Sparkles

Mad Women

2009-09-01T09:43:00.002Z

"Behind the smooth-talking, chain-smoking, misogynist advertising executives on “Mad Men” is a group of women writers, a rarity in Hollywood television. Seven of the nine members of the writing team are women. Women directed five of the 13 episodes in the third season."

Biker Jackets

2009-08-30T20:53:00.002Z

Last year, Autograph; M&S, made a sublime biker jacket that I omitted to notice until the sale. It was sold out, & this year's is white... I shall keep searching, I shall have to, because I can't afford any of these. Balenciaga being the star of the show & I swear an exact copy (ok maybe not the leather exactly) of M&S AW08. Sigh.

Great Shot

2009-08-20T14:03:00.001Z

What's It Like To Live With Helen Mirren

2009-08-06T07:40:00.000Z

Mad Men

2009-08-05T16:05:00.005Z

Love the show, love the article, VF rocks again (i'd got a bit fed up with it at one point!).

Oh Me too!

2009-07-28T11:08:00.003Z

Reflections at Dawn

I wish I owned a Dior dress
Made to my order out of satin.
I wish I weighed a little less
And could read Latin.
Had perfect pitch or matching pearls,
A better head for street directions,
And seven daughters, all with curls
And fair complexions.
I wish I'd tan instead of burn.
But most, on all the stars that glisten,
I wish at parties I could learn
to sit and listen.
I wish I didn't talk so much at parties.
It isn't that I want to hear
My voice assaulting every ear,
Uprising loud and firm and clear
Above the cocktail clatter.
It's simply, once a doorbells' rung,
(I've been like this since I was young)
Some madness overtake my tongue
And I begin to chatter.
Buffet, ball, banquet, quilting bee,
Wherever conversation's flowing,
Why must I feel it falls on me
To keep things going?Though ladies cleverer than I
Can loll in silence, soft and idle,
Whatever topic gallops by,
I seize its bridle,
Hold forth on art, dissect the stage,
Or babble like a kindergart'ner
Of politics till I enrage
My dinner partner.

I wish I didn't talk so much at parties.
When hotly boil the arguments,
Ah? would I had the common sense
To sit demurely on a fence
And let who will be vocal,
Instead of plunging in the fray
With my opinions on display
Till all the gentlemen edge away
To catch an early local
Oh! there is many a likely boon
That fate might flip me from her griddle.
I wish that I could sleep till noon
And play the fiddle,
Or dance a tour jete' so light
It would not shake a single straw down.
But when I ponder how last night
I laid the law down.
More than to have the Midas touch
Or critics' praise, however hearty,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
I wish I didn't talk so much,
When I am at a party

Phyllis McGinley

Love Is...

2009-07-26T21:56:00.005Z

What Love means to a 4-8 year old. A group of professionals posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, 'What does love mean?' The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined. See what you think.

'When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.' Rebecca- age 8

'When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different..You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.' Billy - age 4

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.' Karl - age 5

'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.'Chrissy - age 6

'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.' Terri - age 4

'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK. ' Danny - age 7

'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss' Emily - age 8

'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.' Bobby - age 7

'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate,' Nikka - age 6

'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday.' Noelle - age 7

'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.' Tommy - age 6

'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.' Cindy - age 8'

My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.' Clare - age 6

'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.' Elaine-age 5'

Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.' Chris - age 7

'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.' Mary Ann - age 4

'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.' Lauren - age 4

'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' Karen - age 7

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.' Mark - age 6

'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.' Jessica - age 8

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife.Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there.When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said,'Nothing, I just helped him cry'

Where Thin People Roam, and Sometimes Even Eat

2009-07-24T18:40:00.006Z

Librado Romero/The New York Times

Manhattan is far thinner than the nation, the state or the city's other boroughs, according to the study released Wednesday by Senator Gillibrand, which relied on federal data on body-mass index. For Brian Ermanski, a slender yet muscular painter who lives among the trendy boutiques and bars of SoHo, the news that Manhattan was the thinnest county in New York State was no surprise. What shocked him was that, even still, 42 percent of Manhattanites were overweight or obese — a figure he found vaguely disturbing, as if it gave his borough a bad name. “It’s probably more like 20 percent overweight down here,” said Mr. Ermanski, 28, sitting on a bench outside Balthazar, the brasserie that is a crossroads of the neighborhood, where he spends an hour a day watching the beautiful people go by.

“It might even go down to zero percent during Fashion Week, when all the models are here,” added Mr. Ermanski, who attributed his slim frame (5-foot-11, 160 pounds) to a combination of healthy and unhealthy habits: daily two-mile walks, weekly soccer, and breakfasts of coffee and cigarettes. Manhattan is far thinner than the nation (with 67 percent of the population overweight), the state (nearly 60 percent) or the city’s other boroughs (58 to 62 percent), according to the study released Tuesday by Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand that relied on federal data on body-mass index, a calculation based on height and weight.

Manhattan’s wiry and willowy were eager on Wednesday to dissect how they brought home such an honor. First and foremost, they said, Manhattan is a place where people walk. Even subway riders need to climb stairs. Storefront yoga studios, parks and pedestrian-friendly streets make working out relatively easy. Beyond that, Manhattan is the national capital of disparate subcultures of the skinny: Aspiring models. Nightclubbing hipsters. Gay men with the time and money to chisel their physiques at the gym. Park Avenue society matrons who remain preternaturally slender into their 70s, the “social X-rays” satirized by Tom Wolfe.

And, too, Manhattan is a borough of extreme inequality — in socioeconomic status and obesity rates, which generally correlate. The island’s poorest areas, like Harlem, have high rates of obesity and diabetes, and advocates are working for improved nutritional education and access to healthy foods there. Meanwhile, the borough’s richest swaths have the lowest obesity rates — and, some argue, an obsession with thinness. “My mom always says, ‘The smaller the dress size, the larger the apartment,’ ” said one lifelong Upper East Sider, who said she did not want to be named because she disapproves of the maxim.

What better place to test that hypothesis than the Exhale gym and spa, looking out on Madison Avenue from the banklike Carlyle Gallery building. (As if to prove the point, the gym sits directly above the Douglas Elliman real estate office advertising a “Trophy Mansion Townhouse” for $22 million.) Behind a front desk that offered $1,600 Caribbean yoga weekends, a core fusion class huffed and puffed to an instructor’s stentorian count and a Corey Hart song. The gym’s director, Susan Tomback (5-foot- 7, 118), said that for women who can afford leisure and child care, exercise is “a lifestyle thing,” not a chore. “All the neighborhood women drop their kids off and come here,” said Ms. Tomback, 29. “It’s like a club. They go to brunch afterwards at Sant Ambroeus,” the ladies-who-lunch mecca on the next block featuring $22 salads.

For an even more rarefied crowd, there is Verve Private Training, sharing the fifth floor with the Gagosian Gallery, a temple of contemporary art. There, Mary Ann Browning gives $300 coaching sessions designed to produce the narrow hips required to wear, say, Carolina Herrera. Leaving with a bottle of spring water was Gail Zweigenthal, a former editor of Gourmet magazine, where she had to balance Manhattan’s twin obsessions — eating well and looking good. “I exercise so I can eat,” said Ms. Zweigenthal (5-foot-3 ½, 114; like many residents of the Upper East Side, she was quicker to give her weight than her age). “If I feel fat, I can’t enjoy eating,” she said. “This is unhealthy — that if I gain a few pounds, I’m not happy — but it’s the truth of me.” Now training to be a psychoanalyst — she wrote a master’s thesis called “Food Beyond Pleasure” — Ms. Zweigenthal lifts weights and walks three miles a day. “Look at my cute little triceps!” she exclaimed, pinching them. Fear can be a motivator, too.

“Our closets are filled all these expensive clothes that are like swords of Damocles, because we may not fit into them anymore,” said Simon Doonan, (5-foot-4, 135), emerging from the Crunch gym on Lafayette Street, where men on treadmills could be seen through the windows. Mr. Doonan, 56, the creative director of Barney’s — the designer emporium where real estate brokers lunch on chopped salads — said he did not want to appear “fatist.” Yet, he admitted, he notices the weight of people in other states. “I’m appalled by people my age who can’t get through the airport without a wheelchair,” he said. Fashion, indeed, is merciless. Intermix, a designer boutique, doesn’t usually carry sizes larger than 8, said the manager of the Madison Avenue store, Lynn Bacci (5-foot-8 ½, 137), who works out to fit into skinny jeans and tank tops.

Chuck Ortiz, 52, a plumber from the Bronx who was ordering $5 sandwich from a halal cart near Intermix — chicken, his version of a diet — scoffed at the way Upper East Siders spend money to get thin “when there’s a park right there.” A brawny 6 feet, 220 pounds, he said he stays fit by hiking and working hard renovating the Surrey Hotel.

Nearby, in Central Park, New Yorkers’ willingness to exercise in public was on display — not only defined pectorals but also jiggling thighs. Meanwhile, Verve’s founder, Ms. Browning, supervised as Ilene Zatkin-Butler (5-foot-4, 118), a lawyer who has dropped three pants sizes under her tutelage, fast-walked on a treadmill. “Everything is in excess in Manhattan — whether it’s how beautiful you are, how thin you are, or how hard you work,” said Ms. Browning, (5-foot-8, 119, and healthy, she added with emphasis, “No eating disorders going on here!”)

Glasgow Bruce

2009-07-21T21:42:00.005Z

It was bring your son to work day! Going to have to write about someone/something else soon... 14.07.09 Hampden Park... Glasgow needs to get its transport sorted...but Bruce was fantastic, we got wet, mainly because we can't read and didn't realise the Rohans were for trekking in Goa and to protect from sandstorms... We stayed at Malmaison which was once a Greek Orthodox church apparently... In a room like this & had breakfast here.

