And our objective was to return to government.
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What we’re witnessing now is a throwback to that time, but without the stabilisers in place. The big unions, with the exception of the most successful in recent times, USDAW, are in the grip of the hard left. And the people do not have that same old-time loyalty.
If Jeremy Corbyn becomes leader it won’t be a defeat like 1983 or 2015 at the next election. It will mean rout, possibly annihilation. If he wins the leadership, the public will at first be amused, bemused and even intrigued. But as the years roll on, as Tory policies bite and the need for an effective opposition mounts – and oppositions are only effective if they stand a hope of winning – the public mood will turn to anger. They will seek to punish us. They will see themselves as victims not only of the Tory government but of our self-indulgence.
Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t offer anything new. This is literally the most laughable of all the propositions advanced by his camp. Those of us who lived through the turmoil of the 80s know every line of this script. These are policies from the past that were rejected not because they were too principled, but because a majority of the British people thought they didn’t work. And by the way, they were rejected by electorates round the world for the same reasons.
Immense damage has already been done by a policy debate defined by its irrelevance to the challenges of the modern world
Even more so today, they do not think their challenges can be met by old-fashioned state control as the way to personal or social empowerment; they do not think breaking up Nato unilaterally is sensible; and they realise that a party without a serious deficit-reduction plan is not in these times a serious contender to govern them.
I don’t doubt that his campaign has sparked interest. Why wouldn’t it? There is something fascinating about watching a party wrestle with its soul. It doesn’t mean it is a smart place to be. And, yes, some young people will be enthused. Many Young Labour members were enthused in 1997 and are enthused by modernising Labour policy today.
The tragedy is that immense damage has already been done by a policy debate that, with some honourable exceptions, is defined by its irrelevance to the challenges of the modern world. We should be discussing how technology should revolutionise public services; how young people are not just in well-paid, decent jobs but also have the chance to start businesses that benefit their communities; how Britain stays united and in Europe; what reform of welfare and social care can work in an era of radical demographic change.
Instead we’re talking about bringing back Clause IV. There is a vast array of policy questions to answer. We’re not even asking them right now. We know where this ends. We have been here before. But this sequel will be a lot scarier than the original. So write it if you want to. Go over the edge if you want. But think about those we most care about and how to help them before you do. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2023/sep/18/sean-penn-interview-film-volodymyr-zelenskiy | Film | 2023-09-18T16:00:32.000Z | David Smith | ‘He was born for this moment’: Sean Penn on his film with Zelenskiy | It is just before 10am and Sean Penn does not want to be here. He made the mistake, he confesses, of sleeping last night with the curtains closed. He slips into acting mode and does a funny impression of a groggy man being jolted awake. Now he craves daylight.
So we abandon Off the Record, a basement bar at Washington’s venerable Hay-Adams hotel, and head up to a room on the third floor. Penn’s publicist hastily wheels room service breakfast out of the way and apologises for her unmade bed. The 63-year-old actor settles into an armchair by an open window, sunlight exploring light and shade on his chiselled features. He drinks a bottle of Sprite and says contentedly, “Whatever time you need,” – words guaranteed to make his scheduler nervous.
Penn is in the nation’s capital to promote Superpower, a documentary he co-directed about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy and the resilience of the Ukrainian people following the Russian invasion. After a screening of the film, Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House of Representatives, held him in a long embrace as she told him: “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful.”
Not everyone is so gracious about Hollywood actors dabbling in geopolitical affairs. Celebrity status opens doors and closes minds. Anyone who was around in the 1980s may remember Penn as the guy who played stoner and surfer Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High, spent 33 days in jail for assaulting an extra, and married and divorced Madonna.
Four decades later, his hair is white but he is still a big name method actor with Oscars for Mystic River (2003) and Milk (2008). A profile in Variety magazine opined that in Superpower “there’s a bit too much Sean Penn doing Sean Penn things in a war zone”. Penn anticipates this kind of thing in the film when he parodies an imaginary critic by asking: “Who do you think you are – Walter Cronkite? Do you have a saviour complex?” His answer: “I’m curious … and sometimes I feel I can be helpful.”
He has receipts to prove it. Frustrated by the search and rescue efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, Penn bought a boat, reached survivors, gave them money and took some of them to hospital. In 2010, after an earthquake left thousands homeless in Haiti, he built a camp, launched a charitable organisation and lived in the country for months at a time.
Today, wearing dark jacket, blue shirt, blue jeans and white trainers, and situated just a three-minute walk from the White House, Penn addresses scepticism of his humanitarian work by reaching for an aphorism: “I dream of a world where chickens can cross the road without having their motives questioned.”
He elaborates: “People are willing to admire actors up to a point. But then it’s going to be the cliche: all of them are rich. The celebrity versus the actor or the artist, or whatever it is. I don’t have any more time to defend myself against that.
“I’ve been in a lot of interesting places, and I’ve been able to experience them in a unique way because of access. And also because – even when I have specifically been doing what would fall under journalism – I don’t feel any obligation to a style of journalism that requires more than my talent allows. My talent is that I’m interested.
“As much flak as I’ve gotten, I’ve archived almost none of it visually. Because I know if there’s a camera with me, well, that’s what I’m doing, right? That’s the assumption: ‘Oh, he’s trying to get pictures taken of himself.’”
Penn did not originally intend to be on camera in Superpower, but then he hit a wall trying to get the film financed. So viewers see him conversing with Zelenskiy, walking the deserted streets of Kyiv on the night of the invasion, and unburdening his security detail (“Can I be very blunt? You’re Sean Penn, nobody’s going to be responsible for your dying on the front lines”) by leaving them behind as he follows Ukrainian soldiers to trenches evocative of the Somme.
Penn gives Zelenskiy one of his Oscars and receives the Order of Merit in return. Photograph: Presidential Press Service Handout Handout/EPA
Penn, who made seven trips to Ukraine, points out: “Docs are pretty hard to get money for now. [It would’ve been hard to fund] unless I was on camera. So you know what? This time I’m just going to let anybody who wants to, to jump in my backpack and see what I see.”
The twist in the actor-activist’s story is that the chief subject of his film is an actor-politician. Superpower neatly curates archival clips of Zelenskiy’s past as a comedy star who played a piano with his penis and who, in the series Servant of the People, played a fictional Ukrainian president. With echoes of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump, he demonstrated the potency of on-screen charisma when running for election against the political status quo.
It was this aspect that first intrigued Penn, after planned film projects on Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi failed to get off the ground. “On the surface, maybe the world was moving into a big new phase of populism,” he says of Zelenskiy. “But that’s not what I encountered with him.
“There was something interactive that had happened in that country since 2014, where the Ukraine that one would perceive from the outside was being reinvented by young people and their young president.”
Has Zelenskiy’s talent as a performer been important to rallying western opinion and winning the communications war with the Kremlin? “I’d say that the performer was helped by a generous heart that wanted to share – which led him to become a performer. The actor stuff is the easy go to. They did it with Reagan.”
Penn lowers his voice and does a fine impression of film director John Huston: “It’s one thing to have an actor in the White House. Quite another a bad actor.”
He continues in his own voice: “The Ukrainians have a really good actor in their palace and before he was a good actor he was a good communicator. And he was a good communicator because he saw in people what really existed and what mattered, and saw it through the lens of humour and courage as a man. He has met this challenge as the Ukrainians have met this challenge, in a way that is inspiring to the world. We should not let it go. It’s important medicine for all of us right now.”
Due to delays caused by the pandemic, Penn did not meet Zelenskiy in person until 23 February last year. Filming for Superpower began the following day – the same day Russia launched its invasion. Some Ukrainians interviewed by Penn doubted that Zelenskiy possessed the steeliness necessary to defy Vladimir Putin.
Zelenskiy playing a fictional Ukrainian president in the TV comedy Servant of the People, 2019. Photograph: Sergei Supinsky/AFP/Getty Images
But meeting Zelenskiy in the bunker of the presidential palace, Penn found Prince Hal transmogrified into Henry V. “It’s as if he was born for this moment. It was very moving. There are certainly great, brave leaders on all the continents today – but not with an enemy next door with nuclear weapons. This is a new paradigm.”
Penn’s admiration for Zelenskiy – whom he gave one of his Oscars to keep for the duration of the war – is matched only by his disregard for Putin. “I would not react differently to Putin’s death by natural means than I would, let’s say, if he were stripped naked and burned bit by bit to death by cigarettes and had people defecate on him until he had nothing else to eat. It would be the same. I don’t count him among us.”
Wary of provoking Putin into a conflict that could spiral into a third world war, the west’s initial response was incremental. But slowly it has turned up the dial. By July of this year, the US had given more than $75bn in humanitarian, financial and military aid to Ukraine, and indicated that it would allow European allies to provide American-made F-16 fighter aircraft. Penn, who has lobbied for the jets, believes that more decisive, more complete action is necessary.
“I use the word cowardice because I do not know any other word to describe what happens when we argue caution as restraint. Restraint looks like John F Kennedy holding back military action during the Cuban missile crisis – that is a powerful piece of leadership. Caution looks like, ‘I’m scared the bad guys are going to do something if I do what’s right, so let’s do nothing. Or let’s do just enough that won’t get me more scared.’”
He adds: “The good news is that the Ukrainians, both in leadership and on the ground, have not entirely lost faith in us. And while certainly one could get lost in the fact that there have been so many unnecessary deaths – and I believe this war would have been over had decisive action been taken – I don’t think it’s too late to take decisive action. I’m talking about doing everything it takes to arm them with everything they need to let Russia know that they can play tough, too.”
Trump – the front-runner for the Republican party’s presidential nomination – and a prominent faction of his party are increasingly questioning support for Ukraine, making it into just one more contentious battleground in America’s polarised politics. What Superpower throws into sharp relief, meanwhile, is the sense of unity and national identity that Ukrainians have forged under threat from an external foe.
Penn visits the positions of the Ukrainian armed forces near the frontline in the Donetsk region. Photograph: AP
It made Penn see his own country anew. “It was like breathing a different kind of air. I knew we had problems and divisions, and that the fragile aspiration of America was in great peril. BB King said he had to play an A chord once for half an hour before he heard it. This was the first time I realised how much we need that unity, that feeling.”
He laments: “We don’t love each other in this country. We don’t like each other in this country. We’re nasty to each other. We fear each other, and we’re trading courage for cowardice and not realising that, in doing so, we’re also trading away something that all of us need, which is that we’re social animals and we want community.
“The data is in around the world: where longevity exists, community exists. We experience it ourselves. We know that the times in our life that we are happy are because, whether in the micro or macro, there’s a moment of community.
“For all the horror of 9/11, something felt good, didn’t it? Because we didn’t question each other. We knew what we had in common and that bonded us.
Penn flies a big US and a big Ukrainian flag at his home in Malibu, California. “I’m a big proponent of the idea that we start waving our flags again, even if we’re on the left, and we not worry that our neighbours are going to think we suddenly became a Maga hawk – which is what some of my friends accuse me of.”
Ukrainian flags are less visible around the US these days. Attention spans are short and polls show waning support for the war effort. Zelenskiy is heading to Washington this week to test his star power against the fragility of the moment. Before last Thursday’s screening, Penn admitted to the audience: “As a film-maker, I would say that one always worries that somehow the projector is going to break. I hope that doesn’t happen.”
Superpower is available to stream on Paramount+ | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/22/jimmy-carter-north-korea-donald-trump | US news | 2017-10-22T19:57:12.000Z | Martin Pengelly | Jimmy Carter says he is willing to go to North Korea on peace mission | In an interview marked by conciliatory remarks regarding Donald Trump and his administration, Jimmy Carter said he was willing to travel to North Korea in an attempt to soften tensions between Washington and Pyongyang.
North Korea: CIA director says regime nearly capable of nuclear attack
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Speaking to the New York Times mostly about foreign policy, the 93-year-old former president also said Trump was not solely to blame for damage to America’s world image.
“The media have been harder on Trump than any other president certainly that I’ve known about,” he said. “I think they feel free to claim that Trump is mentally deranged and everything else without hesitation.”
Trump has engaged in a war of words with the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, often via Twitter and with liberal use of a mocking nickname, “Little Rocket Man”. The president has also undercut efforts by his secretary of state to talk to Pyongyang, repeatedly suggesting that only military action will work, and he used his maiden speech to the United Nations to threaten to “totally destroy” the country.
Carter, president between 1977 and 1981, spoke at his house in Plains, Georgia. On Saturday night, he joined the former presidents George HW Bush (1989-93), Bill Clinton (1993-2001), George W Bush (2001-2009) and Barack Obama (2009-2017) at a concert in College Station, Texas, to raise money for hurricane relief.
The Democrat has been active on the world stage since leaving the White House, via the not-for-profit Carter Center. In 1994, he went to Pyongyang and negotiated a short-lived deal to lessen tensions not resolved since the end of the Korean war in 1953. He also travelled to North Korea in 2010, to negotiate the release of an American held in the country, and again in 2011. Asked by the Times if he would go again, he said: “I would go, yes.”
He had spoken to the national security adviser, HR McMaster, he said, including at the funeral of his own such adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, in May. He “told him that I was available if they ever need me” but had not been asked to go, he said.
Carter said he was “afraid” of nuclear conflict between the US and North Korea. “They want to save their regime [and have] now got advanced nuclear weaponry that can destroy the Korean peninsula and Japan, and some of our outlying territories in the Pacific, maybe even our mainland.” Carter had indicated a willingness to talk peace with North Korea last month, according to an academic at the University of Georgia.
Trump has pressed China to help rein in Pyongyang but Carter said: “We greatly overestimate China’s influence on North Korea. Particularly to Kim.” The North Korean leader has “never, so far as I know, been to China”, Carter said. “And they have no relationship. Kim Jong-il [the current leader’s father] did go to China and was very close to them.”
Asked if Trump was responsible for souring America’s image in the world, he said: “He might be escalating it but I think that precedes Trump. The United States has been the dominant character in the whole world and now we’re not any more. And we’re not going to be. Russia’s coming back and India and China are coming forward.”
2:15
Five former US presidents attend hurricane benefit - video
In office, Carter presided over the 1978 Camp David peace accords between Israel and Egypt. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, has been assigned the task of achieving lasting Middle East peace.
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Carter suggested that might not be so unlikely an idea as many think, as “I’ve seen in the Arab world, including the Palestinian world, the high esteem that they pay to a member of one’s own family.” He also criticised Barack Obama’s record in Middle East policy and said he did not think Israel would ever permit a two-state solution.
Asked about investigations into Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election in Trump’s favour, Carter said: “I don’t think there’s any evidence that what the Russians did changed enough votes, or any votes.” His wife, Rosalynn, disagreed.
Both voted for Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, Carter said.
On other domestic matters, Carter was also conciliatory. Asked about debates over whether statues to Confederate leaders should come down and whether protesting black NFL players should stand for the national anthem, he agreed that Trump was “exacerbating” racial divisions.
“But maybe not deliberately,” he said.
To Carter, as the descendant of southern troops who fought at Gettysburg, he said, the issue of tearing down Confederate statues was “difficult … but I can understand African Americans’ aversion to [the statues] and I sympathize with them. I don’t have any objection to them being labelled with explanatory labels or that sort of thing.”
NFL players protesting against racial injustice and police brutality by kneeling, he said, “ought to find a different way to object, to demonstrate. I would rather see all the players stand during the American anthem.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/may/05/boris-charmatz-dance-terror-car-park-danse-de-nuit-sadlers-wells | Stage | 2017-05-05T10:00:30.000Z | Judith Mackrell | Sky's the limit: Boris Charmatz's rooftop dance reclaims cities from terror | It is dark, and a cold wind is blowing over the top floor of the multistorey car park where a crowd has gathered. The French city of Poitiers is small and pretty, but we are a long way from the bustling cafes of its centre. We have been herded to a rooftop by the railway tracks to watch Danse de Nuit, a work by the French choreographer and cultural provocateur Boris Charmatz.
Suddenly, a man barges into the space, shouting as he throws himself to the ground. More voices and bodies follow. Although we know this must be part of the performance, the situation feels momentarily frightening. Since the 2015 attack on the Bataclan concert hall, public spaces in France – as in many other European countries – have acquired an undercurrent of danger.
Danse de Nuit is Charmatz’s response to our terror-oriented world. He and his five dancers talk incessantly while they perform: half-formed sentences about blasphemy, religion, celebrity, identity. Their tight, jittery movements, in solo monologue or in close, tribal groupings, seem fraught with a defensive energy. Yet they frequently flip into a more comic gear, joking with us, capering and grimacing like cartoon characters. If Danse de Nuit starts out playing on our night-time fears, it also tries to confront and dismiss them.
Now, even in Poitiers, there are soldiers with machine guns. We have become frozen with fear
The following morning, Charmatz says his aim was “to free the tension around our public spaces. Now, even in Poitiers, there are soldiers with machine guns. We have become frozen with fear”. While he accepts that firearms may be necessary, he believes we must also reclaim our cities – for pleasure, for protest and for dancing. When he brings the work to the UK this month, it will be performed in a comparably dark and deserted location in Stratford, east London.
While one of Charmatz’s aims was to “rethink togetherness”, his other motivation was to free up the language we use to address the politics of terror. The issues are so complex they can stifle debate, which is why the words his dancers speak have a chaotic quality. “Instead of thinking what we should say, our talking is fast and free. We can say something stupid, clever, planned or on-the-spot. The language has a plasticity so that the audience can grab what they want. They can make their own thoughts inside the flow of ours.”
In conversation, Charmatz expresses his own thoughts with similar hurtling intensity. The 44-year-old comes from a traditional dance background, having trained at the Paris Opera Ballet school and the Lyon conservatory, but for him dance has never been simply about bodies and steps. For each new work, he spends two or three years “thinking and dreaming” around its possibilities, the points it can make, the questions it can pose.
Fingers of eight ... one of Charmatz’s 10,000 gestures. Photograph: Donald Christie
So, as well as addressing the geopolitical and linguistic fallout from the war on terror, Danse de Nuit plays with the “blurry” relationship that develops between dancers and audience when they are in an open space. Having to deal with the dynamics of a volatile, shifting crowd makes the dancers more than performers. Similarly, the audience are not merely watching, but also figuring out where to position themselves in relation to the dance: “They’re having to think, ‘Where do I stand, am I too close, am I in the middle of something, am I part of the performance itself?’ They can’t entirely grasp what the dance is.”
This is an issue Charmatz examines in many of his works. Last year, when in residence at Tate Modern, he and his team spent a weekend performing a series of choreographic installations among the artworks, with the result that visitors to the museum often found themselves part of the choreography.
He says the relationship between dancer and viewer becomes a “fragile, interesting thing”. Even when Charmatz is choreographing for the stage, he probes the ways in which we look at dance or imagine what it might be. In Enfant, he had his cast lifted around by a small crane. In Manger, he focused on the least choreographed feature of the dancer’s anatomy – the mouth – orchestrating a ritualised performance that included singing, talking and eating.
The accompanying programme note led the Daily Telegraph to complain of Charmatz’s magnificent pretentiousness. He serenely admits that even in France “there are a lot of critics who accuse me of being elitist and pseudo-intellectual”. But philosophising about dance has always been Charmatz’s way, not least because both his parents were teachers and, he says, “militants”.
“They were militants for politics, for pedagogy, for literature, for culture of all kinds,” he says. “I grew up in a small town called Chambrey, near Switzerland ... while everyone else would go to the mountains for their summer holiday, we would go to Berlin. It was the time before the end of the wall; no one else did that.”
As a child, he had a variety of talents and ambitions: he played table tennis and the violin; he wanted to learn Russian and go to school in England. Once he decided to concentrate on dance, he was characteristically wholehearted, auditioning for the Paris Opera Ballet school because he “knew it gave the best training”. But he never wanted to become a conventional classical dancer. “I didn’t project myself as a prince in Giselle. I was interested in dance because it had a history, a culture, a mental landscape. I could read about it, discuss it, write and make it, as well as perform it. I could touch on politics, history, social and economic ideas.”
Always probing ... a scene from Charmatz’s production Enfant. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
As soon as he had finished his training, he went out on a limb as an independent dancemaker. His first work, a duet made at the age of 19, was performed in whatever public spaces were available: “We’d set out a square of benches and chairs in churches or gymnasiums or gardens. I saw that dance is a medium that didn’t necessarily need a stage. It can happen in an instant.”
His closest creative peers are the French conceptual choreographer Jérôme Bel and the British-German artist Tino Sehgal. “Dance is such a wide frame today,” he says. “It can be a Madonna show, it can be the Billy Elliot musical, it can be YouTube, it can be a hardcore work by Trisha Brown.”
How a choreographer situates themselves within such diversity is a question that fascinates him. Some establish a niche with a signature movement style, but Charmatz takes his vocabulary from a range of sources. For Flip Book, he strung together images from the choreography of Merce Cunningham, creating a homage to the late choreographer. Sometimes the work was performed by professionals, sometimes by amateurs, who joyously – and heroically – pitted themselves against one of the most complex dance languages in history.
Each gesture you see will never come back. It will be unique. You will hardly even keep it in your mind
A different iteration of the Flip Book concept will be explored in the work Charmatz is creating for Manchester international festival this summer. A literal enactment of its title, 10,000 Gestures, it will be performed by 25 dancers who, during the course of an hour, will execute exactly 10,000 moves. None will be repeated and they will all look different. He plans to draw his cast from a variety of ages and backgrounds, too. In this way, “their motivations for doing each gesture will be very different: one might be a very technical dance movement like a double tour en l’air. Some others might be practical or pornographic or political”.
It is as ephemeral as a dance work can be, eschewing the traditional repetition and patterning that help fix a movement in the audience’s memory. “Each gesture you see will never come back. It will be unique. You will hardly even keep it in your mind. It will be like a shower, a storm of movements or states.”
The complexity seems to fill Charmatz with a masochistic pleasure. “For the viewer, it will be chaotic. For me, it will be an almost impossible task. How do I come up with 10,000 gestures? How do I get the dancers to remember them?” He grins joyfully. “Perhaps it will be about my failure as a choreographer.”
Danse de Nuit is at the multistorey car park, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, London E20, 17-20 May. 10,000 Gestures is at Manchester international festival, 13-15 July. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/06/hunter-joe-biden-republican-legal-problem | US news | 2023-08-06T11:00:09.000Z | David Smith | ‘What about Hunter Biden?’: how the president’s son became a Republican target – again | The difference between six and seven is slight but, in the mouth of Joe Biden, it meant everything. “I have seven grandkids,” the US president said in a podcast interview this week.
That was Biden’s way of yielding to critics and acknowledging his four-year-old granddaughter, Navy Joan Roberts. His son, Hunter, has said he fathered Navy during a period when he was struggling with alcohol and drug addiction and does not have a relationship with her. Hunter’s paternity was established by DNA testing during a lengthy dispute over child support.
The Guardian view on Donald Trump’s new indictment: America needs this trial
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The episode illustrated the personal and political sensitivities around Hunter – and Biden’s delicate efforts to navigate them ahead of another bruising reelection campaign. It came in a week that again saw Hunter at the centre of a legal storm that made him a target for Republicans straining to connect dots between him and his father.
Whit Ayres, a Republican political consultant and pollster, said: “There are plenty of questions surrounding his business activities and the extent to which he traded on his father’s name and reputation or used his father to get more money or get large contracts. There are plenty of questions and a lot of suspicion – in Republican circles anyway – about how that has been investigated.”
The scrutiny is testing boundaries and whether the family of a politician – even a president – is fair game. Hunter has never served in the White House, which is quick to describe him as a “private citizen”. But he is often seen at his father’s side, including on a recent trip to Ireland and on the White House balcony for 4 July fireworks, a frequent reminder of the president’s family complications.
Ayres added: “I don’t think I would be putting him front and centre as much as the president is doing. I understand his instinct to try to be loyal to a troubled son but politically it is not at all helpful. The less visible Hunter Biden is, the better it is for Joe Biden.”
What is beyond dispute is that Hunter, 53, has fought personal demons. He appeared in a Delaware court last month amid expectations that he would plead guilty to two tax charges and avoid a gun charge. But the judge in the case said she could not accept the plea agreement with prosecutors. Republicans in the House of Representatives have launched an investigation into the plea deal.
Republicans have also been attempting to prove – so far without success – that there is a link between father and son that implicates the former in wrongdoing. Among their allegations is that, when Biden was vice-president, he played a role in his son’s business dealings and profited from transactions. The White House says Biden was never in business with his son.
In a press call hosted by the Congressional Integrity Project, Dan Goldman, a Democratic congressman, said: “This is not an investigation into the Bidens, no matter what they say. This is an investigation into Hunter Biden and they’re trying to find some connection to Joe Biden. But there is no connection based on the facts and the evidence.”
The less visible Hunter Biden is, the better it is for Joe Biden
Whit Ayres
This week Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter, appeared for a closed-door interview led by staff from the House oversight committee. Representatives present at the interview said Archer testified that, over the span of 10 years, Hunter put his father on the phone around 20 times while in the company of associates but “never once spoke about any business dealings”.
According to Goldman, the only member of Congress who stayed in the room for the entire interview, Archer testified that Hunter sought to create an “illusion of access” to then vice-president Biden while doing business in Ukraine. But Biden played no role in any deals and Archer provided no evidence of wrongdoing by him.
Goldman said: “The Republicans’ witness was unequivocally clear – President Joe Biden never, at any point, discussed Hunter Biden’s business dealings with Hunter or any of Hunter’s business partners.”
However, Republican congressman Andy Biggs, a far-right member who has co-sponsored legislation to impeach Biden, took a different view. He claimed that Archer’s testimony implicated the president, insisting: “Archer talked about the ‘big guy’ and how Hunter Biden always said, ‘We need to talk to my guy.’ I think we should do an impeachment inquiry.”
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has warned that Republicans could begin an impeachment inquiry against Biden if federal agencies fail to cooperate with oversight committees looking into his administration and family’s business dealings. That would be a sure way to guarantee media exposure that Republican say has been sorely lacking because of liberal bias.
US House speaker Kevin McCarthy has repeatedly warned Republicans could begin an impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden. Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Bill Whalen, a former media consultant for Republican politicians, said: “If you swapped out the names and, instead of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden, you had Donald Trump and Donald Trump Jr, do you think there would be the same lack of coverage?
“My god, an impeachment investigation would be underway. Protests outside the White House. It would just be 24/7 news coverage. Instead this is treated as something of a non-event by the mainstream media who clearly don’t want to see Joe Biden taken down in any way.”
But Hunter is already receiving plenty of airtime in rightwing media. While most news channels focus on former president Donald Trump’s three criminal indictments, Fox News and others have been quick to pivot to Hunter, his father and an alleged bribery scheme, even though Republican-led committees have failed to provide evidence and witness after witness has disappointed.
Ayres, the political consultant, noted: “If you look at Fox News or some of the more conservative cable networks, you would think that Hunter Biden was about the only thing going on in America right now. ‘Was Trump indicted? But Hunter Biden, what a scandal!’”
Where rightwing media leads, Republican politicians follow. When Trump was charged this week over lies that fueled an attack on American democracy, McCarthy responded with a list of allegations against Hunter and an assertion that the justice department was seeking a distraction. Steve Scalise, the House majority leader, accused the department of “cutting sweetheart deals for Hunter” while trying to persecute Trump in “an outrageous abuse of power”.
If you look at Fox News or some of the more conservative cable networks, you would think that Hunter Biden was about the only thing going on in America right now
Whit Ayers
Trump’s son, Don Jr, joined the fray by writing on X, formerly Twitter: “Anyone else noticing a pattern here? The corrupt beurocrats of the Biden regime charge Trump literally the day after every single disastrous Biden crime family story,” – misspelling “bureaucrats” along the way.
Critics say it is a classic piece of false equivalence and “whataboutism”. As the legal walls close in on Trump, Hunter has emerged as an imperfect foil for Republicans. Whether it will have much impact with voters in next year’s presidential election remains uncertain: efforts to weaponise Hunter against his father fell flat in 2020.
Democratic congressman Jamie Raskin, lead impeachment manager in Trump’s trial over the January 6 attack, told the MSNBC network: “It’s obviously a frantic and desperate effort to distract everybody from this unprecedented and phenomenal crime against American democracy. Hunter Biden was not and has not been an elected public official. He has not been a member of the Biden administration or a government official.”
There is no equivalence with Trump’s crimes, Raskin added. “You’re talking about an encyclopedia of outrages and scandals against constitutional government versus what’s at best a comma or a footnote in the annals of American political history because you’re talking about the son of a president. They haven’t laid a glove on Joe Biden and they have not been able to link him in any way to any of their alleged corruption scandals.”
Rick Wilson, a co-founder of the Lincoln Project, an anti-Trump group, drew a comparison with Republicans’ efforts to use the 2012 terrorist attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya, against Hillary Clinton. “Hunter Biden is their latest Benghazi. It’s an imaginary issue that they’re desperately trying to wish to life. They need something, anything to change the subject from the indictment of the former president.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/jul/11/wimbledon-and-britain-embrace-new-heroine-as-konta-shines-again | Sport | 2017-07-11T21:00:05.000Z | Caroline Davies | Wimbledon and Britain embrace new heroine as Konta shines again | Johanna Konta’s Wimbledon fairytale has continued on Centre Court as she claimed a place in the singles semi-finals – the first British woman to do so for 39 years.
If Wimbledon needed proof of the power, drama and marquee value of women’s tennis, Konta’s 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 win over Simona Halep of Romania was the ultimate crowd-pleaser.
While umbrellas replaced sun shades for the first time this championships, inside Centre Court a new British sporting heroine was having her moment in the sun.
Johanna Konta feels the force from roaring Centre Court crowd
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As the victor walked off court, a Chelsea pensioner grabbed her for a selfie and afterwards did a celebratory dance. Virginia Wade, the last British woman to reach the semis in 1978, having lifted the trophy in 1977, was fittingly there to witness the milestone win, reacting by high-fiving those around her in the royal box.
Asked if she ever thought she would see a British woman reach the Wimbledon semi-finals, Wade said: “I am just surprised it’s taken so long! It’s fine to be the last British women’s winner to win Wimbledon, but it’s better to have plenty of British players to win. It’s a win-win situation frankly and I am thrilled for her.”
Speaking immediately after the match Konta, 26, said: “Right now it’s a little bit surreal. I am definitely digesting things a little bit.
“To be in a semi final in my home slam and to do that in front of a full centre court is pretty special.
“When you get a massive crowd of people cheering, making that sort of noise in a stadium, you do get goose bumps.”
The BBC accorded her the “Murray” treatment – immediately moving the Six O’Clock News to BBC2. Outside the court crowds cheered in the rain on Henman Hill, where sales of Wimbledon ponchos had evidently been brisk, as they watched Australian-born Konta on the big screen.
The stakes were high for both women. Konta was carrying the burden of a nation’s hopes on her shoulders – and a place in British tennis history. She now faces Venus Williams in the semi-finals.
For Halep, 25, victory would have given her enough points to make her world No 1. The pair had last met three months ago in Halep’s home town Constanta, for a GB-Romanian Fed Cup tie where the Romanian team captain Ilie Nastase was eventually thrown out for bad behaviour. Konta experienced some acrimony from local fans.
