TOP 100 ENGLAND SITES
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| Britain Moves to Ban Islamic Group Britain said Tuesday it was outlawing Islam4UK, a group that had planned a protest march in a town made famous for honoring British soldiers killed in Afghanistan. nytimes.com |
Pinter, the party and the poker ✒ I have enjoyed the picture of the toweringly ill-tempered Harold Pinter that emerges from his widow's diaries. The late Alan Coren once told me this story: he had made a joke, somewhat disobliging, about Lady Antonia. To my great surprise he also put it in print, later. Then he found himself at a dinner party where Pinter was a guest. Pinter marched up to him and said: "I've got a bone to pick with you. What you said about my wife was inexcusable." Coren said he was sorry, but it had been just a joke. Pinter did not accept his apology. Instead he marched over to the fireplace and picked up a poker. Things were, as we say now, about to kick off. So Alan, an ultra-quick thinker, said: "Look, I've said I'm sorry. If you hit me, I'll hit you back, and then we'll be two north London Jewish boys rolling around on the carpet, and it will be in every gossip column tomorrow."Pinter scowled, but put down the poker, and didn't address another word to him throughout the evening.✒There was some smug looking bloke from the Met Office on the TV news the other day saying how satisfying it was to predict bad weather and then find you were right. He seemed surprised that this should be the case, and we've all noticed forecasts are rarely reliable for more than 24 hours and often not that. The five-day forecasts might as well be for the surface of Mars.It's part of the universal "being always right" culture. They can never say: "Look, there are far too many variables to predict beyond tomorrow. This warm front from the Atlantic might prevail, or it could be the cold front from eastern Europe. How the hell are we supposed to know?"Maybe they get it from politicians. Gordon Brown announces that we will lead the world out of recession, and instead we're last out. Instead of saying "I dunno" he has to announce something as irrevertible fact, then find a hundred ways of explaining it away without admitting he was wrong.✒Students who don't see why they should do their own work: Colin Hayes writes from Notts where he lectures in a further education college. He'd given one group a simple study task along with suggestions of books, web addresses etc, to find information. One young woman's work seemed familiar. "Sure enough, she'd done a cut-and-paste job on a website – my website! "When challenged, she was not even embarrassed. She refused to write an original piece as asked, saying she had already done it. I gave her an 'unattained' which she then appealed!"✒One of my favourite annual bashes is at Defra, the food and agriculture department. When we arrived there was a notice: "State of alert: Heightened" which I took to mean that potato blight might have been spotted in Shropshire. But the food! We are so lucky in this country, and don't seem to know it. Creamy little crab cakes, tangy Dorset mackerel, welsh rarebit made with rich and bubbly stilton, perfect tender roast beef on crisp baby yorkshire puds, with a dob of deceptive horseradish that only bites your palate after you've eaten the morsel. And English wine improves every year.✒Last year was the 50th anniversary of my favourite film, Some Like It Hot, and I was lucky enough to get two celebratory books about it for Christmas. Tony Curtis's memoir, subtitled Me, Marilyn and the Movie, is at times alarmingly candid. There are so many myths around the making of the film that it's fascinating to get a first-hand account – even if, after half a century, his memory seems startlingly precise. Most of the stories centre on Monroe being hopelessly late or forgetting a single sentence 80 times so needing 81 takes, and around the director Billy Wilder's endless patience. He knew that when she did get it right, the shot would be perfect, better than any other actress could have done, and he was right.The most famous story concerns Wilder raging at Curtis for one flub after she's failed several dozen takes. It wasn't quite like that. "Billy took me and Jack [Lemmon] aside. 'Listen guys,' said Billy. 'You'd better get it right from the first take … because the first time she gets it right, that's the one I'm printing, and I don't care if you've got a finger up some orifice.' "✒The campaign against product placement – allowing companies to pay to have their products shown in TV dramas – is growing. Andy Burnham, the previous culture secretary, said: "There are some lines we should not cross – one of which is that you can buy the space between programmes on commercial channels, but not the space within them." The Voice of the Listener & Viewer pressure group is worried that, for example, companies will use the trick to sell junk food to children. They also point out that while ITV is desperately short of money, product placement won't bring extra revenue; most will