Festival Bruce

2009-06-28T20:51:00.004Z

Bruce shows Glastonbury who's Boss.
& a word from a fan...Very jealous not to be hearing him sing London Calling tonight in Hyde Park. Quite sad not to be at Glastonbury last night, but very glad to wake up in my own bed today, not surrounded by mud! Not long till Glasgow now, will ticket arrive in time, oh I hate that wait.

Last Night

2009-05-04T16:23:00.001Z

Bruce Springsteen wishing Pete Seeger a happy 90th birthday at Madison Square Garden concert, talking about their appearance at Obama's inauguration ("Pete - You outlasted the bastards")

Why Not to Have Plastic Surgery!

2009-04-14T12:43:00.002Z

Because if this is were vanity leads you, isn't it a bit scary not to look like yourself, and not to look younger either.
This is not even surgery gone wrong, this is just what you will look like, just take a glance at Mickey Rourke....

The General Overwhelmingness of Life

2009-04-12T13:42:00.013Z

Oops, didn't realise it had been quite so long since I blogged, blaming it on suffering from the general overwelmingness of life. Edited Highlights!;

Saw Lenny Henry in Othello last night;good but very long and couldn't find anywhere nice to eat in Cov on my blinking birthday. Also saw Richard Dreyfuss in a terrible play last month, which made me wish I had read this review first, but probably would've gone anyway I guess.

Saw an amazing play at the lovely Almeida; In Dark House, dark subject but definitely not depressing. Colin Firth & David Tennant were amongst various actors in the audience, Colin Firth's wife is stunning, supernaturally so. Trust this to be the day that I discover the last train home to Rugby leaves Euston at 9.45pm, just made it, but would have preferred to loiter in the bar after the show. Expect they were all off to Soho House/Groucho club anyway!
Off to eat at deliciously at the Olive Branch on Monday, meeting friends who are on their way back from York to Cambridge, and to walk off lunch after.

Otherwise busy decorating and painting the house strange colours. Friends think I am weird, but I have it all in my head, it is like a moodboard. Want this rug! Wondering if I can ask for it for a wedding present....

Dancing Elephants

2009-02-05T13:53:00.001Z

They don't like getting their feet wet apparently; elephants dancing at Twycross Zoo.

Snowed In

2009-02-05T10:17:00.004Z

Springsteen Rocks Superbowl

2009-02-02T07:46:00.001Z

Springsteen spoke directly to the massive audience, saying, "I want you to step back from the guacamole dip! I want you to put the chicken fingers down and turn your television all the way up!"

Hope and Vision?

2009-01-21T07:36:00.001Z

Transcript: Obama's inaugural address

"My fellow citizens:

I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.

Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because We the People have remained faithful to the ideals of our forbearers, and true to our founding documents.

So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.

That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.

These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land -- a nagging fear that America's decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.

Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many. They will not be met easily or in a short span of time. But know this, America -- they will be met.

On this day, we gather because we have chosen hope over fear, unity of purpose over conflict and discord.

On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.

We remain a young nation, but in the words of scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness.

In reaffirming the greatness of our nation, we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned. Our journey has never been one of short-cuts or settling for less. It has not been the path for the faint-hearted - for those who prefer leisure over work, or seek only the pleasures of riches and fame. Rather, it has been the risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things - some celebrated but more often men and women obscure in their labor, who have carried us up the long, rugged path towards prosperity and freedom.

For us, they packed up their few worldly possessions and travelled across oceans in search of a new life.

For us, they toiled in sweatshops and settled the West; endured the lash of the whip and ploughed the hard earth.

For us, they fought and died, in places like Concord and Gettysburg; Normandy and Khe Sahn.

Time and again these men and women struggled and sacrificed and worked till their hands were raw so that we might live a better life. They saw America as bigger than the sum of our individual ambitions; greater than all the differences of birth or wealth or faction.

This is the journey we continue today. We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions -- that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.

For everywhere we look, there is work to be done. The state of the economy calls for action, bold and swift, and we will act -- not only to create new jobs, but to lay a new foundation for growth. We will build the roads and bridges, the electric grids and digital lines that feed our commerce and bind us together. We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost. We will harness the sun and the winds and the soil to fuel our cars and run our factories. And we will transform our schools and colleges and universities to meet the demands of a new age. All this we can do. And all this we will do.

Now, there are some who question the scale of our ambitions -- who suggest that our system cannot tolerate too many big plans. Their memories are short. For they have forgotten what this country has already done; what free men and women can achieve when imagination is joined to common purpose, and necessity to courage.

What the cynics fail to understand is that the ground has shifted beneath them -- that the stale political arguments that have consumed us for so long no longer apply. The question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works -- whether it helps families find jobs at a decent wage, care they can afford, a retirement that is dignified. Where the answer is yes, we intend to move forward. Where the answer is no, programs will end. And those of us who manage the public's dollars will be held to account -- to spend wisely, reform bad habits, and do our business in the light of day -- because only then can we restore the vital trust between a people and their government.

Nor is the question before us whether the market is a force for good or ill. Its power to generate wealth and expand freedom is unmatched, but this crisis has reminded us that without a watchful eye, the market can spin out of control -- and that a nation cannot prosper long when it favours only the prosperous. The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our Gross Domestic Product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart -- not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.

As for our common defence, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience's sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

We are the keepers of this legacy. Guided by these principles once more, we can meet those new threats that demand even greater effort -- even greater cooperation and understanding between nations. We will begin to responsibly leave Iraq to its people, and forge a hard-earned peace in Afghanistan. With old friends and former foes, we will work tirelessly to lessen the nuclear threat, and roll back the spectre of a warming planet. We will not apologise for our way of life, nor will we waver in its defence, and for those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us, and we will defeat you.

For we know that our patchwork heritage is a strength, not a weakness. We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and non-believers. We are shaped by every language and culture, drawn from every end of this Earth; and because we have tasted the bitter swill of civil war and segregation, and emerged from that dark chapter stronger and more united, we cannot help but believe that the old hatreds shall someday pass; that the lines of tribe shall soon dissolve; that as the world grows smaller, our common humanity shall reveal itself; and that America must play its role in ushering in a new era of peace.

To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West -- know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy. To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history; but that we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.

To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.

As we consider the road that unfolds before us, we remember with humble gratitude those brave Americans who, at this very hour, patrol far-off deserts and distant mountains. They have something to tell us today, just as the fallen heroes who lie in Arlington whisper through the ages. We honour them not only because they are guardians of our liberty, but because they embody the spirit of service; a willingness to find meaning in something greater than themselves. And yet, at this moment -- a moment that will define a generation -- it is precisely this spirit that must inhabit us all.

For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies. It is the kindness to take in a stranger when the levees break, the selflessness of workers who would rather cut their hours than see a friend lose their job which sees us through our darkest hours. It is the firefighter's courage to storm a stairway filled with smoke, but also a parent's willingness to nurture a child, that finally decides our fate.

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends -- hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism -- these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility -- a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

This is the price and the promise of citizenship.

This is the source of our confidence -- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.

This is the meaning of our liberty and our creed -- why men and women and children of every race and every faith can join in celebration across this magnificent mall, and why a man whose father less than sixty years ago might not have been served at a local restaurant can now stand before you to take a most sacred oath.

So let us mark this day with remembrance, of who we are and how far we have travelled. In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people:

"Let it be told to the future world...that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive...that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet [it]."

America. In the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brave once more the icy currents, and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter; and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

Welcome Back Mickey

2008-12-19T10:36:00.002Z

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN'S "THE WRESTLER" -- HEAR IT NOW!

The Wrestler, a new film starring Mickey Rourke and directed by Darren Aronofsky, is now showing in select theaters in New York and Los Angeles (and opens everywhere else soon). Click here to find out when The Wrestler opens at a theater near you!

Haven't seen the trailer yet? Watch it here.

The title song, heard in the trailer, is a brand new Bruce Springsteen track! It's available on iTunes now!

"I wrote Bruce a letter, because we've known each other over twenty years, and he knows what I used to be, or whatever. Where I went. What I'd been reduced to. I told him how I felt lucky now and didn't have to end up being this guy, being Randy (character from The Wrestler). A while later, I got a call in the middle of the night: he said he'd written a little song, for nothing. It's fucking beautiful, right? I was honoured he took the time, because he's a busy cat. I mean, I'm so goddamn proud of this magical movie and to have Bruce's input… ain't nobody in Hollywood with all their millions can just ring the man and he'll do a song, y'know?"
— Mickey Rourke

Sadism

2008-11-16T13:04:00.003Z

It appears from the NOTW that the main witness was a 15 year old girl who appears to have been part of Baby P's household. She told the court that his stepfather cut the ends of his fingers off with a stanley knife and pulled his nails off with pliers; “he made Baby P kneel in front of him, with blood oozing from the ends of his fingers, and hold out his hands for more punishment. Just days before Baby P died—but after his spine was snapped—the girl went for a walk with him and his stepfather in Chingford Woods. The toddler couldn’t stand and kept falling down.

Of all that we hear of children who are abused, I think that image of a little boy trying to walk and not being able to is what has hit me hardest. Sharon Shoesmith was tactlessly accurate, it was this boy's family who murdered him, but we are right to think we can't bear such event. We shouldn't and we should all think about who these people are and what should change, it probalby isn't the the social workers, who just need to learn how to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Timeline

2008-11-15T21:15:00.001Z

Baby P RIP

2008-11-14T19:51:00.002Z

Baby P's father, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said in a statement: 'Those who systematically tortured P and killed him kept it a secret, not just from me but from all the people who visited the house up until P's death.

'Even after he died, they lied to cover up their abuse.'

In a short statement he continued: 'The verdicts will help to bring closure for what has been a very traumatic time for me, P's family and indeed all those who knew and were close to him.