This time, there was no doubting whose side the fans were on. It’s been so long since Britain had a female tennis hope this huge, they had almost forgotten how to hope. One set down, there was that all-too familiar feeling it would end with a “plucky Brit fails” headline.
Konta was having none of that. Huge cheers erupted as Halep lobbed the ball into the net at 5-5 in the tie break in the second set. A deafening roar almost raised the £80m roof when the home player then went 6-5 up to level the match at one set all after 1 hour and 50 mins of play. As commentator John McEnroe pointed out: “If you don’t think a crowd can be the difference between winning and losing, you haven’t watched enough tennis.”
The victor said later of the crowd: “They were incredible; I think they were a little over-enthusiastic in parts. But honestly I definitely cannot complain with the amount of support and general good feelings they were wishing my way.”
Halep said: “[Konta] played really well. She deserves to win.”
She queried a long toilet break taken by Konta before start of third set, and she thought the point should have been replayed when a woman screamed right at the end of the match, but the umpire had refused.
On the crowd supporting the home player, she said it was no problem. When she played in her own home country, it was the same “so we have to take it”.
Part of the secret of Konta’s winning formula appears to be baking muffins. She has produced a batch almost every day for her team, progressing from plain vanilla to chocolate and banana throughout the tournament. Reciting her match plan by rote before each match, seems to be another key element to her historic success.
Williams, a five-times Wimbledon winner, now awaits. The 37-year-old is playing her 20th championship and notched up her 100th Wimbledon singles game during her stroll to the semis, beating the 20-year-old Latvian Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 7-5.
Williams may be the older player, but Konta said: “I definitely feel that age is not a factor with her. She’s just a tremendous champion.”
Konta has dreamed of this moment since she was nine years old, when she allows herself to dream, that is.
“I’ve always believed in my own ability and I’ve always dreamt big. But again, I am much more process mind set orientated ,” she said after the match. “So I don’t give my self too much time to dream, and more focus on the work.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/06/star-wars-episode-vii-auditions-uk | Film | 2013-11-06T08:16:00.000Z | Ben Child | Star Wars Episode VII auditions to be held in the UK | Disney is to hold open auditions in the UK for two lead roles in JJ Abrams' upcoming Star Wars film, Episode VII, according to the BBC.
Casting directors are seeking a "street smart and strong" orphaned girl in her late teens and a "smart capable" man in his late teens or early 20s.
Neither Disney or LucasFilm has confirmed the casting call via Twitter account @UKopencall is for Star Wars. But the BBC cites the similarities between the descriptions in the call and leaked descriptions earlier this year which were widely attributed to Abrams' movie.
Star Wars: Episode VII is being shot at Pinewood studios in London early next year for a 2015 release date. Casting directors will reportedly visit Bristol, Manchester, London, Glasgow and Dublin in their search. Bristol auditions could be as soon as this weekend.
For the female role, a character named "Rachel", producers are seeking a 17-18-year-old who must be "beautiful, smart and athletic". The part is "open to all ethnicities (including bi and multi-racial). The actor must be over 16 years old.
Rachel is described as being "quite young when she lost her parents", and has "no other family". The casting note adds: "She was forced to make her way in a tough, dangerous town. Now 17, she has become street-smart and strong. She is able to take care of herself using humour and guts to get by.
"Always a survivor, never a victim, she remains hopeful that she can move away from this harsh existence to a better life. She is always thinking of what she can do to move ahead."
For the male role, named "Thomas", producers seek a young man able to play 19-23 years old. They must be "handsome, smart and athletic" as well as at least 18 years old.
"Thomas has grown up without a father's influence, without the model of being a man," reads the casting call. "He doesn't have the strongest sense of himself. Despite this he is smart, capable and shows courage when it is needed. He can appreciate the absurdities in life and understands you can't take life too seriously."
Gary Kurtz, producer of the original 1977 Star Wars and its 1980 sequel The Empire Strikes Back, said casting directors at the open auditions would most likely be focusing first and foremost on the physicality of potential candidates in order to build a picture of what they were looking for.
"If they do anything like we did they will be looking first at their physical presence and then talking with them to get an idea of their personalities," he said. "At this stage they will be looking to find 10 possibles for each role. Sometimes they only have five. If they are rebooting the franchise they want these people in more than one film, so they will need people who have chemistry together."
Kurtz said the decision to hold open castings made a great deal of sense, and was in line with the process adopted by producers of the original, critically acclaimed trilogy. "Some of the more recent [prequel] films they cast star names," he said. "I think they never bothered to test them with other people and sometimes when you do that there doesn't seem to be a lot of chemistry on the screen."
While it is rare for a major Hollywood production to hold open auditions, Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker) was unknown when he was picked for 1977's Star Wars. Harrison Ford (Han Solo) had had a small part in George Lucas's American Grafitti, but was working as a carpenter when he was cast as the sardonic space smuggler, and Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) had appeared briefly in the 1975 Warren Beatty comedy Shampoo.
A number of well-known actors, including Ireland's Saoirse Ronan, have confirmed Star Wars auditions. Rumours suggest the involvement of (variously) Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Saoirse Ronan, Sullivan Stapleton, Liam McIntyre and even Simon Pegg, though all remain speculative. Series veterans Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia) and Harrison Ford (Han Solo), have all been tipped to return, but Disney has not yet confirmed any casting details.
Episode VII is the first in a new trilogy of films being made by Disney after the studio bought all rights to the long-running space saga through its $4.05bn purchase of LucasFilm in October last year. The studio also plans a series of standalone "origins movies" for characters from the original triptych of films which debuted between 1977 and 1983. Taken together, they will usher in an era in which a new Star Wars movie arrives every year from 2015.
For full details of the open auditions, click here.
Casting call suggests return of the wookiee
Seven Star Wars audition tips | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/09/police-killings-dallas-shooting-racism-american-history | Opinion | 2016-07-09T11:00:00.000Z | Peniel E Joseph | Dallas shootings: the latest chapter in a painful racial history | Peniel E Joseph | Bring the Dallas murderers to justice. And the killers of black people too
Gary Younge
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A horrific week of violence in the US has cast into sharp relief the troubled relationship between black communities and law enforcement. This latest cycle of violence began with the police shooting death of 37-year-old Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, outside a convenience store. A video surfaced showing Sterling being shot by a police officer several times in the chest during a struggle on the ground.
The next day, police near St Paul, Minnesota, shot Philando Castile, a 32-year-old cafeteria supervisor with no criminal record, after a routine traffic violation. Castile’s girlfriend, Diamond Reynolds, live-streamed the shooting’s aftermath on her Facebook page. Her calm, shell-shocked narration offered stunning documentary evidence of Castile’s last gasps of life, her own efforts to make sense of the events and her being comforted by her four-year-old daughter who witnessed the shooting.
The dual impact of both videos, which quickly went viral on social media, forced public officials to confront the continuing crisis of institutional racism in law enforcement publicly, with Minnesota’s governor, Mark Dayton, admitting that Castile would not have been killed if he had been white and Barack Obama calling the shootings an “American problem”.
The problem grew exponentially in Dallas last night, where a peaceful rally in memory of Sterling and Castile turned into an unprecedented movie-style assault on police officers that left five dead and eight wounded. The shooter, 25-year-old Micah Johnson, told negotiators “he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers”. He was allegedly angry over the recent shootings of Sterling and Castile.
Dallas is a tragedy for all of us – and shouldn't shut down calls for justice
Ijeoma Oluo
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A week that started with black people feeling under siege at the hands of law enforcement has come full circle, with police officers feeling equally embattled. The cycle of racial violence, oppression, grief and loss has resulted in the creation of a feedback loop.
We see activists passionately make their case that black lives are being taken by a system of racially biased policing. And then we see law enforcement advocates insist they are heroic civil servants engaged in difficult and dangerous work. This work, they argue, is made even more difficult by protests and demonstrations that endanger their lives and the public’s.
Some of the roots of this week’s crisis can be traced back to Ferguson, Missouri, a tiny suburb outside of St Louis that, although two-thirds black, featured an overwhelmingly white police force and leadership in municipal politics. This unequal power relation came to a head almost two years ago after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown.
Dallas doesn't represent 'civil war', but a society that needs fundamental change
Barrett Holmes Pitner
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Brown’s uncovered body lay for hours on the street, sparking protests around the nation that were galvanized by a hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter, that would grow into a national anti-racist movement. BLM founders Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Cullors helped to innovate a movement that has flourished nationally led by local activists and leaders.
The movement has argued that America’s criminal justice system is a gateway to multiple systems of oppression, linking mass incarceration and the drug war to what Michelle Alexander has called the “New Jim Crow” of punitive treatment against black people to failing public schools, unemployment, residential segregation and poverty that grips much of the black community.
Over the past roughly 24 months, Black Lives Matter emerged as the face of a new movement for racial, economic, gender and sexuality justice in American society. What critics labeled as “identity politics” supporters characterized as “intersectionality” – a word used to described how the personal (including race, gender, class, sexuality) always impacts and shapes the political.
The movement for black lives has profoundly shaped contemporary civil rights activism, with a broad array of demonstrations and protests organizing themselves under the BLM banner. Some of the movement’s key activists and fellow travelers have become well-known activists who met with Barack Obama at the White House in 2014.
The movement achieved its biggest success last year, when Obama became the first sitting president to visit a federal prison, in Oklahoma, and called for prison reform during a speech to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Much of these grassroots efforts have been emboldened by the justice department, which under attorney generals Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch have negotiated consent decrees with the cities of Ferguson and Cleveland (in the aftermath of the police shooting of 12-year-old Tamir Rice) and ushered in federal prison reform for juveniles and new rehabilitation and reentry programs for inmates.
However, backlash against the BLM started almost as soon as it began. Like their civil rights predecessors who were painted as communists, Black Lives Matter activists have been smeared as violent anti-police hooligans and thugs. Hashtags such as #BlueLivesMatter have been utilized by conservatives not only as a shield against needed reform, but also to bolster a narrative that law enforcement represents a real and metaphorical wall preserving civilization from the dark-skinned barbarians at the gate.
This narrative ignores the devastating impact of federal criminal justice policy and the drug war on the black community over the past half-century. National criminal justice policy dates back to the Great Society programs of the 1960s and provided the federal government with new resources to distribute to states to reduce crime.
By the 1970s, then New York governor Nelson Rockefeller enacted punitive sentencing – including mandatory minimums for minor drug offenses – that would become enshrined in national law during the Reagan revolution of the 1980s. That era amplified a drug war initially launched by Richard Nixon and one that barely contained its anti-black racial impulses.
The cumulative effect of crime policies across the US were to criminalize black offenders through ostensibly colorblind policy that targeted the exact kinds of crimes more likely to be found in chocolate cities than vanilla suburbs.
By the 1990s, the young Bill Clinton enacted welfare reform and a crime bill that fed on darker impulses categorizing young black juveniles as “super-predators”, stripping ex-offender of access to public housing, food stamps and the ability to reunite with family, including children, virtually assuring hopeless futures for generations of predominantly poor and working-class black women and men.
This is the larger context for the unfolding tragedies that culminated in the shock and horror witnessed in Dallas. Neither peaceful activists nor heroic police officers deserve to be scapegoated and blamed for the actions of rogue cops or mentally ill vigilantes. The larger responsibility rests with American civil society, its citizens, politicians, thought leaders and activists.
America remains the most powerful nation on Earth. The inability to forcefully confront the current crisis of race and democracy makes us appear smaller than we are. We can find a way to protect black lives and the lives of law enforcement and first responders if we make this a priority. We must understand why everyday black humanity is denigrated and demonized. Proactive policy steps are needed to end this deep inequality, one whose reverberations continue to haunt American democracy’s very soul. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/23/dan-jarvis-wins-vote-to-run-as-sheffield-mayor-but-cant-also-be-an-mp | Politics | 2018-03-23T17:23:21.000Z | Peter Walker | Dan Jarvis wins vote to run as Sheffield mayor, but can't also be an MP | The Labour MP Dan Jarvis has won a vote to become the party’s candidate for the new role of Sheffield city region mayor, but has yet to decide whether he will step down from parliament to seek election.
The Barnsley Central MP won 58% of the members’ ballot against the other candidate, Ben Curran, a councillor and cabinet member on Sheffield city council.
Jarvis had planned to take no salary if elected as the mayor and stay on as an MP, arguing that the mayoralty as currently set out had very few powers. He had hoped to use his role in Westminster to argue for this to change.
Dan Jarvis: ‘They said One Yorkshire couldn’t happen but now it’s within reach’
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Unlike similar posts in Manchester and the west Midlands, the Sheffield city region job has no devolution or funding deal, because there have been regional disputes over how such a system should work.
However, Labour’s national executive committee ruled on Tuesday that Jarvis would need to quit parliament if he won the mayoralty, a last-minute decision characterised by some as an attempt by the pro-Jeremy Corbyn ruling body to push out an MP who is not close to the party leader.
If Jarvis does decide to quit as an MP, it will open up a safe Labour seat for would-be replacements. At the last general election, he won a majority of more than 15,000, up from 12,000 in 2015. Jarvis first won the seat in a by-election in 2011.
In a tweeted statement, Jarvis thanked Labour members for selecting him. “I am proud to have been chosen, grateful for the opportunity to serve, and pleased to have been part of such a comradely contest,” he said.
Dan Jarvis: ‘Jeremy and I are not on each other’s speed dials’
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Jarvis said the new mayor would “need to work with both local and national government to negotiate the best possible deal for the city of South Yorkshire. Only then will the mayor be able to end the status quo of how decisions are made and how public services are delivered; and use both devolution and cooperative principles to offer a more radical and effective way of serving the public”. The statement did not say whether Jarvis would quit as an MP if he won the mayoralty.
The Labour candidate will be a very strong favourite to win the post; Labour hold two-thirds of the seats on Sheffield council andis even more dominant in surrounding areas.
One possibility is that Jarvis could challenge the NEC’s decision. It is understood the MP and his team have not had a chance to see the full ruling and will not make any decision on what to do until next week at the earliest.
The subheading of this article was amended on 27 March 2018. The NEC ruled that Dan Jarvis would have to quit parliament if he won the mayoralty, not to run for mayor as an earlier version said. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2010/oct/24/warpaint-the-fool-review | Music | 2010-10-23T23:05:18.000Z | Kitty Empire | Warpaint: The Fool – review | French theorist Hélène Cixous coined the term "écriture féminine" in 1975, positing a kind of writing that was uniquely female. Since then, feminists have wrestled with the pros, cons and very existence of such a discourse. As with outfits such as Telepathe or Marnie Stern, it would be tempting to describe the dreamy, non-linear rock of all-female LA arthouse band Warpaint as an XX-chromosome riposte to the strictures of verse/chorus/verse. But Warpaint have a big pop tune too – "Undertow" – and their meanderings draw from that nerdy male bastion, prog. The jury's out on "écriture féminine", but The Fool is an ebbing, flowing curio with pleasures that outweigh its hazier frustrations. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2019/mar/24/sackler-money-tate-modern-art-nan-goldin-oxycontin | Art and design | 2019-03-24T15:55:05.000Z | Joanna Walters | This is blood money': Tate shuns Sacklers – and others urged to follow | Earlier this year at the Guggenheim in New York, activists objecting to donations from the Sackler family draped protest banners from the museum’s famous spiraling balconies, dropped flyers down through the atrium and pretended to die all over the floor. A gobsmacked public looked on.
Tate art galleries will no longer accept donations from the Sackler family
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In London, Tate Modern has escaped a similar fate.
On Thursday, the Tate group announced it would not take any more donations from the Sacklers, the family whose most prominent billionaire members own the company that makes OxyContin, a prescription painkiller implicated in America’s opioids crisis.
The company, Purdue Pharma, and eight leading Sackler family members are being investigated and sued, accused of knowingly misleading the public about the dangers of OxyContin and profiting from sales and marketing strategies that deceived doctors and rewarded them for overprescribing the drug.
Those cases are drawing increasing attention, as are protests by activists who want arts and academic institutions in the US, UK and elsewhere to eschew Sackler money.
Tate Modern has received £4m from the Sacklers. Its central escalators are named for the family.
The American art photographer and activist Nan Goldin, whose campaign group Pain (Prescription Addiction Intervention Now) was behind the demonstration at the Guggenheim and others at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, is due to have an exhibition at Tate Modern, for a year from 15 April.
If Tate had not disavowed Sackler money by then, Goldin was ready to create chaos.
“It was going to be creative, it was going to utilize the Sackler escalator that goes right up to the the gallery I’m showing in,” Goldin told the Guardian this week.
The effort potentially would have involved throwing thousands of fake prescriptions for OxyContin, like confetti, and showering the space with fake pill bottles. There would also have been “a banner drop into the turbine hall”, she said, as the group did in the atrium at the Guggenheim.
Goldin, who founded her campaign in early 2018, about a year into her recovery from a near-fatal addiction to opioids she suffered after being prescribed OxyContin in 2014, said she was “so happy” this would not have to happen.
The Tate decision came two days after the National Portrait Gallery in London said it was not going to take a £1m gift offered by the Sacklers. Last month, Goldin said she would decline a retrospective offered by the museum if it accepted the gift. Tate Modern had already purchased a copy of Goldin’s seminal work, The Ballad of Sexual Dependency, so she could not have stopped the exhibition there.
‘It’s not easy to give back money or get rid of a name’
Purdue Pharma and the members of the Sackler family vigorously reject all allegations and deny wrongdoing.
Nonetheless, pressure is building on other institutions that have accepted millions from the branches of the family that became billionaires with profits from OxyContin while, according to one lawsuit, “more than 200,000 people died in the US between 1999 and 2016 from overdoses directly related to prescription opioids”.
On Friday, the Guggenheim also made a stunning announcement, as reported by the Hyperallergic.com online arts magazine. It would not, it said, accept future Sackler philanthropy.
A statement read: “The Solomon R Guggenheim Museum received a total of $7m in gifts from members of the Mortimer D Sackler family initiated in 1995 and paid out through 2006 to establish and support the Sackler Center for Arts Education, which serves approximately 300,000 youth, adults, and families each year.
“An additional $2m was received between 1999 and 2015 to support the museum. No contributions from the Sackler family have been received since 2015. No additional gifts are planned, and the Guggenheim does not plan to accept any gifts.”
The Sackler gallery at the Serpentine in London. So far the Serpentine and other galleries have made no public comment. Photograph: Andrew Aitchison/Corbis via Getty Images
The continuing controversy has echoes of fights over cultural sponsorship by tobacco companies and the oil industry and comes at a time when many in the arts are strapped for cash.
There have been no announcements from other Sackler beneficiaries such as the Victoria & Albert Museum and the Serpentine Gallery in London, the Louvre in Paris, the Met in New York, the Dia Art Foundation and universities including Cornell, Stanford, Harvard, Tufts and MIT.
“This is blood money and should be returned,” said David Callahan, author and the founder of the website Inside Philanthropy, adding: “It’s not easy to give back money or get rid of a name, but not taking any new money, that would seem to be an easier call for institutions and pretty obviously a smart decision at this point.”
But he predicted many institutions “are probably just hoping the furore will blow over”.
Yale University is home to the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Institute for Biological, Physical and Engineering Sciences, funded by a founder of Purdue Pharma and his widow. It also has two professorships endowed by the Sacklers. In a statement, it noted the “devastating effects” of the opioid crisis.
The university also said “Yale is a leader in research and educational efforts to combat this epidemic” and added: “We are aware of the ongoing efforts to determine potential contributing factors in the current opioid epidemic, including through legal processes, and will continue to monitor the outcomes of those efforts.”
Sackler gifts, the statement said, had “helped advance the university’s mission in a number of academic disciplines”.
Columbia University in New York is not waiting. It recently said it had “re-evaluated accepting donations from the Sackler family’s philanthropies and [was] not taking gifts from them”.
On the other side of the country the University of Washington (UW) is discontinuing a program funded with $1.5m in Sackler money that has supported 21 post-doctoral researchers.
In 2017, discussions were under way about a potential new gift. Then Esquire published a groundbreaking investigation, The Secretive Family Making Billions From the Opioid Crisis. That was followed by an exposé in the New Yorker, The Family That Built an Empire of Pain.
“I think, like everyone, we were surprised by the extent of what was reported in terms of the alleged practices of members of the family in relation to the marketing [of OxyContin],” said Victor Balta, a spokesman for UW.
The university decided “we needed to take fairly immediate action”, he said. It did not broadcast the December 2017 decision to refuse more Sackler money and the news only recently emerged.
“As a state university, to be responsible to the public who count on us to uphold their trust, we felt we needed to suspend the relationship,” Balta said, adding that the university would now be “watching as the legal process plays out”.
Opioid crisis protesters target New York's Guggenheim over Sackler family link
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Balta said the university did not know if it could find alternative funding to resume the relevant research, which partly focused on innovations for restoring motor function in people with spinal cord injuries.
‘An end to the vilification’
Mike Moore is a former Mississippi attorney general who is now one of the attorneys representing more than 1,200 cities and counties suing Purdue and other companies in federal court in Ohio.
He has accused the Sacklers of “reputation laundering” through philanthropy and urged the family to settle the legal cases.
Moore helped secure a historic $246bn “Big Tobacco” settlement against leading cigarette companies in 1997 and a $20bn settlement against BP for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. He recalls talks with one cigarette boss who was desperate for “an end to the vilification”.
Moore said: “He wanted to be able to go to cocktail parties, charity functions and country clubs again without people coming up to him and saying, ‘Aren’t you the guys in the business of killing people?’
“This is a little different because it’s a drug company and maybe they did some good – but they did an awful lot of bad.”
This article was amended on Sunday 24 March, to include the news that the Guggenheim will no longer accept Sackler gifts. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/mar/27/star-trek-3-to-veer-closer-to-spirit-of-original-tv-show-says-simon-pegg | Film | 2015-03-27T09:11:37.000Z | Ben Child | Star Trek 3 to veer closer to spirit of original TV show, says Simon Pegg | The next Star Trek film will be closer in spirit to the original television show, according to co-writer Simon Pegg.
In a conversation with Comic Book Resources, Pegg revealed that he hopes to inject an element of Apollo-era optimism into Star Trek 3, which will be the first new film in the long-running space saga since the death of original Spock Leonard Nimoy and is rumoured to be starring Idris Elba as the main villain.
“I think we just want to take it forward with the spirit of the TV show,” revealed Pegg, who is currently promoting darkly comic crime thriller Kill Me Three Times. “And it’s a story about frontierism and adventure and optimism and fun, and that’s where we want to take it, you know. Where no man has gone before – where no one has gone before, sensibly corrected for a slighter more enlightened generation. But yeah, that’s the mood at the moment.”
Pegg, who will also return as engineering chief Scotty in Star Trek 3, said he was brought on board to write the screenplay following conversations with Star Trek executive producer JJ Abrams, director of the first two films, and producer Bryan Burk.
From Star Trek to board games: meet Wil Wheaton, king of the nerds
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“It just came out of conversations I was having with JJ Abrams and Bryan Burk, and they decided to kind of like restart the process,” said Pegg. “Because I’d been on the set with Burky on Mission: Impossible, he said, ‘Maybe you should come on and write it’ ... And I was a bit, ‘No. I don’t want to — it’s too much pressure!’”
Star Trek 3 will be directed by Fast Five’s Justin Lin, with Abrams having jumped ship to take charge of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The new instalment has experienced a troubled pre-production process, with original writer-director Roberto Orci sidelined in December in favour of Lin.
The original Captain Kirk, William Shatner, had been rumoured to be making a cameo in the new film, but it is not clear if he has been retained for the Pegg-Lin iteration. Star Trek 3 hopes to hit cinemas in July 2016 in time for the 50th anniversary of the original TV series.
News that Pegg plans to reinfuse the film series with the show’s optimistic outlook may provide solace for long-term fans, known as Trekkies, who have lambasted the otherwise popular Abrams movies. Second instalment Star Trek Into Darkness was voted the worst Star Trek film in the entire canon by delegates to the annual Star Trek convention in Las Vegas in 2013. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/21/usa-mens-basketball-olympics-rio-2016-serbia-durant-anthony-gold | Sport | 2016-08-21T21:12:49.000Z | Bryan Armen Graham | Kevin Durant leads US men's basketball team to third straight Olympic gold | The United States men’s basketball team saved their best for last, capping an occasionally precarious Olympic tournament with a stress-free 96-66 rout of Serbia to capture yet another gold medal in the final event of the Rio Games.
Kevin Durant poured in a game-high 30 points – matching his total from the gold medal game four years ago in London – as the US team overcame a punchless opening with suffocating defense to run away before a lively crowd of 10,658 at Carioca Arena 1. The Americans have now won six of the last seven Olympic titles in men’s basketball and 15 of 19 overall. Faster, higher, stronger indeed.
Serbia had given the Americans a scare in the preliminary round, clawing back from a 23-5 deficit to push the tournament favorites to the limit before losing by three. That sparked a two-game win streak that lifted them into the medal round on a tie-breaker, followed by wins over Croatia and Australia.
This one played out more like the teams’ previous meeting in the 2014 Fiba Basketball World Cup final where Team USA won a 129–92 blowout in Madrid.
“They have the best coaching staff in the world,” Serbia coach Aleksandar Đorđević said. “They did a great job scouting us and they knew everything that was coming from our guns. Unfortunately some of our guns were not that loaded as in the first game. We didn’t move the ball well, share the ball well.”
The US team missed 13 of their first 20 shots from the floor and half of their eight free throws during a first quarter that saw five lead changes. But after a Stefan Birčević free throw gave the Serbians a 14-11 edge, Team USA used a 22-6 run capped by a Durant steal and breakaway dunk to extend a 13-point advantage, prompting Đorđević to call timeout.
There was little he could do to stem the tide. The US team was moving the ball beautifully and dominating in every facet. By half-time Durant had posted 24 points – 18 in the second quarter alone – and Cousins had already posted a double-double (11 points, 12 rebounds) and the US led 52-29.
“We started pretty good but in the second quarter we did not look like ourselves,” Serbia’s Stefan Marković said. “When you have 12 superstars against you, you cannot wait for them to attack. You have to attack first.
“If you let them play as they want, they will kill you. Each of the 12 guys can do that. You cannot stop these players like that.”
USA men’s basketball team beat Serbia to claim gold Guardian
Carmelo Anthony opened the third quarter with three-pointer from the corner and the onslaught was on again. The long-distance attack that had powered Serbia in the first meeting, when they made 10-of-25 three-point shots (40%), stalled badly as they were limited to 4-of-24 (17%) from beyond the arc. By early in the fourth quarter Team USA led 84-43 and the result was but a handshake away.
From when Serbia led 14-11, the US team outscored them 85-52. When Anthony exited the game with two minutes remaining, the New York Knicks forward shared a extended embrace with Durant and Mike Krzyzewski, who is stepping down as USA head coach after these Olympics, before taking his place at the end of the bench.
“It was a special moment for me,” said Anthony, the unofficial team captain who became the first ever three-time Olympic gold medalist in men’s basketball. “I know this is the end. This is it for me.”
After the final buzzer sounded and the US had won by the largest margin in a gold medal game since the original Dream Team throttled Croatia by 32 in Barcelona, the players draped themselves in American flags and celebrated with the many USA fans near courtside before parading into the tunnel.
The latest iteration of the US men’s team is no longer a collection of the best players on offer. This year’s Olympic squad included only one All-NBA first team choice (DeAndre Jordan), down from the complete set who made the trip to Barcelona. The perfunctory blowouts of those days are no longer the norm.
But Dream Team VII managed to avoid the nightmare outcome that seemed around the corner after a preliminary round that saw them pushed by Australia, Serbia and France in wins by 10 points or less. The difference was a tightened defense that limited all three knockout-stage opponents to under 40% shooting from the floor.
“It’s an unbelievable feeling,” said Kyrie Irving, who followed up his first ever NBA championship in June with an Olympic gold. “We came together at the right time. We figured it out offensively and defensively and came out with the gold.”
And of course there was Durant, who paced the team’s equal-opportunity attack with 19.4 points per game, fifth-best in the tournament.
“He’s gone through a lot of examination with the fact that he signed with the (Golden State) Warriors,” said Jerry Colangelo, managing director of USA Basketball. “He’s been under a little bit of pressure, and to see him bust out like he did here was wonderful. I think it’s really going to help his psyche going forward. I couldn’t be happier for him.”
Anthony, who joins Gennady Volnov and Sergey Belov of the Soviet Union as the lone men’s basketball players to win four Olympic medals, earned his first back in 2004, when the USA lost three times and stumbled to a bronze that prompted a wholesale overhaul of the program under Colangelo.
“It’s really hard to understand it and have a feeling about it when you’re going through it,” he said. “Not until you have some time to yourself, you get a chance to reflect back on this journey starting back in 2004 up until now. I don’t think I can explain how I feel right at this moment.”
With Anthony insisting he’s made his final appearance with Team USA, Sunday’s game took on a tenor of transition. But he is confident the team, which will be coached by San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich moving forward, is in good hands.
“I think I’ve given enough to team USA basketball,” he said. “As much as I’m going to miss it, it’s time to pass it on to some of the guys who were here and some of the younger guys that are coming along, to give them an opportunity to be a part of something great.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/mar/07/alice-in-wonderland-review | Film | 2010-03-07T00:07:00.000Z | Philip French | Alice in Wonderland | Film review | Tim Burton is in love with the Victorian age. His childhood idol was Vincent Price, who started out playing Prince Albert on stage, specialised in Victorian morbidity and made one of his final screen appearances in Burton's Edward Scissorhands. Burton's last film, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, was a bracing excursion into Victorian melodrama, and it was inevitable that his interest in mythology and the adolescent imagination would eventually attract him to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Appropriately his London office was once the home of Arthur Rackham, who succeeded Sir John Tenniel as Alice's illustrator.
The characters, language, puzzles and predicaments of Carroll's 1865 novel and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass, became and remain part of the texture of our lives, as embedded as ancient mythology and more endearing. From the start, they've attracted movie-makers. As early as 1903 there was a nine-minute version of Alice, now available on the same BFI DVD as Jonathan Miller's brilliant 1966 TV film, inspired by Victorian monochrome photographs by Julia Margaret Cameron and Roger Fenton, and essentially a meditation on the panoply, psychopathology and social politics of high Victorian life. Despite the presence of Peter Sellers, Miller's movie isn't very funny, and to appreciate it you need to know the book well.
Almost as good is Gavin Millar's Dreamchild (1985), scripted by Dennis Potter, in which the elderly Alice Liddell (played by Coral Browne) recalls her life and the genesis of Alice during a 1932 visit to New York. A number of other films draw or comment on Alice with various degrees of obliquity – the Wachowskis's Matrix trilogy, Jacques Rivette's Céline and Julie Go Boating, Woody Allen's Alice and Neil Jordan's Ondine (reviewed below), in which a bright child meets a woman from another world with the comment, "curiouser and curiouser".