come off existing ads and sponsorship.And it could be abused. What if one tea company wants a rival's pack shown in the home of an unsympathetic character? Might one brewery pay to have another's lager drunk by, say, Wayne and Waynetta Slob? That's not fanciful, as the system is open to corruption. This is a small but important campaign.Simon Hoggartguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Wildlife photographer of the year stripped of his award Judges say they are convinced José Luis Rodriguez staged prizewinning picture of wolfThe Natural History Museum's wildlife photographer of the year has been stripped of his £10,000 prize, after judges found he was likely to have hired a tame Iberian wolf to stage the image of a species seen rarely in the wild.The judges of the award, which attracted more than 43,000 entries from 94 countries, said they were convinced José Luis Rodriguez hired the wolf called Ossian from a Madrid wildlife park, contradicting his claim the image was taken in the wild after months of patient tracking of the dwindling species.Competition rules prohibit the use of animal models and this morning organisers took down Rodriguez's image from the exhibition at the museum in London, banned him from entering the contest again and announced they were "saddened" by the disqualification. Apparently without irony, he had titled his image The Storybook Wolf, but headline writers have since dubbed it the "loan wolf".Rodriguez could not be contacted, but the competition organisers said he continued to strongly deny the wolf was tame."I remember thinking, my God, this really is a wild wolf, what an achievement," said Mark Carwardine, chairman of the judging panel. "I don't understand the mentality at all. People feel very disappointed with the photographer."The organisers said they were planning to erect a notice at the Natural History Museum explaining to visitors their belief that the photo was staged, although it is too late to remove the image from the thousands of books that have been published by BBC Worldwide.The controversy is thought to be the first time the competition's expert judging panel have allowed an animal model to win a prize and there was concern the revelation could damage a contest which has a reputation as the most prestigious of its kind in the world."The wildlife photographer of the year is the one institution that has pushed us [animal photographers] to be more creative, so it is very sad it has happened to this competition," said Chris Gomersall, a wildlife photographer who was involved in judging."In wildlife photography there are ethical guidelines and there has always been an explicit understanding that if you take pictures of a captive subject, you declare it on your caption."Rodriguez had told the judges he had sketched the shot he wanted to get on paper, but "couldn't quite believe it when he got the shot of his dreams". He said his main fear had been that the wolves "would be too wary".Jim Brandenburg, a judge and a wildlife photographer with 45 years experience of taking pictures of wolves, marvelled at the image of the animal, captured so clearly and apparently hunting a farmer's livestock. He declared it "a masterfully executed moment", but having studied pictures of Ossian and Rodriguez's image, he is now "99.9%" sure it is a tame wolf, according to Carwardine.The organisers were alerted to suspicions about the image by Spanish photographers who recognised the wolf and the location as the Cañada Real wildlife park. Wolf experts also questioned why the wolf would jump the gate when a wild animal was more likely to squeeze between the bars.The judges said they asked Rodriguez for corroboration of his story and if there was anyone who could act as a witness to back him up, but his answers were inadequate.PhotographyWildlife photographer of the yearWildlifeMuseumsBBCRobert Boothguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Unasked questions about the Press Complaints Commission There may be concern about press regulation – but has the Media Standards Trust got to the nub of it?Consider one question. "Where there are signs of public concern, would you expect an independent press self-regulatory body to carry out an investigation into an article infringing the prime minister's privacy by recording a personal telephone call between the prime minister and a third party?" 73% say yes (definitely or probably) to Ipsos-Mori on that.Or consider a slightly amended question: "When Jacqui Janes, the grieving mother of soldier killed in Afghanistan, talks on the phone to Gordon Brown, is she entitled to record that conversation, complain because he can't spell her name correctly, and pass the tape to a newspaper"?I don't know the answer to that, because the pollsters (on contract to the reform-minded Media Standards Trust) didn't ask it. Nor did they exactly round out similar queries about an article "alleging that there are unexplained circumstances over the death of a pop star" or "accusations by a British newspaper that parents of a child were involved in the disappearance of their child".Should the McCanns have gone to the Press Complaints Commission instead of winning £550,000 from the Express group in libel damages? Are the circumstances of Stephen Gately's death wholly encapsulated in that elliptical summary?What are "signs of public concern"? What, indeed, is an "independent press self-regulatory body"? Is such slightly mystic opinion polling germane in campaigns to harass or replace the PCC? Discuss. Preferably after the commission's own governance review is published, so we can see what we're talking about.Press Complaints CommissionNewspapers & magazinesDaily ExpressDaily MailStephen GatelyMadeleine McCannPeter Prestonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