'P was a bouncing 17-month-old boy. I loved him deeply. I remember how he used to run up to me... or when he was in his pram he would bounce up and down until I took him out, giving me hugs and kisses.'

'I would like to thank the police for their efforts in obtaining the evidence to bring a conclusion to this case.

'I would also like to thank the social workers who have been involved since P's death. They have acted with professionalism and courtesy.

'Finally, I wish to thank my family and friends who have given me comfort and support during this traumatic time.

'At this stage, I intend to make no further comment. I would ask you to respect my privacy and that of my family.

'Please allow us to get on with our lives and rebuild our futures.'

Thank God

2008-11-07T20:58:00.001Z

Goop?

2008-09-24T17:47:00.003Z

Gwyneth has a website. ?

When Rape isn't Rape?

2008-09-02T08:23:00.003Z

Helen Mirren doesn't think rape is always rape when it happens on a date; "It's such a tricky area, isn't it? Especially if there's no violence. I mean, look at Mike Tyson. I don't think he was a rapist."

To recap on the Tyson case: in 1992, he was indicted for the rape of Desiree Washington. Of course it was Washington's word against Tyson's, but corroborative evidence includes the hospital emergency room doctor who examined Washington and found "abrasions consistent with forced or very hard intercourse", and the chauffeur who saw Washington directly after the violation "dazed, disoriented ... scared" and "in a state of shock".

One of the key points of Tyson's defence and attempted appeal was that he didn't use a weapon. (Washington, incidentally, weighed 7st. But of course, if she were a bona fide rape victim, she should have been able to fight a gunless Tyson off with thumbs and panache.) It is true that Washington suffered no other serious physical injuries, but if we require women to be beaten to a pulp before a rape conviction can be upheld, why even bother having a law against rape? Why not just file it all under GBH?

Tyson, incidentally, emerged from the three years served of his six-year sentence having converted to Islam, and yet was not so filled with the spirit of Godly peace that he didn't say this: "I just hate her guts. She put me in that state where, I don't know, I really wish I did now. Now I really do want to rape her."

Rebranding John Leslie

2008-08-18T18:27:00.005Z

Sometimes I write frivolous letters to the Weekend Guardian, snappy 2 or 3 liners, punctuated by a bit of wit. This time I made serious comment on the article published the previous week which attempted to re-position the brand of John Leslie. The Grauniad may not have been the best place for Leslie to start?

August 16, 2008

John Leslie may have been tried by the media, and informed by a judge that he has not a stain on his character, but he would still benefit from someone giving him some basic information about why women don't report rape/sexual assault. He could then move on to gaining some insights into the way that someone with his public profile would present as a powerful figure, one whom women would be even less likely to report, maybe until they found the strength in numbers that enabled them to be less cowed by that status. Perhaps Leslie would then be ready to address his prehistoric attitude to domestic violence, because although he can be confident he has never physically assaulted a woman, he may discover that when he "...disrespected women" or was not "proper with women" that those women could easily have felt just as coerced or intimidated as if he had struck them. Understanding how behaviours other than physical can be abusive would make those eggshells a lot easier underfoot.

*Helen Taylor
Sapcote, Leicestershire

*This is a psuedonymn designed to avoid bringing the department into disrepute.

What a Cute Cruise

2008-08-18T18:25:00.000Z

Cute Cover

2008-08-13T21:11:00.000Z

Blaming The Victim

2008-07-25T06:58:00.002Z

There is no excuse
Let's be clear; women have the right to go out dressed outrageously and be gagging to pull a man for sex. Consensual sex. Women do not want to be raped. Ever. All rape is "real rape", even if she is wearing a skirt up to her neck, has her breasts on show and is drinking and flirting like crazy. Rape is sex without consent. Which part of that is difficult to understand?

Christopher Worrad

2008-07-12T18:57:00.006Z

I've hesitated to write this post, because I don't really know any of the people involved, but this is someone I have thought about a lot since the event too place.

On Thursday at work I was making a coffee in our kitchen and a colleague from another team walked in as white as a sheet and shaking. She used to work in another location, for the same organisation we both work for now, and the manager there had just found out that her son had died in this collision. I was so stunned that I don't think I responded very well, but don't suppose that she really noticed what I said. It isn't odd at all is it that there is a major RTA in my area and I am loosely connected with one of the people involved. It isn't odd that I drive that road regularly and I hate it.I then went back to a very busy day but I felt shaken. Loss of life is so sudden when it happens like this, and we are no better prepared for it, given that we know it happens. It stayed with me, and it made me feel shaken, even though I don't know this boy. He was young and he was loved. I wish his family comfort from the fact that those who hardly know them are thinking about Christopher and all of the other young people in this car. Their inspiration will live on as they rest in peace and one day the happier memories will be of some solace.

London Life

2008-07-05T09:31:00.006Z

I love london, even all the things you hate, but this week I was there with someone who doesn’t and that always makes me think. The thinks that are uncomfortable make me nostalgic, though I am sure I would forget that I love the crowded overheated tube were I to move back tomorrow!
AA Gill writes; “I never weary of reminding our provincial neighbours that cities are where things happen, where culture is made, noisily, messily conceived; where it gets its tights ripped. Cities are the future: the engines that drag us all forward. If there is salvation for humanity out there, if there are going to be rainbows and new dawns and bluebirds and honey for tea, then they will be imagined, designed, manufactured, marketed and made elegant in the city….it’s not for everyone. Some people prefer nostalgia to innovation, predictabilities over fortune, soothing in place of shock, small harmonies above vast clamour. People who are easily intimidated or disappointed shouldn’t live in cities. To live in a city is a thankless gift and a surprising burden, offered to those who wish to live and fight in the front ranks, to sweat and swear and push and suck up the strain of being in humanity’s shield war. If you’re happier knitting socks, rolling bandages, making lavender sachets, then live in the country. Be a spectator. Embroider a memorial scatter cushion.”

"There comes a point for every newcomer when suddenly, irrevocably, London has got into your soul. For some, it's growling at people who stand on the left on escalators. For others, it's squeezing on to a Tube train when another will arrive in one minute. Here's an experiment anyone can try: board a train at St Pancras, weeping openly and travelling north. As you pull out of the station, nobody will notice as they unpack their laptops and grind their teeth. At Luton Airport Parkway, everyone will still be looking away. But by about Leicester, as more new passengers get on, something strange starts to happen. Concerned glances will be flicked in your direction. A tissue may be offered. By Long Eaton it becomes ok to talk; at Chesterfield somebody cracks open the little wine bottles left in the buffet carriage and by the time you reach Sheffield passengers will be joined in a rousing chorus of "I Will Survive". Now try the experiment in reverse. By the time you reach St Pancras, people "don't want to get involved".

It is not Londoners' fault that we are so mean. There are too many people here, and not enough time, and so everyone who lives in the capital is very, very busy. Add to that the self-fulfilling prophecy that only crazy people talk to each other in London and you can understand why we walk on by.

The trouble with self-preservation is that it's catching. Like the Prisoner's Dilemma, the Samaritan's Dilemma is not knowing what the other guy will do. Stop to help and you may give others the courage to join you; but stop on your own and you're a goner. The more people turn away, the more people have to turn away. It's hell out there, and for some London kids there are much worse fears than missing a Tube. But it's a London moment too far to give up altogether. Bullying and violence happen because everyone is afraid to be the only one to step forward, and politicians ought not to accept that.”

NY has Pools!

2008-06-15T13:48:00.000Z

Is knife crime as common as we think?

2008-06-08T19:41:00.004Z

A spate of stabbing incidents have dominated the headlines in recent weeks. But what are the facts behind knife crime and which young people are in greatest danger?

"Tackling knife culture, especially among young people, is paramount to the safety of our communities, and I am determined to reduce the devastation caused by knife crime," then Home Secretary Charles Clarke said in the spring of 2006.

Since then there has been a knife amnesty, numerous government initiatives and photo opportunities, with ministers slamming home the same message - that knives will not be tolerated.

But still the deaths caused by knives go on.

The real picture

According to the British Crime Survey (BCS), overall violent crime has decreased by 41% since a peak in 1995.

Knives are used in about 8% of violent incidents, according to the BCS, a level that has largely remained the same during the past decade.

But the BCS figures do not include under-16s, something which the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced this month would change.

Criminologist Kevin Stenson, from Middlesex University's Crime and Conflict Research Centre, said the politicians needed to do more to address the problems of those aged under 16 and added: "They are the people who fear being attacked with knives, they carry them because they are scared and for respect. It is about macho status."

But Ife Igunnubole, a youth worker in Hackney, London, said knives and guns brought a sense of power to youths who felt powerlessness.

He said: "There is a level of desperation on the streets, brought about by poverty, which is creating a culture of fear."

Mr Igunnubole, who runs mentoring and leadership projects, said tougher sentences and stop-and-search powers were all very well in the short term, but ultimately they were "just scratching the surface" and in the long term there was a need to address issues of poverty and materialism.

'Poorer most at risk'

Richard Garside, the director of the Centre of Crime and Justice Studies at Kings College London, said: "If you look at the figures for the last 10 years the number of knife victims has remained relatively stable - although there have been spikes - at 200 to 220 a year.

"But there is some evidence the demographic has changed. The average age of homicide victims overall has been going down, with younger and younger victims."

The falling age of victims is something that has been found with both knife and gun crime.

Mr Garside said: "Those living in poorer parts of town are inevitably most at risk. For many years the murder capital for knife crime has been Glasgow, but now we are seeing it as a major problem in Manchester and London and other cities."

One Scottish police officer told BBC News: "If you think you've got it bad down in London, you should take a look at Glasgow."

Scotland, and Glasgow in particular, has some frightening statistics when it comes to knife crime.

· Last year there were 73 murders in the Strathclyde Police force area, 40 of which involved knives

· Knife crime levels in Scotland are 3.5 times higher than in England or Wales

· Scotland has a homicide rate of 5.3 per 100,000 in the 10-to-29 age group, which compares with one per 100,000 in England and Wales

Karyn McCluskey, head of Strathclyde's Violence Reduction Unit, said knife crime was endemic and dated back to the "razor gangs" of the 1920s.

She said: "People give all sorts of reasons why they carry knives, including protecting themselves. But a knife is not a weapon of defence, it's a weapon of offence."

Ms McCluskey said: "Much of it is to do with bravado. Machismo is a huge issue up here and the lack of role models too. We often get knives being used by grandfathers, fathers and sons.

"Part of the problem is that they don't have the skills to walk away. If they're in a taxi queue and it's raining and they've been drinking, if someone looks at them in a funny way there will be a fight. It's as simple as that."

She said some offenders mistakenly thought they could stab a rival in the buttocks without harm, but she added: "You can bleed to death if you hit a femoral artery. There is no safe place to stab anybody."

Tougher sentences

In the past few years politicians both north and south of the border have steadily increased the penalty for carrying knives, but Richard Garside said there was no evidence tougher sentences act as a deterrent.

"Many of these youths say they are carrying a knife for their own protection, but if they are calculating to commit a serious offence they will not think about the prospect of getting caught," he said.

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Sir Ian Blair, said on Tuesday: "The knives we are seeing are not nearly as often home-made constructed weapons, as weapons you would take from the kitchen drawer.

"Parents have a duty now to be asking their teenagers: 'Are you involved in this knife carrying?'"

It may be that the recent spate of knife deaths is simply a spike on a graph - a statistical quirk - but there is no doubt the carrying of knives and guns has not gone out of fashion.

Whether this home secretary, or this government, can turn the tide remains to be seen.

Chelsea

2008-06-08T12:39:00.002Z

Mrs Twinkletoes helped win Gold at Chelsea with this.

There's A Prize for Posting this!

2008-05-24T15:30:00.002Z

Posh Preserved

2008-05-19T18:58:00.002Z

Germaine Greer likens Posh Spice to Damien Hirst, should we be suspending her in formaldehyde next? She always knows how to stir things up does Ms Greer, but glad she's found a use for Vicky!

The Daffodil Principle

2008-05-10T16:58:00.001Z

The answers to the questions you are asking about the daffodil garden;

50,000 bulbs
one at a time
by one woman
2 hands, 2 feet
and very little brain
Began in 1958

Bruce for Barack

2008-04-20T22:24:00.001Z

Shannon's Family Under Scrutiny

2008-04-17T19:02:00.003Z

Not many families would stand up to the scrutiny of Shannon Matthew's family, shouldn't we be saying something about the Daily Mail?

Rob vs The Nanny

2008-04-15T21:46:00.002Z

R.I.P

2008-04-14T11:37:00.001Z

Updated:18:13, Sunday April 13, 2008

TV presenter Mark Speight has been found dead six days after he went missing in London.

His body was found in a remote spot at Paddington railway station. Officers said he was not struck by a train.

The 42-year-old presenter was in a "vulnerable" state following the drug death of his fiancee, Natasha Collins, in January. A spokesman for British Transport Police said: "At this stage the death is being treated as unexplained. "The body has been removed from the scene and CCTV from the station has been seized as part of the ongoing investigation."

I didn't want to be right on this one, the feeling that looking at this face, if this man could find a way to do it, he would not be keeping himself alive much longer. It was just too much pain and guilt for a human being to survive. Natasha's parents have been able to forgive him, but anyone will tell you how much harder it is to forgive yourself. May his family just be able to comfort themselves with the knowledge that Mark is now not suffering as he was. He was probably dead the day he disappeared and a lot of people will be wishing that they had kept him safer, they couldn't. We assume that people can survive every event, because mainly they do, but sometimes they can't.

How Lush is Green Valley

2008-04-13T19:09:00.006Z

So I was reading where gorgeous George met Sarah, decided I like the girl's spirit, and looked up where they met. Not knowing Vegas, really don't know if this Green Valley Hotel is the one with the bar, but it made me think. I know we don't have the weather or anything, but even if we did, Skegness would need a massive makeover to get anywhere near this. It just wouldn't would it. So is this just for the beautiful people?

We Are All Alone in the End?

2008-04-12T17:01:00.016Z

& how should I warn you that you are about to look at photographs of dead people? The gallery at The Guardian does a much better job of exhibiting these images than the blog, & there, the photographer tells us how the project was approached despite a fear of dead people. The Guardian site also tells us that "In the hours after the pictures and article went online, the Guardian website experienced its busiest day ever traffic-wise, much of it driven by users keen to see the pictures and to read the interviews."

I have got to know these faces well and can't imagine the emotions associated with the act of taking the photographs, when the artist has also got to know the narrative of the subjects life. It makes me feel that we are all alone in the end, because like any strong emotional state, the knowledge that death is approaching is ours alone to own.

I like Eldegard's philosophy that she has had her life and now she has to give it back, like a gift that she had custody of, & now that time has come to an end.

Maria is lucky to have the faith she does, Elly expresses the fear I might have, that need to say that this is an emergency and I need to be saved.

Beate died as many do, so that their loved ones don’t see the go and they wait for the moment when nobody is in the room, I am always amazed at how that happens. How people can choose their time.

Rita and her ex-husband may have frittered away years of bitterness but they did what mattered in the end and how marvellous that both were able to.

I feel sad that Heiner didn’t have a friend who could sit and reflect with him, on what a colourful life his must have been, but also how sad it is that he was about to lose it.

Gerda is hard done by and I like her honesty, how dare she work that hard and then not have any freedom to play in her retirement.

Roswitha is probably who I am most like, just because most of the time I don’t feel happy, but I can imagine recognising the joys of like much more clearly when I am about to lose them. I spend every day trying to do a good job, trying to be a good person, and you wouldn’t know I wasn’t a happy person too look at me. There I hope I am most unlike Roswitha because I think her unhappiness is etched on her face.

I wish Peter could have talked, but that is only because talking is so important to me and maybe it wasn’t to him, I am glad he kept his football chart though.

Barbara’s story is just sad, how much rejection and loss she must have experienced, how hard she has worked to live well in spite of that, and to have those feelings overwhelm her in the end is harsh.

Klara is beautifully philosophical, and funny about the fridge-freezer, and lets hope we all this little afraid.

The exhibition can be viewed in full at the Wellcome Collection & you can read a series of essays about the end of life from different faith perspectives.

SJP Sexy?

2008-03-27T07:29:00.004Z

Last week, the actor Sarah Jessica Parker admitted in an interview with Grazia magazine that she was hurt by a list that named her the Unsexiest Woman Alive and her comments were widely reported. "Am I really the unsexiest woman in the world?" she asked. "Wow! It's kind of shocking."When something unflattering is written about a celebrity the typical reaction is to pretend they haven't seen it or to not dignify it with a response, the fact that Sarah Jessica Parker acknowledged the list at all is unusual.

But, the list that she referred to was in Maxim magazine which doesn't really rate an appearance on a measure of things to be legitimately hurt about. It makes no sense at all why Sarah Jessica Parker would take this Maxim list to heart? Why would she expect to fit the ideals of its audience? Why would her husband; Matthew Broderick, also be stunned by her appearance on this list? "It upset him because it has to do with his judgment, too," she said. This I don't understand. Was he always secure in his judgment about her until the Maxim magazine list came along and suddenly forced him to reconsider everything? Did this list really have that kind of impact?

I mean, whatkind of effect can a list expect to have? You never hear someone say, "Well, I used to think the unsexiest woman alive was Madeleine Albright but now that Maxim says its Sarah Jessica Parker, I have to reassess." If a list is seriously going to change someone's opinion, how much weight should that opinion be given? Moreover, the criteria Maxim readers use to define what they consider to be sexy can't be overlooked.

As Carrie Bradshaw, Sarah Jessica Parker inhabits a world where women are in charge, they live free and interesting lives and are asked out by men every day. I can see why none of this would appeal to readers of Maxim. Est Tu Maxim?

Memories

2008-03-25T14:20:00.005Z

I remember walking up the high street in Hampstead and picking up a card from the Catto Gallery about this exhibition. I love the painting and just managed to buy a print of it after years of seeking one out, oh my love of the internet is justified. Now I have the print, I don't actually know what I will do with it, & whether I can actually bear to look at it.

The person I walked up the street with that day was the person I thought was "the one" even though I loathe that phrase. I am told that little girls imagine their wedding day, I never did, but I did want to marry that man. When it ended, he said that the relationship just wasn't working for him anymore, & that he was sorry because he knew how I felt about him. He was sorry, & he was kind, & he was lovely to me even when I turned into the almost psycho ex-girlfriend. I say almost because I was in agony & people in pain don't behave well, I just kept clear of restraining order territory, but not entirely of stalker type behaviours.

Even now, I can't believe how long that pain lasted. It became more manageable, as these things do, but I managed to feel it for 5 long years. I valued that relationship so highly that its ending devastated myself and my psyche. No doubt I projected all kinds of features onto/into it that didnt' exist and I still find my way seeking a way to stop regretting the waste of those 5 years when I kept waiting to stop feeling the pain so acutely. The pain receded but it remained a part of my emotional make-up.

Now I want to tell him I am sorry, but I'm not entirely sure what for, for being hurt, for behaving in a way which hurt people do, or just for him being the screen for those projections. I loved him truly but would never want to see him again, & that's unusual for me, but maybe that is because I still harbour a wish that he had wanted to marry me even if that would have been a terrible idea. I hope he is happy but I don't want to know anything about it. I don't really know what I want to be forgiven for but I do know I have to forgive myself first. I could cringe at the memories, but we are only human, and we are almost entirely fallible. In the end, he was more honest than I was & I am grateful for his bravery and kindness when he ended the relationship.