Mainstream films aimed at family audiences have cleaved closely to Carroll's text, conflating the two novels, sidestepping complexity of the sort dealt with in Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice and taking advantage of the wide range of eccentric, much-loved characters to use all-star casts. The 1933 Hollywood treatment, scripted by the super-literate Joseph L Mankiewicz and the great designer William Cameron Menzies, employed Paramount's roster of actors from WC Fields (Humpty Dumpty) to Cary Grant (Mock Turtle) and drew on Tenniel for its designs. In the 1940s Walt Disney hired Aldous Huxley to adapt the books. But Huxley was fired when he spoke out in favour of a Hollywood strike in which his 23-year-old son was beaten up by anti-union thugs hired by Disney and his allies. As a result, Disney turned to studio hacks for his slick, Americanised, extremely popular 1951 animated musical. The Disney picture resulted in the failure of a contemporaneous Anglo-French version featuring the British actress Carol March and puppets. Apart from some drug-related versions, the next interpretation was the highly theatrical British movie, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, told by Michael Jayston as Lewis Carroll, with an astonishing cast including Peter Sellers as the March Hare, but rather let down by indifferent songs and limp choreography.
Now Disney returns to the fray, with Burton directing a script by American children's writer Linda Woolverton, whose previous work for Disney on The Lion King, Mulan and the stage version of Beauty and the Beast is redolent of fashionable rites of passage and female empowerment. It's a mixture of live-action characters and computer-generated images, played or voiced by well-known (mostly British) actors, though the only one that could be deemed a major international star is Burton's frequent collaborator Johnny Depp as the maddest of Hatters. His red hair indicates the mercury poisoning that was the hat-maker's occupational disease, and he occasionally draws on the Scottish accent he developed to play JM Barrie in Finding Neverland.
The mediocre script draws in cavalier fashion on both Wonderland and Looking Glass, and uses a different framing story from the familiar one of Charles Dodgson and the Reverend Duckworth taking three young girls rowing. Alice is now the rebellious daughter of the imperial entrepreneur Charles Kingsleigh (presumably a reference to the author of The Water Babies, Charles Kingsley). The weird dreams she had as a child recur 13 years later when, after her father's death, she's about to be married off to the chinless son of Lord Ascot. Fleeing from a grand engagement party at a country mansion, she follows a white rabbit down a gigantic hole. This leads to a nightmarish forest, part King Kong's Skull Island, part James Cameron's Pandora, dominated by the menacing many-toothed Bandersnatch. The unimpressive 3D used throughout would have been better employed for the Underland scenes alone.
This curiously flat film is never particularly funny and rarely demonstrates Burton's gifts as a spellbinding movie tale-teller. After a period of confusion it becomes clear that the book's episodic form has been replaced by an overarching quest story based on the Jabberwocky nonsense poem from Looking Glass. Alice must find the Vorpel sword, a sacred Arthurian device, and choose sides between the graceful White Queen (Anne Hathaway) and the ugly, oppressive Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter). Her ultimate enemy is the latter's fearsome Jabberwock, and the film's inevitable climax is Alice got up like St George confronting this dangerous dragon. The pay-off back in the real high Victorian world is that Alice has achieved the right to become a high-ranking imperial adventurer, establishing major trade links with China. In his classic Europe Without Baedeker (1947), written during his most Anglophobic period, Edmund Wilson saw Alice as characteristic of the snobbish, overbearing, ineffably superior British upper classes, patronising everyone and undermining their confidence. He might well have seen justice in this finale, though he would have been disappointed to find it coming from a fellow American and be so totally lacking in irony. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/nov/22/jeremy-hunt-pension-pot-for-life-nightmare-to-establish-experts-say | Money | 2023-11-22T18:56:30.000Z | Rupert Jones | Hunt’s pension ‘pot for life’ idea would be nightmare to establish, experts say | The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, unveiled plans that could eventually give UK workers one pension pot for life – but there were warnings that it could be an administrative “nightmare”.
The shake-up is aimed at tackling the problem of millions of small pension pots being generated – which often then end up being forgotten about – as savers change jobs during their working lives.
The Treasury said it was launching a call for evidence on a “lifetime provider” model that would simplify the market by allowing savers to ask employers to pay into one portable pension pot. The pot could be moved from one job to the next.
The Treasury said the measure would provide savers with “greater agency and control over their pension”.
Responding to the announcement, Rachel Vahey, head of policy development at investment platform AJ Bell, said: “Some estimates suggest the average worker changes employer around 11 times during their career, with each job hop potentially creating a new pension with a new provider.”
As people move home and carry on with their lives, some of these left-behind pension pots then end up being forgotten about and become “lost”. The Pensions Policy Institute has published research estimating that the total value of lost pension pots increased from £19bn in 2018 to almost £27bn in 2022.
A pot for life would represent the biggest workplace pensions shake-up since the launch of the UK’s automatic enrolment regime in 2012. Under that scheme, millions of people have been put directly into a workplace pension that both they and their employer pay into.
While automatic enrolment has dramatically increased retirement saving, it means many people will build up multiple pensions throughout their career.
Many commentators responded favourably to the plans, as one pension pot is much easier to manage and engage with, but others said it would create a big administrative headache for employers.
Joshua Gerstler, a chartered financial planner at the Orchard Practice, said: “I like the idea in principle, although it sounds like it would be an absolute nightmare to establish.”
Mark Futcher, a partner at the independent consultancy Barnett Waddingham, said: “A consultation brings with it no certainty of change, but even if the consultation results in a positive outcome, making this work would easily take a decade … I won’t be waiting with bated breath for this reform to come to pass.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/16/ukrainian-forces-give-up-some-positions-in-avdiivka-as-russian-assault-continues | World news | 2024-02-17T01:15:47.000Z | Shaun Walker | Ukrainian forces withdraw from Avdiivka to avoid encirclement, army chief says | Ukrainian troops have withdrawn from the eastern city of Avdiivka to avoid encirclement, army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi has said, marking the biggest change on the frontlines since Russian forces captured Bakhmut in May last year.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, the recently appointed Syrskyi said he had acted to “preserve the lives and health of servicemen”, stabilise the situation and move troops to more favourable defence lines.
“Our soldiers performed their military duty with dignity, did everything possible to destroy the best Russian military units, [and] inflicted significant losses on the enemy in terms of manpower and equipment,” he said. “The life of military personnel is [of] the highest value.”
A day earlier, the Ukrainian commander responsible for forces in the south-east of the country had said Kyiv’s forces had withdrawn from some positions in the town.
“New positions have been prepared and powerful fortifications continue to be prepared, taking into account all possible scenarios,” Oleksandr Tarnavskiy said in a statement on social media on Friday.
In a Saturday statement issued just after Syrskyi’s he added, “In a situation where the enemy is advancing on the corpses of their own soldiers with a ten-to-one shell advantage, under constant bombardment, this [withdrawal] is the only correct solution.”
As the two-year mark of Russia’s full-scale invasion approaches, Ukrainian troops are under pressure along the frontline, with depleted and exhausted ranks and a shortage of artillery shells that has been exacerbated by the stalling of a large US funding package.
The US president, Joe Biden, had warned on Thursday that Avdiivka risked falling to Russian forces because of ammunition shortages following months of Republican congressional opposition to the aid package.
Avdiivka has been pounded by the Russians for months, but it is only in recent weeks that they have been able to make significant breakthroughs, with small groups of advance troops making it into the city itself.
Syrskyi, who was appointed last week in a major military shake-up, had sent in reinforcements to aid the defence of Avdiivka, but Tarnavskiy’s announcements had suggested Kyiv might be preparing for a retreat from the city, which was surrounded on three sides by Russian forces.
The loss of the city nearly two years into Russia’s full-scale invasion may give President Volodymyr Zelenskiy a stronger case to make to the west for more urgent military aid as he addresses the Munich Security Conference on Saturday morning.
There was no immediate comment about the withdrawal from the Russian defence ministry, Zelenskiy or the Ukrainian defence minister.
Taking over the remains of Avdiivka, much of which has been decimated by fighting, would give Russia full control of the area surrounding Donetsk, a large Ukrainian city that was seized by Russian proxy forces in 2014. It would also be a symbolic gain for Vladimir Putin as he prepares to stand in a rubber-stamp election next month that will grant him another six years in office.
An industrial city once known for its sprawling coke plant, Avdiivka became a Ukrainian military stronghold after the loss of Donetsk in 2014, but has been decimated by the recent fighting. Vitaliy Barabash, Avdiivka’s mayor, said 923 civilians remained in the city, down from a prewar population of about 32,000. Most of them are elderly people who have refused to leave their homes, even as fighting has intensified in recent months, and there is no possibility to evacuate them.
Fierce battles have been going on around Avdiivka since October. Ukraine’s Third Assault Brigade, which had been deployed around Avdiivka to reinforce Kyiv’s troops, said in a statement on Thursday that the situation in the city was “hell”, describing it as “threatening and unstable”.
Ukrainian soldiers west of Avdiivka in Donetsk region. Photograph: Kasia Strek/The Guardian
John Kirby, the White House national security spokesperson, said in a briefing on Thursday that Avdiivka was at risk of falling under Russian control. “In very large part, this is happening because the Ukrainian forces on the ground are running out of artillery ammunition,” he said.
At a forest base near a section of the frontline in Donetsk region, west of Avdiivka, soldiers from a self-propelled artillery unit that forms part of Ukraine’s First Tank Brigade said during a visit on Thursday that their ability to strike the Russians had been cut dramatically since November.
“Back then, we could fire every half hour, to stop them from relaxing and disrupt their movements, now we have to be very selective, and only fire for defence,” said their commander, who gave his call-sign, Titushko, in accordance with Ukrainian army regulations.
“We cannot target only one vehicle, we only aim when we see a concentration of hardware,” he added.
With the frontlines largely static in recent months, the capture of Avdiivka would mark Russia’s first major gain since taking Bakhmut last May.
“Avdiivka is important for them to control the space around Donetsk, you have control of dominant heights there, and they can build logistics corridors to supply a large area of the front,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskiy, in an interview in Kyiv earlier this month. “This is not about symbolism, this is about the operative importance of a particular territory,” he added.
Some in Ukraine have suggested that the situation in Avdiivka resembles the fierce fighting during last year’s defence of Bakhmut, during which Ukrainian forces suffered heavy losses during an ultimately unsuccessful defence of the city.
“I don’t think Avdiivka is like Bakhmut, but I worry that Ukraine’s leadership will choose to freight it with political significance, which it need not have, as part of an observed tendency to not cede ground anywhere no matter the cost or military reality,” said Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment thinktank.
Zelenskiy fired his top army commander, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, last week, and replaced him with Syrskyi, the former commander of the land forces, citing a need for a new approach.
Some Ukrainian soldiers blame Syrskyi for the losses at Bakhmut and expressed concern that more lives may be lost in Avdiivka before the Russian takeover that most believe is inevitable.
“Most likely we will lose it and the only other option is we spend tens of thousands of Ukrainian lives to hold it a bit longer, and then who will replace those people,” said one Ukrainian army officer, who asked not to be identified. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/1999/nov/18/artsfeatures9 | Film | 1999-11-18T00:00:00.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | A slice of rural China | Part social documentary, part wan pastoral comedy, Not One Less is the new picture from Zhang Yimou, the director of such modern Chinese classics as Red Sorghum and Raise the Red Lantern. It arrived at the London Film Festival having had a turbulent festival career in Europe: withdrawn from Cannes in May by Yimou because of the organisers' alleged anti-Chinese attitude, the movie went on to win the Golden Lion at Venice.
Set in a backward rural province, Not One Less is the story of a 13-year-old substitute teacher, Wei. Scarcely older or better educated than her charges, she is tricked out of her pathetic wage by the mayor, but promised payment in full at the end of her one-month stint, plus a bonus if she keeps any pupil from dropping out. When one boy from a poverty-stricken family runs away to the city to beg, Wei begins a single-minded search for him.
The movie is played out mostly at walking pace and only picks up into a stumbling trot once it reaches the bustling, uncaring city. It is acted by non-professionals and semi-professional first-timers, from whom Yimou elicits performances of blank naturalness. Wei (Wei Minzhi) is stubborn, resentful, with a precocious sense of her pedagogic dignity being outraged by both her unruly pupils and duplicitous employers. Her search for her stray sheep looks selfish at first, until we realise that she is simply the same as her pupils: young, frightened and poor.
Not One Less is ostensibly about China's problem with the drop-out rate in country schools. This is a rather inaccessible issue for non-Chinese audiences, who are more likely to want to identify with a young girl pushed into an adult role. The reticence and self-possession of Not One Less resists easy emotional crescendos and crises. Some will find it uninvolving - but an attentive, sympathetic viewing will find here an impressive and humane slice of rural life. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/jul/22/im-not-alone-survivors-organise-against-sexual-violence-in-colombia | Global development | 2021-07-22T06:30:17.000Z | Megan Janetsky | ‘I’m not alone’: survivors organise against sexual violence in Colombia | Children now play football on the field where the lives of the people of El Salado changed completely.
In February 2000, about 450 paramilitary fighters stormed this small Colombian town. They forced people from their homes into the field, and began to play drums and drink alcohol stolen from local shops. They then went on to torture and kill. Yirley Velazco was one of those gang-raped. She was 14 at the time.
The massacre at El Salado – which left at least 60 people dead and many more “disappeared” – was one of the most brutal events in Colombia’s decades of armed conflict.
Afterwards, Velazco, her family and other survivors fled to nearby cities and towns, where they often lived in deep poverty and faced stigma for having been forcibly displaced. Two decades on, only an estimated 1,200 of the 4,000 people in the community have returned.
Today there are no signs of the bloodshed on the football field and the children kick their ball over a faded peace sign painted on ground. “When I pass by here, all the feelings come rushing back to me. I saw a lot of people get killed. It’s not easy to forget that. And there is still pain. There is still sadness,” says Velazco.
Velazco and 12 other survivors created a network, Mujeres Sembrando Vida (Women Sowing Life), to support victims of sexual and domestic violence in the northern Colombian region of Montes de María, an area still plagued by conflict.
Sexual violence is a common tactic used by paramilitaries, guerrillas and state military forces to sow fear and assert power.
Sexual violence against women and girls comes from long-existing structures
Linda Cabrera, Sisma Mujer
“Sexual violence against women and girls is a kind of discrimination that comes from long-existing structures,” says Linda Cabrera, director of Sisma Mujer, an organisation that defends victims of gender-based violence in Colombia. “What it has created is different kinds of traumas.”
In El Salado there is no official registry of the rapes committed by paramilitaries. Velazco said the topic was missing in conversations about reparations.
People commemorate the 10th anniversary of the massacre in El Salado, in northern Colombia, on 20 February 2010. Photograph: Ricardo Maldonado/EPA
“When they began to discuss El Salado, I heard them talk about thousands of things [the community needed] – a health centre, a road, a church – but when they finished I said to myself: ‘What about the women?’” Velazco says.
“Because I lived it. I’ve felt the pain, I know the helplessness that comes from being ignored.”
I heard them talking about thousands of things the community needed but I said to myself: 'What about the women?'
Yirley Velazco, Mujeres Sembrando Vida
At the beginning of the pandemic, domestic abuse cases surged with protracted lockdowns across the world. It was particularly rampant in Latin American countries, with previously high rates of domestic and sexual violence. Although quarantines are no longer in force, gender-based violence has continued at alarming levels.
Velazco and her team guide victims to report cases and ensure these are handled appropriately, and try to address the sense of impunity that goes hand-in-hand with such crimes in Colombia.
“We do what the state entities fail to do,” she says.
Yirley Velazco, seated with baby, visits families in a rural area of Montes de Maria. Photograph: Kiran Stallone
Members of Mujeres Sembrando Vida are part of multiple regional and national support groups. WhatsApp networks have been crucial to contacting victims in rural areas.
Velazco and her team also run in-person workshops in rural communities, teaching women about gender equality, and have set up a collective savings account to help women in emergencies.
“Ninety per cent of women depend on what their husbands give them. That’s what the violence is born from. With this savings account, if a woman has an emergency, there is money,” she says.
So far the team have helped about 280 women in El Salado and nearby communities. They have helped women leave abusive situations, get medical help and created projects to enable financial independence.
For survivors of sexual violence such as Diana Chamorro, 56, such support has been transformative.
Diana Chamorro is a rape survivor who works with other women in El Carmen de Bolívar who have experienced sexual violence. Photograph: Megan Janetsky
In 1998, Chamorro was walking to her brother’s house not far from her home when a group of men attacked and one of them raped her. The men were in military camouflage, but she never saw their faces. She says she told no one about the rape.
“I told absolutely no one,” she says. “What do I say if I don’t know who it was? That was part of it. The other part was the shame.”
It was only after meeting Velazco four years ago that Chamorro began to address the trauma she had felt for decades with a psychologist. Since then she has helped others.
I told absolutely no one. What do I say if I don’t know who it was? That was part of it. The other part was the shame.
Diana Chamorro, Mujeres Sembrando Vida
“I felt protected, like I have someone to count on, that I’m not alone like a lot of women who have suffered more than I have,” says Chamorro. “I want to make sure that these women can join us.”
But the work of Mujeres Sembrando Vida has become increasingly difficult amid a resurgence of violence in Colombia. The Montes de María region is contested territory used by armed groups for drug trafficking.
Diana Chamorro shows some of the fabric products her group have created in El Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia. Profits go to a ‘solidarity savings fund’ to help women in emergencies. Photograph: Megan Janetsky
People say they felt some relief after the government struck a peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) in 2016, which offered respite to the fighting. But the peace process has fallen apart as different groups vie for territory, says Elizabeth Dickinson, a Colombia analyst for International Crisis Group.
‘It opens a window of hope’: case will potentially set precedent for sexual violence survivors in Colombia
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The militia, Clan del Golfo, or Gulf Clan, and a handful of smaller gangs control the Montes de María.
“Instead of one dominant group, you have three dominant groups [in Montes de María],” Dickinson says. “Then everyone wants a piece of the pie, and the ones who suffer are the civilian population.”
Activists like Velazco are constantly under threat. In Colombia, at least 1,205 social leaders have been murdered since the peace accords were signed in 2016, according to Bogotá-based thinktank Indepaz.
Velazco says she has received about 500 death threats via message, 100 by phone and five written threats on her door. The threats often make reference to rape, she says.
Yirley Velazco has two state-assigned bodyguards when she visits rural communities. Photograph: Megan Janetsky
Sitting in her backyard under a security camera that the authorities have installed, she reads aloud a recent text. “Yirley Velazco, we are going to kill you, we have a lot of people all around you … We’re going to kill your mother and entire family if you stay here. We’ll give you two days for you to leave … we’re the Clan del Golfo.”
When she drives she is accompanied by two state-assigned bodyguards in a truck with bullet-proof windows.
Despite the risks, Velazco and Chamorro aim to expand their work. “We want to bring [new women] with us to help clear their minds so they can live in better conditions, tell their stories, and so their wounds can heal.”
In the UK, Rape Crisis offers support for rape and sexual abuse on 0808 802 9999 in England and Wales, 0808 801 0302 in Scotland, or 0800 0246 991 in Northern Ireland. Call the national domestic abuse helpline on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women’s Aid. Other international helplines for rape and sexual abuse can be found at ibiblio.org/rcip/internl.html. International helplines for domestic violence may be found via www.befrienders.org. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/nov/17/jeremy-corbyn-will-never-be-labour-mp-again-keir-starmer | Politics | 2023-11-17T19:43:32.000Z | Nadeem Badshah | ‘His days as a Labour MP are over’: Starmer condemns Corbyn’s Hamas stance | Keir Starmer has said Jeremy Corbyn’s “days as a Labour MP are over” after the former party leader repeatedly refused to call Hamas a terrorist organisation.
Starmer said his predecessor, who lost the party whip in 2020, would not stand as a Labour MP at “the next election or any election”.
Corbyn was repeatedly asked in an interview on TalkTV’s Piers Morgan Uncensored programme on Monday whether he thought Hamas was a terrorist group. But the Islington North MP, a vocal critic of the Israeli government, avoided the question.
Hamas – which was responsible for killing 1,200 people in Israel on 7 October and kidnapping a further 240 – are proscribed as a terrorist group in the UK and support for them is banned.
Starmer, asked on the News Agents podcast whether the interview would preclude Corbyn from standing for Labour again, said: “He won’t stand as a Labour MP at the next election or any election. His days as a Labour MP are over. We have a changed party.”
Corbyn had already been blocked from running again. He had the Labour whip in parliament removed in October 2020 over his response to the equalities watchdog report on antisemitism in the party during his tenure as leader. He sits as an independent MP but remains a Labour member. He has indicated he could run against the party in the next general election in his seat, where he has significant support.
How the Israel-Hamas conflict is dividing the UK Labour party
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Starmer – who served in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet – said he was “taken aback and shocked” by his predecessor’s refusal to describe Hamas as a terrorist organisation.
“It reaffirmed in me why it is so important to me and to this changed Labour party that Jeremy Corbyn does not sit as a Labour MP and will not be a candidate at the next election for the Labour party,” he said. “That is how far we have changed as the Labour party.”
Starmer faced a bruising week on the issue of the Israel-Hamas war after a major rebellion in the Commons against the party’s position of calling for pauses in the violence but not going so far as to demand a ceasefire.
He had put Labour MPs on a three-line whip not to vote for a Scottish National party (SNP) motion calling for an immediate cessation of hostilities.
Labour must beware of tearing itself apart over the horrific conflict in Gaza
Andrew Rawnsley
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However, 56 of his MPs defied the order,including 10 shadow ministers and parliamentary aides.
Afzal Khan, Yasmin Qureshi, Paula Barker and Naz Shah were among the shadow junior ministers who resigned on Wednesday after abstaining from the vote, while Jess Phillips, Rachel Hopkins, Sarah Owen and Andy Slaughter left their frontbench roles after backing the amendment.
Starmer insisted there was “no unconditional support for Israel” as it fought Hamas in a conflict where more than 11,000 people have been killed in Gaza. He said civilians and hospitals “must be protected” and international law upheld.
PA Media contributed to this report | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/27/japan-to-subsidise-visitors-holidays-in-effort-to-revive-tourism-shop-restaurant-discounts-coronavirus | World news | 2020-05-27T10:07:58.000Z | Justin McCurry | Japan to subsidise holidays in effort to revive tourism | Tourists in Japan could soon be tucking into ramen and sushi, and buying souvenirs in the knowledge that a good portion of the bill will be picked up by the Japanese government.
Under an initiative that could come into effect within a couple of months, Japan is to provide subsidies to travellers in an attempt to breathe life into the country’s coronavirus-hit tourist industry.
The Go To Travel initiative will subsidise holidays by up to ¥20,000 [(£152] ) a day in the form of steep discounts and vouchers that can be used at local shops and restaurants, the Kyodo news agency said.
The scheme, which could begin in late July after coronavirus travel restrictions have eased, applies to tourists who make bookings through Japanese travel agencies or directly with hotels and traditional ryokan inns.
The programme does not explicitly exclude foreign visitors, but the Japan Travel Agency said in a tweet on Wednesday that it was intended to “stimulate domestic travel demand within Japan after the Covid-19 pandemic and only cover a portion of domestic travel expenses.” The subsidies do not apply to travel expenses for visitors from overseas.
Data released this week showed the number of overseas visitors decreased by more than 99% last month to fewer than 3,000 as a result of the pandemic, with domestic travel severely curtailed by the country’s state of emergency.
The subsidies, totalling ¥1.35tn, are expected to form part of a second emergency budget the Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, will unveil on Wednesday to help guide the world’s third-biggest economy through the economic crisis triggered by the coronavirus.
Tourism was critical to Abe’s growth plans before the pandemic, with the government setting an ambitious annual target of attracting 40 million foreign tourists by the end of this year and 60 million by 2030.
Hopes for a tourist-driven spending boom this summer were dashed after the virus’s global spread forced the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics until next year.
In addition, entry bans to Japan apply to more than 100 countries, including those, such as China, on which Japan relied for much of its income from tourism.
Just 2,900 people visited Japan last month, according to government data, down 99.9% on the same period last year.
Some of those restrictions could gradually ease in the coming weeks after Abe lifted the seven-week state of emergency on Monday following a marked fall in new cases of Covid-19 in Japan.
Restaurants, which had been asked to close at 8pm, will be able to stay open until 10pm, while museums and some other public spaces will reopen. Official advice to avoid travel between Japan’s 47 prefectures could be relaxed around mid-June.
Hotels and other sectors of the economy that depend on tourism have been hit particularly hard by the pandemic. A survey by Tokyo Shoko Research found 31 companies in the accommodation sector had either declared or were preparing to file for bankruptcy in April.
Hotels in Kyoto, whose temples and shrines usually attract hordes of foreign tourists at this time of year, said the number of overseas guests in March had decreased 89.5% compared with the same month last year. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jan/25/natalie-prass-album-review-debut-gem-heartbreak | Music | 2015-01-25T08:30:03.000Z | Kitty Empire | Natalie Prass: Natalie Prass review – a gem of a heartbreak album | You imagine psychotherapists probably get heartily sick of heartache – all those infidelities, those ugly power dynamics; the break-ups and the breakdowns that go with the counselling territory. Music fans could well feel the same way. There’s a lot of heartache about. If you could picture emotional baggage in pop, it would resemble some Heathrow luggage handlers’ strike-style mountain of love-gone-wrong songs – a peak only equalled in height and heft, perhaps, by the songs in which fools are falling in love. Or trying to get it on.
The thrush-like Natalie Prass, 28, has written a heartbreak album that reminds you why such albums are so wonderful and necessary in the first place. The break-up happens live, almost in real time. The chorus of the first track, My Baby Don’t Understand Me, was written by Prass in tears after one particularly bad row. Prass later emailed it to her now-ex – who co-wrote many of these other songs – an act which pretty much ended things. Strings weep along with her; horns elevate Prass’s romantic non-contiguity to the level of a minor epic.
Swathed in rococo strings, Christy, a kind of Jolene-style love triangle set in a chamber trio, was written well before the end. It imagines an infidelity that subsequently came to pass. “The only one she sees belongs to me,” sings Prass in a whispery trill full of suppressed drama.
Inside the Spacebomb studio with Natalie Prass and Matthew E White
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The album these songs light up arrives after a bumper year in which Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen set high bars for the American indie confessional. Prass’s debut actually sounds like neither of these, and was finished well before the other two. Spacebomb, the studio-cum-label-cum-string factory where Prass recorded it, have been sitting on this gem for more than two years. Their time was taken up promoting another pearl – Spacebomb head honcho Matthew E White’s own artist album of 2013, which really was the best thing since amplification. Prass politely killed time playing in Jenny Lewis’s touring band and making clothes for dogs. The sultry horns, the groovy strings (courtesy of in-house string arranger Trey Pollard) and the southern sway of White’s record recur on Prass’s songs, which take their cues from old masters like Carole King and Dusty Springfield while sounding as fresh as the hurt in Prass’s voice.
On Bird of Prey, Prass’s ex is one evolutionary step along from a dinosaur, driving her away. A flock of flutes provide sad birdsong. Your Fool is seriously old-school, a waltzing doo-wop/soul nugget so good they included it twice, once as period drama, all vocal flutters and groaning cello, and on Reprise, as spoken-word with neoclassical feints and woozes, groovier handclaps and dubby jazz horns.
Things get funkier and more humid on Why Don’t You Believe in Me, set in the south somewhere between Prass’s Nashville home and the Virginia soil where she spent some time in an eighth-grade band with Matt White. Album closer It Is You ends things with a gay flourish that suggests a Walt Disney animation rather than mutual laceration. But by this point, softened up by the dulcet sweep of Spacebomb and Prass’s pensive artistry, you don’t mind the quirky little pirouette over the rainbow. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/apr/12/post-your-questions-for-sheila-e | Culture | 2024-04-12T09:52:50.000Z | Laura Snapes | Post your questions for Sheila E | In such an illustrious career, you might think there are few “firsts” left for Sheila E to conquer. She started performing age five and played with her father’s band. She joined the George Duke Band in 1977, the same year she met Prince, who would become perhaps her greatest collaborator. She’s toured with the likes of Lionel Richie, Marvin Gaye and Herbie Hancock, and drummed for artists including Stevie Wonder, Mariah Carey, Diana Ross and Jennifer Lopez. Yet this year, she released her very first salsa album, Bailar, featuring the likes of Gloria Estefan and Rubén Blades.
Sheila E: 'I'm mad that Prince isn't here any more'
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You can ask Sheila about any of that – or indeed growing up in the Bay Area, having Tito Puente as her godfather, learning to play drums on pots and pans, what it was like becoming a star with her debut solo album The Glamorous Life in 1984 or becoming the musical director of the Grammys’ Prince tribute in April 2020 – when she sits for the Guardian’s reader interview next week. Post your questions in the comments by 10am BST on Tuesday 16 April and we’ll put the best to her next week. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/aug/23/kehlua-fay-weldon-digested-read | Books | 2010-08-23T21:29:06.000Z | John Crace | Digested read: Kehua! by Fay Weldon | John Crace | Your writer first takes you to a comfortable house in north London. She then puts some daffodils in the garden because . . . well, because she can, as it's that kind of knowing metafictional whimsy. Inside the kitchen there is Scarlet, a 29-year-old journalist in conversation with her grandmother, Beverley. "The thing is, Gran," she says, "I'm going to run off with my lover, Jackson." "Very interesting dear," Beverley replies, "Haven't you got your niece Lola staying with you?"
I fear we will have to rewind to the previous evening when Scarlet got home from an afternoon's energetic sex with Jackson and precipitated a row with her husband, Louis, who may or may not be aware of his wife's affair – I haven't quite decided that yet – which ended with him striking her. But then Scarlet has never really liked their house, Nopasaran, and finds her husband rather dull – many people, myself included, aren't at all sure he isn't gay – so she has rather engineered the situation to allow her the moral high ground to leave Louis for the rather more exciting Jackson.
Oh dear, I am in such a tizzy, bashing my typewriter in the basement surrounded by the chattering ghosts of the servants who once lived in my Dorset home. I see I haven't even got round to mentioning the kehua – the Maori spirits of the wandering dead – that have been following Beverley and her family all these years. But that's the trouble with writing a novel. It's all so complicated. You start writing one thing and then you write another.
It's very tiresome. I wanted to make Jackson an unsympathetic airhead; a B-list actor of limited talent who was struggling financially and looking to Scarlet as a meal ticket. But now I find he's a sensitivo soul with a bitchy ex-wife, so it's all getting very tricksy again. And now I've just remembered Scarlet's sister, Cynara, who's dumped her husband to live with her dykey lover, D'Dora, who's driven the precocious Lola – you'll have to wait to hear more about her – out of their house and into Scarlet's. And I haven't even got round to mentioning Alice, Beverley's daughter and mother to Scarlet and Cynara.
Dear reader, I can only apologise. I know you are waiting for Scarlet to meet Jackson in Soho. Believe me, I am too. But the ghosts in my basement are making an awful din. Though not nearly as much as Beverley's kehua who are going wild, so I'd first better tell you a bit about Beverley's three husbands – Max the Trot, who died with Che, Jack the gay architect who committed suicide after he was outed, and the drunk Marcus who walked in front of a train.
If you really want to get to Jackson and Scarlet's meeting, you can skip this bit. But the kehua are flapping and I have to tell you that Beverley was adopted in New Zealand after her real father killed her mother when he discovered she was having an affair. Or did he? I still haven't decided this either, because it's possible her adopted father, Arthur, was actually her real father and killed the other two. Yes, let's say he did, because then when he fathers a child with Beverley and sends her to England, it's incest, which is much more exciting.