City minister calls time on bank culture • Myners demands a review of banking• Goldman Sachs to cap directors' bonuses at £1mLord Myners, the City minister, has called for an independent review of the investment banking industry and the "greed is good" culture that he says has permeated many areas of society.Barely a year since taxpayers funded a multibillion-pound bailout of the industry, investment banks have bounced into profit and are paying out big bonuses.As executives at Goldman Sachs, the highest profile City player, begin to tell staff of their annual bonus payments tomorrow , Myners calls for a rethink. He warns the industry it cannot continue to rely on taxpayers' "charity"."Investment banking has spread into everything we do in business. Company executives spend more and more time with investment bankers," he writes in the Guardian. "We need to re-examine an economic model that seems to work much better for investment banks than for businesses and workers."He also criticises takeover rules that make it easy for companies to be bought by overseas operators: Cadbury's bitterly contested takeover by the US conglomerate Kraft was announced last week to protests from unions fearing job cuts.Insisting that he wants a vibrant City to contribute to GDP, Myners says his intention is to promote discussion and debate. "I think this is a suitable subject for a major independent review after the election into how investment banking has permeated so many corners of society," he said .He has already called for a review of the fees that investment banks charge for helping companies raise money from shareholders and bond markets, but is now toughening his tone.While there was public anger about the bailouts, Myners said it was "the fundamental unfairness of the rescue that should be the cause of lasting anger". "When recessions hit, many businesses get into trouble. And some businesses fail, taking many jobs with them. Banks, however, were for the most part protected from the rules that applied to everyone else – and protected at great cost to public funds," he said."Any institution that thinks it will always be bailed out when the going gets tough is an inherently dangerous institution. If you never have to face the consequences of bad decisions, you are less likely to be as careful as you should be when making important choices."The big Wall Street banks, which employ thousands in the City, have reported their 2009 figures in recent days. Goldman Sachs is being described as the most profitable firm in Wall Street's history after reporting results last week that showed the banking crisis was a distant memory.But its key London directors, such as Michael Sherwood, will be told formally tomorrow that their bonuses are being capped at £1m because of Alistair Darling's one-off tax on bonuses of more than £25,000. Goldman partners in other parts of the world are not subject to such bonus restrictions and, along with the bank's 32,000 employees, will be paid out of a $16.2bn (£10.1bn) salary and bonus pot. In an effort to win international support for a crackdown on the banking sector, Myners is hosting a G7 summit tomorrowto consider a possible levy on financial transactions that has been promoted by the prime minister.The Downing Street meeting will aim to find a way to "shift the burden of financial sector support from the public to the private sector"."There are several options – among them a global insurance levy, the use of innovative contingent capital instruments already developed in the UK, and a global transactions tax," Myners said.After the historic intervention in the banking sector by Barack Obama last week to stop banks which take consumer deposits from engaging in risky trading activities, ministers are coming under pressure from opposition parties to follow his lead.Myners indicated the government was likely to promote its own idea for "living wills" which banks must create to allow them to be broken up without the need for taxpayer support in the event that they collapse."I don't see anything in the Obama proposals which makes us want to change our line of travel, which is having more capital and living wills," Myners said.BankingPaul MynersExecutive pay and bonusesInvestingGoldman SachsJill Treanorguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |