Paul Hewson for PM
September 3rd, 2010 by Nathan
While Blair was long convinced that Brown would be a poor prime minister, he seems to have no such compunction about recommending Bono for a similar role. The U2 frontman, Blair writes (on page 555), "could have been a president or prime minister standing on his head. He had an absolutely natural gift for politicking, was great with people, very smart and an inspirational speaker... motivated by an abundant desire to keep on improving, never really content or relaxed. I knew he would work with George [W Bush] well, and with none of the prissy disdain of most of his ilk". Bono's nationality (not to say his tax arrangements) would preclude him from leading a British political party. One assumes he would also have to revert to his real name, Paul Hewson, to be taken seriously in high office. But familiarity with the world of finance would surely qualify him for leadership in Ireland: his investment fund, Elevation Partners, has been described as "arguably the worst run institutional fund of any size in the United States".
* A Prime Minister's musical taste can be a controversial business. Remember the uproar when David Cameron professed his love for the songwriting of such leftish heroes as Paul Weller and Billy Bragg? And what about this, from page 91 of Tony Blair's memoir: "Back in the late 1980s," the great man writes, "there was a group of musicians called Red Wedge, fronted by people like Paul Weller and Billy Bragg [them again], who came out and campaigned for us. It was great. But I remember saying after one of their gigs... 'We need to reach the people listening to Duran Duran and Madonna.'" The comment, he admits, "went down like a cup of sick." Still, it certainly explains a lot.
* Blair might have made himself eternally popular in the North-east, had one particular coup come off. At an IOC drinks party during the Olympic bid in Singapore in 2005, the then-PM met Real Madrid's all-time top goalscorer, Raul, and "tried, unsuccessfully, to persuade him of the merits of moving to Newcastle over Real" (page 550.) A somewhat bigger name than Ricky Van Wolfswinkel – and easier to pronounce.
* To David Miliband, the man Blair not-so-secretly supports for the Labour leadership. Yesterday, Miliband (D) received the backing of the Mirror and, crucially, of Sir Patrick Stewart OBE. The actor says he was first taken with the former Foreign Sec when he saw him give a speech not about policy, but about poetry: working-class wordsmith John Clare, to be precise. It was a short speech, which Stewart appreciated. "I'm never sure of the effect the celebrity thing has," Blair writes (page 333). "They add some glamour and excitement to what can often be a dreary business. What they can't do, of course, is substitute for the politics." Too true.
* On the subject of unpopular ex-bosses making comebacks, the Edinburgh architectural firm that gave Sir Fred "the Shred" Goodwin a top job with a six-figure salary last year has, reports The Scotsman , "been hit by a series of high-profile departures among its senior staff". RMJM, the world's fifth-largest architectural business, has lost four key employees since Goodwin's appointment by his old chum Sir Fraser Morrison, the company's former chairman. RMJM, however, insists the exodus has nothing to do with Goodwin, who was presumably hired for his Bono-like financial expertise: the firm has debts of more than £50m.
* From Crispin Mount, my erstwhile Cotswold correspondent, recycling cynic and amateur Tory-baiter: "We've all been receiving missives from Cotswold District Council about our great recycling rate (60 per cent) and how it's all down to us sifting everything into a Kafka-inspired fortnightly bin game," Crispin informs me. "The truth is rather less impressive... The high recycling rate is down to the [Conservative] CDC council leader, who owns Vale Press Ltd, which just happens to be responsible for producing more than 1,250,000 election leaflets for the Tory party in recent months – most of which [allegedly, Crispin, allegedly!] ended up in the recycling bin!"
drive from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in diary | No Comments »
Trouble in paradise
September 2nd, 2010 by Nathan
There are some things that you can never predict on holiday. After spending years as a repatriation doctor – at the same time as practising medicine in London – and travelling around the world aboard a luxury cruise liner, I've seen countless holidays ruined by poor health. Drugs, drink, sun and sea- sickness: they all have their perils. You might get a heart attack, or be involved in some terrible accident. But, even if you can't prevent those things from happening, there are certain things you can do to prepare. Simple things that can be accomplished with a little planning and a little thought, but which might just make all the difference.