OK, so Jackson and Scarlet have now met and it's not going well, but much more exciting things are going on elsewhere: Beverley's husband Max probably – let's say definitely – got Alice pregnant, while over in Nopasaran 16-year-old Lola is astride Louis's erect penis – OK, so Louis isn't gay after all – so this incest thing is catching and no wonder the kehua have been so rowdy.
The spirits in my basement are telling me this is all descending into farce but I'm determined not to listen. I have to quieten the kehua. Perhaps getting an ex-lover of Beverley's to turn up from the Faroes, Alice to produce a deus ex machina lovechild, Lola to OD, Beverley to kill the dealer, Scarlet not to kill Jackson, and Louis and Scarlet agreeing to give their marriage another go will do it. Yes, silence. But no, the spirits are at it again. Whoops, my mistake. It was my editor telling me she's had enough. The End.
Digested read, digested: Excessive high spirits. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/10/labour-liberal-democrats-conservative-coalition | Politics | 2010-05-10T14:31:00.000Z | Patrick Wintour | Labour prepares to pounce if Liberal Democrat-Conservative coalition talks fail | Labour is preparing to seize the initiative this afternoon if the Tories and Liberal Democrats fail to reach an agreement over coalition government.
That could involve an announcement before the end of the day about the future of Gordon Brown, who has been considering whether to step down as prime minister.
With the shadow cabinet and Lib Dem MPs meeting separately now, it is being suggested by Labour sources that their party may have something important to say this afternoon. This may be a last-minute effort to destabilise the Lib Dem-Tory talks, but the tone from within No 10 suggests this is not the case.
Labour has been involved in far more serious talks with the Lib Dems than anyone realised, prompting some anger inside the Tory party yesterday about a lack of good faith from the Lib Dems.
I have not been able to ascertain the extent to which Nick Clegg informed David Cameron of these talks.
Clegg has met Brown twice, including this morning. His negotiating team met a specially assembled Labour negotiating team on Sunday.
The Tories did not seem to know anything about these talks, leading to accusations of bad faith from prominent backbenchers.
The formal Labour position is that it can say nothing until the Lib Dem-Tory talks end.
But overnight prominent cabinet members were virtually advertising that Brown was willing to announce he would be a transitional leader if that was a necessary price for a deal.
There has been pressure on Brown from inside the cabinet for this, with different sources putting different lengths on the transitional period necessary.
Some Lib Dems say it all rests on what Brown is willing to say, and the speed with which he says it.
Either way, the Lib Dems are in an unenviable position, and there is no certainty that Clegg will get a referendum on proportional representation from either Labour or the Conservatives since neither party can guarantee that such a bill will get through both houses.
But suggestions at lunchtime from Iain Duncan-Smith, an influential figure on the right of the Tory party, that the Conservatives are not interested in electoral reform for the Commons does not augur well for a deal between the Tories and the Lib Dems.
There are many senior Lib Dems – both peers and the older generation – making it clear that they will not do a deal with Conservatives without electoral reform. One report suggests former party president Simon Hughes's office has received 4,000 emails telling him his party cannot resile on electoral reform.
A poll on Liberal Democrat Voice – a Liberal Democrat website – has been very supportive of Clegg talking to the Tories on the basis that Cameron had the most votes and seats at the election, but 80% said there must be significant progress as a result of the deal.
Richard Grayson, the vice-chairman of the Lib Dem policy committee and a senior figure in the party, is also warning Clegg he could engineer a split in the party if he goes into a coalition with the Tories.
The policy committee is not due to meet for a fortnight, unlike the more pliant federal executive committee.
But Clegg must be thinking very carefully about his options – the Liberals have a terribly fissiparous history. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/aug/14/london-2017-world-athletics-championships-bolt-farah-review | Sport | 2017-08-14T07:00:36.000Z | Sean Ingle | ‘London 2017 has given athletics the opportunity to believe again’ claim organisers | As the curtain fell on Sunday night on the world championships, and athletics waved a painful goodbye to Usain Bolt, its greatest sprinter and showman, there was a cautious confidence in London among its power brokers. Against expectations, a sport that has been on its knees appeared to have just received the kiss of life.
First lesson from world championships: there is no next Usain Bolt
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Sebastian Coe, president of the IAAF, the governing body of athletics, said: “The theatre that has been provided by those full houses has been incredible. We have had more people in 10 days across a world championship than ever before. And I genuinely can’t remember a time when the sport was so competitive and the stories around them so rich.”
It is not just that 700,000 people have come through the gates over the past 10 days, filling out the London Stadium night after night. Or that 9.9 million people tuned in to watch Bolt’s and Mo Farah’s farewell on BBC1 on Saturday night. It was that a combination of spectacular performances and unpredictable races, plus a steady patter of controversy and conspiracy theories has kept the sport on the nation’s front and back pages.
Ed Warner, co-chair of these championships, was even more succinct than Coe. “The London 2012 Olympics gave the nation its self-belief back,” he said. “London 2017 has given athletics its belief back. It has given the sport the opportunity to believe again.”
It was understandable why the sport wants to stare forward rather than look over its shoulder. It was only last year that several senior figures in the IAAF, including its former anti-doping director Gabriel Dollé, were banned for their part in a scheme in which they extorted the Russian marathon runner Liliya Shobukhova of £378,000 to keep results of her positive drug tests secret.
Separately Russia was banned from the 2016 Olympics after a report by Wada’s independent commission found the country was guilty of “state-sponsored doping”, while the low crowds at the Rio Games did nothing to alter the appearance of a sport on the wane.
Mo Farah conquers all on track but will leave complex legacy off it
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London, though, was rich with vivid moments. Home eyes naturally gravitated to Mo Farah winning his 10th successive Olympic and world championship medal in the 10,000m on the opening night – and then losing his first 5,000m for four years on the penultimate evening.
Meanwhile Bolt, to stunned silence and venomous boos, not only lost to the sport’s ultimate villain Justin Gatlin – who has failed two doping tests – in the men’s 100m but then pulled up with cramp in a thrilling 4x100m men’s relay.
But quite often other surprising stories gripped the nation too. Who would have thought that the Botswanan Isaac Makwala would get one of the biggest cheers of these championships? Yet when he ran a 200m heat on his own in the lashing rain, having been barred from entering the stadium a night earlier when he was meant to be in quarantine for norovirus, the stadium roared in delight.
Yet a few days later there was a twist as the South African Wayde van Niekerk, supposedly athletics’ new superstar, broke down in tears before claiming he had been disrespected by a wild conspiracy theory that Makwala had been kept out of the 200m in order to make life easier on him.
Yet no matter how much Coe wanted the issue of doping to stay in the background, it was always bubbling under the surface. On Sunday morning Farah went as far as to accuse parts of the media of having a vendetta against him for questioning his coach Alberto Salazar, who is under investigation by the United States Anti-Doping Agency. Salazar denies any wrongdoing.
“It’s like a broken record, repeating myself,” said Farah. “If I’ve crossed the line, if Alberto’s crossed the line, why bring it up year after year, making it into headlines? I’ve achieved what I have achieved – you’re trying to destroy it,” said Farah, following his last race on the track at a major championships.
Usain Bolt’s time finally runs out, but he departs as the greatest champion of all
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“So many times you guys have been unfair to me. If you say Mo Farah has done something wrong‚ prove it.”
For most of the championships British athletes enjoyed limited success. But a glorious final weekend in which Farah took silver in the 5,000m, along with four relay medals, meant they hit their UK Sport target of 6-8 medals in London.
Some wonder whether athletics will be able to maintain the momentum given its credibility issues and the fact that the next championships in 2019 will controversially take place in Doha in Qatar, the Gulf state that will also host the 2022 World Cup.
Coe, however, argues that, despite his sport’s lingering issues, it has turned a corner. “There is a growing confidence within the sport,” he insisted last night. “We took tough decisions and reforms to make the sport better. There is still a long way to go. But people are proud about being involved in the sport.”
“What we have witnessed this week will inspire a generation of young people. We have shown that, when we get it right, this sport is unassailable.”
The verdict is still very much out on that. But after a desperate and suffocating few years for the sport, athletics might just have room to breathe – and hope – again. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/apr/16/the-hatton-garden-job-review-joely-richardson-phil-daniels | Film | 2017-04-16T07:00:25.000Z | Wendy Ide | The Hatton Garden Job review – hackneyed heist | “T
his is an old-school gig. It needs an old-school crew.” Thus, the 2015 Hatton Garden Heist is turned into a piece of geezer nostalgia. From the wocka-wocka retro-funk score to the glitchy Guy Ritchie-lite jump cuts, split screens and wipe edits, to the smattering of rhyming slang, this film doesn’t have an original idea in its entire running time. It’s not incompetently made, however, and Phil Daniels possibly deserves an award for saying the line “the biggest blingo blag in history” and not blowing his own head off afterwards.
Watch a trailer for The Hatton Garden Job. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/23/hotel-room-low-budget | Opinion | 2018-10-23T12:52:55.000Z | Daisy Buchanan | I don’t care how small the £19 hotel room is. It’s heaven to me | Daisy Buchanan | My ultimate fantasy takes place in a hotel room. I pad down a quiet corridor, the silence only broken by the trundle and click of the wheelie case I drag behind me. I open a heavy door, throw the case to the floor, strip down to my underwear, hurl myself onto the bed … and that’s it. Some versions of the fantasy involve a family-sized bag of barbecue Kettle Chips. In others I turn on the television and discover a channel that is running a back-to-back viewing marathon of Grand Designs. That’s probably the best one.
There’s nothing nicer than being sealed into your own secure, private space, Swiss-rolled into fresh, clean bed linen, while you watch a pair of idiots borrowing millions of pounds to live in a leaky caravan on a building site.
There are few experiences more luxurious than being able to reach a flushing toilet within seconds of leaving your bed
I love hotels. Whether they’re huge or humble, every single room feels like a grown-up theme park to me. Nothing thrills me more than having to stay in a hotel for work. Perhaps pathetically, it feels like a validation of my professional existence. I’ve stayed at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills and sipped $30 room-service hot chocolate in the bath at 4am. I’ve stayed in a tiny, windowless room in Blackpool – and only realised on checking out, when a man was waiting impatiently outside the door with a battalion of brooms and buckets, that I’d spent the night in a cleaning supplies cupboard. Both felt like adventures. So I hope to find the opportunity to stay in one of the new “keenly priced” Premier Inn Zip hotels. I’m not sure that it’s fair to describe it as a “no frills” chain, though. It might be basic, but every hotel room can be luxurious if, like me, you’re easily pleased and have an overactive imagination.
Take room service. While I will pay over the odds to eat almost anything that has been wheeled in on a trolley and covered with a large silver dome, even the smartest hotels sometimes send up woolly chips, depressed lettuce and a sandwich that appears to have been made in a Breville that recently celebrated its centenary. All anyone ever wants from a room-service dinner is something hot and calorific that can be eaten in bed, late at night, in their pants. If you’ve got a phone, and can ring for a takeaway, you’ve got a full room-service menu. The Zip will seem a lot less basic if you think of it as a late-night hotspot for eclectic local cuisine.
Zip rooms are less than half the size of Premier Inn rooms, and it appears that almost all the space will be occupied by beds and the bathroom. Anyone who has ever lived in a houseshare and fallen over in the dark while searching for their pyjama bottoms will testify that there are few experiences more luxurious than being able to reach a flushing toilet within seconds of leaving your bed. Also, I am privileged enough to be able to tell you that there are few experiences more distressing than staying in a vast country hotel, stubbing your toe on an antique sideboard and then realising – just in time – that the bathroom is actually an enormous wardrobe. As long as you don’t have to bring your own loo roll, I will pay the Zip people a premium for the tininess of the en suite.
Then there is the Very Small Shampoo. It is my understanding that in the 1980s, when business travel was relatively new and glamorous, the tiny shampoo took on the significance of hunting trophies. Instead of mounting a stag’s head on your wall, you filled your bathroom with thimble-sized bottles of Molton Brown, to show your guests how well you were doing at life.
Travelling solo is sheer joy – do it while you still can
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However, times have changed. The appetite for tiny toiletries has taken a hit, as they’re no longer associated with the high-roller lifestyle, but with punitive airport security rules. Who among us hasn’t spent all their holiday money in Boots before getting on a plane, buying deodorant in quantities that would fail to keep an ant fresh? Still, the upside is that if you really want an old-fashioned, high-end hotel experience, you can get it from almost any high-street chemist. If you’re a fellow sybarite, you can buy an Asprey Purple Water gift set, containing the toiletries you’d find in your bathroom if you were staying at the Ritz. The smallest room I could find at the Ritz costs £395. I reckon you could recreate the experience at the Zip and be at least £300 up.
Most importantly, the best part of any hotel stay is solitude. When you shut the door, you create a solid boundary between yourself and the rest of the world. For £19, that boundary stays in place. No one is going to walk in uninvited with extra towels or chocolates for your pillow. The Zip would be a great place for a silent retreat. In 2018, when everyone seems to be increasingly stressed and overwhelmed, peace and quiet usually comes at a premium. Less is more. If you can take a mini holiday from your responsibilities and spend a quiet night in a room with nothing but a bed in it, and get change from a £20 note, I suspect you’re getting more for less.
Daisy Buchanan is a columnist and features writer | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/30/fracking-lobbyist-hired-to-draw-up-tory-manifesto-rachel-wolf | Politics | 2019-10-30T06:00:19.000Z | Jim Waterson | Fracking lobbyist hired to draw up Tory manifesto | The Conservatives’ election manifesto is being written by a lobbyist for the fracking company Cuadrilla and major internet companies such as Amazon and Facebook, raising concerns about whether her paying clients could influence the party’s policies.
Rachel Wolf is drawing up the Conservatives’ platform for the general election while continuing to work as a partner at Public First, a business which lobbies ministers on behalf of the shale gas industry. Cuadrilla is facing a battle to keep its fracking projects on track in the UK at a time when public opinion is moving against the extraction of shale gas, with the Labour party threatening to ban the practice altogether.
Her company also represents the Internet Association, the trade body for major tech companies including Uber, Twitter, Facebook, Google, Airbnb, Microsoft and Amazon. The organisation is attempting to influence the government’s policies on online harms, the regulation of social media and taxes on digital companies – all of which are likely to feature in some form in the Conservative manifesto.
Rachel Wolf, pictured in 2010. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian
Wolf, a former aide to Michael Gove and a pioneer of the free school movement, co-founded Public First with her husband James Frayne in 2016 and it has rapidly expanded to become a leading British lobbying and communications agency.
There is no suggestion Wolf is breaking any rules by writing the Conservative manifesto while running a lobbying company representing major businesses, given her company makes regular declarations of its clients to the public lobbying registrar in line with current legal requirements.
However, Francis Ingham, of the Public Relations and Communications Association, which represents many leading PR and lobbying agencies, but not Public First, said: “Communications professionals have a duty to avoid conflicts of interests. There is never an excuse. The PRCA code – to which all members are bound – is explicit in this regard.”
Jon Trickett, the shadow cabinet minister with responsibility for the lobbying industry, said it was an “outrage to democracy that the frackers, the tax avoiders and the zero-hour exploiters will have the biggest say when it comes to Tory policy”. He pledged that a Labour government would strengthen lobbying regulations if it won the next general election.
Asked whether Wolf’s role as the founder of a lobbying company would impact her role with the Conservatives, a spokesperson for Public First said: “Public First has partners and staff who are members of all three major political parties and of none. Rachel is assisting the Conservative party with their manifesto based on her long experience of working on Conservative policy. Her political work is wholly separate from any commercial arrangements our firm has.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/jan/25/michelle-mone-leading-entrepreneur-or-lucky-baroness | UK news | 2024-01-25T13:00:02.000Z | David Conn | Michelle Mone: leading entrepreneur or lucky baroness? | Throughout the stunning interviews the Conservative peer Michelle Mone gave last month, finally admitting she had lied for years when denying her involvement in lucrative PPE deals, she still maintained a claim central to her remarkable rise. Hands neatly placed in her lap, she was, she told the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, a “very successful individual businesswoman”.
Mone and her husband, the Isle of Man-based businessman Doug Barrowman, are facing a long-running National Crime Agency investigation into allegations of bribery and fraud in their securing of £200m in government contracts for a company, PPE Medpro. Both now admit involvement in the company, but deny any wrongdoing.
It is telling that the couple, in complete contradiction to their previous aggressive legal denials, are now claiming it was Mone’s business experience and contacts that enabled them to deliver PPE.
“I’ve got 25 years’ manufacturing experience, and that’s one of the reasons why I was put into the House of Lords,” Mone told Kuenssberg in December. When Covid hit, she said: “I looked at Doug and I thought, we could really, really help here. And I just know all the key players in the far east. And I made the call to Michael Gove.”
Barrowman, who also took part in the BBC interview, had made a similar claim in a film paid for by PPE Medpro that was released on YouTube a week earlier. “Michelle and I looked at each other one day and said, you know, we have strong contacts … in the far east,” he said. “Essentially, Michelle reached out to her contacts, we formed a consortium venture with a company based in Hong Kong and a company based in the UK.”
Analysis of documents, however, raises questions about whether Mone really did use her contacts in the far east, as is now claimed – or whether her role was principally to exploit her Tory political connections to secure those lucrative contracts.
Her claims about her level of success as a businesswoman have also been disputed. Her company had been heading into insolvency and needed to be rescued shortly before she was given a peerage.
And with David Cameron back in government, having himself recently been made a member of the House of Lords, there is a clear connection between the peerage he gave Mone in 2015 and the PPE Medpro “VIP lane” scandal damaging the Tories on voters’ doorsteps.
Barrowman and Mone talking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg in December. Photograph: BBC News
Hong Kong and the consortium
Mone made the first approach on behalf of PPE Medpro to the ministers Michael Gove and Theodore Agnew in May 2020, offering to supply PPE through “my team in Hong Kong”. Her offer was fast-tracked through the government’s “VIP lane” for politically connected people, and within weeks the newly formed company had been awarded two contracts worth £203m.
Later, the Guardian revealed that leaked bank documents indicated Barrowman – who at the time was still denying any involvement – had been paid at least £65m from PPE Medpro’s profits. He had then transferred £29m into a trust, of which Mone and her three adult children were beneficiaries.
In the BBC interview, Barrowman finally admitted he had made multimillion-pound profits. Not mentioned, however, was that three other companies had been involved in the supply of the PPE, and, according to a Guardian analysis, had shared a further £30m in profit. One of these companies had been paid a large fee to make an introduction to another company in Hong Kong.
Files leaked to the Guardian revealed the structure of the operation. PPE Medpro had entered into an agreement with a separate company, which had committed to supply the PPE. In this agreement, PPE Medpro stated that its role was to use its “extensive network” to secure contracts from the British government. The Guardian has repeatedly asked Mone and Barrowman whether that was a commitment to use Mone’s political connections with Tory ministers. They have never replied directly to that question.
It was the other company, London-based Loudwater Trade and Finance Ltd, whose role was to “manage and secure the supply chain of key PPE items from China and abroad”.
Loudwater in turn contracted with another company, Neumer Trading, for an introduction to the company in Hong Kong, Eric Beare, which bought the PPE from factories in China. Loudwater, Eric Beare and Neumer Trading have declined to comment.
After their broadcast interviews, the Guardian asked Barrowman and Mone why, if the baroness “knew all the right people in the far east”, the supply chain had paid an intermediary company for an introduction in Hong Kong.
They did not respond directly to this question.
Of the PPE delivered to fulfil the two contracts, the government rejected the entire consignment of surgical gowns and is suing PPE Medpro for return of the £122m paid. PPE Medpro is defending the claim, arguing that the gowns were fit for purpose.
A page from PPE Medpro’s product catalogue. Photograph: PPE Medpro
Mone and Ultimo
Mone’s claims of great business success, key contacts in the far east and deep manufacturing experience spring principally from her lingerie company, Ultimo, which launched her to celebrity-tycoon status nearly two decades ago.
Through the 2000s, Mone built the Ultimo company, MJM International, with her first husband, Michael Mone. They achieved commercial success, reaching a pre-tax profit of almost £1m in 2007-08. Michael Mone is widely said to have concentrated on the operations of the business, while Michelle Mone developed her talent for promoting the brand. Glamorous pictures of models, and later Mone herself, wearing Ultimo bras and underwear were splashed across the internet as celebrity culture boomed.
In August 2015, Cameron appointed Mone, who had supported the union in the Scottish independence referendum, as his “entrepreneurship tsar”, and gave her a peerage later the same month. His government’s statements promoted her image of success, lauding her as a “leading entrepreneur” and stating that “she took the lingerie brand global before the multimillion-pound sale of 80% of the business last year”.
The reality – still generally ignored, but evidenced by Ultimo company documents and a damning 2014 employment tribunal judgment – presents a rather less glittering picture. Mone does not appear to have made multiple millions of pounds from the sale of the company. In fact, the company had been heading for insolvency until it was rescued by a Sri Lankan clothing manufacturer, MAS Holdings.
From 2011 onwards, the Mones’ marriage had fractured and the company’s fortunes had plunged. Michelle Mone later went public with some of the fallout, publishing an autobiography in February 2015 that was extensively serialised in the Daily Mail. Headlines were made as Mone related that she had taken a knife to Michael’s Porsche and scratched it “to shreds”, let down his car tyres, “cut holes in all his boxer shorts” and once “slipped some laxatives into his coffee”.
The employment tribunal case, brought in Glasgow by Ultimo’s operations director, Scott Kilday, found that he had been unfairly dismissed because his office had been bugged after the MAS takeover. The judgment set out the details of MJM’s financial predicament before the takeover. By May 2012, it said, the company “was in dire financial straits … There was a real possibility that the [company] would become insolvent if it failed to find a buyer.”
Mone reached a deal with MAS, which paid her £1.3m for the company. She first had to buy more than half the shares from Michael and another small shareholder. A new company was then set up and Michelle became a director.
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Michelle Mone with Iain Duncan Smith, left, and the then chancellor, George Osborne, in 2015.
A key MAS director, Eliaz Poleg, became anxious that Kilday – “a vital employee” – would leave for Michael’s new business, or was leaking information to Michael, which Kilday denied.
“Mr Poleg … was keen for [Kilday] to stay as in his view he was ‘the pole that kept the tent up’,” the tribunal noted. “[Poleg] had nobody else to keep the ship afloat. Mrs Mone was not hands on from an operational point of view and Mr Mone had left the business.”
Poleg decided “with hesitation and reservation” to “place a recording device in [Kilday’s] office”. Poleg “asked [another MAS representative] and Mrs Mone to make the necessary arrangements”. Kilday discovered the device in a plant pot, “was horrified”, and immediately resigned.
The MAS takeover involved a new company being formed, Ultimo Brands International. Initially, MAS owned 51% of this new company and Mone 49%. Despite investment from MAS, Ultimo continued to make losses. By January 2015, MAS had invested more and Mone’s stake had been reduced to 20%.
When asked whether Mone had been paid for this reduction of her shareholding, an MAS spokesperson said: “MAS continued to invest directly in the company with the intention of turning the business around.” He added that the increase in MAS’s stake to 80% had been “due to the continued investment”.
Mone did not respond directly to questions from the Guardian about these financial arrangements.
Ultimo never recovered, however, and Mone’s shareholding was further diluted. She appears to have still had a small minority stake when the decision was taken in August 2018 to appoint a liquidator and wind up Ultimo.
A ‘fait accompli’ peerage
In 2015, a year after the media had reported on the Kilday employment tribunal, and just six months after the revelations in Mone’s autobiography, Cameron made her the government’s “entrepreneurship tsar”. She was appointed to lead a review for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) into supporting people from deprived backgrounds to set up their own businesses.
The then work and pensions secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, proclaimed himself “delighted” at her appointment, saying: “There’s no one I can think of who is better qualified.” Weeks later, Cameron appointed her to the House of Lords, with the title Baroness Mone of Mayfair.
Looking back at that period, it is striking to recall the public criticism from her native Scotland, where people knew the Mones and the Ultimo business much better than in England, where papers carried gleeful “Baroness Bra” coverage.
Douglas Anderson, the managing director of the large Glasgow-based plant hire company Gap Group, was among business figures to speak out, providing his views in a letter to Cameron. “Ms Mone is not a successful entrepreneur,” Anderson wrote. “She is a small-time businesswoman with a PR exposure far in excess of any actual success.”
David Mundell: ‘I was unhappy the proper process was not followed.’ Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty Images
David Mundell, the secretary for Scotland at the time, told the Guardian that Downing Street had bypassed convention that all proposed Scottish peerages are discussed with the Scotland Office.
“The peerage was a fait accompli by the time we heard about it,” Mundell said. “I was unhappy that the proper process was not followed and that the Scotland Office was not asked to provide any background or input. And I wasn’t at all surprised to find that Scottish businesses were very, very unhappy about the appointment.
“I did communicate with Downing Street that Scottish business figures were unhappy because they did not consider Michelle Mone to be a substantial businesswoman.”
The DWP review delivered less than Mone promised. There was some embarrassment when Mone tweeted a picture of herself on a visit to Stockport, in a chauffeur-driven government Jaguar, drying her top on the air-conditioning. “The things you do. In Government car drying my travel top,” she tweeted. “Love it so much.”
Downing Street published a report three months earlier than planned. It offered a handful of ideas to support business startups, although Cameron’s government, dedicated to austerity, offered no new funding to deliver on any of these. Mone herself stressed repeatedly that she would “continue to work in a personal capacity” to create “a nationwide network of bank-funded enterprise hubs” but that never happened. A promised “final part” of the review did not materialise.
The DWP did not answer the Guardian’s questions about its statement that Mone had sold 80% of Ultimo in a multimillion-pound sale in 2014, or about her performance on the review, or why the report had been published early.
A spokesperson for Mone, Barrowman and PPE Medpro replied to questions by saying: “Michelle Mone came from a working-class family in Glasgow’s East End and worked hard to become a successful entrepreneur, building one of the biggest independent lingerie brands in the world. She also sat on the Prince’s Trust board for many years to help the next generation of entrepreneurs. Michelle has real life experience that makes her different to your typical, grey Westminster politician.
“Michelle was honoured to be asked to join the House of Lords by David Cameron after her role in the Scottish referendum campaign. Her appointment was duly vetted by Holac [the House of Lords Appointments Commission] at the time.”
The spokesperson added: “Any suggestion that Michelle ran a successful lingerie company for many years but did not have any experience in manufacturing is laughable.”
Holac’s role is to vet people nominated as peers “for propriety”, and can withhold support if there are legal or regulatory issues such as an outstanding tax investigation.
Cameron and Duncan Smith did not respond to invitations to comment. A Cabinet Office spokesperson pointed out that all peerages are vetted by Holac.
One senior Conservative said he believed Cameron was attracted to the idea that Mone, as a young Scottish businesswoman, would give the Tories a brighter image in the House of Lords, but that he had failed to scrutinise her actual career. Five years on, when Covid hit, she was in place – a baroness swept into the “VIP lane” for untold riches. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/oct/07/stone-yard-devotional-charlotte-wood-book-interview-walk-with | Books | 2023-10-06T14:00:46.000Z | Imogen Dewey | Charlotte Wood: ‘It was like I had acid poured on my whole life … but in a good way’ | “Writing friends have said, ‘Take trouble for a walk’,” Charlotte Wood says. “Whatever you’re trying to resolve in the book, or whatever. It does work: your mind can just wander.”
Most mornings see the author pacing a loop through the gentle slopes and restored wetlands of Sydney park. “I think they’ve done such a beautiful job,” she tells me. “It was old, poisoned land, basically.” But, though Wood is emphatic about the importance of staying close to nature, her walks are not so much about the park itself. They fall somewhere between routine and ritual, a buffer of personal order when the world is pushing in.
Charlotte Wood: ‘What I hope I’m doing is somehow making that sadness into something bearable, by shaping it, and combining it with other things.’ Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
It’s a September afternoon when we meet at Wood’s home in the city’s inner west. On the short stroll to the park, we chat over the sounds of birds and mild traffic, children finishing school, our footsteps on the concrete. Posters and painted signs urging people to vote yes hang in windows and on fences. Wood’s stride is brisk and relaxed, but her voice is slightly clipped with worry. “It doesn’t look good,” she remarks. “There’s a real feeling now of … if the referendum fails, what are we left with?”
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The narrator of her new novel is a woman in political retreat, grappling with her own “vision of failure” to affect change. Stone Yard Devotional is Wood’s 10th book, more acutely personal than her previous work. “I’m less and less certain, the older I get, about how to do the right thing,” she says. “I understand the appeal of running away.” She pauses for the familiar overhead roar of a plane taking off, or coming in.
“I find it easy to fall into despair, to be honest … But I don’t want to be despairing in my work.”
“Sometimes you read literary fiction that just sort of bludgeons you with how fucked the world is, and I don’t want to write like that. The transformation happens in trying to make it into art – not just putting sadness from the world on to the page and offering it up.
“What I hope I’m doing is somehow making that sadness into something bearable, by shaping it, and combining it with other things.”
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We reach the chimneys from the old brickworks that mark the park’s north-west entrance. As the road noise fades behind us, she seems to make up her mind to broach something. “Last year I got cancer,” she tells me. “And two of my sisters got cancer at the same time.
“Everyone’s fine,” she hastens to add. “[But] it was full on.”
The old smoke stacks at Sydney park. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
The disease killed both Wood’s parents before she was 30 – losses that, as she has previously described, divided the world sharply into what did and did not matter. “I sort of thought that I knew that,” she says wryly. “Then this happened: really, really, an understanding that I am mortal, we are mortal. We all know that … but we kind of, most of the time, pretend we don’t.
“It was like I had acid poured on my whole life, and only the essential things remained.”
(“But in a good way,” she adds, quite genuinely.)
One of these essentials is Wood’s awareness of the physical – a current that pulls beneath all her fiction. “We are much more our bodies than we acknowledge,” she says. We crest the hill, discussing a scene in this latest novel where her narrator’s body makes itself suddenly and dramatically present, and pass a man whistling to his dog. “It’s about crisis,” Wood says. “I do think your body tells you things before your mind understands them.” Bodies are, she points out, “a great equaliser”. “Also, I just think they’re interesting. They make us vulnerable.”
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She is fascinated and moved by what it might take for any of us to understand events that befall us outside our control, and recalls trying to explain this to a close friend.
“I said, ‘I feel like I’m caught in a rip, taken away from my life. Everybody’s there on the shore, and I’m being taken out.’” She and her sisters had no choice but to surrender, she says. “Then [the rip] brought us back. But not to the same place.”
Daisies grow from a wall in a street in Marrickville. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
For Wood, 2022 was a time of “being totally removed from your normal things, your normal certainty”. It’s easy enough to connect this sense of openness to her artistic practice. There’s less anxiety in her writing now, she says (being ten books in doesn’t hurt), and with Stone Yard Devotional she wanted “to give a lot of space, have unanswered questions”. Wood, quoting Amanda Lohrey, tells me she likes work “that has some mystery in it”.
She admires Anne Enright, Deborah Levy, Joan London, Jude Rae, Céline Sciamma, Joan Silber, Elizabeth Strout – women whose ostensibly quiet art “is about more than one thing”. A mother and teenage daughter walk by us holding hands – a rich, unexplained moment that wouldn’t be out of place in one of Wood’s stories.
We chat about her love of peaceful things – pottering in the garden, working in the little backyard studio she shares with her musician husband, Sean; the creative importance, for her, of limiting time online, of meditation (“I’m really bad at it,” she says contentedly), of “an orderly life”, of a partner “who wants to be with you because you’re an artist”.
With Stone Yard Devotional, Wood wanted ‘to give a lot of space, have unanswered questions’. Photograph: Jessica Hromas/The Guardian
By now we’re back among the cars, and the light has deepened into early evening. Wood peels off home, but a moment from the walk lingers vividly, and a line she shared from artist Rosalie Gascoigne.
“She said, ‘All I want is for the work to be self-respecting.’ I love that so much. It’s hard-won, that self-respect – and I feel like that about my work now.”
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood is out now through Allen & Unwin | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/games/2021/dec/06/halo-infinite-review-old-school-blasting-in-sci-fi-dad-game | Games | 2021-12-06T10:36:29.000Z | Edwin Evans-Thirlwell | Halo Infinite review – old-school blasting in sci-fi ‘Dad’ game | Twenty years since Halo: Combat Evolved, Master Chief is still “finishing the fight”. Made infamous by Halo 2’s premature cliffhanger ending, the line is uttered with zero irony at Halo Infinite’s conclusion: it’s become the catchphrase for a series that is travelling in circles, always defaulting to something like the original fable of a craggy supersoldier fighting alien zealots for control of universe-ending Forerunner relics.
Infinite takes place on yet another gorgeous ringworld, where Master Chief teams up with a nervy pilot and a chirpy new AI buddy to battle a renegade group called the Banished. It’s the same old story with the same rousing musical motifs, but the geography has changed: main missions are now threaded through a lush open expanse comparable to that of a Far Cry game, where you’ll tackle sidequests such as hostage rescue, and claim bases that let you fast-travel and rearm. The extra space amplifies Halo’s existing brilliance as a martial playground, defined less by reflexes and accuracy than giddy improvisation, but it’s not quite enough to make this backward-glancing game unmissable.
Halo is part of the great “Daddification” of action gaming, in which long-serving heroes have been reinvented as scarred patriarchs struggling with years of war trauma. For Master Chief, this means wrangling with the women who made and guide him – Dr Halsey, his unreachable mother figure; Cortana, his first AI soulmate, and the Weapon, this year’s holographic sidekick, who puts in double duty as palm-top comic relief and lock breaker. Women are rarely permitted to star in Halo games, but they are central in ways both dramatic and mundane. Without the Weapon, Master Chief wouldn’t make it past the first sealed door, and it’s through conversation with her that we explore his awkward romance with Cortana, who isn’t quite a memory.
‘Violence as wacky and infectious as its story is po-faced’ … Halo Infinite. Photograph: Microsoft/AFP/Getty Images
The last three numbered Halo games hit similar beats, and returning players may struggle to care, not least because the soul-searching accompanies a lot of corridor-crawling. Save for a few base assaults, main missions are spent in shiny hexagonal chambers underground, tracking down buttons and power cells for elevators or bridges. These interiors are great combat spaces, with a rewarding play of sightlines and elevations, but they are visually monotonous – as is the plot. The villain is another scenery-chewing faux-Klingon warlord and the “twists” are retreats to themes from previous games. Unlike in most numbered Halos, however, there’s no hidden second enemy faction to spice up the final hours.
Infinite’s star isn’t a character but Master Chief’s new grappling gun, a familiar video game toy that proves transformative here. It both speeds you across the newly vast surface spaces and zests up your footwork in battle, letting you slingshot around corners and reel yourself towards stunned opponents. You can also yank things around with it: Infinite’s ace move is lassoing fuel canisters and bowling them at foes.
This touch of Spider-Man points to Halo’s status as an undeclared slapstick comedy, its violence as wacky and infectious as its story is po-faced. Most things in the world are primed to explode – and explode again, as fragments collide with silos, flipping cars as if they were tables and sending punctured spacesuits whistling across the floor.
Infinite is best when it embraces this absurdity. There is much more battle chatter than in previous games, and it has never been more obviously written for laughs – be it a charging alien Grunt squealing “I’m gonna regret this!” or a proud Elite bellowing in outrage when you glue a bomb to its leg. The open world sections exaggerate all this beautifully, letting you pounce on the opposition from all angles using any combination of vehicles and ordnance. The emphasis on ad libbing rescues the game from the fatigue that often afflicts open-world games with mountains of optional objectives.
The chaos continues in the standalone multiplayer, which is split between 4v4 gangland throwdowns and bewildering 24-player big-team battles, with modes ranging from capture the flag and vanilla deathmatch to time-limited oddities such as Fiesta, which grants you random weapons. Halo’s secret sauce as a multiplayer shooter is longevity – recharging overshields stretch out duels, emphasising agility and a level head over twitch reactions.
The maps are spacious, elegantly broken down into pockets of terrain that encourage specific tactics, and carefully sprinkled with tide-turning pick-ups such as rocket launchers. Infinite’s title reflects Halo’s evolution into a service game, with themed seasons and purchasable battle passes unlocking cosmetic items for multiplayer use, but there’s no paying for items that give you an edge in the fray. This is old-school Halo blasting, through and through.
You could argue that Master Chief is the necessary foil to Halo’s inherent silliness, the gravelly undertone that ties all the pratfalls together. All the same, he and his inability to get over Cortana have long since lost their charm. The series has tried to move away from him before – in that regard, Halo 3: ODST remains its finest hour. It needs to carry on trying.
Halo Infinite is released on 8 December, £54.99. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/football/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy/2017/mar/16/gareth-southgate-crystal-palace-captain-england-manager | Football | 2017-03-16T10:30:06.000Z | Richard Foster | The making of Gareth Southgate: from Crystal Palace captain to England boss | Gareth Southgate’s path to becoming England manager has not followed the conventional route. Previous incumbents racked up many successful years in club and international management before being considered for the role. Roy Hodgson, for example, managed well over a dozen clubs and countries before being appointed national manager in 2012. Southgate’s only job as a club manager was with Middlesbrough between 2006 and 2009 and he had to ask for special dispensation from the Premier League to take on the role as he did not hold the required coaching qualifications. After Middlesbrough were relegated in 2009, Southgate was dismissed early into the new season and did not re-emerge until 2013, when he was appointed England Under-21 coach.
Last June, after the apocalyptic loss to Iceland ended Hodgson’s spell in charge, Southgate said he did not want the job. When he was approached about succeeding Sam Allardyce back in September, he accepted the interim role for four matches as he was still not convinced about taking on the job long-term. This reluctance may have counted against him had there been any other serious contenders but, as he was the only candidate interviewed, the FA were left with little choice but to give the 46-year-old a contract.
Southgate’s early days as a player at Crystal Palace show clear signs that he was destined for a bright future in coaching or management. Bob White, who was a youth coach at Palace and headed up the youth set-up between 1988 and 1990, remembers Southgate standing out from his contemporaries. “When he joined Palace on associate schoolboy forms, it was obvious that we had signed an intelligent lad and footballer,” White says. “He was always a popular young player and someone who others looked up to and respected, so it was a natural progression to becoming captain of our youth team.”
Aged 22 he was made captain of the first team and led Palace to promotion to the Premier League in the 1993-94 season. Southgate became club captain of all three professional clubs he played for and his attitude in those formative years at Selhurst Park was exemplary. “Even at that stage it was obvious that he listened to opinions of coaches and senior players as his game developed,” White says. “Of all the young players we had on our books at that time, which included Chris Powell, John Salako and Richard Shaw, Gareth was probably the one who would be earmarked as having a future role in the game as coach, manager, or in the media.”
His adaptability as a player illustrated his ability to think outside the normal conventions. Having started as an attacking midfielder and even a wide player when he first joined Palace, he then settled into a full-back role before taking on a central midfield position as he made it to the first team. After joining Aston Villa in 1995 he developed into a centre-back, where he represented England over 50 times, including all of their matches at Euro 1996.
His flexibility can only have broadened his understanding of team shape as well as the variety of skills needed for different roles. So, while he may not have studied for coaching badges at this stage, he did gather good all-round knowledge that would prove useful when he became a manager. There was also a calm assurance in his play that showed he was aware of what was going on around him.
Southgate is remembered fondly at Crystal Palace but his time at Selhurst Park was not without its difficulties. Alan Smith, who coached and managed Southgate at Palace and later joined him at Middlesbrough, says the setbacks Southgate suffered in his early days made him tougher. “People forget that he was released by Southampton as a schoolboy before he came to us. He also had to deal with a series of disappointments after he joined us, taking a long while gaining a place in the first team, as he was passed over on countless occasions. He played well over 100 games for the reserves, which was a record at the time, before making his debut for the senior team.”
These were the days when young footballers earned £28 a week on the Youth Training Scheme and could be asked to play two matches in a day. Simon Osborn, one of Southgate’s contemporaries, says: “More than anyone else, Gareth wanted to make the best of his ability. He did think about the game a lot and he would beat himself up a bit if he had a bad game. We would all do it to a certain extent but it would take him a bit longer to get over it because he was so driven. He was always the one who would make sure that, if we did go out in the evenings, we didn’t break curfew. As young lads we all wanted to push the boundaries but he kept us in check.”
Gareth Southgate with the old Division One trophy in 1994. Photograph: Colorsport/Rex/Shutterstock
Geoff Thomas was the club captain when Southgate broke into the team in 1991 and was unsurprised that he took over the role when Thomas left for Wolves in 1993. “He was always one of the first youngsters, even though he was only about 16 at the time, who would be brought over to the first-team training and the fact that he could play in various roles helped enormously. In the dressing room he was bright enough to cope with everything that was thrown at him. He knew how to handle himself. He was good fun as well, he always had a smile on his face.”
“Gareth was like a sponge when he was younger,” Thomas says. “He took everything in and he was also such a nice guy. Nobody would have had a bad word to say about him. He had leadership qualities from the outset and was never afraid to speak out when things were going wrong – even with the senior players. He was always way ahead of his years in taking on responsibility, even to the extent of keeping all of us in check sometimes.”
Thomas also praises Southgate’s loyalty. By making over 150 appearances for each of his three clubs, he showed how highly he valued his relationship with those clubs. He was not a player who itched for a big-money move, despite a solid international career and well over a decade in the Premier League. Southgate was always willing to involve himself in all aspects of club life, which endeared him to everyone at Palace. Smith remembers him being a bit different to most of the group. “He was not a South London boy. There were some real characters in that dressing room like Andy Gray, Tony Finnigan and Ian Wright.”
Southgate was very well mannered and there were times when Smith was concerned that his politeness might hold him back. He recalls a couple of times when he had to warn the young player. There was a youth match against the British Army, which they lost 3-0 and Southgate was going round shaking their hands after the match in an almost apologetic fashion. “I was fucking furious and told him so. I said these guys are from SAS. They kill people for a living – do you think they go around saying sorry?”
He also recalls a time when Southgate was rejected for a job to work alongside Dave Bassett. Southgate thought he was in with a good chance as he knew a couple of the directors from dropping off his kids at the same school but in the end he was passed over because he was always shaking hands at the school gates and was considered too polite, too much of a nice bloke. This served as a further wake-up call.
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Smith has every faith that Southgate will continue to learn from those around him, like he did at Palace. “When Ray Wilkins signed for us [in 1994] he was well known for the way he looked after himself and his preparations, so Gareth quickly latched on to him to find out exactly what made him tick,” Smith says. “Out of all the people I have met in my life, he’s up there for straightness. He’s just a decent bloke both off and on the field. But I get annoyed when people say he’s a bit soft as you don’t get to where he has, captaining three Premier League clubs and representing your country so many times, by being soft.”
If Southgate is as resilient, loyal and willing to learn at England as he was in his formative years at Palace, the country may have stumbled across the right man for the job. While there may still be the odd handshake, there will be no more Mr Nice Guy.
This article is from the author of The Agony and the Ecstasy
Follow Richard Foster on Twitter | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/oct/30/grenfell-inquiry-boris-johnson-tells-families-justice-will-be-done | UK news | 2019-10-30T16:46:29.000Z | Peter Walker | Grenfell inquiry: Boris Johnson tells families 'justice will be done' | Boris Johnson has said the government will fully accept the findings of a report on failings in the Grenfell Tower disaster, promising survivors and relatives that “the truth will out and justice will be done”.
Responding to the report by the inquiry chairman, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, on the causes of the blaze at the west London block in June 2017 that killed 72 people, the prime minister opened a Commons debate by promising a rapid official response.
“I can confirm that where Sir Martin recommends responsibility for fire safety be taken on by central government, we will legislate accordingly,” he told MPs. “And more widely, we plan to accept in principle all of the recommendations that Sir Martin makes of central government.”
Watched by relatives, survivors and campaigners from the public gallery, Johnson said he would “not allow the lessons of this tragedy to fall through the cracks”.
He said: “The night of 14 June was a horrendous night. But in the darkness we have also seen the best of humanity: the residents who sacrificed their own lives to save their children or neighbours; the local community that rallied round in such an incredible fashion, holding the survivors in a tight embrace as the authorities failed to step up.”
Paying tribute to the Grenfell community, he added: “To them I say once again that the truth will out and justice will be done, and that Grenfell Tower and the people who called it home will never be forgotten.”
Responding for Labour, Jeremy Corbyn called the fire “an avoidable tragedy”. He condemned the government’s response as “too slow and too weak on every front”, including on rehousing survivors and replacing flammable cladding on other buildings.
Moore-Bick called for urgent action by the government to improve safety in high-rise blocks. Grenfell United, which represents hundreds of affected members of the community, condemned what it called systemic failings that had left the London fire brigade unable to cope with a cladding fire and evacuation.
The Labour MP David Lammy, who lost a friend, Khadija Saye, in the fire, intervened during Johnson’s statement to ask about action to remove flammable cladding elsewhere.
2:27
Jeremy Corbyn: Grenfell tower fire was an 'avoidable tragedy' – video
“It is still the case that there are men, women and children up and down the country sleeping tonight in buildings with that cladding,” he said. “So many years after the tragedy, does he not think, in this sixth richest democracy in the world, we could not have done more to get rid of people sleeping in infernos across our country.”
Johnson replied: “All I can say is that he is quite right. We cannot afford to wait for the full conclusions of the report.”
The prime minister said relatives would be most concerned about the issue of Grenfell occupants being told to remain in their homes even when the fire was clearly out of control.
“The so-called stay put policy is the bedrock on which all plans for fighting fires in tall residential buildings are based. Building regulations are supposed to mean that fires cannot spread beyond individual flats and that they are compartmented,” he said. “When that is the case, it is indeed safest for most residents to stay in their homes until the fire is extinguished, but at Grenfell that was not the case.”
Grenfell Tower inquiry: the chair's findings so far
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Paying tribute to campaigners, Johnson said he hoped the report’s findings and Commons debate would “bring some measure of comfort to those who suffered so much”.
He said: “They asked for the truth, we promised them the truth, we owe them the truth. And today the whole country, the whole world, is finally hearing the truth about what happened at Grenfell Tower.”
Corbyn said it was disgraceful that there had been no formal review of the stay put policy. “The government’s response has been inadequate, uncaring and frankly insulting,” he said. “Grenfell Tower would not have happened to wealthy Londoners. It happened to poor and mainly migrant Londoners.”
He added: “Grenfell must never happen again. It happened because of the negligence and recklessness of a Conservative government, a Conservative council and a Conservative mayor of London.
“The night of 14 June 2017 will never be forgotten, but just as importantly it must never happen again. The shameful fact that this government has dragged its feet – that the exact same cladding is on similar high-rise blocks, that sprinklers have not been fitted, that thousands of people will go to bed tonight and tomorrow night not feeling safe – should shame this government.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/nov/29/how-to-deal-with-a-conspiracy-theorist-5g-covid-plandemic-qanon | Society | 2020-11-29T09:00:24.000Z | David Robson | It's only fake-believe: how to deal with a conspiracy theorist | Unless you’ve been on a silent retreat for the past year, you will have almost certainly heard the rumours – that the pandemic is an elaborate hoax, or that the virus was created as a Chinese weapon, or that dangerous elites are trying to kill off the elderly and to establish a new world order, or that the symptoms are caused by 5G.
It is troubling enough to see these ideas on social media. But when you are hearing them from your family, your friends, or a casual acquaintance, it is even harder to know how to respond. You are going to struggle to convince the most committed believers, of course, but what about people who are only flirting with the ideas?
These difficult conversations are only set to increase now that a new vaccine is on the horizon. Certain niches of internet are already rife with the “plandemic” theory, which alleges that the spread of the virus has been designed to create big bucks for pharmaceutical companies and the philanthropist Bill Gates (whose charity is funding many of the efforts). The idea has been debunked numerous times, whereas there is good evidence that conspiracy theorists such as David Icke are themselves reaping huge profits from spreading misinformation. The danger, of course, is that their ideas will discourage people from taking the vaccine, leaving them vulnerable to the actual disease.
The conspiracy theorist David Icke at an anti-lockdown protest in Birmingham last month. Photograph: Christopher Furlong/Getty
Since many conspiracy theories arise from feelings of uncertainty and fear, an angry debate will only cement the ideas, and open ridicule is even less constructive (see panel, below). Instead, the research shows that you should try to focus on the rhetorical devices and tricks of persuasion that have been used to spread the ideas in the first instance. “People seem receptive to you exposing the ways in which they may have been manipulated,” explains Dr Sander van der Linden at Cambridge University, who has pioneered research into the spread of misinformation and the ways to stop it.
Fortunately, the exponents of these conspiracy theories often use the same rhetorical devices, and a familiarity with these arguments will help you to politely articulate the faulty reasoning behind many different forms of misinformation. Read on to discover the five most common fallacies favoured by conspiracy theorists, and the best ways to respond.
Bill Gates at the UN in 2011 with a meningitis vaccine his foundation helped fund. The jab has slashed rates of the disease in Africa, which has a 50% fatality rate.
Photograph: Anja Niedringhaus/AP
1. Hunting an invisible dragon
In a memorable thought experiment, the astrophysicist and writer Carl Sagan described taking a visitor to see a fire-breathing dragon in his garage. Upon entering, the visitor was surprised to find an empty space – but Sagan replied that he had simply forgotten to mention that the dragon was invisible. The visitor then decides to throw a bag of flour on the floor to trace its outline – only to find out that it will be of no use because the dragon hovers off the ground. When the visitor suggests using an infrared camera, he is told that the dragon’s flames are heatless. There is no way, in other words, to either prove or falsify its existence.
This kind of argument is known as special pleading; you essentially move the goal posts whenever someone asks for evidence to prove your point – a tactic that is commonly used in many conspiracy theories.
With scientific results, it’s usual for new findings to be presented to other researchers to scrutinise the methods and results before they are presented in a journal like Nature, The Lancet, etc – a process known as peer review. But if you, for example, were to ask why there is no credible research proving the dangers of vaccines, the link between 5G networks and Covid-19 symptoms in humans, you may be told that there is a concerted effort to prevent such evidence from being released. Indeed, the absence of reliable evidence is itself taken as a proof of this conspiracy. The fact that major scientific institutions across the globe support the “mainstream” view only shows how good the cover-up has been.
Like Carl Sagan’s invisible, heatless, incorporeal dragon, this special pleading means that this misinformation can never be falsified in the eyes of the conspiracy theorist. If you are faced with this kind of reasoning, you might question the probability of arranging such a widespread conspiracy across so many organisations in so many countries without leaving any traces. Many people, after all, could benefit from exposing the plot – if it was supported by good evidence. (For a journal or newspaper, it would be the biggest scoop since Watergate – a truly world-changing piece of investigative journalism.) It might also be worth asking what kind of evidence would lead your acquaintance to change their mind – a simple prompt that could help to highlight the fact that the theory is essentially unfalsifiable.
2. Fake authority
If they can’t present any solid scientific evidence, conspiracy theorists may name impressive-sounding witnesses who apparently endorse their worldview.
A quick Google search will reveal that many of these names (or their supposed credentials) are completely fake. Alternatively, the talking head may be a real person with some expertise, but not within the relevant field – yet their opinions are painted as the authoritative take. A conspiracy theorist may be able to find a GP or a surgeon, say, who is willing to argue that the virus is a hoax for a few minutes of notoriety. But it’s worth questioning whether that rogue figure is as credible as the thousands of trained virologists who have studied its structure or the epidemiologists examining its spread.
You may see articles by Vernon Coleman, for instance. As a former GP he would seem to have some credentials, yet he has a history of supporting pseudoscientific ideas, including misinformation about the causes of Aids. David Icke, meanwhile, has hosted videos by Barrie Trower, an alleged expert on 5G who is, in reality, a secondary school teacher. And Piers Corbyn cites reports by the Centre for Research on Globalisation, which sounds impressive but was founded by a 9/11 conspiracy theorist.
Conspiracy theorists tend to take a grain of truth, then cast another narrative around it
Dr Sander van der Linden
Finally, some conspiracy theorists greatly exaggerate debates among experts themselves. Not all epidemiologists will agree on the best measures to reduce the spread of the virus, but this disagreement shouldn’t be used to justify the idea that the whole pandemic has been engineered by the government for some nefarious end.
Consider the so-called Great Barrington Declaration, an online document that argues we should aim for herd immunity, while protecting vulnerable people from infection. The authors of the original are three scientists, but the declaration was accompanied by a petition that did not verify the credentials of the signers, many of whom used false names or are real people with no expertise in this area. In reality, the document represents a fringe view, which is unsupported by most epidemiological research, and thousands of other researchers have rejected the basic premise of their argument that herd immunity is achievable without a vaccine. The declaration certainly doesn’t reveal widespread dissent among real experts, yet it is often cited by professional conspiracy theorists such as David Icke and “lockdown sceptics” such as Toby Young and Allison Pearson.
The tobacco industry used these tactics to great effect in the 1970s, with adverts that quoted fake experts and rogue scientists who questioned the harms of smoking.
“It’s a really persuasive form of misinformation,” says Prof John Cook, an expert in “science denial” at George Mason University. Fortunately, he has found that educating people about the history of this common deceptive tactic can make people more sceptical of other fake experts at a later point.
Piers Corbyn outside Downing Street after attending a protest against coronavirus restrictions. Photograph: Hollie Adams/Getty
3. Coincidence or covert operations?
In September this year, the former Republican congressional candidate DeAnna Lorraine had a frightening epiphany. “I find it very interesting how the show The Masked Singer hit America in January 2019, a little bit over a year before they started forcing us all into masks. It’s almost like they were beginning to condition the public that masks were ‘normal’ and ‘cool’,” she wrote on Twitter. “The media is demonic.”
Most people had the good sense to dismiss Lorraine’s theory, but this tendency to claim some kind of causal connection from a random coincidence has given birth to many other unfounded ideas. “Conspiracy theorists tend to take a grain of truth, then cast another narrative around it,” says Van der Linden.
The fact that 5G arrived at roughly the same time as coronavirus, for instance, is not evidence that its electromagnetic waves caused the disease. As Cook points out, the character Baby Yoda also arrived in late 2019 – but who would claim that he had caused widespread illness?
The problem of over-reading coincidences might explain why many people still believe that the MMR vaccine can lead to autism. We now know that Andrew Wakefield’s original paper proposing the link was fraudulent, and based on fabricated data. The problem is that the typical signs of autism often become more apparent in a child’s second year, around the same time they receive the vaccine. This is just a coincidence, but some people believe it offers evidence for the theory – despite the fact that large studies have repeatedly shown that autism is no more common among vaccinated children than unvaccinated children.
Similarly, you may be given reports of Bill Gates discussing the possibility of a global pandemic long before 2020 – which some, like Piers Corbyn, have taken as evidence for the “plandemic” theory. In reality, the risk of a novel disease entering circulation has been a serious concern for many years, and many organisations, not just Gates’s charities, had been preparing for the eventuality. In this case, you could just as easily point to the 2011 film Contagion and argue that director Steven Soderbergh has been plotting the whole thing.
4. False equivalence
When you hear an analogy between two separate scenarios, be aware that you may be comparing apples and oranges.
You might have heard the argument that “we have thousands of deaths from car crashes each year – yet we don’t shut down the country to prevent those”. The problem, of course, is that car crashes are not contagious, whereas a virus is, meaning that the number of infected people can grow exponentially until it overwhelms the health service. While there may be a nuanced debate over the most effective ways to prevent that scenario, these kinds of false analogies are used to completely dismiss the need to prevent contagion, allowing the conspiracy theorist to assign a more sinister intent for any new measures.
Cook says that this is one of the most commonly used fallacies, but it’s easy to identify. “Look at the differences between the two things being compared, and if that difference is important for the conclusions, then it’s a false equivalence.”
5. The thought-terminating cliche
I was recently discussing the contagion’s exponential growth with a member of my own family. He was sceptical. “You can prove anything with data,” he told me. “It’s all lies, damned lies and statistics.” This is known as a thought-terminating cliche, in which a proverb or saying is used to end further discussion of a point without addressing the argument itself.
At this point, it’s probably time to leave the discussion for another day. As Van der Linden points out, the important thing is to maintain the possibility of continued open dialogue. “We need to have repeated conversations in an environment of mutual respect.” To quote another cliché, it is sometimes best to agree to disagree.
The art of pre-suasion
If you want to change someone’s mind, you need to think about “pre-suasion” – essentially, removing the reflexive mental blocks that might make them reject your arguments.
The first step is to establish empathy. “Often, these people are very worried about something and this issue is important to them,’ says Prof Karen Douglas, a psychologist who studies conspiracy theories at the University of Kent. “It would not be constructive to go into the conversation in a hostile manner, because this delegitimises their concerns and might alienate them even more.”
Douglas advises that you make the effort to understand the origins of their beliefs, a point of view that Cook also holds. “You want someone to articulate what they’re thinking, and why they’re thinking it, in a non-confrontational way,” he says. When describing the theories, they may have already noticed some of the contradictions and holes in the logic. If not, you will at least be in a more informed position to start a constructive discussion.
It may be worth acknowledging the fact that certain conspiracies – like Watergate – have occurred in the past, but they were supported by incontrovertible evidence rather than rumour and supposition. “It can validate people’s worldview,” says Van der Linden. And that, he says, might offer a “gateway” that will render them more open to your arguments.
You might also talk about people within the “movement” who have since changed their views. There are now, for example, many reports of erstwhile Covid-19 deniers who have since contracted the disease and renounced their former beliefs – and their experiences may be more persuasive than your own opinions.
David Robson is a science writer and author of The Intelligence Trap: Revolutionise Your Thinking and Make Wiser Decisions (Hodder & Stoughton £9.99). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2008/apr/26/heinekencup.londonirish | Sport | 2008-04-26T01:17:15.000Z | Robert Kitson | Rugby union: Catt forced out but French injuries give Irish a boost | As every Irishman knows there is a mouth-watering Heineken Cup final waiting to be confirmed. A Munster v London Irish showpiece would guarantee a Celtic carnival in Cardiff next month and enthuse everyone from the Ring of Kerry to Terry Wogan. Even the fashion experts who believe red and green should never be seen together would be clamouring for a ticket to the ultimate party weekend.
Before they print the invitations, though, there are a couple of semi-finals, neither a foregone conclusion. Under normal circumstances Toulouse would fancy ripping the Exiles apart at Twickenham this afternoon, particularly in the absence of Mike Catt who was confirmed as a limping non-runner yesterday. But the French side have their own lengthy injury list, to the point where they were nearly reduced to a solitary fit backline replacement. Even their coach, Guy Noves, is recovering from a road accident while the flanker Thierry Dusautoir buried his father earlier in the week and will not be involved.
Also missing today will be men of the calibre of Vincent Clerc, Clément Poitrenaud, Florian Fritz, Maleli Kunavore and Jean-Baptiste Poux. World-class players are still present through the team - Argentina's Patricio Albacete has been playing as well as any lock in Europe - but there are fewer than Noves would like. It presents a unique opportunity for Irish, which they may just prove equipped to take.
The Exiles are a team cast in Toulouse's own image, a real threat given sufficient quick ball, and they have the best lineout combination currently operating in British airspace. Nick Kennedy, in particular, was the scourge of Perpignan in the quarter-finals and Declan Danaher and Steffon Armitage continue to be seriously under-rated flankers. They tend to relish playing against Toulouse and will feel more at home than their opponents in a stadium where French sides remain strangely uncertain. The last time Toulouse played at Twickenham they lost the 2004 final to Wasps. Only the unavailability of Clarke Dermody, like Catt a victim of a leg strain, will dent Irish's hopes of competing with the three-times European champions.
Saracens, likewise playing in their first semi-final, could have done with their resident All Black, Chris Jack, being fit for their contest with Munster in Coventry tomorrow. But Cobus Visagie remains one of the more formidable scrummagers around and Richard Hill's return adds priceless back-row expertise. No one knows more than Munster's former coach Alan Gaffney, now in his final days as Saracens' director of rugby, about the Irish province's inner workings, even if he now claims to be hazy on certain details. "Paul O'Connell did suggest they'd have to change their lineout calls but there's no point. I didn't know them when I was there," said Gaffney.
The outcome of both games - the 32,000-capacity Ricoh Arena could well attract a bigger crowd than at Twickenham - will be monitored more studiously by the Premiership clubs still hoping to qualify for next season's Heineken Cup. Both London Irish and Saracens will make it if they win this weekend but a defeat for the Exiles and a Saracens defeat by Toulouse in the final would leave only six slots open to Premiership clubs. Should Worcester also lift the European Shield, the sides finishing fifth and sixth in this season's Premiership table would be left high and dry. A Munster-London Irish final, in contrast, would ensure seven English entrants under the complex system of merit-based qualification. The Irish are not the only ones on tenterhooks. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2022/may/19/le-otto-montagne-the-eight-mountains-review-cannes-film-festival | Film | 2023-05-10T09:35:20.000Z | Peter Bradshaw | The Eight Mountains review – a movie with air in its lungs and love in its heart | This rich, beautiful and inexpressibly sad film is about the friendship between men who can’t talk about their feelings and about winning and losing at the great game of life. It is set in the breathtaking and wonderfully photographed Italian Alpine valley of Aosta, which includes the slopes of Mont Blanc and the Matterhorn. But the “eight mountains” of the title refers to the eight highest peaks of Nepal: a mysterious symbol of worldly ambition and conquest.
Belgian film-makers Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch have adapted the award-winning 2016 novel by Italian author Paolo Cognetti and have created a deeply intelligent meditation on our capacity for love, and how it is shaped by the arbitrary, irreversible experiences of childhood, and by our relationship with the landscape. The Aosta valley is depicted with magnificent sweep, and van Groeningen and Vandermeersch find a stratum of sadness under it, a kind of water table of tears.
We begin with the friendship of two 12-year-old boys, Pietro and Bruno, who get to know each other when Pietro’s mum and dad – to get away from the petrol fumes of Turin – come to the (fictional) village of Grana for the summer; Pietro befriends local lad Bruno, who is staying with his farmer uncle and aunt. They roam far afield in this magical place.