The print tells me about a happier day when the sun was shining and I was a little overdressed, I remember knowing I looked good (& that I wouldn't have those legs forever!), but feeling the heat. I didn't have any faith that I would be the right person for him, even then, & we do after all have to be the right person for each other for relationships to work. My clothes weren't quite right & we weren't quite right.

Now that I've bought it, I think I have to find a way to co-exist with the memories before I can look at the print on my wall.

Throwaway Women

2008-02-29T08:15:00.004Z

"You can't remove the abuse and coercion from prostitution, whether legal or not," he says, so "the answer is to clamp down on the punters, while helping the women to get out and stay out." Roger Matthews has been studying street prostitution for more than two decades, but his latest book was inspired partly by the murders of the five young women in Ipswich. "All the evidence of the Ipswich case shows us that tolerance zones would not have kept the women safe," he says, because "it is about where the punters take the women to harm them, not where they pick them up." As he points out, "the killer was a trusted regular", which is why the women went with him.

In the book, Matthews describes most women he has met on the streets as "extremely desperate, damaged, and disorganised". "Many of these women, who are supposed to be 'working', are obviously off their faces with drugs and drink," he says. "Which other 'profession' would that be tolerated in?" He has interviewed women who have carried on selling sex immediately after being stabbed, raped, beaten, and in once case, hours after giving birth. "Entry into prostitution is often as a result of physical and sexual abuse, parental neglect, a history of local authority care, and drug addiction," says Matthews.

"I think that speaks for itself."

As one of the few men doing research in this sector, do his views on the women involved ever prompt charges of paternalism? Matthews is resolute. "The women involved in prostitution - particularly street prostitution - are not only among the most victimised group in society, but many of them are multiple victims. If the term 'victimisation' is to have any meaning, then those involved in prostitution must be prime candidates."

According to his research, street prostitution is the most dangerous occupation you can be involved in. "The majority of street women have suffered life-threatening violence," he says. "Ipswich confirmed this." Such women are 18 times more vulnerable to homicide than other women, and suffer regular abuse from pimps, punters and passers-by. Over the past decade, at least 89 women in prostitution have been murdered, and that number is thought to be a low estimate.

Those who argue that the women enjoy it, and choose it, are completely missing the point, he says. "Murders such as those in Ipswich are actually the tip of a very large iceberg. Women I have interviewed told me about leaping out of cars to escape being murdered. We cannot justify anyone living in such a dangerous situation ... I've never met a 'happy hooker'," he says. "All the women I have interviewed, from every scale of the industry, are damaged by it in some way." What other "work", he asks, involves occupational hazards such as murder, HIV, rape, and having your children taken away from you?

Matthews' work on this issue began in 1985, early in his academic career, when he

'These women are just seen as throwaways. They service the men, serve their purpose, and can then just be disposed of.'"

"The Ipswich murders have exposed the reality of prostitution - that it is abuse and a life of hell for these women," says Matthews. "It is high time to expose and challenge the liberal consensus"·

I make no apology (again) for plagiarising the Gruaniad today; follow links to read full version.

Xavier & Honor

2008-02-25T22:11:00.003Z

When Xavier and Honor were born
A special star shone in the sky
And their reason for being was clear
When they opened their eyes
And Matilda was lost in the spell
And John was adrift on the sea
With Xavier and Honor together
Just happy to be
In this world of make believe
There's so much that they can't conceive
As they lie......there sleeping
In this strange new wonderland
There's so much they can't understand
When they're crying.......
They will walk through the fields in the sun
And will gaze at the stars in the night
Their reason for being
Will always be seeing the light
When Xavier and Honor were born
When Xavier and Honor were born

Gerry Rafferty

Identity Examined

2008-02-24T18:12:00.005Z

I saw 2 plays about identity this week; one at WAC about what it means to be British, and the other at Birmingham Rep about what it means to be a black man in contempory British society. It is an interesting contrast between the newer waves of immigrants, and the experience of the Windrush generation, and their descendants.

Angel House is an Esclipse Theatre production and it was simply wonderful to see so many great black actors not playing Othello. Testing The Echo is from Out of Joint, a play about the test immigrants will have to take to become British citizens, and not a test I would pass, I don't think.

Written with charm and a sense of wonder, David Edgar's play is a fascinating tapestry about the twisting road to becoming British. Secretly, Tetyana wants to escape her marriage. Mahmood gets kidnapped for his own good. Chong is fine on football but fails on Guy Fawkes. And the motley crew in Emma's English class are all looking for something, whether it's a passport or a fight. As the day of their ceremony approaches, Emma's students begin to challenge some of her dearest-held beliefs.

Eclipse Theatre is back in 2008 with its 5th production, the world premiere production of Roy Williams' new play Angel House . How can two brothers with the same upbringing take such different paths?

Fifty years ago, the Vincent family arrived from the West Indies and settled in the West London tower block Angel House. They brought with them suitcases full of hopes and dreams for themselves and future generations. But life has not worked out the way they expected. Jean's son Frank, the ‘big man' of the estate, is heading for prison, while her other son Stephen is a successful lawyer with political aspirations. Frank's son Adam and the rest of the teenagers on the estate are all struggling to cope with life's choices and their consequences.

Testing The Echo is touring at;
26 Feb - 1 Mar

Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford 01483 440000

http://www.yvonne-arnaud.co.uk/.
11 - 15 Mar

Library Theatre, Manchester 0161 236 7110

http://www.librarytheatre.com/.
18 - 22 Mar
Oxford Playhouse 01865 305 305

http://www.oxfordplayhouse.com/.
26 - 29 Mar
Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds 01284 769 505

http://www.theatreroyal.org/.
1 April - 3 May
Tricycle Theatre, london 020 7328 1000

http://www.tricycle.co.uk/.
7 - 10 May
The Rep, Birmingham 0121 236 4455

http://www.birmingham-rep.co.uk/.

The Tour Schedule for Angel House is;

Nottingham Playhouse

26 February – 1 March
West Yorkshire Playhouse

18 – 22 March
Salisbury Playhouse

26 - 29 March

Royal & Derngate, Northampton

1 – 5 April

Sentencing for Shelly

2008-02-15T22:23:00.003Z

Having just blogged, I find out that Adrienne Shelly's murderer just got sentenced to 25 years.

Leaving London @ 6am

2008-02-15T07:30:00.004Z

From my friend who arrived at work for 9.30am San Francisco time...

Baby Had a Song

2008-02-13T19:28:00.003Z

Happy Everafter In Your Eyes

Lyrics by Ben Harper (written for Matilda)

The morning sunrise spread her wings while the moon hung in the sky held the sea in your hands and happy everafter in your eyes couldn't leave you to go to heaven i carry you in my smile for the first time my true reflection i see happy everafter in your eyes every star in the night promises the dawn i will be there if you fall to ever so heavily rest upon all that i can give you is forever yours to keep wake up every day with a dream and happyever after in your eyes happy everafter is in your eyes.

Your Cheatin' Heart?

2008-02-12T07:29:00.001Z

John Byrne probably fell in love with Tilda Swinton in 1985 when she walked through the door of the Taverse Theatre to appear in a play he had designed the set for. He wrote a part for her in "Your Cheatin' Heart", they moved to Nairn and had the most striking twins. I once spent a valuable writing tutorial talking to him all about life with Tilda, which was fascinating, and they are both utterly extraordinary; a word he uses a lot.

Now she appears to have a new painter & I was intrigued to see how he painted her.

Happy + Sad = Heath

2008-02-10T10:23:00.001Z

"The sun goes down on our love but it will never go down on Heath."

All About Adrienne

2008-02-08T19:41:00.001Z

It was the Goldblum connection that took me back to Hal Hartley after some years. Fay Grim is circulating, stars Jeff, and I hope it will be distributed in the UK.

Hal made a phenomenal number of films in a very short amount of time, always quirky, and always interestingly cast. He makes me think of sitting in the Rio in Dalston with carrot cake and coffee for a double bill of Trust & The Unbelievable truth. Simple Men was the treat that followed a couple of years later & then I saw nothing more of his appearing. Maybe I wasn't looking properly.

I was thinking about Martin Donovan and Adrienne Shelley when I remembered something I am surprised I forgot &, instead of this being all about Hal, it is all about Adrienne.

At about 5:45 p.m on November 1, 2006, Shelly's husband found her hanging by a bedsheet from a shower rod in the bathtub of an Abingdon Square apartment in the West Village section of Manhattan's Greenwich Village, in what at first appeared to be a suicide. Shelly, who lived in Tribeca, used the apartment as an office. Ostroy had dropped her off at 9:30 a.m. that day, and as the building's doorman told journalists, "He hadn't heard from her and he said it was odd not to hear from her, so he was nervous. And he asked me to go up to the apartment with him, so we went to the front door, and it was unlocked".

An autopsy was performed the following day. The New York City Police Department was suspicious of sneaker prints in the bathtub that did not match Shelly's shoes (she was found wearing only socks). Shelly's husband also indicated that there was money missing from Shelly's wallet. He vigorously denied allegations that she could have committed suicide.

Press reports on November 6, 2006 stated that police had arrested construction worker Diego Pillco, a 19-year-old illegal immigrant who confessed to killing Shelly after she complained about the noise he was making in the apartment below hers. Pillco said that he "was having a bad day." Police said Pillco had made videos implicating himself in the murder, and as of November 7, 2006 was being held without bail for her murder.

Following his wife's death, Ostroy established the Adrienne Shelly Foundation, a non-profit organization that will award film school scholarships and grants to women filmmakers.

Shelly died before her film, Waitress, was accepted into the 2007 Sundance Film Festival. The film, starring Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion, Cheryl Hines, Jeremy Sisto, Andy Griffith and Shelly herself, was bought during the festival by Fox Searchlight Pictures for somewhere between $4 million and $5 million (accounts vary).