Get your insurance in order
Never travel without insurance. This is the thing I always hark on about. I've seen heartbreaking cases where people clock up enormous bills and don't have the means to pay them. If there's an excuse for your insurance company not to pay out, they'll use it. So make sure you don't have any undeclared conditions and that your insurance company is a good one. Also, never underestimate the importance of a European Health Card. If you're travelling in the Europe Union, get a European Health Card. It's free and means you can get your healthcare free at the point of delivery. If you're going outside the European Union, make sure you have some way of paying for healthcare. It's very easy to assume that it will be free when you are in this country – but in fact there is usually a lot of paperwork to be done first.
You also need to be sure, in case of emergency, that your vital information is accessible. Carry important documentation – your insurance details, your travel papers, your GP's information – somewhere prominent. If you are travelling with someone else, give them a photocopy. That way if you are pickpocketed, or fall unconscious someone has a spare. The term "ICE" – in case of emergency – is increasingly recognised, so put it in your mobile phone.
Beware foreign roads
Road accidents are one of the biggest causes of claims. People think they can go out to Greece having never ridden a moped in their life before, put on a pair of shorts, and go out on a dirt road with no helmet. The same is true of hiring a car. You need to remember that it's a strange vehicle that you have never driven before, and that, in driving on the left-hand side of the road, Britain is the exception, not the rule. And it's not just when driving that the roads can be a hazard. Another big problem comes when people crossing don't realise which side of the road drivers use. I've seen it happen: a whole family stepped out in front of a bus, and the little girl got her legs trapped under. All the passengers had to disembark and lift the bus up by hand. Fortunately, she was fine – just very scared. I doubt that family will be going on holiday for a while!
drive from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
Finally Tony Blair reveals his side of the feud with Gordon Brown
September 1st, 2010 by Nathan
Tony Blair has described Gordon Brown as "maddening" and "difficult" when he was his Chancellor but has defended his decision not to sack him or try to stop him becoming Prime Minister.
In his memoirs, A Journey , to be published today, the former Prime Minister finally breaks his silence on the tension between him and Mr Brown which destabilised his 13 years as Labour leader.
In extracts from the book, Mr Blair accuses his successor of abandoning New Labour, arguing that it could have won this year's election if he had stuck with it. He writes: "So was he difficult, at times maddening? Yes. But he was also strong, capable and brilliant, and those were qualities for which I never lost respect."
On Iraq, he admits that many of his supporters see the war as "the stain" on an otherwise impressive record. But he says he cannot satisfy their desire for him to admit it was a "mistake" made in good faith. "Friends opposed to the war think I'm being obstinate; others, less friendly, think I'm being delusional," he admits.
Mr Blair concedes that the aftermath of the war was a "nightmare" and that Britain and the United States did not anticipate the role played by al-Qa'ida and Iran in post-war Iraq. But he insists that leaving Saddam Hussein in power was "a bigger risk to our security than removing him".
He explains why he did not say he had any regrets when he was asked if he had any by the Chilcot Inquiry in January. He describes it as a "headline question": if he had said Yes, the outcome would have been "Blair apologises for war" and "at last he says sorry".
Addressing his critics head-on, he writes: "Do they really suppose I don't care, don't feel, don't regret with every fibre of my being the loss of those who died?" He insists that he thinks about the victims of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan every day of his life.
He says he cannot, by any expression of regret, bring to life those who died, but says he can dedicate a large part of his life to a wider struggle. "I can't say sorry in words; I can only hope to redeem something from the tragedy of death, in the actions of a life, my life, that continues still," he writes.
Until now, the former Prime Minister has kept to himself his views on the man he overtook to become the modernising candidate for Labour leader when John Smith died in 1994 and who bore a grudge against him ever since. He did not want to be accused of undermining Mr Brown after he stood down as Prime Minister in 2007.
drive from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
Portraits of a Lost Russia
August 31st, 2010 by Nathan
By the banks of a trickling stream in what is now western Georgia, a man dressed in a sharp black suit and hat perches on a stone and stares into the distance.
His hands clasp a bamboo walking stick. The photograph looks like it could have been taken yesterday on a standard digital camera. But it was in fact composed 100 years ago using a remarkable technique that captured the world in glorious colour a quarter of a century before Kodak introduced its first mass-market colour film in 1935.
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky, the man sitting by the stream, was one of the earliest pioneers of colour photography. His collection of stills from Russia – taken between 1909 and 1915 – provide us with an astonishingly saturated window into a past that is usually only ever seen through a black and white prism.
For decades, the photographs remained hidden after they were purchased from his grandchildren by the US in 1948 and then stored in the archives of Washington's Library of Congress. But now, a century after Prokudin-Gorsky toured the length and breadth of the Russian Empire, his 1,900 photographs have been brought back to life and digitised for all to see.
They are a remarkable record of a world that was about to change irrevocably as the Russian Revolution led to the downfall of Tsar Nicholas II.
"The wonder of his collection is the beautiful quality of the images and the incredible amount of detail Prokudin-Gorsky was able to capture," said Helena Zinkham, the acting chief of prints and photographs at the Library of Congress. "He wasn't the only one using this technique at the time but he was one of the few that did it very well."
Prokudin-Gorsky, a Russian noble and chemist who trained in St Petersburg, captured colour by using a camera that recorded three different exposures in succession on the same glass-plate negative. Each exposure, which would usually take anything between three and six seconds, was made with a different coloured filter in front of the lens: red, green and blue.
The triple negatives would then be laid on top of one another and placed in a projector that created a single, full-colour composite.
It is thought that Russia's first published colour portrait, taken by Prokudin-Gorsky in 1908, is a picture of Leo Tolstoy dressed in a blue shirt and reclining in a white wicker chair at Yasnaya Polyana, the writer's much-loved home.
The Tsar was so impressed by the photographer's camera that he gave him permission to travel across the empire.
drive from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
Barnardo's is right to sound the alarm over state schools
August 30th, 2010 by Nathan
In most areas of England, academic selection for grammar school was rightly abolished many years ago. It has been replaced, however, by something far more iniquitous: social selection, which excludes large numbers of impoverished children from hundreds of supposedly comprehensive schools. Academic selection at 11 is itself socially biased: middle-class children had a far better chance of a grammar school place, but at least a few raggedy-trousered diamonds got through. Now, the most deprived comprehensive has 16 times as many children from poor homes as the least deprived.
The situation is highlighted today by a report from Barnardo's, the children's charity. It argues that government policies, far from reducing segregation, are likely to accentuate it. This view is supported by a mountain of research. Ministers propose to open more of the academies that Labour pioneered (but with the difference that they will be already successful schools, given academy status as a perk, rather than conversions of struggling schools in deprived areas) and also to allow parents, teachers and voluntary groups to set up "free schools" with support from public funds.
Such schools, outside the local authority system, will control their own admissions, as voluntary-aided (mostly denominational) and foundation schools already do. The educational charity Sutton Trust has shown that, on average, the 42% of schools that control admissions have considerably lower proportions of children from income-deprived homes.
The admissions system is often described as a postcode lottery, allowing affluent parents to buy houses in the catchment areas of the "best" schools. But it is far more complex than that. According to Sutton Trust, in the 100 most socially selective comprehensives, the average proportion of children from income deprived homes is 8.6%, against 20.1% in the schools' localities. The middle classes will go to any lengths to get their children into favoured schools, including moving into temporary accommodation. The schools themselves, though bound by the government's fair admissions code, will do little to discourage parents who play the system. Almost by definition, such parents will be supportive and their children motivated. When a school's survival and its teachers' careers depend on league table positions, incentives to turn a blind eye are almost irresistible.
Segregation matters. Another mountain of research, covering countries across the developed world, shows overall levels of attainment rise where schools get a "balanced intake", with the proportions of children from deprived and affluent homes roughly reflecting their proportions in the general population.
Free schools will almost certainly want to get off on a sound footing by recruiting children from advantaged backgrounds. The Tories' proposals are modelled on Sweden, where free schools were set up by a rightwing government in the 1990s. The result was more social segregation – and a slide down international league tables of pupil attainment. Coalition ministers argue that the Lib Dems' favourite educational policy – the "pupil premium", which will give schools more money for each child recruited from a poor home – will ensure that doesn't happen here. But nobody yet knows how large the premium will be, and whether it will be enough to persuade schools actively to seek less-advantaged children.
Barnardo's is right to sound the alarm. Community schools – those still under local council control – are in danger of being reduced to a "sink" sector, where teachers struggle with low-attaining children from highly deprived backgrounds. The social segregation of England's schools will be complete.
drive from www.guardian.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
Antony Gormley drops 60-tonne load for monumental sculpture
August 28th, 2010 by Nathan
At 26 metres (85ft) tall, it has a good distance on the Angel of the North. And just as its English cousin has been dubbed the Gateshead Flasher by irreverent locals, so has this vast sculpture, poised on a spit of reclaimed land in the central Netherlands, already been christened de poepende man – "the shitting man".
On politer days the Dutch call it de hurkende man (crouching man). Officially, however, Antony Gormley's latest monumental sculpture is known as Exposure, and will be formally unveiled in the Netherlands on 17 September.
The sculpture – whose components were fabricated by a pylon manufacturer in East Lothian and then shipped to the Netherlands for assembly – is the fruit of nearly six years' labour and a catalogue of setbacks, last-minute losses of funding and enormous technical and practical difficulties.
"This sculpture has many heroes; and I am not one of them," says Gormley in his London studio, where he is hobbling around on crutches, his left foot in plaster.
It is an object of mind-bending scale and complexity. It weighs 60 tonnes, contains 5,400 bolts and consists of 2,000 components. If this crouching man stood up, he would be over 100 metres tall; if an adult stands next to it, he or she may just be able to peek over its feet.
Each metal element is of a different length and was hand-cut; the non-orthogonal angles at which they meet are a mathematician's dream – or nightmare.
The site dictated the form of the sculpture. The spit of land (or rather polder, an area of land enclosed by dykes) looks out over an endless landscape of brackish inland sea and the big, lowland sky. Seeing the site from a distance – from the outskirts of the town of Lelystad nearby – it is hard to read the scale and depth of the view. "It is a sublime situation," says Gormley.
"I wanted an object that couldn't be read immediately," he says of Exposure. "The opposite, if you like, of the Angel of the North, which immediately confronts you. Exposure invites you to investigate, to walk to it."
As one approaches it, he explains: "The nature of the object changes. You can see it as a human form in the distance. It becomes more abstract the closer you get to it. And finally it becomes a chaotic frame through which you can look at the sky."
And the pylon association? "I like pylons. They are brilliant structures. They have an economy of means that is absolutely beautiful," says the sculptor. "They are about connectivity; they are the energy lines of the territory."
The first step in the making of the sculpture was for Gormley to cast himself in plaster – an "extremely uncomfortable" hour and a half locked in a crouching position.
The next was to translate the solid form into a geometrical system. Using software developed by Professor Roberto Cipolla of Cambridge University, the form was digitised.
Sean Hanna, of University College London, devised algorithms to help place the elements such that they both described the form of the body and had structural integrity. The idea is that each piece of metal is necessary – take one away, and it would no longer be structurally sound.
drive from www.guardian.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
Now action-man Putin takes aim at a grey whale
August 26th, 2010 by Nathan
Vladimir Putin fired darts from a crossbow at a grey whale off Russia's Far East coast yesterday in the latest in a series of man-versus-nature stunts designed to cultivate the image of a macho leader.
The Russian Prime Minister held his balance in a rubber boat that was tossed around in choppy waters off the Kamchatka Peninsula and eventually hit the whale with a special arrow designed to collect skin samples.
"I hit it at the fourth try!" a beaming Mr Putin shouted to a camera crew. Speaking to reporters later, he replied jovially to a question about whether the endeavour was dangerous.
"Living in general is dangerous," he quipped. Asked why he got involved, he added: "Because I like it. I love the nature."
drive from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
How to make American pies
August 25th, 2010 by Nathan
Would you like anything with that?" This question, asked more often than you probably realise – virtually every time you order some kind of warm beverage, in fact – may well determine whether or not you've noticed them. Soft, sweeter than your average treat, frequently oozing with peanut butter or fudge, they have quietly marked out their glass-boxed territory, waiting to be chosen. Chosen, eaten, and turned into the Next Big Thing. The rise of the American cake has been nothing if not determined. It started with the blueberry muffin (remember when they made their splotchy debut at your local Starbucks, little aliens with chicken pox?), moved on to the cupcake with all its girly Sex and the City allure, briefly took the form of red velvet, before embracing its current, super-sized incarnation: the Amish whoopie pie, a kind of spongy, marshmallowy, buttercreamy sandwich of a cake. Or perhaps it wasn't the muffin at all. Perhaps it all began with the chocolate chip cookie and its many variants, which have proven so popular that recent reports suggest the Jammy Dodger may be in jeopardy. Or maybe it was the cheesecake, or the Krispy Kreme, or the pecan nut pie. Or the granola bar, or the brownie, or the Oreo. Who knows? One thing, however, is clear: the dainty sponge of British tradition has been usurped. In its place is the sticky, gooey, sugar-laden, American treat. "It could be the frontier mentality," says Warren Brown, author of United Cakes of America, when I call to ask why, exactly, American confectionery is so, well, irresistible. Irresistible, and sweet and ... large. "In the US, we make everything bigger, with more sugar heaped in. It's just part of the culture of size equalling value for money." Brown has spent much of his career travelling the country in order to source inspiration for his book, which boasts more than 50 recipes spanning its culinary geography. His favourites are the sweet potato cake and the Tennessee mountain stack cake, neither of which has made the journey across the Atlantic. Yet. drive from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
Clegg backs England's 'unbeatable' bid
August 24th, 2010 by Nathan
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg today highlighted England's "unbeatable bid" as he met the FIFA team inspecting the country's bid to host the 2018 World Cup.