But their Edenic friendship is ruined by Pietro’s parents, who make a heavy-handed and misjudged offer to let Bruno live with them in the big city and attend high school there. Bruno’s absent father objects to this condescension, and takes the boy away to work with him on a building site while Pietro starts a troubled middle-class student career. Pietro never forgives his father for splitting them up, and for being more impressed by the tougher and more alpha Bruno, who is a real outdoorsman. He never speaks to his father again.
But fate reunites Bruno and Pietro as tough, bearded young men, played with subtlety and gentleness by Alessandro Borghi and Luca Marinelli. After a reticent, wary start Bruno suggests that, as neither have any work on, they spend an Alpine summer building a shack in the valley that will be their special place.
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It is not being too facetious to call this the straight Brokeback Mountain. In building this rudimentary stone hut, they have attempted to rebuild their childhood, rebuild their love for each other. But Pietro is to make a terribly painful discovery that, in his long and bitter absence, his wounded father actually became a friend to the grownup Bruno, hiking with him in the valley and becoming a quasi-father to him. And, to add to the mortification of having his dad stolen from him by Bruno, Pietro finds that the young woman he is sort of interested in, is more interested in the unassuming Bruno. So poor Pietro leaves all over again, travelling in Nepal and becoming a celebrated writer, but consumed with the thought that his friendship with Bruno was the best of him – and Bruno was in some elemental sense the better man.
This is a movie with air in its lungs and love in its heart. It is spacious and unhurried in its devotion to beauty and to what it means to be human. Bruno is a compelling character who becomes impassioned when talking about the mountains, and it is his tragedy that he ultimately prefers them to human beings. When some of Pietro’s Turin friends come to visit and one starts rhapsodising about “nature”, Bruno snaps contemptuously that “nature” is an abstract idea for city types: he prefers the solid realities of mountains, trees and rivers. This film has mystery and passion, it climbs mountainous heights and rewards you with the opposite of vertigo: a sort of exaltation.
The Eight Mountains screened at the Cannes film festival, and is released on 12 May in UK cinemas. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/money/2017/jul/25/leasehold-houses-and-the-ground-rent-scandal-all-you-need-to-know | Money | 2017-07-25T15:05:21.000Z | Patrick Collinson | Leasehold houses and the ground rent scandal: all you need to know | Britain has had leasehold homes for hundreds of years, but only in the past few months has the ground rent scandal exploded. Now the government is proposing a complete ban on new houses sold as leasehold, and reducing ground rents to zero.
What are leasehold houses?
Traditionally, houses have been sold as freehold, and the buyer has complete control over their property. When a house is sold as leasehold, the buyer is effectively only a tenant with a very long term rental, with the ground the home is built on remaining in the hands of the freeholder. The home buyer has to pay an annual “ground rent” to the freeholder, and has to ask the freeholder for consent if they want to make any changes to the property, such as building a conservatory or changing the windows.
Why have they suddenly become such a problem?
In the past, leasehold property owners were generally charged just a “peppercorn” ground rent, sometimes as little as £1 a year, and many freeholders did not bother to collect it. But the picture changed earlier this century, when developers started to insert clauses into leasehold contracts where the ground rent was set at £200-£400 a year, doubling every ten years. Direct Line estimates the typical ground rent to be currently £371. Although unsuspecting first-time buyers were frequently told that 999-year leases were “virtually freehold”, the clauses meant that the ground rent would soon spiral to absurd levels. The government quotes a family house where the ground rent is expected to hit £10,000 a year by 2060.
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How many people are affected?
The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, which has vigorously campaigned on this issue, estimates that around 100,000 homebuyers are trapped in contracts with spiralling ground rents. There are many more people in leasehold flats, some of which also have doubling ground rents.
Is it just the ground rent that is the issue?
No. Freeholders are able to extract other sums out of their leaseholders in a variety of ways. Homebuyers report being charged £100 even to have a letter answered by the freeholder, and as much as £2,500 for permission to build a conservatory. These are charges that are on top of obtaining planning permission.
Why don’t leaseholders just sell up and get out?
Many can’t. They find their homes almost unsaleable, because lenders, particularly Nationwide, won’t grant mortgages against homes with onerous ground rent clauses, while conveyancing solicitors will warn prospective buyers off. Homes blighted by ground rent are saleable only at a huge discount.
Can leaseholders buy their freehold?
There has been an extraordinary escalation in prices for freeholds. At the time estates were built, buyers were typically told they could buy the freehold for £3,000-£4,000. Most did not. After the estate was finished, the developer would make a large profit by selling the freeholds on, typically for around £5,000 to £10,000 each, to the many companies keen to buy them for the valuable stream of income they offer. When homeowners ask to buy the freehold back, they are frequently asked for £40,000 or more.
Why are the freeholds now so expensive to buy?
A rent that doubles every ten years is effectively a return on investment of 7% a year. That’s a guaranteed, and legally enforceable income that is worth a phenomenal amount to financiers when Bank of England base rate is now just 0.25% a year.
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Aren’t the original conveyancing solicitors at fault?
It is estimated that seven out of ten buyers of recently built leasehold homes used the conveyancing solicitor recommended by the developer. The buyers, usually young and never having bought a home before, say the risks were not drawn to their attention. Now many of these conveyancers face multiple legal actions, accused of conflicts of interest and failing to warn buyers.
Is this a problem for houses but not flats?
Yes and no. Lots of new-build flats as well as houses have doubling ground rent clauses, and so face the same problem when they come to sell. There is also evidence that the owners of older leasehold properties, such as those above shops, have seen steep ground rent figures inserted into their contracts. But while it is evident that houses can be sold as entirely freehold, that’s not the case with flats, which where the care of the building needs to be jointly organised. But outside of England, this is usually arranged using the “commonhold” approach, with each flat owner having a part-share of the freehold.
What is the government doing?
It has proposed a ban on the future sale of houses as leasehold, as well as cutting ground rents to zero. But serious questions remain about the future of people in existing contracts. The government wants to see more compensation programmes, such as the £130m assistance scheme set up by Taylor Wimpey, although that scheme has been widely condemned as inadequate by campaigners. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/nov/01/nsa-transatlantic-relations-al-qaida-intelligence | Opinion | 2013-11-01T18:24:46.000Z | Josef Joffe | The NSA has harmed transatlantic relations more than any al-Qaida operative could | Josef Joffe | "E
very good spy story," my friendly (former) CIA operative told me, "has a beginning, a middle and an end. And so, the snooping on the German chancellor and her European colleagues will surely stop." He didn't say: "It won't resume." Because it always does in a new guise, perhaps more elegantly and subtly.
For states need to know what other states are up to – friends or foes. Even so-called friends are commercial and diplomatic rivals. Some of our friends deal with our enemies, selling them dual-use technology good for insecticides, but also for nerve gas. Or metallurgical machinery that can churns out tools as well as plutonium spheres.
Let's take an earlier story. Recall Echelon, the spy scandal that roiled Atlantic waters in the 90s. It was set up by the Five Eyes – the Anglo powers of the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – to monitor signal traffic in the Warsaw Pact. After the cold war – spies always look for gainful employment – it was turned inward, on the Europeans, to scan satellite-transmitted communications, allegedly for industrial espionage, too.
Was it stopped? Yes, the US handed over its listening station in the town of Bad Aibling to the Germans, but the game never ends. In the last 20 years, the importance of satellites has dwindled in favour of fibre optics, the new object of desire on the part of the Five Eyes and of France. Curiously, the British GCHQ and the French DGSE – which have broken into digital communications networks just as assiduously as has the NSA – have escaped much of the blame.
To deflect the opprobrium piled on the US, the NSA director, Keith Alexander, told Congress on Tuesday that France had acted a subcontractor, supplying his agency with metadata from 70m phone calls collected in just a single month. The general did not finger GCHQ, but we should assume that the Brits – remember Bletchley Park – are much better at the game than the French. They also have a singular strategic advantage. Britain is the place where most of the transatlantic fibre-optic cables converge, so it is a nice place to dig. France has control over fibre-optic cables ending in Marseilles and Brittany.
In Germany, whose BND is also busy tapping traffic in and out of the country, London and Paris are hardly mentioned. The hue and cry, indeed, an orgy of condemnation, is targeted on the United States. And for good reason: Angela Merkel's mobile phone. The gist of the outrage is this: "How can you do this to your friends?" Hence: "We are friends no more".
There is a slight semantic problem here: states – soulless and bloodless institutions – are never friends. People are. States have good relations based on interest, ties and cultural affinities. Merkel has given the wrathmongers just enough fodder to keep them away from her government, by doing such things as calling in the US ambassador, as if he were the minion of a hostile power. The British envoy has escaped unscathed. Still, Merkel won't appropriate hare-brained ideas such as stopping the talks on the transatlantic free-trade zone from which the EU may profit more than the US. Nor will she terminate the intimate relationship between the BND and the rest. Where would she get those NSA tips that led to the arrest of a home-grown terror gang in 2007?
One moral of this tale is the difference between dredging up millions of metadata, which is the common inheritance of all western governments, so to speak, and grabbing hold of the chancellor's mobile phone. This should – and will – end for a simple realpolitik reason: it's not worth the revulsion engulfing Washington. Governments don't need friendship but they do need good will that translates into consent and co-operation. So it is good to know that in Congress, even a diehard Republican like Jim Sensenbrenner is finally moving in on the NSA.
If Merkel's cellphone did it, more power to her. Add now, the outrage of Google and Yahoo whose data networks were hacked by the NSA. An intelligence outfit unchecked is an outfit that runs amok. It is like a man with a hammer to whom everything is a nail. "We do it because we can," is the unspoken motto – and we can do more every day thanks to Moore's law about runaway processing power and speed.
Meanwhile, outrage is accumulating where it counts for most – in the United States, the number one in all things digital and military. As former French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner put it: "Let's be honest. We eavesdrop, too. Everyone is listening in to everyone else. But we don't have the same means as the United States, which makes us jealous." And resentful.
Yet the battle will have to be fought and won in the United States. The country's obsession with al-Qaida has turned into paranoia, then hubris and license unbound. In such a setting, the spooks always counter the sceptic's question "Wow much is enough?" with "What if?" Then they go off to pile up ever more haystacks. If none of them contains a needle, so what? Let's buy more harvesters! Like any obsession, paranoia knows no bounds.
By now, "What if?" comes with a hefty political price. Off its leash, the NSA has done more damage to transatlantic relations than any al-Qaida operative could dream up. "We do because we can" needs to be encased by "We shouldn't." The intelligence services should be switched from autopilot to political guidance – with hands on throttle and wheel. This has nothing to do with friendship, and everything with prudence. States should follow their interests, not their obsessions.
This article was amended on 11 November 2013. It originally identified Jim Sensenbrenner as the chairman of the House of Representatives' intelligence committee, a position held in fact by Mike Rogers. This reference has now been removed | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/no-backslapping-no-bonhomie-eu-summit-opens-with-covid-19-safeguards | World news | 2020-07-17T02:00:02.000Z | Jennifer Rankin | No backslapping, no bonhomie? EU summit opens with Covid-19 safeguards | The air will be freshly piped, the rooms deep-cleaned, and handshakes will be banned. As EU leaders gather for their first physical meeting in Brussels to thrash out a coronavirus recovery plan, no effort has been spared to avoid a local outbreak of the disease.
The two-day meeting, thought to be the largest gathering of world leaders since the start of the pandemic, will be the first featuring all 27 heads of state and government since February, when an attempt to agree the EU’s €1tn seven-year budget collapsed in acrimony. On Friday and Saturday, they will return to the same task and will also seek to hammer out a €750bn (£689bn) recovery plan in response to the biggest economic shock forecast in EU history.
But any pre-summit bonhomie smoothing the way to a deal will be limited by social distancing. Leaders are being asked to wear masks on arrival and to avoid shaking hands – advice that appears to preclude the air kisses and backslapping that usually accompany the opening of summit talks.
Gathering in the Europa headquarters of the European council, nicknamed the space egg, leaders will meet in a fifth-floor room designed to seat 330 people. This will ensure distancing for 30 leaders (27 national ones plus three from the EU institutions) and three or four senior EU officials.
As well as a change to ventilation settings to eschew cheaper and more environmentally friendly recycled air, rooms will be cleaned during every break. Security, catering and cleaning staff and photographers will have to wear masks at all times.
Special levers will be attached to toilet door handles to ease opening with an elbow. Each leader will get a sealed box of specially cleaned headphones to hear the interpreters. A doctor will be on site in case anyone starts to feel any coronavirus symptoms.
A view of the conference room where the summit will take place. Photograph: Yves Herman/AFP/Getty Images
Leaders’ entourages will be limited to six people rather than the usual 19. Attendees will be asked to follow one-way systems to navigate the building, similar to those used in supermarkets.
And while hundreds of journalists usually cover EU summits from an adjacent building, this time reporters will be restricted to virtual press conferences and video feeds.
Brussels insiders say it is essential for EU leaders to be able to look each other in the eye to have any hope of striking a complex deal. Since coronavirus struck Europe, EU leaders have been meeting online, a format deemed to kill the personal chemistry and bilateral chats that are seen as essential.
Likened to “playing chess on many different levels” by one EU official, the negotiations over the seven-year budget and recovery plan are politically fraught because they tap into the EU’s deepest faultlines on fiscal discipline, rule of law and a collective response to the climate emergency.
The meeting pits the self-styled “frugal” group of northern European countries against Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Emmanuel Macron and most other leaders who want the EU to agree a recovery plan based on common borrowing to fund grants for the hardest-hit economies.
The Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Sweden argue that the proposed recovery fund is too big and should be based on loans rather than grants. The Dutch prime minister, Mark Rutte, has said his government should have a veto on how the money is spent – an idea seen as an unacceptable incursion of sovereignty by France, Italy, Spain and Greece.
A flag flutters outside the European commission headquarters in Brussels. Photograph: Yves Herman/Reuters
Hungary and Poland, meanwhile, are fighting a demand from western European countries that EU funds should be linked to upholding the rule of law.
An east-west split has also opened up on the European commission’s plan to devote 30% of the EU budget to meeting the bloc’s target for net zero emissions by 2050. While France, Austria and Nordic countries champion the move, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Romania and Greece have voiced doubts. Poland, the only EU member state not to have signed the 2050 pledge, is opposed to any reference to the target.
Commission officials warned EU ambassadors this week that failure to reach an agreement would have “dire consequences”. Charles Michel, the EU council president, who has faced sniping for the failure to reach a budget agreement in February, told leaders a deal was “essential … for the greater benefit of our citizens”.
Privately, some EU sources are downbeat, with the “frugal four” deemed to have taken major concessions offered by Michel, such as the preservation of their budget rebates, while moving little in return. Some officials expect the summit to run into Sunday, while others have already pencilled in a return date in late July.
The final budget deal will have to be approved by the European parliament, while the recovery plan will have to be approved by at least 40 national and regional parliaments. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/25/trump-judiciary-judges-legal-america | US news | 2019-12-25T08:00:37.000Z | Tom McCarthy | Trump's dark legacy: a US judiciary remade in his own image | Critics of Donald Trump make much of the fact that his legacy will forever bear the stain of impeachment, whatever the outcome of the prospective Senate trial next month.
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But Trump is positioned to bequeath a much more substantial legacy, one that progressive activists and civil rights advocates warn will harm the cause of equality in the United States for decades to come.
That legacy is a judiciary remade deeply conservative in Trump’s own image. In securing the confirmation of his 50th appeals court judge earlier this month, Trump cemented his status as the most accomplished sponsor of federal judges in the modern history of the presidency.
No president has secured so many important judgeships as quickly. Barack Obama managed to confirm only 55 appeals court judges – in eight years. Trump’s presidency is not yet three years old.
“Among conservatives, this is probably one of the biggest bright spots,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law specializing in the supreme court and constitutional law. “Not all conservatives are happy with a lot of things Trump has done, but on judges he’s killing it. It’s an across-the-board success that we’ve seen in this area.”
With the US supreme court ruling in only a small fraction of federal cases each year, appellate and district court judges actually wield immense power over some of the most urgent issues in American life, from reproductive rights to voting rights to anti-discrimination protections and action on the climate crisis.
Carl Tobias, a professor at Richmond School of Law specializing in federal judicial selection, called Trump’s performance on judges – with the notable assistance of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and outside groups such as the Federalist Society – “an amazing accomplishment”.
“He has really made an imprint on the federal appeals courts,” said Tobias. “About a quarter of the active judges by now have been appointed by him. And that’s really substantial.”
Trump continued to run up the score on judges until the last minutes of the congressional calendar year. As the House debated impeachment, the Senate went to work on a final 13 Trump nominees to serve on district courts, one level below the appellate courts.
With a dozen confirmations last Thursday alone, Trump hit an end-of-year tally of 133 district court judges out of 677 total, 50 appeals court judges out of 179 total, and two US supreme court justices out of nine total.
People should be deeply troubled and scared as to the status of their rights and liberties over the next three to four decades
Daniel Goldberg
“While Democrats in the House wasted all their time this week on a partisan impeachment,” Vice-President Mike Pence tweeted jubilantly on Friday morning, “the Senate confirmed 13 new judges making that a total of 185 amazing judges picked by President @realDonaldTrump!”
Legal analysts have blasted Trump and McConnell for allowing an unprecedented number of nominees to advance who have staked out extreme philosophies or been flagged as unqualified by the American Bar Association (ABA), the country’s largest non-partisan coalition of lawyers.
Progressive activists additionally express alarm at the relative youth of many Trump nominees, who assume lifelong appointments upon confirmation.
“The American people should be deeply troubled and scared as to the status of their rights and liberties over the next three to four decades,” said Daniel Goldberg, legal director at the progressive Alliance For Justice.
“It’s critical that the next Democratic president prioritize the courts like never before. While Donald Trump has been able to get his judges confirmed, we have never seen progressives as galvanized on the court issue as they are now.”
The confirmation this month of Sarah Pitlyk to the district court in St Louis and Lawrence VanDyke to the 9th circuit court of appeals, both of whom were rated unqualified by the ABA, should give Americans cause for alarm, said Goldberg, whose group has produced the report Trump’s Attacks on Our Justice System.
Pitlyk “spent her career fighting IVF and surrogacy” and VanDyke “has spent his career fighting environmental protections, women’s rights and LGBTQ rights”, Goldberg said.
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Trump’s work on the courts would not have been possible without the assistance of McConnell, who blocked Obama judicial nominees and then relaxed Senate rules to accelerate the installation of Trump nominees. Another key Trump partner in the effort is the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group that has vetted judicial candidates and spoon-fed them to the White House.
Blackman said that former Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s 2013 decision to take the so-called “nuclear option” and abolish a rule requiring 60 votes to approve federal judicial appointments – a decision that followed unprecedented stalling on judicial appointments by then minority leader McConnell – had made it easier to confirm judges with ideologies outside the mainstream.
“I think because the nuclear option is gone, you no longer have to appeal to 60, you can appeal to 50,” said Blackman. “And I think with that, you have less of a need to appeal to the moderates, so I definitely think the tilt of the nominees is definitely away from the center.”
Tobias said that Trump’s judicial record could help pave the way to his re-election.
“I think for many Republicans, who don’t agree with a number of the Trump policies, they are willing to tolerate that in order to influence the judiciary,” he said. “Especially Evangelical Christians, who are substantially responsible for his election.
“Issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights, religious freedom – the judges are being chosen to take a particular view on those issues.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/aug/04/the-extreme-events-scare-me-the-most-climatologist-warns-of-italys-vulnerability-to-climate-crisis | World news | 2023-08-04T14:00:14.000Z | Angela Giuffrida | ‘The extreme events scare me the most’: climatologist warns of Italy’s vulnerability to climate crisis | The collapse of a glacier in the Dolomites and a landslide on the island of Ischia. Devastating floods, wildfires and record-breaking heatwaves. The worst drought of the Po, Italy’s longest river, in 200 years. Luca Mercalli, an Italian climatologist, has seen his fair share of extreme weather events in Italy within the past two years. But nothing prepared him for the scene in Mortegliano, a small town in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, the northern region bordering Slovenia.
Mercalli, the president of the Italian Meteorological Society, and noted for having stormed off TV debates after becoming frustrated by climate crisis deniers, was in the area by chance days after powerful storms wreaked havoc in northern Italy in late July, killing five people.
As winds exceeding 63mph (100km/h) ripped through Milan, two hailstone records were smashed within five days of each other. The first was on 19 July, when a hailstone measuring 16cm (6.3in) in diameter fell in Carmignano di Brenta, a town in Veneto, beating the previous European record of 15cm set in Romania in 2016.
Damage after an overnight storm hit Milan in July 2023. Photograph: Piero Cruciatti/AFP/Getty Images
Then on 24 July, a 19cm (7.5in) hailstone was found in Azzano Decimo in Friuli-Venezia Giulia. In Mortegliano, a town of roughly 5,000 inhabitants, at least half a kilo of hail with estimated stone diameters of 10-15cm fell that same night. The storm lasted less than 10 minutes – but enough time to devastate almost the entire town as the chunks of ice crashed into roofs and cars, and breaking the arm of one resident. The total cost of the damage is estimated at €80m.
“It was as if the town had been bombed or hit by an earthquake – in all my experience as a climatologist, this was something that was completely new to me,” said Mercalli.
Italy is renowned for its varied landscapes, with its boot-shaped peninsula stretching from the peaks of the north and along 8,000km (about 5,000 miles) of coastline towards the islands of the south. But the country has also become known, at least by scientists, as Europe’s climate risk hotspot owing to a range of vulnerabilities including its geographical location, diverse topography and densely inhabited Mediterranean coastal areas.
“There are three elements that make Italy one of the most fragile places in the world,” said Mercalli. “One is that the Mediterranean is smaller in size compared with other oceans and is warming up more quickly. The second is that we are located in between the tropical climate of Africa and temperate climate of northern Europe – the heat in Sicily is now more like Africa, while northern Italy is like Sicily was 50 years ago. The third is the crowded Mediterranean – any extreme event risks a heavy impact in inhabited areas.”
As more violent storms were forecast to engulf northern Italy on Friday and over the weekend, the president, Sergio Mattarella, joined counterparts from Spain, Greece, Croatia and Slovenia in demanding urgent action from international leaders to tackle the climate crisis. “There is no more time to waste, no more time to compromise for political or economic reasons,” they wrote.
Luca Mercalli says of living in the mountains: “You see the change in the glaciers, the trees, insects, farming … everything.” Photograph: Angela Giuffrida
Mercalli is monitoring the changing climate and its effects from Borgata Vazon, a hamlet which lies 1,650m high in the Susa Valley area of the Italian Alps, to where he moved in 2017, partly motivated by cooler temperatures as global warming accelerated. However, even at this height, the heat is beginning to catch up with him: the night-time temperature on Wednesday was 15C – five degrees warmer than the norm for early August.
Mercalli has studied glaciers since 1985, noting that the speed of their retreat began to hasten towards the end of that decade. Each year brings less snow, and even if there are spells when it falls in abundance, the snow melts away more quickly.
He has seen changes in vegetation across the Alps: oak trees dating back 200 years in the Cuneo area were killed off by the heat and drought in 2022 – Europe’s hottest year on record – while plants and insects that were previously strangers to the mountains are appearing.
“I describe the mountains as the open-sky laboratory for climatology,” said Mercalli. “You see the change in the glaciers, the trees, insects, farming … everything.”
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The glacier on the Marmolada mountain in Canazei, Italy, collapsed in July 2022, triggering a fatal avalanche. Photograph: Andrea Solero/EPA
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Extreme weather events in Italy in 2022, including the collapse of the Marmolada glacier, flooding in the Marche region and the Ischia landslide, killed 36 people. In May, 14 people died in flooding in Emilia-Romagna, while four were killed in recent wildfires in Calabria and Sicily. During the summer of 2022, people died at the highest rates from heat in Italy, more than in Greece, Spain and Portugal.
A 2021 report by Ispra, the Italian government’s environment agency, found that 7,423 municipalities (93.4% of the total) were at risk of landslides, floods and coastal erosion. Another significant report by Ispra last year said that Italy had lost an average of 77 sq km (about 30 sq miles) a year of natural and semi-natural soil between 2006 and 2021, mainly due to urban expansion, exacerbating the damage caused by natural events.
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But despite these stark facts, there has been scant action by successive governments while the strategy of the current rightwing administration, led by Giorgia Meloni, is vague. Before taking power last October, Meloni had railed against the “ultra-ecologists of the left” and in July said Italy cannot be expected to “dismantle” its economy and businesses in order to implement the “ecological transition”. Her deputy, Matteo Salvini, last week joked on TV about the heatwaves and melting glaciers, saying “summers are hot, winters are cold”. The environment minister, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, an accountant, said that while the change in the climatic system was there for all to see, he was unsure if it was due to cyclical factors or caused by human beings.
Mercalli is among the few climatologists putting their heads above the parapet in a country whose media gives ample space to climate crisis deniers. As a result, Mercalli and his colleagues have been targeted by extremist groups as “the enemies of humanity”. But, he warns, if Italy continues to ignore the issue, there will be a high price to pay.
“The extreme events scare me the most,” he said. “The hailstorm in Mortegliano and cost of the damage was enough to bring it home even more. They cause chaos in society and such events are starting to exceed our tolerance threshold – there are just too many of them now.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2014/sep/28/phil-mickelson-tom-watson-ryder-cup | Sport | 2014-09-28T19:48:43.000Z | Ewan Murray | Phil Mickelson hits out at Tom Watson captaincy after Ryder Cup defeat | Europe retained the Ryder Cup in comprehensive fashion on Sunday with their captain Paul McGinley emphasising the pride they had given to fans and players alike but that was in stark contract to the reaction in the US camp which reacted to a heavy loss by descending towards open warfare.
Europe triumphed by 16½ to 11½ but that was overshadowed by heavily implied criticism of the US captain Tom Watson by Phil Mickelson.
Watson had already upset Mickelson by leaving the five times major winner and Keegan Bradley out of both Saturday sessions, a feeling which intensified during post-event media interviews. Mickelson bemoaned the change from the captaincy policies of Paul Azinger, who led the US to victory at Valhalla in 2008.
“We had a great formula in ’08. I don’t know why we strayed,” Mickelson said. “I don’t know why we don’t go back. What Zinger did was great.” In a quite extraordinary scene and in front of Watson, he expanded on that point. “There were two things that allow us to play our best I think that Paul Azinger did, and one was he got everybody invested in the process. He got everybody invested in who they were going to play with, who the picks were going to be, who was going to be in their [practice session] pod, when they would play, and they had a great leader for each pod.
“In my case, we had Ray Floyd, and we hung out together and we were all invested in each other’s play. We were invested in picking Hunter Mahan that week; Anthony Kim and myself and Justin Leonard were in a pod, and we were involved on having Hunter be our guy to fill our pod. So we were invested in the process.
“The other thing that Paul did really well was he had a great game plan for us, you know, how we were going to go about doing this. How we were going to go about playing together; golf ball, format, what we were going to do, if so-and-so is playing well, if so-and-so is not playing well, we had a real game plan. Those two things helped us bring out our best golf.
“We all do the best that we can and we’re all trying our hardest and I’m just looking back at what gave us the most success. Because we use that same process in the Presidents Cup and we do really well. Unfortunately, we have strayed from a winning formula in 2008 for the last three Ryder Cups, and we need to consider maybe getting back to that formula that helped us play our best.”
He stressed that the Ryder Cup decisions were all made by Watson and his assistants, Mickelson added: “Nobody here was in any decision.”
Watson revealed on Saturday he refused a plea from Mickelson to play in the afternoon’s foursomes. “He said: ‘We can get it done, captain. We want the chance.’ I said: ‘Well, I think the way this golf course sets up, the four teams I put out there gives us the best chance.’
“He lobbied again. He texted me, he said: ‘Give us a chance.’ I had to tell him no. I felt that we had the four best teams possible in the afternoon for alternate shot.”
When it was put to Watson yesterday that Mickelson was being disloyal with his comments, Watson replied: “He has a difference of opinion. That’s OK. My management philosophy is different than his. It takes 12 players to win. It’s not pods. It’s 12 players. I did talk to the players, but my vice-captains were very instrumental in making decisions as to whom to pair with.
“I had a different philosophy than Paul. I decided not to go that way. But I did have most of them play in the practice rounds together who played most of the time in the matches. I think that was the proper thing to do. Yes, I did mix-and-match a little bit from there, but again, you have to go with the evolution of the playing of the match and see who is playing the best and who to play with whom, and that’s what I did.”
Watson’s assessment of Europe’s success was equally straightforward. “The bottom line is they kicked our butts. They were better players this week. Our team has to play better.”
Watson’s opposite number, McGinley, was able to enjoy watching his players press home an advantage which sat at 10-6 before the Sunday singles got under way. McGinley’s captaincy was widely hailed by Europe’s team members. Jamie Donaldson, who secured victory, used “inspiration” to describe the Irishman.
McGinley said the credit should be handed to the player. “I didn’t execute the plan; all these guys sitting at this table did,” he said. “It’s easy to put it in place. It’s one thing to execute. I did the easy bit. They did the hard bit and I really mean that. I know what it’s like to be there as a player. I know how difficult it is to play in a Ryder Cup. I know when your heart is jumping out of your chest how incredibly excited and nervous you are. But we relish this challenge. We did it with a smile on our face, which is so important, and we did everybody proud.” | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2011/jun/22/from-the-vault-hand-of-god | Sport | 2011-06-22T07:00:01.000Z | Guardian Classic | From the Vault: Diego Maradona and the Hand of God knock out England | David Lacey | The latest instalments in our series of classic reports come from the 23/24 June 1986 editions, the mornings after England's bid for World Cup glory was dashed by one Diego Armando Maradona in Mexico City. The first piece is David Lacey's match report and the second is Jeremy Morgan's follow-up on the reaction from Buenos Aires a day later.
Maradona finds the knockout punch
By David Lacey in the Azteca Stadium - Argentina 2, England 1
The sorcery, not to mention the sauce, of Diego Maradona ended England's World Cup hopes in the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City yesterday. Two goals from the magician early in the second half broke the resistance of Bobby Robson's defenders and set Argentina on course for their second semi-final in three tournaments.
But Maradona could hardly claim that he had nothing up his sleeve. Television evidence clearly shows that Argentina's first goal went in off Maradona's wrist after he had gone up for a high ball with Shilton. At the outset we all knew that each side possessed a world-class player, only one of whom could use his hands. In this context the name of Maradona did not spring immediately to mind.
Yet the England manager had no doubt what happened. "I saw the ball in the air and Maradona going for it," said Robson. "Shilton went for it as well but Maradona handled the ball into the net. You don't expect decisions like that at World Cup level."
Since this was the consensus of Argentinian opinion after the West German referee, Rudolf Kreitlein, had sent off Antonio Rattin when they lost to England in the 1966 finals, some will argue that justice of a kind was done 20 years later. How extraordinary it is that England and Argentina cannot meet in a World Cup without some sort of controversy ensuing.