An Irritating Audience

2008-02-05T08:14:00.001Z

I got to London late for my mamogram, rang and they told me that they had cancelled my clinic appointment anyway, I just seem not to have recieved the letter. I was advised to go for the X-ray anyway but it seems that NICE; a misnomer if ever I heard one, has decided that clinical examination is not the best diagnostic tool. It wasn't really what I needed to hear, having gone wildly wrong getting to town, even with Sat Nav. I'd booked car parking in Butlers Wharf, a real bargain in life, and ended up parking at Euston Station just because the car was beginning to overheat, having been in stationary traffic more than it appreciates.

After being squished into a machine, I had a fabulous time wandering around Fulham/Chelsea before I got fed up with wondering how exactly people do manage to look so rich and became envious of their gloriously stuccoed houses. I headed off to see Marc Quinn, but White Cube is closed on Mondays. I went to get my brows threaded but they were fully booked. It wasn't looking good, would the play be cancelled.It was a great perfomance of a really challenging play, probably great because the cast made it look so effortless. The female role was sketchy but Jeff Goldblum was mesmorising. The only thing I didn't really like was the audience. Call me a snob if you like, but I like a bit of reverence at the threatre, for the fact that there are real life people standing in front of you speaking. Maybe the movie star in front of us made people feel like they were in front of the TV at home, or at the cinema, but you still need to hear him.

Got even more lost leaving London, drove around the Tower of London twice, and really don't know what route Sat Nav decided to bring me home. Next time I'm taking the train.

Will Mamet Ameliorate?

2008-02-03T23:39:00.001Z

Once a year I have a kind of MOT; the BDU at the Royal Marsden started taking care of me because my mum had breast cancer when she was 35. Hard to imagine that I am nearly 7 years older than that now. A GP with little time on his hands took time to read my notes once & passed me on to their next of kin screening programme.

Every so often I have a cyst drained, & I worry until I know the outcome, as well as suffering discomfort in the process. Sometimes they don't know there and then & I have to go back. Then I am frightened &, that time, I couldn't go back to work to do the oh so important things I had planned to attend to. The pressures of work returned the next day, & they remained important, but I remained scared until I had the results.

Ameliorate is my favourite word, & to ameliorate the fear I feel as I travel down for this screening, I plan around it. I book tickets to a play, I plan to have my brows threaded, & I hope to fit in a bit of Marc Quinn.

I am in row G, 5 or 7 rows back in the middle. I hope the play will take me out of myself. I know I am a starf*****k, anyone who has ever read this blog knows that. but hey, Jessica Lange was really good in Streetcar. & if this is what it takes to not have a musical on in London I am all for it. I love Spacey & am dead excited about this Mamet Play being brought to life, the last time I saw it it was definitely a stiff, but more of that another time!

I hope to be distracted, I hope to not be waiting for results, I hope to be completely reassured instead. I also know that I will have been in exactly the right place if things are not right, which is why I bother to use a precious day of my annual leave to get this precious hospital in London despite the hassle of driving down from the Midlands.

Flaws = Perfection

2008-01-26T16:51:00.001Z

I think Kate Moss is appealing because she is almost just an ordinary girl from Croydon & somehow this makes her more engaging doesn't it? Perhaps this because women can love her too & we just don't feel the same way about Claudia or Giselle.

Kate 2003

Wise about her business, Moss has managed to ensure her profits aren't hit by adverse publicity but she is interesting because her business is beauty & Moss seems content to disabuse us of her perfection. She has posed Lucien Freud & now appears in the exhibits of Chuck Chase; both are masters of the exposure of flaws.

Untitled Torso Diptych 2003

We know Kate loves her girlfriends, we can imagine hanging out with her, and now we know she would look a bit rough the morning after too. We have become so accustomed to viewing airbrushed beyond belief celebrity images, even to the degree of adjusting our gaze to accomodate the surgically enhanced, that this is blissfully refreshing and enhances Kate's image all at once. Untitled Torso Diptych 2003

'Family and Others' by Chuck Close @ White Cube in Mason's Yard

Behan Banter

2008-01-23T21:44:00.000Z

Janet chats to Libby about her play!

Matilda's Daddy Died

2008-01-23T08:16:00.000Z

Just very sad.

Reclaim the Night

2008-01-22T08:15:00.000Z

Kate Pullinger writes about the city at night that the Home Secretary is scared of; "At night it's as though the city's history comes alive, bubbling up from where it lies dormant beneath the tarmac: when the crowds are gone, modernity slips away, and the city feels ancient and unruly. How could anyone not love London late at night, or early in the morning? How could the wide black Thames with the city reflected upon it not remind you of everything that is most desirable and glamorous in life?"We walk where we feel safe, & it doesn't matter if that is Hackney or not, for me it was. For me, the world was mine at night, but I did once get a lift home from the police who decided I was not as safe as I thought I was. Their car zoomed across a green open space, with no trees for the bogeyman to hide behind, as I walked home from my birthday party with balloons. A few yards from my front door, they took me to it, but the police see the worst of the world.

The night is also about boys with guns and knives and women's vulnerability. We need to be seen out on the street, the alternative is to stay in our houses, and be held hostage by fear. Choose your risk, know your beat, & reclaim the night.

One Sheet Wonder

2008-01-19T11:29:00.000Z

Entries for an art contest at the Hirshhorn Modern Art Gallery in DC; artists could use only one sheet of paper.

deshabillé

2008-01-15T07:38:00.000Z

How would I avoid looking like I have gone out in my pyjamas?

Victoria's Vice

2008-01-11T20:50:00.000Z

It may be a crude analogy, but I sort of feel like this is what VB has been doing for the fashion industry for the last decade. Opening her legs and welcoming all comers with no actual regard for what works for her.

I just thought Marc was classier than this, I loved Marc, now I want nothing to do with him. No good telling me this is tongue in cheek, inversely chic, or anything other than an homage to our Vicky B. I may take this post down later if I decide I am being a bit of a bitch. I may. Or I may decide today is the day to be a bitch.

Should Hillary Inherit?

2008-01-10T19:08:00.000Z

A Hillary win would not even strike a considerable blow for women's rights. It would merely set a precedent for ascension to the presidency by marriage. Lionel Shriver in The Guardian today.

A Little Late?

2008-01-09T08:17:00.001Z

It is interesting that the democratic candidate for the presidency will be either a woman or a black man. I truly am inspired by this, but aren't we also a little ashamed that it has taken so long? It is entirely civilized that the civil rights movement of the 50's & 60's got us here. It is not so laudable that that was half a century ago. I know a lot else has happened in the meantime, and we have legislation to reflect that now, but isn't it shockingly slow progress we now witness.

My Friend's Play!

2008-01-08T21:31:00.000Z

No apologies for shameless publicity due to excitement.

Arts Ireland and Riverside Studios present

Brendan at The Chelsea

Directed by Adrian Dunbar and Rosalind Scanlon

Written by Janet Behan

It’s the 60s, New York and we are in that legendary bohemian bolt hole, The Chelsea Hotel. Arthur Miller is just across the hall, the sound of Ornett Coleman is drifting down from the penthouse and the symphony of 24th Street is rising up and in through the open window of Brendan Behan’s room. He’s hung over, he’s broke and way past the delivery date of his latest book, the first line of which he has yet to write. He was told to stop drinking or he’d be dead in six months – that was two years ago.

Today is not going well. Lianne, the Latino dancer charged with looking after him, is not putting up with his bullshit. George, his composer friend from upstairs, won’t play ball with any of his bleak assessments of life. His mistress keeps ringing, the bills aren’t paid and a wire arrives from Dublin with the kind of news that’s guaranteed to put his blood pressure through the roof.

Brendan at The Chelsea, a new play by Janet Behan starring Adrian Dunbar, is an anarchic and searing reassessment of the myth and the life of one of Ireland’s least understood sons. A man who kept roomfuls of people laughing with his stories, he could strike up a conversation with everyone from the Astors to a bum on the Bowery. Arguably the world's first media star reporters bent on entrapment pursued him everywhere, a man who was jailed for being in the IRA, a sexual conundrum, a hostile working class hero who put the great debates of the day into the mouths of ordinary people for the first time.A man so scared of anoniminity and so charged by the disease of alcoholism that running through the foyer of The Bristol Hotel naked, was minor on his scale of outrageousness. Shane MacGowan and Pete Docherty take note, you’re only in the halfpenny place.

RUNNING TIME
1 hour 50 minutes (including one 15 minute interval)

Studio 2

Tuesday 15 January

to Sunday 3 February

(no show Tuesday 22 January)

Tuesdays to Saturdays: 8.00pm

Sundays: 7.30pm

Except Thursday 17 January: 7.00pm (Press Night)

Saturday matinees: 3.00pm

TICKETS:£15 (£12.50 concs.)

Previews: £10 on 15 and 16 JanuaryEarly Bird: £12.50 (if booked before Friday 4 January - please quote EARLY BIRD when booking

AGE SUITABILITY
Suitable for ages 12+.

LATECOMERS POLICY
Please note there is a strict no latecomers policy operated for this show.

Britney's Breakdown

2008-01-05T09:36:00.001Z

Britney is ill enough & distressed enough to be taken away in an ambulance. How many photographers are there to witness it, do they think they are relaying news? They are vultures; I can read about this event & understand it, I think you could too? Maybe we can just hope now that she gets the help & support she needs, whatever that is.

Paperback Babes

2007-12-29T18:02:00.000Z

In search of a book club, I looked out the facebook version. I won't go all snobby about reading, it is just what I like doing, but sometimes a group is good. The next book being read by the book club babes is Jeanette Winterson's The Passion.

Sue McGregor (London) wrote on Oct 16, 2007 at 6:42 AM.
This is the place to be. In the pyramids. Not at the back As the Man Booker Prize looms, every competing publisher has every finger crossed that their book will be boosted into the stratosphere. But what are the reasons a book sells well? Below are 10 of the factors that could influence the next sales behemoth. And if you haven't read the six titles on the Booker shortlist, watch the Guardian's John Crace summarise each, by clicking on the boxes on the right. We've re-hashed some of them from the Guardian originals to make them slightly less fruity and slightly more suitable for a family audience.

1. Word of mouth. Who do we really trust? When the chips are down, it's the opinions of our friends and family and colleagues that matter in all things. When you're trying on an item of clothing you don't scratch around for a piece of pertinent fashion journalism, you just ask a mate to have a quick look. "Word of mouth is still number one even in this media-saturated age," says Joel Rickett, deputy editor of The Bookseller. A survey of 1,000 people by BML for World Book Day in 2005 found 25% of respondents had bought their last book for pleasure on the basis of a recommendation from a friend. But that's not to say that word of mouth is an entirely natural, organic process. Publishers would sell their grandmothers for ways to manipulate it. From viral marketing to social networking, they'll try many avenues of multimedia attack to get the books into the hands of the literary pioneers in any group of friends.

2. The book group. A big part of the word of mouth network are the little reading groups of friends that have sprung up around the country in the past decade. Over cheese and nibbles the fates of novels are decided. Most people are not in a book group but many people know someone who is in one. Book groups are the crucible. These people hold the fates of books in the palm of their hand Book group favourites from recent years include Life of Pi, the Bookseller of Kabul, Shadow of the Wind, the Alchemist, the Time Traveller's Wife, the Line of Beauty, A Million Little Pieces, Everything is Illuminated and so on.

3. Richard and Judy. Book groups have to get their ideas from somewhere and many implant themselves into the minds of the members via the Richard and Judy Book Club. Modelled on the fearsomely influential Oprah's Book Club, it has backed many of the titles that have come to be book group classics.

4. Author. It's almost too obvious to state, but the easiest people to market to are the people waiting for the next instalment. If all you have to do is alert people to the latest John Grisham or Martina Cole then life is a bit easier. Despite the belief in word of mouth, the 2005 BML survey found the only factor that trumped it was "having a read another book by the author". "The author as brand has become ever more important," notes Mr Rickett.

5. Art of covers. Pop into a second hand bookshop and feel the thickness of a paperback cover from 2006. Then feel a book from 1956. Luxurious, thick paper, cut-out sections, embossing, full colour, even glitter. The rise of cheap publishing in the Far East and elsewhere means the book front cover is a battleground as never before. There has always been great cover art on novels in British mass publishing, particularly on Penguins, but the production quality has now rocketed. "Penguin blazed a trail but everyone else has caught up. The cover can make or break a book. The book as 'object' is ever more important," explains Mr Rickett.

6. In-store marketing. Be honest. What percentage of the books you've bought in the last five years came with a "3 for 2" sticker on them? Serialisation can generate massive publicity With the end of agreements that controlled the price of books the key battlegrounds are the supermarket and the chain bookstore. And in these chains if you're not on those pyramids of books in the front of the ground floor of the store, you're dead. Does anybody find themselves flicking through a new novel where one copy has been placed in the far corner of the fourth floor?

7. Rise of prizes. There is nothing as priceless as free publicity and this is what the literary prizes offer in spades. The trinity in the UK of the MAN Booker Prize, the Orange Prize (for female authors) and the Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread) can get the ball-rolling for a monster-selling book. Yann Martel's Life of Pi was one such success, blasting its way through the million sales mark and revolutionising the fortunes of Scottish publisher Canongate.

8. Unusual titles. Who isn't tempted to at least pick and have a flick through a Salmon Fishing in the Yemen or A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian?

9. Praise for. Once upon a time in the monomedia world, the reviewer was king. Powerful newspaper literary critics bestrode the world of publishing like colossi. Now not so much. As Mr Rickett notes: "People themselves are the reviewers now on Amazon and on all kinds of sharing websites. Reader response has almost supplanted the top-down role of the critic."

10. Newspaper serialisation. One for the non-fiction work predominantly, serialisation delivers a risk-free prospect for the author at least. If the attention brings sales then great. If it persuades people they've had enough then the writer has still got a whacking fee from the newspaper.

Foggy in my Heart

2007-12-24T10:21:00.000Z

I struggle with Christmas, in fact any season where jollity is "enforced", perhaps because my nature is melancholy. I was on this bridge on Friday, in London from the Midlands to get a bit nearer the festive spirit, but even the Christmas lights didn't inspire. So what did, the charming manners of all and sundry in M&S today. The knowledge that we were all shopping for Christmas gave a good natured feel to an expedition more akin to queuing on the M25! Well done Fosse Park M&S for organising your food ordering collection for Christmas sooo well. XXX

The actual trip to London made me look up *anal retentiveness. The trip had been organised by 3 of us for 4 of us but the 4th couldn't come. I happened to be talking about it in the presence of another colleague (V) who said she would like to come. It wasn't an exclusive invite, I just would never have wanted to go anywhere with that person, but I haven't been with the team long and others might have found her easier company than I. I had a good idea that one of them (J) didn't but was told by (yet another colleague!) that the A did get on really well with her. When I asked A about V (in her absence but during the trip) she said there must be people in the world that think she gets on well with them that she doesn't at all. V had driven me mad in the planning stages of the trip, wanting to sit down and plan it appears sensible, but none of the rest of us were planning anything. We had 2 shops we definitely wanted to go to and the rest evolved. V has to eat at a certain time which meant not searching out somewhere nice for lunch and later not going somewhere unusual but ending up in a franchise of a chain we have in our home town.

F***king hard work but I did good work and I don't think she knows how difficult I find her. I might find a way to confront specific issues in the New Year. I won't go on more but learnt a lesson, well nearly, I mentioned on the way down that I have Springsteen tickets for May in Manchester but might want to go with someone more enthusiastic about him than my partner. Guess who volunteered, not A who I would want to go with, but V. A didn't even hear the question & now I couldn't go with A because it would look like I have snubbed V, which I would have done.

Obviously there are always going to be people at work one gets on better with than others, there are going to be people we make actual friends with, and invite to our weddings for example. This team would be inviting the whole team not to leave anyone out of anything. In fact, someone who is my friend felt left out of the trip because seeing V coming, she thought I must have asked the team, because otherwise it would have been a very odd combination. I take responsiblity for all of this, not finding a way to indicate the trip was not open to all comers, not wanting to hurt V who is nice and kind and well meaning, I just don't get on with her. Resolutions looming are finding a way to be direct without hurting someone and not tangling myself up in my own senstivities which result in doing something I don't want to do at all.

*Sigmund Freud believed that in a child's psycho-sexual development there is an anal stage (during the second and third years of life) in which the child's main concerns are with defecation. His responses to his parents' demands for bowel control may have far-reaching consequences. Should a person become fixated in the anal stage he may become a noticeably orderly, frugal, and obstinate adult.

US Foreign Policy

2007-12-12T17:04:00.001Z

Led Zepplin's Green Room

2007-12-11T18:56:00.000Z

Tearing it Up!

2007-12-07T22:07:00.000Z

I was in tears watching this!

Teddy Bear Prophet?

2007-11-30T17:46:00.001Z

Gibbons was collateral damage in a dispute between the Sudanese government and Britain.

Trailblazer

2007-11-26T21:12:00.000Z

Kylie's Comeback

2007-11-26T08:06:00.000Z

'White Diamond: A Personal Portrait of Kylie Minogue' is an intimate fly-on-the-shoulder documentary about post-cancer Kylie, and her emotional return to the stage she calls her "other home". Throughout, the star displays nothing but affability and elicits a deep respect for what she has achieved both before and after her diagnosis, leaving you sure that were you to meet her, she would undoubtedly be very, very nice indeed.

Kylie showed Madge a thing or too about courtesy and generally being lovely, talented, but not completely egocentric. I might consider becoming a fan, after all Bono is!

British Boxes

2007-11-24T13:49:00.001Z

Blake on red phone boxes, I'm thinking of buying one for the garden BTW, well I was until I saw how much they are. I was pondering today about blog inactivity, a few of my favourites have just disappeared, without any word of explanation. No melodramatic diatribes or intent of opting out. Then another returned, & I really can't work out what happened with her "estranged" sister, one of the disappeared. Feeling low as a low thing can feel today, I wondered if my inability to consistently post means that nobody is out there any more. Melancholia unexpecteda has descended & I am lonely even with someone else in the house. It doesn't seem to bear unpacking to an absent audience. I feel a bit like this phone box although that wasn't why I picked the picture!

M for mmm

2007-11-23T14:25:00.000Z

Mostly Miu Miu & a bit of Marc Jacobs. This is my lookbook for Fall 07 & what I might look like if I had more money, meanwhile, am about to sort my wardrobe out and see which elements might meet up to this fantasy.

Texture

2007-11-22T14:36:00.000Z

Feeling

Grey

Today

Flat

NOT

Textured.

Nature's first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leafs a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.

Robert Frost

Missing Stephen

2007-11-08T07:49:00.000Z

The Daily Mail rarely for speaks out, in the defence of some, so it was an oddity that they named the suspects in the Stephen Lawrence case. When the paper ran a banner headline in 1997; branding five Londoners "murderers" of Stephen Lawrence, a black teenager, it earned the ire of many lawyers, judges and journalists. Three of the men had been acquitted by a jury, and a judge had dismissed the charges against the other two.

Today The Daily Mail tells us that they are set to be re-arrested because foresensic techniques have developed and produced new evidence. The inquiry into the case has been formative but the five white teenagers, who probably killed Stephen, have evaded prosecution. Today I looked at a this photograph of a fine young man and wondered if his parents can ever not miss him, I think not.

How?

2007-11-06T19:29:00.000Z

Did Katy put her blistered feet in those heels and raise a smile?