Welcoming the team to Downing Street, Clegg emphasised the coalition Government's commitment to the bid.
Clegg told the delegation: "I believe this is an exceptionally strong, unbeatable bid. We in this Government believe in it, we hope that you will believe in it."
Clegg said the coalition fully backed commitments to the bid made by the previous Labour government.
He told the inspection team: "Our job during your visit is to show you that we already have the infrastructure and facilities to host a fantastic World Cup.
"I'm an MP from a city, Sheffield, which is one of the many cities hoping to host some games during the World Cup and I know from that city that the excitement and the passion which is behind this bid really is very considerable."
He said the competition would have the power to "inspire so many people" across England.
"I think there really are very few nations that can claim the same passion that we have in England for the game of football," he said.
Clegg welcomed the international delegation to No 10 because Prime Minister David Cameron is on holiday.
But Downing Street rejected suggestions that Cameron should have broken off the trip with his family to meet the FIFA team.
"The nature of the visit is technical. The Prime Minister is fully behind the bid and will be involved as the bid progresses," Cameron's official spokesman said.
The FIFA team are being led by Chile Football Federation president Harold Mayne-Nicholls, who said it was a "real honour" to be in No 10 and promised to look objectively at the bid.
"We will work hard with the local organising bid committee to be in the position to write a very fair and complete report to the executive members of FIFA," he said.
"We promise you that we will do our best to have a very objective report."
drive from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »
Sri Lanka thrash India to book their place in final
August 23rd, 2010 by Nathan
Sri Lanka's batsmen capped off an impressive bowling performance to record an emphatic eight-wicket win over India in the fifth one-day international of the triangular series in Dambulla yesterday.
Chasing a mere 104 for victory after Thisara Perera tore through the Indian middle order, returning career-best figures of 5 for 28, the hosts were able to reach the target in little more than 15 overs without much trouble, after some explosive hitting from openers Tillakaratne Dilshan (35) and Mahela Jayawardene (33) established the perfect platform.
With Sri Lanka now through to the final, India and New Zealand are scheduled to play a knockout game on Wednesday to decide who faces them in Saturday's decider.
Dilshan and Jayawardene started the run-chase in boisterous fashion, carting the Indian bowlers for boundaries all around the park, and reached the 50-mark in just six overs.
The pair's 79-run stand finally came to an end in a double-blow, with Dilshan caught at mid-off for 35 when attempting an ambitious slog off Ishant Sharma, while Jayawardene – who smashed six boundaries for his 33 off 35 balls – was well caught at mid-wicket by Ravindra Jadeja off the very next delivery.
Given the modest target, though, skipper Kumar Sangakkara (13 not out) and Upul Tharanga (12 not out) were able to see the hosts through to the end – the former finishing things off with a sublime cover drive that ran away to the boundary.
Earlier in the day, Sri Lankan medium-pacer Nuwan Kulasekara dealt India two early blows, trapping Virender Sehwag leg-before for a run-a-ball 12 and then inducing an edge behind from Dinesh Karthik (nine).
Yuvraj Singh – back in the side after a bout of dengue fever – attempted to take charge of proceedings, smashing Kulasekara for two boundaries to signal his intentions but, at the other end, Rohit Sharma misjudged an inswinger from Angelo Mathews, a plum lbw decision ending his 11-run innings.
Things went completely downhill for India after that. Suresh Raina (eight) and captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni (10) departed within four overs of each other, both caught behind off Perera.
The medium-pacer snapped up two more wickets in the 25th over, Jadeja and Praveen Kumar falling in consecutive deliveries – caught at gully and mid-off respectively.
Lasith Malinga then picked up a brace – Ashish Nehra and Yuvraj his victims – before Perera's fifth wicket came when he clean-bowled Sharma, wrapping up the Indian innings.
drive from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Articles | No Comments »