A few minutes later Maradona scored one of the great World Cup goals when he left three England defenders lying on the ground like broken dolls before slipping the ball past Shilton. "A brilliant goal," said Robson. "I didn't like it but I had to admire it."
A late header from Lineker, his sixth in this World Cup, briefly revived English hopes and he was only inches away from bringing the scores level. But in the end few could dispute that the winners had given a thoroughly professional performance and on balance deserved their place in the last four.
After the early traumas of Monterrey, England will not be too unhappy about going out of the tournament in this fashion – beaten controversially after defending solidly and attacking boldly whenever they could. They ended the match by reverting to Robson's original concept of two wingers after Waddle and Barnes had replaced Reid and Steven. For a moment or two you felt that one of the World Cup's most remarkable recoveries was imminent.
However the Argentinians defended competently if not always with the greatest composure, and nearly scored a third goal when a quick exchange of passes ended with Tapia, who had come on for Burruchaga, hitting a post.
The renewal of the Falklands conflict on the terraces projected by some of the more fanciful headlines never materialised. There was a brief outbreak of fisticuffs at the start of the second half but generally English and Argentinian fans maintained a more or less peaceful coexistence.
Before the kick-off each England player received a pennant from a member of the Argentinian team. Unless they bore the words Malvinas Argentina it was a nice gesture.
Fenwick's first tackle on Maradona after 10 minutes was less diplomatic and after the Argentinian captain had gone flying the England defender was cautioned for the third time in the tournament. The booking seemed a little harsh as the time but was balanced in the second half when the Tunisian referee allowed Fenwick to stay on the field after catching Maradona in the face with a blatant elbow.
It was a long time before either attack achieved anything of similar impact. With the midfield crowded as the teams set out to close each other down, the game was not unlike your average First Division fixture. In spite of Fenwick's early tackle England did not set out to mark Maradona individually. Instead they concentrated on interrupting his lines of communication with other Argentinians and in this they were successful until half-time, although there were signs in the last 10 minutes of Maradona taking control of the play between the penalty areas. Nevertheless, up to that point he had only threatened England with free-kicks near goal, not that any of these caused Shilton any serious problems.
However, all this had changed before the match was an hour old. In the 50th minute Maradona ploughed into the heart of the English defence before laying it out to his right, Valdano was unable to control properly which gave Hodge the opportunity to flick the ball over his head and back towards Shilton. Maradona immediately challenged the England goalkeeper and to the naked eye it seemed that he had achieved a legal touch in deflecting the ball into the net. Television, however, proved otherwise.
Bobby Robson had always said that Maradona was capable of winning a game on his own in five minutes. Maradona must have heard him for now he collected the ball on the right and set off on a marvellous run. Stevens was beaten by a sway of the hips, Butcher with a shrug of the shoulders, and Fenwick with contemptuous ease. Shilton was given no chance.
All that was left for England to do was to go on to the attack and this they did boldly and bravely. Pumpido had to move quickly to push a free kick from Hoddle round a post and then Barnes, playing in the World Cup finals for the first time, worked his way to the left hand byline before producing the centre from which Lineker headed in from the far post.
Six minutes later Lineker flung himself at a similar ball from Barnes but just failed to make contact. In that instant you could not help feeling that England were fated not to make further progress. Yesterday's match represented the watershed of their World Cup ambitions. Although they won the World Cup in 1966 they have yet to get past the quarter-finals in any of the other tournaments. Had Ali Ben Naceur been in the right place at the right time when the first goal went in they might have reached the semi-finals, but on balance probably not.
England: Shilton (Southampton); Stevens (Everton), Fenwick (Queens Park Rangers), Butcher (Ipswich Town), Sansom (Arsenal), Hoddle (Tottenham Hotspur), Steven (Everton; Barnes (Watford), 75min), Reid (Everton; Waddle (Tottenham Hotspur), 65min), Hodge (Aston Villa), Lineker (Everton), Beardsley (Newcastle United).
Argentina: Pumpido; Cucioffo, Ruggeri, Brown, Olarticoechea, Giusti, Batista, Enrique, Maradona, Burruchago, (Topia, 76min), Valdano.
Referee: Ali Ben Naceur (Tunisia)
Argentina salutes arms and the man
By Jeremy Morgan
Argentina yesterday greeted victory over England as if it was a new beginning with Diego Maradona cast as some sort of Messiah.
Within minutes of the game ending on Sunday afternoon a city which had been plunged into silence with most of the population transfixed before their television sets erupted into euphoria. Streams of cars tooting their horns and waving flags descended on the national monument in the city centre, The Obelisk, where 10,000 people hurled vulgar insults at Mrs Thatcher and burned the British flag.
Even in this moment of national unity, however, the occasion was not an entirely happy one, with members of the right wing Peronist mass movement demanding to know where the ruling Radical Party was. There was not much humour and even less sign that the demonstrators wished to win graciously. One old man, oddly out of place amid the threatening crowd, conceded Argentina had a little luck perhaps "because England played in our national colours, sky blue and white".
Most of yesterday's newspapers understandably skated over Argentina's first goal in barely a sentence, focusing instead on Maradona's second solo effort, and claiming England got one back because Argentina, with "typical generosity" let them have the ball.
The exception was the mass circulation daily, Cronica, which was determined to keep the fervour at fever pitch with a headline screaming "Malvinas 2 England 1."
While most of the press conceded Maradona had "perhaps" used his hand, Cronica made a virtue of Argentina's first goal. "We beat the pirates with Maradona and a little hand ... this time the Queen didn't have Reagan ... God save Argentina," it gloated in a paraphrase of the British national anthem. "He who robs a thief has a hundred years of pardon."
There were obvious parallels with the mass joy that broke out when Argentina won the World Cup in the grim and violent days of the military regime of 1978. On both occasions football has wiped out worry about inflation, economic austerity, military restlessness, and uncertainty over the future. It did not even seem to matter that the telephones were no longer working after endless hours of English-type drizzle seeped in to a system installed ages ago. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/dec/29/apple-apologises-for-slowing-older-iphones-battery-performance | Technology | 2017-12-29T07:15:16.000Z | Patrick Greenfield | Apple apologises for slowing down older iPhones with ageing batteries | Apple has apologised to customers for deliberately slowing the performance of older iPhone models without users’ consent.
The US tech company also announced a $50 (£37) reduction in the cost of iPhone battery replacements, down from $79 to $29, and an iOS (operating system) software update providing updates on iPhone battery health in early 2018.
The apology comes after Apple admitted to slowing down the iPhone 6, 6S, 7 and SE – when their batteries are either old, cold or have a low charge – to prevent abrupt shutdowns.
Apple said the problem was that ageing lithium batteries delivered power unevenly, which could cause iPhones to shut down unexpectedly – endangering the delicate circuits inside.
At least eight separate class-action lawsuits have been filed in the US in relation to the admission. Plaintiffs in California, Illinois and New York all argue that Apple did not have consent to slow their devices.
A statement on Apple’s website said: “We’ve been hearing feedback from our customers about the way we handle performance for iPhones with older batteries and how we have communicated that process. We know that some of you feel Apple has let you down.
“We apologize. There’s been a lot of misunderstanding about this issue, so we would like to clarify and let you know about some changes we’re making.
“First and foremost, we have never – and would never – do anything to intentionally shorten the life of any Apple product, or degrade the user experience to drive customer upgrades.
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“Our goal has always been to create products that our customers love, and making iPhones last as long as possible is an important part of that.”
The post goes on to detail the ageing process of batteries and ways to prevent unexpected iPhone shutdowns, before announcing a $50 price cut and the battery health software update.
Speed problems with older iPhones were recently highlighted by Reddit users, who found that when they replaced the batteries in their devices, they returned to normal performance.
Analysis of performance data by the benchmarking firm Primate Labs clearly showed the artificial inhibition of the iPhone’s performance, which prompted Apple’s admission.
The company said it intentionally slowed the performance of the older iPhones because, when their batteries wear to a certain level, they can no longer sustain the required current demanded by the phones’ processors.
When the processor demands more current than the battery can supply, the phone abruptly shuts down to protect its internal components, as was the case with the iPhone 6S – for which Apple was forced to replace batteries. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/14/freezing-eggs-women-fertility-treatment | Opinion | 2021-09-14T08:00:08.000Z | Eleanor Morgan | Freezing your eggs may be getting easier, but it’s no simple fertility fix | Eleanor Morgan | Eleven years ago, a gynaecologist told me my fallopian tubes were “obliterated”. He had just performed adhesiolysis, the surgical removal of scar tissue. In my case, the scarring was from a ruptured appendix in my youth, and, as has subsequently been discovered, endometriosis. As I wouldn’t be able to conceive naturally, the doctor asked me whether I would like to do free egg or embryo freezing with the NHS. Having always known I’d want a baby some day, the answer was yes.
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The doctor told me that the chances of a future pregnancy would be higher if I froze fertilised embryos, rather than my eggs alone. I am gay, not around sperm much, and always preferred the idea of using a donor to conceive rather than doing it with a male friend. So I selected a donor from a US sperm bank and had it shipped over before my freezing cycle began. After a fortnight-long hormonal drug cocktail, my eggs were “harvested”. The viable ones were fertilised and produced some good embryos. They have been in a hospital freezer for 10 years; a comforting thought, but also one so abstract I can barely entertain its implications.
Under current UK legislation, my embryos can stay on ice for 55 years because the treatment was the result of a medical problem. If they had been frozen instead for “social” reasons – because I had not met someone I wanted to have children with yet or didn’t think I could afford a baby – I would have had a maximum of 10 years in which to use them. It is punishing to think that, if things were different, they could have been destroyed this year simply because I don’t feel ready to have a child.
Fertility experts have long been lobbying against the 10-year limit on freezing eggs, embryos and sperm. The rule, set out by The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act in 1990, is arbitrary; eggs and embryos can be safely freezed indefinitely. The UK government finally seems to be listening and announced this week that the 10-year rule would be scrapped. In future, everyone will be able to freeze genetic material for up to 55 years, regardless of their reasons for doing so.
There has been a rapid growth in egg freezing in the past 10 years, from just under 230 cycles in 2009 to 2,400 cycles in 2019. The process involves 10-12 days of self-administering injections containing hormonal medication that stimulates egg production in the ovary follicles, with regular clinic visits for scans and blood tests to monitor progress. Following this, under sedation or general anaesthetic, a process called transvaginal oocyte retrieval happens, where a doctor inserts a needle through the vaginal wall and into the follicles to retrieve the eggs. Let me tell you: you can feel that this has happened.
Egg freezing was once reserved for medical reasons, such as preserving fertility that might be affected by chemotherapy. It has since been rebranded as a way for women to gain some control over their fertility clocks; to own our future. The egg-freezing industry is worth millions in the US, where private equity firms target twentysomething women with the idea that freezing eggs at 25 is a smart career move.
Here in the UK, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) inspects fertility clinics against a code of practice, which states that they should not highlight high success rates that only apply to small, selected groups of patients. But thousands of women every year continue to absorb the idea that we can buy time, paying a small fortune for hope.
The average cost of egg freezing is about £3,350, not including the hormonal medication required, which can cost thousands. There is a postcode lottery for what NHS fertility clinics can offer people – some will offer elective egg freezing and storage, if you pay for it – and many turn to the private sector. The cost of storing eggs can be up to £350 a year. Prices like these should come with guarantees, but that is impossible.
The reality is that not every egg makes an embryo; not every embryo results in pregnancy; and not every pregnancy results in a baby being born. Data from the HFEA shows that once-frozen eggs account for only 1-2% of all IVF treatment cycles. Age is a crucial factor: eggs are of a much higher quality in our 20s and, if they are frozen below the age of 35, the chances of success will be higher than the natural conception rate as the woman gets older. This makes scrapping the 10-year storage limit even more necessary – if women need to freeze their eggs earlier for a better chance of getting pregnant, they need more time in which to access them later on.
If the new 55-year storage limit does encourage more people to freeze their eggs, clinics have a responsibility to convey the reality of the process. Framing fertility treatment as something you can just pop into a clinic for is misleading: manufacturing then surgically retrieving eggs from your body can be challenging. The hormonal medication can make you feel bloated, queasy and anxious, while the egg collection can cause a lot of pain, with possible complications. (I had a bad time of it, but not everyone does.)
Being able to use technology such as egg freezing and not feel so pressured by our fertility clocks is a benefit of living in the modern world. But the modern world is also what is driving this booming market, particularly for young people – the ones who stand the highest chance of preserving their fertility, should they wish. Living is more expensive than it ever was. That the process will be unaffordable to so many adds another layer of unfairness.
The prospect of more room to make important decisions about having children is great, but we must remain realistic about what egg and embryo freezing actually entails, how accessible it is and the inherent lack of certainty. After all, many people of childbearing age feel the choice of having a family has been taken away from them, not by the inaccessibility of fertility treatment, but by a complete lack of economic security in life. (Britain’s birthrate is plummeting; in the US, the birthrate is the lowest it has been in 35 years.)
Better wages, access to stable housing, affordable childcare: fundamental social changes like these are required to temper the crushing uncertainty so many of us feel about having babies at all. Having the option to store eggs for longer is good, but it is not the panacea we are often led to believe it is.
Eleanor Morgan is author of Hormonal: A Conversation About Women’s Bodies, Mental Health and Why We Need to Be Heard | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2016/jan/15/emergency-response-service-hospital-care-older-peoples-homes | Healthcare Professionals Network | 2016-01-15T09:31:34.000Z | Gill Hitchcock | Emergency response service brings hospital care to older people's homes | Apioneering grassroots emergency service targeting frail older people who have fallen takes the hospital to the home in a money-saving solution that could help slash A&E admissions and offer a new model of community care.
“It’s almost like bringing to the home, services that patients would typically get in hospital,” explains Lea Agambar, a nurse practitioner for the new project in east London.
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The service, a joint project between the London Ambulance Service (LAS) and North East London NHS foundation trust (NELFT), goes out to nearly 30 people each week and keeps most of them – an average of 77% – out of emergency departments. And according to NELFT, in the 12 months following its launch in October 2014 the scheme saved the health service £188,000.
After starting as a pilot scheme, it is now an ongoing service funded by Barking and Dagenham, Havering and Redbridge clinical commissioning group which, like other commissioners, is under pressure to cut A&E admissions. The target was set at a 15% reduction by the coalition government.
This is not one of NHS England’s vanguard models, but a relatively small-scale grassroots project conceived by staff from the two organisations.
“Our local emergency department was known to have some challenges and we were looking at the patients who come to A&E, what they present with, how they are conveyed and whether their admission was avoidable,” says NELFT service manager Caroline O’Haire.
“We’d already started some work with the LAS through our community treatment team, which works with people who are experiencing a health crisis in their own homes. So this was a further step.”
Agambar talks about how the idea emerged from a “frailty academy”, a forum for representatives from a range of services to meet and discuss the challenges that they and patients face, as well as possible solutions.
“We were asked to come up with an idea to help improve services for frail and elderly people within our boroughs,” she says. “So that’s when we decided about the emergency response scheme.”
The service uses a standard LAS emergency response car. But what’s different is, first, that it is equipped with devices for elderly people, such as walking aids and commodes. And, second, a paramedic is paired with a community nurse experienced in wound closure, urinalysis, blood sampling and more, and who attend to and assess the patients. People who have fallen receive a full falls assessment.
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“We had basic and advanced life-support training, training from a geriatrician around falls and in physiotherapy and occupational therapy, as well as moving and handling techniques,” says Agambar.
At the outset of the service, the age criteria was 75 years and older, but that was reduced to 70 and now it is available for people aged upwards of 60. The patient profile has changed in other ways, too, as nurse practitioner Joanne Webb explains: “Initially it was for elderly fallers, but it was opened up to other elderly people who we can try and keep at home. So now we go to people who may have a chest or urinary infection, for example.”
Debbie Richmond, group station manager at the LAS, says staff working on the local dispatch desk in the emergency operations centre have been briefed about the type of people the car should, and should not, be dispatched to.
“For example, if you’re going out to an older faller, there is realistically no reason to send this car if a patient is complaining of hip pain, because that patient will need to go to an emergency department for an x-ray,” she explains
“Also the dispatch staff have a contact number for the car, so if they’re not sure, they can contact the clinicians and decide what’s appropriate. The car has access to incoming calls via a computer. So the paramedic and the nurse can scan the calls themselves and if they feel a call is appropriate for them, they can self-dispatch.”
The King’s Fund has reported that people aged over 65 account for nearly 70% of emergency bed days in England (pdf) and, as O’Haire says: “The type of patients we are dealing with here are usually frail and have potentially a level of cognitive impairment.
“What we know is that when those patients hit an A&E department they become more confused, their presentation will worsen very quickly. If they get to A&E it’s highly likely they’ll be there for a very long time.
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“Something as simple as going around, picking someone up, making sure they’re safe, will make them recover much quicker.”
So is it feasible for this service to be replicated? Carol White, a deputy director for integrated care at NELFT, says the service has been underpinned by a broader shift from a bed-based model to community care which has been taking place across the trust over the past three years.
She says: “I guess fundamental to this is a sea change in the whole system, and an understanding within this health economy that community health services had not been invested in sufficiently.”
She says the service could not operate without NELFT’s community treatment team, which provides follow-up care if that’s needed. And she believes it benefits from regular adjustments: “They are changing it all the time based on patient, carer or professional feedback, and I think that’s one of the keys to this success.”
Join our 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/world/2014/jul/20/eu-rethink-russia-relations-mh17-sanctions | World news | 2014-07-20T12:18:32.000Z | Andrew Sparrow | EU to rethink Russian relations in wake of MH17 tragedy | Britain, Germany and France have agreed that the European Union must "reconsider its approach to Russia" in the light of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, Downing Street has said.
A spokesman for David Cameron said the prime minister agreed the need for a more robust stance towards Moscow in separate conversations on Sunday morning with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and François Hollande, the French president.
Cameron is scheduled to speak to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, on Sunday evening, and he is expected to make a statement on the crisis in the House of Commons on Monday.
After the conversations with Merkel and Hollande, a spokesman for Cameron said: "All three leaders agreed that the immediate priority is to secure access to the crash site and to ensure that specialist teams are able to recover the victims and return them home.
"They agreed President Putin has an important role to play by persuading the separatists to grant access and to work with the international community to ensure that all that needs to be done can be done as soon as possible.
"They also agreed that the EU must reconsider its approach to Russia and that foreign ministers should be ready to impose further sanctions on Russia when they meet on Tuesday."
Earlier Philip Hammond, the new foreign secretary, said Russia was at risk of being seen as a "pariah state" because of the role it was playing in relation to MH17. In interviews with the BBC's Andrew Marr and Sky's Dermot Murnaghan, Hammond, who has only been in post since the cabinet reshuffle on Tuesday, said this was a "decision point" for Russia.
"Russia likes to paint this as a dispute between it and the EU or it and the west. This is about Russia and the entire international community and Russia risks becoming a pariah state if it does not behave properly."
Hammond said that, although it was not possible to be "absolutely categoric", all the evidence pointed to the missile that brought down the plane being fired by Russian-backed separatists.
"And the Russians have influence, if not direct control, over these people. They have been supplying them. They have been supporting them. They have been providing them with succour. They cannot deny their responsibility for the acts that these people are carrying out," Hammond said.
He said that "at the very least" the rebels would have needed training to use such a complex piece of equipment.
Russia should cooperate fully with the investigation, Hammond said. But, he added, that was not happening at this stage. "What we are seeing from the Russians is obfuscation and obstruction at the moment," Hammond said.
"The Russians will have probably more information about this incident than anyone. They are very close by, this is only a few miles from the Russian border, they have got lots of military planes in the area, they are saying nothing.
"What we need is full Russian cooperation. Any evidence they control needs to be turned over to the international investigators. They must use their influence to allow international access to the site, and to secure the evidence and to secure respect for the bodies and the possessions of the victims.
"There is one party in the world who clearly has the ability to snap his fingers and it would be done, and that's Vladimir Putin and, for all the fine words we are hearing from Moscow, it hasn't happened."
Hammond said Britain and Australia were taking the lead in trying to get the UN security council to agree a resolution on Monday demanding that investigators get proper access to the site and that the bodies were treated with respect.
He also said that, unless Russia "radically changed its position", EU foreign ministers would push for tougher sanctions against Russia at a meeting on Tuesday.
"We have been very forward-leaning in the argument around sanctions against Russia for its illegal annexation of Crimea, for its destabilisation of Ukraine. Some of our European allies have been less enthusiastic," Hammond said.
"I hope that the shock of this incident will see them now more engaged, more willing to take the actions which are necessary to bring home to the Russians that when you do this kind of thing it has consequences and they are lasting consequences."
In an article in the Sunday Times, Cameron said: "If President Putin does not change his approach on Ukraine, then Europe and the west must fundamentally change our approach to Russia."
Other EU countries had been unwilling to confront Russia, Cameron said. Without naming countries, he said some other EU members were "more anxious to make this a problem to be managed and contained, not a challenge to be met and mastered". | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/feb/27/bohemian-rhapsody-special-effects-halo-vfx-bectu-entertainment-union-cases-bankrupt-queen | Film | 2019-02-27T11:42:19.000Z | Catherine Shoard | Bohemian Rhapsody's visual effects team 'owed thousands' | A team involved in the visual effects on Oscar-winning Queen movie Bohemian Rhapsody have yet to be paid, according to media and entertainment union Bectu.
The union says it is handling cases worth £53,000 relating to the bankruptcy of Halo VFX, a London-based company that contributed to the film’s visual effects.
Bectu says the plight of the out-of-pocket workers highlights the need for a new industry code of practice to protect freelance workers when businesses go into administration.
Bectu’s assistant national secretary, Paul Evans, said: “I’ve never had a situation where individual Bectu members have been hit this badly. We can’t just shrug and move on.
It’s not acceptable for VFX artists who have contributed to the success of multimillion pound features to go unpaid
“It’s not acceptable for VFX artists who have contributed to the success of multimillion-pound features to be the ones to carry risk and go unpaid for their hard work and talent.”
More generally, many risks, he said, were shouldered by freelance VFX workers, who were forced to accept long periods of unpaid overtime and antisocial hours, which eroded creativity and productivity. “It’s an industry that drives talented people out. The gender ratio is particularly male-heavy. Women often can’t stay in an industry that expects almost unlimited unpaid overtime as short notice.”
Rami Malek wins best actor Oscar for Bohemian Rhapsody
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Bohemian Rhapsody, which has made almost a billion dollars at the global box office, won four awards on Sunday night: best actor for Rami Malek, best editing, best sound editing and best sound mixing.
This article was amended on 27 February to reflect the fact the Halo VFX were not the only visual effects team working on the film. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/14/larry-elder-california-recall-election-trump | US news | 2021-09-14T21:15:36.000Z | Dani Anguiano | Larry Elder: defeated California recall challenger takes a page from Trump’s big lie playbook | California’s governor Gavin Newsom may have resoundingly defeated a recall attempt, but that didn’t stop a Republican challenger from attempting to sow doubt about the outcome even before polls closed.
Larry Elder, the rightwing radio host who lead the pack in the effort to defeat Newsom, had been spreading conspiracy theories to falsely imply that the election was rigged against him.
Elder told reporters there might be “shenanigans” in the election and has a link on his website to a website encouraging users to “fight California election fraud” by submitting reports of “irregularities, interference, or intimidation”. There’s no proof of widespread election fraud.
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By Tuesday night, Newsom appeared to have won a comfortable victory, with the Associated Press calling the race for the incumbent Democrat less than an hour after polls closed.
Elder’s conspiracy theories echo efforts by Donald Trump to falsely claim the 2020 election was stolen and rigged against him. The language on the website the Elder site linked to appears lifted from a petition circulated to help Trump’s effort to overturn the results of last year’s presidential election.
On Monday, Trump added fuel to the fire with a statement that said, “Does anybody really believe the California Recall Election isn’t rigged?”
Republicans across the US have turned to Trump’s big lie to propose legislation that makes it more difficult to vote and easier to overturn future elections.
“It’s just an extension of the big lie and ‘stop the steal’,” Newsom told reporters last week. “The election hasn’t even happened, and now they’re all claiming election fraud. I think it’s important to highlight that.”
David Mead of Thousand Oaks, California, shows his support for Larry Elder at a rally on 6 September. Photograph: Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/REX/Shutterstock
But to Republicans in California, Elder’s claims also raise fresh problems. The Republican party in California has just 24% of registered voters, compared with 46.5% for Democrats, making every Republican vote crucial to any successful recall effort. Republican party officials this week appeared to try to encourage everyone to vote, while also promoting the narrative that California’s election security can’t be trusted.
Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney and the national committeewoman of the Republican National Committee for California, said she made a video with her husband showing how they cast ballots by mail and urging everyone to do the same.
But Dhillon also claimed she could not say whether California’s election will be safe and secure, pointing at an incident in Los Angeles where some people who showed up to vote were told they had already voted.
The Los Angeles county registrar’s office said the error was caused by some settings on computers used to check in voters before issuing ballots. The office said those affected were allowed to cast provisional ballots, which act as placeholders until voter eligibility is determined, but Dhillon argued it would increase voters’ distrust.
“There will be a lot of questions and potentially litigation after this election about this sloppy-at-best treatment of people’s ballots and their right to vote,” Dhillon said. “I think people have to get out there and vote. We have to document problems, and we have to litigate those problems.”
No widespread voter fraud problems have surfaced. Much of the GOP criticism of California’s elections has focused on the wide use of mail-in ballots, which have been automatically sent to all active registered voters for state elections since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. But an overwhelming majority of California voters cast ballots by mail even before the pandemic.
As of Saturday, 7.8m ballots had been cast, or nearly 35% of registered voters, according to Political Data Inc, a data firm that works with Democrats. Mike Sanchez, a spokesman for the Los Angeles county registrar’s office, said voting by mail is “trusted, secure and safe”.
“There are extensive protocols in place that ensure the security and verification of all returned vote by mail ballots,” Sanchez said. “The claims made disregard and misrepresent those safeguards. As a result, their messaging could be confusing to voters and discourage participation.”
A voter drops off their mail-in ballot as California goes to the polls in a gubernatorial recall election. Photograph: Fred Greaves/Reuters
Shirley Weber, the California Secretary of State, said concerns about election security are “inaccurate”. The state’s chief elections official said California has “the strictest voting system testing, procedures for use and security requirements in the nation”.
In the weeks leading up to the election, polls showed a close race between Newsom and Elder before ultimately tipping in the governor’s favor. The California governor characterized the choice between him and Republican challengers such as Elder as a “choice about life and death”.
Newsom received support on the campaign trail from Joe Biden, who surveyed wildfire damage with the governor Monday as the state grapples with another devastating fire season.
The president, who warned the outcome of the election could have far reaching effects across the US, called Elder “the clone of Donald Trump”.
“Can you imagine him being governor of this state? You can’t let that happen. There is too much at stake,” Biden said at a rally in Long Beach alongside Newsom.
Not all Republicans are embracing Elder’s claims. John Cox, a businessman running to replace Newsom, said voter fraud concerns are “another distraction”.
“Frankly, all this talk about the election not being valid is a cul de sac because it’s going to result in some people deciding not to vote,” Cox said as he campaigned Monday outside the capitol. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2024/may/01/tv-tonight-things-get-very-intense-in-race-across-the-world | Television & radio | 2024-05-01T05:20:47.000Z | Hollie Richardson | TV tonight: things get very intense in Race Across the World | Race Across the World
9pm, BBC One
Poor Brydie and Sharon have been eliminated, while best pals Alfie and Owen take the lead as they leave Cambodia in search of the next checkpoint on the Thai-Myanmar border. They soon find themselves in big trouble – but they’re not the only ones. James may have lost his passport and Eugenie’s patience is being tested by her daughter Isabel (“I feel like I’m your punchbag!”). Hollie Richardson
The Repair Shop
8pm, BBC One
In this week’s memory-imbued treasures, the belated appreciation of now-grown children are what touch most. Anthony wants to restore a model Lotus Esprit as a gift for his car company CEO father, and Rhona wants to hear her dad’s beloved bagpipes played at last. Ellen E Jones
Andi Oliver’s Fabulous Feasts
8pm, BBC Two
More gorgeous foodie gatherings with chef Andi Oliver, this week in the Rhondda valley – where she meets Mr Gay Wales 2016, Paul, whose family was shaped by the 80s miners’ strike. Oliver is there to help launch the community’s first Pride party, where she’ll serve bara brith (speckled bread). HR
Professor T
9pm, ITV1
A haunting past … Ben Miller as Professor T. Photograph: ITV
“This is Prof Tempest. I’m calling with information about a murder.” A mysterious case of a road-accident victim – who, it is discovered, wasn’t actually killed by the car crash – has disturbing parallels with our eponymous criminologist’s own past, while also revealing how far mothers will go to protect their children, in this grave series three closer. Ali Catterall
The Red King
9pm, Alibi
Wales’s answer to The Wicker Man continues apace, as copper Grace Narayan (Anjli Mohindra) investigates the fishy disappearance and death of a teenage boy on an island with pagan roots. “The True Way? That’s just hocus pocus for the tourists.” Or could something more culty be going on – hence the grisly warning left on her bed? AC
Mammoth
10pm, BBC Two
It’s the final episode of this short but promising retro comedy about a mustachioed teacher who is frozen in the 70s and revived in the present day. After his friend dies, Mammoth (Mike Bubbins) decides he doesn’t want to grow old alone – so he (somewhat overconfidently) enters the world of dating apps. HR
Film choice
The Bourne Identity (Doug Liman, 2002), 6pm, Sky Cinema Greats
High anxiety … Matt Damon in The Bourne Identity. Photograph: Reuters
Less is more in Doug Liman’s masterpiece. Taking the Mission: Impossible thriller template and stripping out all the hi-tech, stunt-heavy action scenes unexpectedly makes the film more exciting. And casting Matt Damon as amnesiac spy-on-the-run Jason Bourne gives the main character an everyman vibe that serves the story well. More likely to have a scrap in a kitchen than wreck a runaway train, the resourceful Bourne is a hero Le Carré might have recognised – and set a new benchmark for modern espionage heroes. Simon Wardell | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/artblog/2008/jul/21/amongthearchivesadatabase | Art and design | 2008-07-21T11:30:58.000Z | Liz Jobey | Among the archives: A Database | Twenty years ago in California I attended, out of curiosity, a New Age convention in Los Angeles. Among the list of lectures on UFOs and channelling, and the stalls selling crystals and the healing powers of swimming with dolphins, I spotted a talk by Dr Timothy Leary. By this time Leary, the champion of LSD, who in 1967 told 30,000 hippies in San Francisco to "Turn on, tune in, drop out", was in his late sixties. I expected an old chap in beads and kaftan, but he turned up in slacks and a cardigan, and instead of LSD enthused about a new system of global communication, built on the free supply of "information in, information out", which was going to change the world. And he was right. Leary was one of the first people to have a site on the world wide web, and that model of a mutual exchange of information is very much with us today.
It's not always free, but increasingly philanthropists are using the web as a platform for their good works. Like most websites, they function as mini-archives, in that they store information about their various functions and past events. However the A Foundation, an arts charity founded in 1998, has gone several stages further. It has developed a separate digital archive for contemporary art and visual culture called A Database, which stores information about contemporary artists and their work, and aims to provide a free information interface between artists, curators, gallery owners, museums, students, researchers and the general public. You might be a curator considering a particular artist for an upcoming show and want to see and read more about his or her work. You might be a young artist wanting a way to represent your work online, in which case you will soon be able to set up your own mini-site with the larger parent site. You might be a collector, looking for a means of cataloguing your collection and making it more widely available. You might be a journalist, wanting to check facts on a number of artists or exhibitions. You might be a member of the public with a particular interest in contemporary art, scrolling through A Database to see what you can find.
The A Foundation was founded by the painter James Moores whose family owned Littlewoods Pools and the chain of department stores. His great uncle, John Moores, founded the famous Liverpool painting prize in 1957. One of the A Foundation's first acts was to establish the Liverpool Biennial of Contemporary Art, which this year plays a central role in Liverpool's celebrations as European Capital of Culture. The A Foundation works from two bases, one in Greenland Street, Liverpool, and the other in Rochelle School, in Shoreditch, east London.
I first heard of James Moores because of his interest in photography. In the late 1980s, he acquired the archive of John Deakin, the photographer whose portraits of Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud and the Soho scene in the 1950s and 1960s made him posthumously famous. When Deakin died in 1972, a pile of his photographs was left under his bed in his Soho flat. They were rescued by his friend, Bruce Bernard, then the picture editor of the Sunday Times Magazine, and were subsequently handed into his care by Deakin's relatives. In 1984, Bernard curated an exhibition of Deakin's work, The Salvage of a Photographer, at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, and after this, James Moores offered to buy Deakin's archive. Several years later Moores, recognising his singular eye, asked Bernard to curate a collection of photographs for him, giving him a completely free hand to find and buy those pictures which he judged to be worthwhile, rather than acquiring a collection of photography's greatest hits. By the time of Bernard's death in March 2000, the collection had reached one hundred photographs. In 2002 it was published as book under that title and the pictures were exhibited at the V&A.
One Hundred Photographs was one of the first collections held and catalogued by A Database. The John Deakin collection is another. Among Deakin's pictures are the cracked and spattered portraits of the painters Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, Michael Andrews, Frank Auerbach, and the friends who surrounded them, such as Bacon's lover George Dyer, or Henrietta Moraes and Isabel Rawsthorne, many of whom Bacon painted, using Deakin's photographs as a reference. There is also a portrait session with Caitlin Thomas, the wife of Dylan Thomas, played, in John Maybury's recent film The Edge of Love, by Sienna Miller. There are other portraits done during Deakin's two stints as a Vogue photographer, including Picasso, John Huston and Simone Signoret, as well as his street photographs from Paris and Rome, which were exhibited in Soho in 1956. Deakin's friend the novelist Elizabeth Smart, described his Paris pictures as "vulgar, touching, beautiful". Bruce Bernard, who curated the 1956 exhibition, wrote later that "their overwhelming feeling of directness gave them a mordant kind of power, and they seemed very different to the good-natured photographs ... that one had become so used to at the time in magazines like Picture Post or the little I had seen of the work of Cartier-Bresson and the other Magnum photographers."
Bruce Bernard's own collection is a lesson in the way a very disparate collection of pictures can be given a unity by sensibility of the collector. They reflect Bruce's first love, which was painting. They make no distinction between the famous and the unknown. And among them are some of the photographs which Bruce admired long before he was given the means to acquire them, such as Graham Smith's 1983 picture, Sandy and Friend, South Bank, taken in the Commercial pub in Middlesborough, or David King's 1974 picture of Mohammad Ali's back, or the extraordinary 1850s double portrait of the Veteran of Waterloo with his Wife, a tinted ambrotype from which the couple look out, suspicious and alert, with such intensity they could still be alive. There are also photographs by Arbus, Atget, Brassai, Fox Talbot, Don McCullin and many others, including the younger photographers he admired, such as John Riddy and Toby Glanville.
These are still early days for A Database. It is jointly funded by the Arts Council, and as a pilot scheme catalogued the archive of the New Contemporaries exhibitions, which began in 1989. A separate installation is being used to hold the video archive of theFoundation for Art and Creative Technology (Fact), and A Database is currently adding the archive of the Liverpool Biennial, to its holdings. Future collections will include the International Times (IT) Archive, the Arnolfini Gallery and the Design Museum.
Its director, Geoff Laycock, says the next upgrade will allow artists to upload their own artworks and to interact with each other via the site. His ambition is for it to become a central destination for anybody involved in or interested in contemporary art, particularly younger artists and gallery owners, who will be able to use A Database's technology to build their own mini-sites within it. Most importantly, though, it is not a selling site. Any commercial dealings have to be done through the galleries or the artists themselves. Eventually, though Laycock didn't use these terms to describe it, it could develop into a Facebook for the global art community.
· For more about John Deakin, see Robin Muir's two books: John Deakin Photographs and A Maverick Eye: The Street Photography of John Deakin, both published by Thames & Hudson. A Hundred Photographs: A Collection by Bruce Bernard, is published by Phaidon. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/feb/18/pamela-bruntons-secret-ingredient-pumpkin-seeds | Food | 2024-02-18T13:00:44.000Z | Holly O'Neill | Pamela Brunton’s secret ingredient: pumpkin seeds | Pumpkin seeds are delicious and versatile. You can grind them down into “nut” meal. We make a pumpkin-seed frangipane tart, by grinding them down – do this, then find a recipe that uses nut meal and substitute.
In the restaurant, we make pumpkin-seed milk as you would make nut milk: soaking the seeds, then blending and squeezing through a cloth. We use it to finish dressings and sauces for raw fish or salads and vegetables, or as you might any dairy milk. We make pumpkin-seed miso in the restaurant, and a really nice pumpkin-seed pastry that is nutty and delicious.
At home, I always have a jar of lightly toasted pumpkin seeds in the cupboard; they go on everything from my porridge to fruit salads to savoury salads. They’re great for texture and, because they’re quite fatty, they give a bit of body and presence.
You can make a really nice dip as well: soak them in an equal quantity of water overnight, then if you have a really powerful blender, blend them with the water, as if you were making nut milk but don’t strain it. Then you want to season with salt and a bit of acidity – we would add pumpkin-seed miso to it, because we have it, but you could also stir in white miso that you buy in the shop. It’s vegan, dairy free, low environmental impact – what’s not to like?
To get UK-grown pumpkin seeds, you can try Hodmedods or Frinton Farms. Generally, you’ll see there are dark green flat ones and then a paler, more rounded one; apparently the paler green ones have been heat treated. The darker ones, you can pop. Toss them in a pan over a medium heat with the tiniest amount of oil – just enough to coat the pan – then cover and keep moving the pan. They’ll pop – they don’t turn inside out and explode like popcorn does, but they puff open. That is probably the most delicious incarnation of a pumpkin seed.
Pamela Brunton is chef-owner of Inver, Strathlachlan | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/29/recovery-in-global-trade-hit-by-covid-outbreaks-in-east-asia | Business | 2021-08-29T18:33:20.000Z | Phillip Inman | Recovery in global trade hit by Covid outbreaks in east Asia | A recovery in global trade during the summer is beginning to wane, according to some early warning signs pointing to the negative effects of widespread Covid-19 outbreaks in the manufacturing centres of east Asia.
A dramatic decline in exports from Taiwan, which makes many of the computer chips used in cars and mobile phones, has combined with temporary port closures and lockdowns in Australia, China and Japan to cut the level of global trade.
The signs of a slowdown sparked a reaction at the weekend from a key member of the oil cartel Opec, who said plans for an expansion of oil output may need to be scrapped.
Kuwait’s oil minister, Mohammad Abdulatif al-Fares, said the 400,000 barrel-per-day increase in oil output agreed by Opec and its allies, a grouping known as Opec+, at previous meetings this year to match rising demand might be reconsidered at its next gathering later this week.
The minister told Reuters that while the economies of east Asian countries and China continued to be affected by outbreaks of the Delta variant, “caution must be exercised”.
The cost of a barrel of Brent crude oil jumped by 11% last week to $72.70 a barrel in response to the concerns of cutbacks in supply by Opec and energy firms shutting US production in the Gulf of Mexico as Hurricane Ida bore down.
Edward Moya, a senior market analyst at OANDA, said: “Energy traders are pushing crude prices higher in anticipation of disruptions in output in the Gulf of Mexico and on growing expectations Opec+ might resist raising output given the recent Delta variant impact over crude demand.”
Economists at Llewellyn Consulting said the outlook for Taiwanese export orders, looking three months ahead, had fallen from 70% year-on-year growth in 2020 to just 20%.
After an 18-month backlog, the fall in export orders was likely to restrict the capacity of carmakers and other manufacturers over the coming months. Some car firms have warned customers that they face a wait of more than six months before some models are available again for sale.
“World trade continues to be disrupted by port closures, most recently at Ningbo – China’s third largest port – which have also contributed to the enormous increase in shipping container costs this year that result from many containers being stranded in places other than where they are needed,” said the independent consultancy.
“Another drag on world trade has been the persistent shortage of semiconductor chips, which are nowadays a crucial input into motor vehicle manufacturing. Given Taiwan’s pivotal role in the global semiconductor industry, the decline in its export orders since February is a harbinger of some further slowing in world trade growth.”
Australia, which exports much of the world’s iron ore, is expected to narrowly avoid a second recession in two years when it reports national income (GDP) figures later this week. Some analysts expect the latest quarter to show it grew by as little as 0.1%, while others believe the country, where many cities and regions have entered fresh lockdowns, might see its GDP go into reverse.
Recent business surveys in the UK, Europe and the US have shown that a rapid expansion across the developed world following the lifting of restrictions in the spring has begun to peter out.
On Friday, the head of the US central bank, Jerome Powell, said the impact of shortages on prices was likely to be limited and not last beyond the end of the year.
However, some analysts have warned that low vaccination rates in some countries and the spread of the Delta variant will hinder the growth in exports well into 2022. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/jun/09/best-job-in-the-world-amy-lennox-knockout-star-cabaret | Stage | 2022-06-09T05:00:10.000Z | Tshepo Mokoena | ‘I feel like I’ve got the best job in the world!’ – Amy Lennox, the knockout star of Cabaret | Let’s get one thing straight: although Amy Lennox sings and is Scottish, she is not related to Annie Lennox. She is, however, used to people making the assumption. She laughs, remembering a breakfast radio appearance from 2016 on which the host kept referring to Annie, thinking it was her mum.
“I was half-asleep,” she says. “Then the penny dropped and – on live radio – I said: ‘Oh my God! You think my mum’s Annie Lennox.’ And the producers behind the glass went – she throws a hand up over her mouth and opens her eyes wide. “Everyone was flapping. I thought, ‘I’m going to let you sit on this. You deserve it.’” She laughs again. Sure, both Lennoxes are from Aberdeen. But Amy’s journey – from belting out Christina Aguilera and Whitney Houston songs in her bedroom to the West End – had nothing to do with nepotism.
There is one legacy she has to live up to, though: she is following Jessie Buckley’s Olivier-winning turn as Cabaret showgirl Sally Bowles in Rebecca Frecknall’s dynamic staging of the classic 1960s musical. Buckley and her Emcee, played by Eddie Redmayne, stepped aside in March for Lennox and Fra Fee, who is from Northern Ireland. Lennox wouldn’t normally step into a role first cast for another actor. “I don’t want to be put in a stifling position where I’m being told, ‘Stand here, do it like this’ – rather than originating a musical. It’s not how I work. It doesn’t get the best of anyone. I was always adamant about that.” A breath. “And then I thought, ‘Well, this does feel different.’”
Sleepwalking towards horror … Lennox as Bowles with Fra Fee’s Emcee. Photograph: Marc Brenner
Lennox is outspoken, chatty, fond of a giggle and sharing an opinion. We’re sitting in the bowels of London’s Playhouse theatre, to talk about how Frecknall (“Frecks” to Lennox) managed to persuade the star to take a recasting and propel her further into the spotlight. Lennox may not yet be a big name. But for the past 14 years she’s been in musicals, plays and on TV (she bowed out of Holby City earlier this year). Her cheeky, lascivious Bowles is like a jolt of electricity, and no doubt a sign of great things to come. How daunting was it to take over from Buckley? “Do you know what? I didn’t really have much time to think about it.” Her casting was confirmed, she says, and then “we started the following week. It was so fast.”
Lennox and Fee previously shared a stage in Belfast for 2015’s The Last Five Years, a two-hander musical charting the breakdown of a relationship. Cabaret was a completely different experience, given that Bowles and the Emcee barely interact. “We hardly saw each other in the rehearsal period,” she says. “It was very, very odd. I’d bump into Fra – and we were like passing ships. Bumping into him in Pret, I’d be like, ‘How was your week?’”
They’re both leads, though. It’s just that each speaks to a particular aspect of the story’s descent towards antisemitism and authoritarianism. Fra’s Emcee lulls you into a false sense of security, before slapping you across the face – look, Nazis! – and unravelling the freewheeling, booze-soaked world you’d come to understand. Lennox’s Bowles, meanwhile, blows through like a hurricane. She’s preening and cooing one moment, dressed in pink frou-frou taffeta for Don’t Tell Mama, then roaring through the title song the next, dishevelled and looking swamped in a man’s suit.
Off stage, I can see hints of Bowles’s frenetic drive in Lennox: the way she cracks herself up, gushes about her colleagues, and describes the breathlessness of her part. At the end of every performance, she says, “I just get spat out. It’s like a wipeout from flumes. Just” – she makes the sound of something shooting from a tube – “out! You’re done. I’m not having to conjure it because the show itself takes me there. It’s relentless.”
Lennox has built her stamina up over years, after falling in love with musicals at the age of 11. She remembers watching a TV documentary. “Proper stagey kids from London,” she says. They were maybe auditioning for Annie (she makes a retching sound). “And I thought, ‘Oh, what’s this?’” She wasn’t a child with pushy stage parents, though. Her mum was a solicitor, her dad the head of IT and communications for an oil firm. She had rebelled against ballet (mum’s idea) and singing (dad’s) before finding her way to musicals.
Olivier nomination … Lennox in rehearsal for Kinky Boots in 2015. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
“You don’t get that local opportunity that kids down in the south-east of England take for granted – because they’re so close to this hub that we’re in now.” She motions to the West End above our heads. “I didn’t have any of that.” In Aberdeen, it all felt “so far away that you don’t really have links”. Envy propelled her, though. After seeing those children on TV, and then failing an audition for the school musical, she joined a local am-dram group and was soon honing her acting and singing.
“I auditioned for the National Youth Music Theatre loads of times. I got recalled. Never got in. My poor dad would fly with me down to London. And I never got in. It was always because I would get to a song and panic.” Over time, she learned to take charge of her voice, landing Liesl in The Sound of Music at the London Palladium right out of drama school in Guildford. She’s since received an Olivier nomination for her Lauren in 2015’s Kinky Boots, plus stage credits in 9 to 5 The Musical, Lazarus, Legally Blonde and others.
A prop newspaper we use has the headline: ‘Russian invasion imminent’
When she started out, Lennox was often told she wasn’t playing roles “big enough”, as if only an exaggerated performance would resonate. But in one of her quieter moments in Cabaret, her Bowles expresses an apathy about her situation – sleepwalking into horror – that strikes a brutal chord today. “Politics,” her Sally asks, “what’s that to do with me?” “It’s bonkers. I don’t think [Cabaret’s writers John Kander and Fred Ebb] ever intended for it to feel so valid now. We like to think, as human beings in this society, we’re constantly moving forward, striving for excellence and this and that. But we’re not! If anything, we’re just driving ourselves towards absolute disaster and we all know it,” Lennox says.
She alludes to everything from deluded strongmen to the war in Ukraine, from reproductive rights for women to the general acceptance of a future more bleak than the recent past. “It’s like Groundhog Day – and there are quite a few moments in the show that do that,” she says. “There was a prop newspaper we were using and it said, ‘Russian invasion imminent’. And you go: ‘Oh God. Oh God. What the hell’s going on?’ We’ve got another Hitler over there. Some man that’s ” She stops herself. “I’d be interested to know how much more of an edge this show has because of what’s going on in Ukraine and in Russia. It’s just chilling. Absolutely chilling.”
Lennox as Elly in Lazarus by David Bowie and Enda Walsh, directed by Ivo van Hove, in 2016. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
Beyond the show’s depiction of fascism’s creeping rise, we discuss theatre’s post-lockdown stumble back into the light. Shortly before we speak, some of the cast of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s high-budget Cinderella found out that their jobs were to be cut short, some via social media. “I think that’s deplorable,” says Lennox. “We’ve all been pushed to our limits [by the pandemic]. I don’t know the ins and outs of what happened. But didn’t someone consider, for a moment, the repercussions of the way it was dealt with?” (The Really Useful Group said it had made “every effort” to ensure cast members were notified of the the closure.)
David Bowie's Lazarus musical crash-lands in London – in pictures
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She takes a breath, emerging sunnier. “It’s a crazy old thankless existence for so many people. I’m grateful. I feel like I’ve got the best job in the West End. Maybe even the world.” She laughs again. Bowles has taken over her life for the past couple of months – so much so that, on some days, Lennox has to refrain from speaking to preserve her voice, which makes for silent commutes back to Ramsgate from London with her husband, actor Tom Andrew Hargreaves.
There’s now a sign on her dressing room door, made by her colleagues after she’d been really tired at the start of her run. “You know the line when I’ve got my gin and I say, ‘I’m just not speaking today.’” She laughs. “I’ve got an ‘I’m just not speaking today’ sign on my door. I’ve only done that once. I’ve only not spoken once.” She laughs again. “It’s very hard. I’m not very good at it.”
Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club is booking at the Playhouse theatre, London, until 19 November. | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2008/jan/27/foodanddrink1 | Food | 2008-01-27T13:46:38.000Z | John Briffa | What's in Bryan Adams's shopping basket? | I became a vegan for my health 20 years ago. I abide by the rule that if it looks like it's going to clog your system, it probably will. People don't understand about me being vegan, but I'm not a preacher, I simply have my view on what works for me. It would be wonderful to convince people without having to say much. For example, I'm very slim due to my diet. When I see men and women my age with their guts hanging over their trousers I wish someone was able to explain the benefits of diet, and that they are likely to be toxic and blocked from the things they've eaten.
I start my day with fruit juice and a mixed fruit salad. Dinner is salads or, if I'm not on a raw-food diet, then pasta or something veggie that's cooked. If I'm in the studio then the food tends to be garbage for the most part, unless you're lucky enough to have it catered in. I have been known to bring avocados to the set with lemons. When I lived in France we got a local fella to come and prepare vegetarian food which was the best - he still works for us on tour today. We bring a juicer, so my rider is just fruit and veggies and some nuts and dried fruits. An army doesn't march on an empty stomach.
It can still be hard to get vegetarian food in restaurants. I ate at the Ivy recently and was given a tomato sauce with beans that had pork in it. This was after I had asked the waiter if the soup contained chicken stock. People have tried to serve me food that has meat in it dozens of times, but I stick to salads if I see that coming. There have been restaurants that have insisted their soups are vegetarian, when I can smell the meat stock. When I'm travelling, whether you can find vegetarian or vegan food depends on where you are: in some places it's incredibly easy, India being the easiest, Spain the hardest. They've never heard of vegetarians there.
I don't really drink alcohol unless it's my birthday, when I've resorted to having a tequlia shot or someone has opened a great bottle of wine. I really like virgin mojitos. When I come offstage, I'll drink green or herbal tea. My favourite salads are raw artichoke hearts with chives, lemon and olive oil; rocket salads with cherry tomatoes and thinly sliced fennel; and grated raw broccoli with a light dressing of soy sauce, lemon and olive oil.
I live by myself in London. I love to cook and entertain friends and family. My signature dishes are definitely salads but I do tend to get good ideas from restaurants - the Lebanese Maroush in London or Quintessence in New York where they serve raw, organic vegan food. I ate recently in New Orleans and the chef kept sending things over we hadn't ordered. That's a kind of creativity I could never do so spontaneously - I'd need a cookery book.
Fennel
Another example of the unprocessed foods that dominate Bryan's diet. I believe the merits of veganism are somewhat overstated. But, generally, Bryan's diet is very healthy.
Avocado
Avocados are rich in monounsaturated fat, which has a variety of heart-healthy properties. They also offer up a decent portion of protein, especially for a fruit, which helps sate the appetite.
Pasta
The main constituent of pasta is refined flour, a nutritional non-starter. And let's not forget that flour and water make glue - hardly ideal for someone keen not to clog his system.
Dried fruit and nuts
Nuts will provide protein which can be deficient in the vegan diet. They are also rich in monounsaturated fat and other nutrients beneficial to the cardiovascular system. Dried fruit is also relatively healthy - not just for vegan rock stars, but other mortals too.
Raw artichoke hearts
Artichoke, like green tea, is rich in polyphenols - something that we hope might translate into some real benefits for Bryan's long-term health.
Green tea
Green tea is rich in polyphenols that have been linked with a range of potential benefits for health including relative protection from cancer and a metabolism-boosting effect.
Tequila
If Bryan was downing shedloads of drink on a daily basis there might be something to say here. However, seeing as he is nearly teetotal, I'm going to suggest he enjoys his occasional tipple.
· Bryan Adams is a supporter of PETA, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/jun/29/from-portishead-to-scarface-vince-staples-on-his-favourite-songwriters | Music | 2017-06-29T16:56:00.000Z | Dorian Lynskey | From Portishead to Scarface: Vince Staples on his favourite songwriters | “You can’t please everybody,” says Vince Staples. “Luckily, I’m not the sort of person who has ever cared about pleasing anybody. I like it when people don’t like my music. It’s funny.”
Vince Staples: 'I started gangbanging because I wanted to kill people’
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The razor-sharp, 23-year-old Californian rapper delights in swerving away from expectations. His audacious second album, Big Fish Theory, features Damon Albarn and Justin Vernon alongside A$AP Rocky and Kendrick Lamar, with electronic beats from producers such as Sophie and Jimmy Edgar, and he doesn’t care if some of his old fans are disappointed that he is not rapping about gangs any more. “Somebody told me once: ‘We want that G shit back.’ Oh, you don’t want to do that with your life, but you want to listen to it?” He shakes his head. “People are fucking crazy.”
Given his constant sonic subversion, we asked Staples to tell us about his 10 favourite songwriters – and got a predictably off-beam list, as he digressed into memories of his childhood at a Christian school in Compton; his opinions about art, influence, fame, fandom and stereotyping; and why simplicity is underrated.
Portishead
“Sometimes music gives you a kneejerk reaction. You hear it and it makes you feel a certain way. That was one of those things; I hadn’t heard anything like it. I feel like the songwriting was very honest and also had a lot of depth. But music was never something I thought long about when I was a kid. It was just in the background of my life. My parents listened to gospel music and that wasn’t my thing.”
Sam Cooke
“My mom liked that shit. I like A Change Is Gonna Come, I like Chain Gang. Frankie Lymon, too. Frankie Lymon’s tone of voice reminds me of Young Thug.”
André 3000
“The only rap album my family had was Outkast’s Stankonia. André is a great songwriter. He’s the best. It’s a unique writing style. It’s not a duplicate of anything; it’s the way he structures his sentences and delivery. It’s not directed by the punchline, there’s no crescendo – it’s just like: this is what happened. It’s very conversational, kind of like SE Hinton when she writes a book. Everything is a conversation. It never feels impersonal. Do I wish he did more? No, not at all. If he wants to be an artist, then that’s his art – take it or go home. No one’s going to say it out loud, but most people want product. It’s a very selfish thing to be a fan because artists create the narrative for your life; it’s only natural for you to want more because you hold it so dear. But I want him to do whatever he wants to do.”
Depeche Mode
“When I was a kid I used to watch I Love the 80s on VH1 all the time with my mom. I like 80s pop music such as Depeche Mode, Erasure, Duran Duran. People Are People is my favourite. It sounds like a video game. I liked that wonky, quirky sound – I would have been hot in the 80s. Back to the Future was my favourite movie, and I played PlayStation all day so I didn’t want to hear church drums. I still listen to crazy shit. That’s why people think my beats are trash, because they’re wonky. Based on the general consensus of how people want to hear hip-hop music, I fully understand that. It’s like if you go to a vegan restaurant and a motherfucker throws a steak on your plate. It doesn’t mean the steak’s bad, it just means you should probably take it elsewhere. I’m for sure a steak-at-the-vegan-restaurant type of person.”
Nena
“99 Luftballons is one of my favourite songs ever. Not the English version – I hate the English version. That’s the only song I’ve ever heard by her, that’s all I need. I like listening to the same song all day. The other day I was listening to White Lines by Grandmaster Flash for, like, 45 minutes. If you’re ever in my car, you’ll want to go home.”
Scarface
“I remember hearing On My Block for the first time on the music video channel in my house. I never forgot it. I had to wait a month for it to come back on. It was so descriptive that you can’t miss a detail. The voice is so unique and the delivery is so matter-of-fact. It kind of reminds me of Sam Cooke, in the sense that every word has its own spacing and, based on the spacing and the pace, it’s almost impossible to miss out on what he’s trying to convey if you have the patience to digest it. I knew Scarface used to be with the Geto Boys. You know things like that because, being black, this is our culture. We’ve got the point where hip-hop culture is dominant, whether you want to admit it or not. Nobody cares about pop music or rock music on the scale that they care about hip-hop. That’s why Katy Perry brings Migos with her. Taylor Swift calls Kendrick Lamar; he doesn’t call her.”
Kanye West
“I heard The College Dropout in sixth grade. He’s an artist, where there’s no trajectory, and you can make whatever you want. We call musicians artists, but we don’t treat them like they are, because you can’t tell an artist what to do. Imagine walking into a museum and telling Andy Warhol, Basquiat, Robert Longo, Jeff Koons: ‘You should have done this different. I would have used red paint.’ Do you know how crazy they would look at you? I would never in a million years question someone’s craft. I appreciate it for what it is.”
Amy Winehouse
“I don’t know a weak Amy Winehouse moment. She was always creatively strong. Look at Stronger Than Me, Fuck Me Pumps, anything from Frank. It’s always been there. She was honest, and honesty is important. She showed the evil within people, especially within fans. Fans are the worst people ever sometimes. Just look at the way she put her life on display and asked for help from people that supposedly cared about her and you see what they did to her. They killed her. Literally. I hope everybody who booed her at a concert or called her a crackhead feels like shit for the rest of their life. She probably just needed a hug.”
Lil Boosie
“I don’t like the concept of lyricists. We use that to separate and put down: you’re a lyricist and you’re not. If Little Richard says ‘Awopbopaloobop alopbamboom’, is he a lyricist? If a rapper said that they’d be like: “You’re not saying words. That’s not lyricism.’ It’s a separation point, like the word ‘conscious’. You take a select few and put them above everyone else and it ultimately demeans the whole genre. You say: ‘Oh, they’re different. They’re the good version of whatever this is.’ I’m not about that. You can listen to Lil Boosie and learn about the prison-industrial complex, but he’s not a ‘lyricist’, so most people wouldn’t look for that.”
Daft Punk
“Around the World is one of the best-written songs ever. You got to understand how talented you have to be to make a song and say, ‘Damn, what should we say on this? We should say: around the world, around the world.’ Nobody’s turning that off. Nobody’s ever like: ‘Man, when are they going to stop saying it?’ That’s lyricism.”
Big Fish Theory is out now on Def Jam | Full |
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2012/may/09/rochdale-gang-jailed-sexually-exploiting | UK news | 2012-05-09T17:14:03.000Z | Helen Carter | Rochdale gang jailed for total of 77 years for sexually exploiting young girls | Nine men have received heavy jail sentences at Liverpool crown court for their part in a child sexual exploitation gang that groomed young vulnerable girls in Rochdale.
The trial, which ended on Tuesday, heard the five victims – the youngest was 13 when the abuse began – were plied with food, alcohol, drugs and gifts so they could be passed around a group of men for sex.
The nine defendants were jailed for a total of 77 years, with the ringleader, a 59-year-old man from Oldham, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, receiving a 19-year term after being convicted of two rapes, aiding and abetting rape, sexual assault and trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation.
Kabeer Hassan, 25, of Oldham, was jailed for nine years for rape and three years, concurrently, for conspiracy. Hamid Safi, 22, an illegal immigrant of no fixed address, was jailed for four years for conspiracy and one year, concurrently, for trafficking.
The other men all came from Rochdale. Abdul Qayyum, 44, was jailed for five years for conspiracy. Mohammed Amin, 45, was sentenced to five years for conspiracy and 12 months, concurrently, for sexual assault. Adil Khan, 42, was given eight years for conspiracy and eight years, concurrently, for trafficking for sexual exploitation. Mohammed Sajid, 35, was sentenced to 12 years for rape, six years for conspiracy, one year for trafficking and six years, concurrently, for sexual activity with a child. Abdul Rauf, 43, a married father-of-five, was jailed for six years for conspiracy and six years, concurrently, for trafficking for sexual exploitation. Abdul Aziz, 41, a taxi driver, was sentenced to nine years for conspiracy and nine years, concurrently, for trafficking for sexual exploitation.
Before the sentencing, Martin Narey, former Barnardo's chief executive and government adviser on adoption, said in northern cities there is a "very significant over-representation of Asian men, Pakistani men, in these terrible crimes", although he added child abuse in general is perpetrated mostly by white men.
"For this particular sort of crime, the street grooming – the trafficking of girls in northern towns in Derby, Leeds, Blackpool, Blackburn, Oldham and Rochdale – there's very troubling evidence that Asians are overwhelmingly represented in prosecutions for such offences," he told the BBC Radio 4's Today pProgramme.
"That's not to condemn a whole community; most Asians would absolutely abhor what we've seen in the last few days.
But Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs select committee, said the criminal justice system should not "dance to the tune of the BNP".
"I do not believe it's a race issue. Why do I believe this? The assistant chief constable [of Greater Manchester police] has said so, and so has the deputy children's commissioner. We need to have a proper far-reaching investigation into these crimes.
"There's a lot of questions about how organisations have cared for them. We do need to look into this. … It's quite wrong to stigmatise a whole community."
Greater Manchester police said further arrests could be made following the trial.
Greater Manchester Police said that further arrests could be made following the trial. One man, Mohammed Shazad, 39, from Rochdale. is wanted by police after he absconded while on bail. Its investigation identified a further 42 potential victims of on-street grooming.The force has faced criticism for its handling of the original investigation in 2008, when a 15-year-old girl complained she'd been attacked and groomed. The force has apologised to the victims after the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to pursue charges against the 59-year-old man and Kabeer Hassan, and the matter has been voluntarily referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is supervising Greater Manchester police's inquiry.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre said child exploitation spans all cultures and ethnicities. "These cases do highlight that Asian males have been involved in an organised manner in exploiting young women," a spokesperson said, but some of the cases involve offenders from different backgrounds as well.
Detective Inspector Michael Sanderson, senior investigating officer in the case, said the defendants had never shown the slightest bit of remorse and forced the victims to re-live their horrific ordeals. He vowed the force would "hunt down and prosecute" anyone involved in the sexual exploitation of children. | Full |
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