Long Life

2007-10-30T20:05:00.000Z

Is what we wish those who have been bereaved at a Jewish funeral. Dina Rabinovitch died too young & I wish those whose sadness is immeasurable tonight will find solace in their faith. Her Guardian columns were inspiring, even for those not living with cancer. Anthony Clare's lasting legacy will be his books, notably the three series of In the Psychiatrist's Chair (1984, 1992, 1995 and 1998). On happiness he said; “We spend money on killing machines and wonder why our youngsters are so aggressive. We insist our children, from the earliest years, familiarise themselves with the intricacies of human biology, yet ensure they learn little or nothing of psychology until their own personalities are distorted beyond correction. And, rather than acknowledge the neglect we have shown towards structures such as marriage and family life, we resort to undermining their importance in the sum of human health and happiness."

Bruce is the Boss

2007-10-29T14:35:00.000Z

& I don't have a ticket for the London Arena. Have made do with (finally?!) ordering all the albums I love on CD, so I can play them in the car, & creating the collage of covers above...

Inconvenient Truths

2007-10-21T19:47:00.000Z

Inaccuracies in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth

A full judgement has now been produced in the High Court, listing nine inaccuracies, rather than the 11 from the interim judgement. Two appear to have been grouped together and another omitted. The decision by the government to distribute Al Gore's film An Inconvenient Truth has been the subject of a legal action by New Party member Stewart Dimmock. This appears to have been the subject of recent publicity, and R4 was criticised for not mentioning it, because they concentrated on the read news that The Court found that the film was misleading in nine respects and that the Guidance Notes drafted by the Education Secretary’s advisors served only to exacerbate the political propaganda in the film.

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Nine inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The inaccuracies are:

The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.

The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.

The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.

The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.

The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.

The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.

The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.

The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.

The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

Disliking the McCanns

2007-10-20T11:16:00.000Z

London Review of Books
Diary
Anne Enright

It is very difficult to kill a child by giving it sedatives, even if killing it is what you might want to do. I asked a doctor about this, one who is also a mother. It was a casual, not a professional conversation, but like every other parent in the Western world, she had thought the whole business through. She said that most of the sedatives used on children are over-the-counter antihistamines, like the travel sickness pills that knocked me and my daughter out on an overnight ferry to France recently. It would also be difficult, she told me, to give a lethal dose of prescription sleeping tablets, which these days are usually valium or valium derivatives, ‘unless the child ate the whole packet’. If the child did so, the short-term result would not be death but a coma. Nor could she think of any way such an overdose would lead to blood loss, unless the child vomited blood, which she thought highly unlikely. She said it was possible that doctors sedated their children more than people in other professions but that, even when she thought it might be a good idea (during a transatlantic flight, for example), she herself had never done so, being afraid that they would have a ‘paradoxical rage reaction’ – which is the medical term for waking up half out-of-it and tearing the plane apart.

I thought I had had one of those myself, in a deeply regretted incident at breakfast on the same ferry when my little son would not let me have a bite of his croissant and I ripped the damn pastry up and threw it on the floor. She said that no, the medical term for that was a ‘drug hangover’, or perhaps it was just the fact that an overnight ferry was not the best place to begin a diet. We then considered the holidays with children that we have known.

How much do doctors drink? ‘Lots,’ she said. Why are the McCanns saying they didn’t sedate the child? ‘Why do you think?’ Besides, it was completely possible that the child had been sedated and also abducted – which was a sudden solution to a problem I did not even know I had: namely, if the girl in the pink pyjamas was being carried off by a stranger, why did she not scream? Sedation had also been a solution to the earlier problem of: how could they leave their children to sleep unprotected, even from their own dreams?

But sedation was not the final answer, after all.

If someone else is found to have taken Madeleine McCann – as may well be the case – it will show that the ordinary life of an ordinary family cannot survive the suspicious scrutiny of millions.

In one – completely unverified – account of her interrogation, Kate McCann is said to have responded to the accusation that the cadaver dog had picked up the ‘scent of death’ on her clothes by saying that she had been in contact with six dead patients in the weeks before she came on holiday. My doctor friend doubted this could be true of a part-time GP, unless, we joked, she had ‘done a Shipman’ on them. Then, of course, we had to row back, strenuously, and say that even if something had happened between mother and child, or between father and child, in that apartment, even if the child just fell, then Kate McCann was still the most unfortunate woman you could ever lay eyes on.

And we are obliged to lay eyes on her all the time. This makes harridans of us all.

The move from unease, through rumour, to mass murder took no time flat. During the white heat of media allegations against Madeleine’s parents, my husband came up the stairs to say that they’d all been wife-swapping – that was why the other diners corroborated the McCanns’ account of the evening. This, while I was busy measuring the distance from the McCanns’ holiday apartment down the road to the church on Google Earth (0.2 miles). I said they couldn’t have been wife-swapping, because one of the wives had brought her mother along.

‘Hmmmm,’ he said.

I checked the route to the open roadworks by the church, past a car park and a walled apartment complex, and I thought how easy it would be to carry my four-year-old son that distance. I had done that and more in Tenerife, when he decided against walking. Of course he was a live and not a dead weight, but still, he is a big boy. Too big to fit into the spare-tyre well of a car, as my father pointed out to me later, when it seemed like the whole world was figuring out the best way to kill a child.

‘She was only a slip of a thing,’ I said.

I did not say that the body might have been made more pliable by decomposition. And I had physically to resist the urge to go out to my own car and open the boot to check (get in there now, sweetheart, and curl up into a ball). Then, as if to pass the blame back where it belonged, I repeated my argument that if there is 88 per cent accurate DNA from partly decomposed bodily fluids found under the carpet of the boot of the hired car, then these people had better fly home quick and get themselves another PR company.
If.

Who needs a cadaver dog when you have me? In August, the sudden conviction that the McCanns ‘did it’ swept over our own family holiday in a peculiar hallelujah. Of course they had. It made a lot more sense to me than their leaving the children to sleep alone. I realise that I am more afraid of murdering my children than I am of losing them to a random act of abduction. I have an unhealthy trust of strangers. Maybe I should believe in myself more, and in the world less, because, despite the fact that I am one of the most dangerous people my children know, I keep them close by me. I don’t let them out of my sight. I shout in the supermarket, from aisle to aisle. I do this not just because some dark and nameless event will overtake them before the checkout, but also because they are not yet competent in the world. You see? I am the very opposite of the McCanns.

Distancing yourself from the McCanns is a recent but potent form of magic. It keeps our children safe. Disliking the McCanns is an international sport. You might think the comments on the internet are filled with hatred, but hate pulls the object close; what I see instead is dislike – an uneasy, unsettled, relentlessly petty emotion. It is not that we blame them – if they can be judged, then they can also be forgiven. No, we just dislike them for whatever it is that nags at us. We do not forgive them the stupid stuff, like wearing ribbons, or going jogging the next day, or holding hands on the way into Mass.

I disliked the McCanns earlier than most people (I’m not proud of it). I thought I was angry with them for leaving their children alone. In fact, I was angry at their failure to accept that their daughter was probably dead. I wanted them to grieve, which is to say to go away. In this, I am as bad as people who complain that ‘she does not cry.’

On 25 May, in their first television interview, given to Sky News, Gerry McCann spoke a little about grief, as he talked about the twins. ‘We’ve got to be strong for them, you know, they’re here, they do bring you back to earth, and we cannot, you know, grieve one. We did grieve, of course we grieved, but ultimately we need to be in control so that we can influence and help in any way possible, not just Sean and Amelie, but the investigation.’

Most of the animosity against the McCanns centres on the figure of Madeleine’s beautiful mother. I am otherwise inclined. I find Gerry McCann’s need to ‘influence the investigation’ more provoking than her flat sadness, or the very occasional glimpse of a wounded narcissism that flecks her public appearances. I have never objected to good-looking women. My personal jury is out on the issue of narcissism in general; her daughter’s strong relationship with the camera lens causes us a number of emotions, but the last of them is always sorrow and pain.

The McCanns feel guilty. They are in denial. They left their children alone. They cannot accept that their daughter might be dead. Guilt and denial are the emotions we smell off Gerry and Kate McCann, and they madden us.

I, for example, search for interviews with them, late at night, on YouTube. There is so much rumour; I listen to their words because they are real, because these words actually did happen, one after the other. The focus of my ‘dislike’ is the language that Gerry McCann uses; his talk of ‘information technology’ and ‘control’, his need to ‘look forward’.

‘Is there a lesson here, do you feel, to other parents?’

‘I think that’s a very difficult thing to say, because, if you look at it, and we try to rationalise things in our head and, ultimately, what is done is done, and we continually look forward. We have tried to put it into some kind of perspective for ourselves.’

He lays a halting and agonised emphasis on the phrase ‘what is done is done,’ and, at three in the morning, all I can hear is Lady Macbeth saying this line after the murder of Duncan, to which her husband replies: ‘We have scorched the snake, not killed it.’ Besides, what does he mean? Who did the thing that has been done? It seems a very active and particular word for the more general act of leaving them, to go across the complex for dinner.

There are problems of active and passive throughout the McCanns’ speech. Perhaps there are cultural factors at play. I have no problem, for example, with Kate McCann’s reported cry on the night of 3 May: ‘They’ve taken Madeleine.’ To my Irish ears ‘they’ seems a common usage, recalling Jackie Kennedy’s ‘I want the world to see what they’ve done to my Jack’ at Dallas. I am less happy with the line she gives in the interview when she says: ‘It was during one of my checks that I discovered she’d gone.’ My first reaction is to say that she didn’t just go, my second is to think that, in Ireland, ‘she’d gone’ might easily describe someone who had slipped into an easy death. Then I rewind and hear the question, ‘Tell us how you discovered that Madeleine had gone?’ and realise that no one can name this event, no one can describe the empty space on Madeleine McCann’s bed.

Perhaps there is a Scottish feel to Gerry McCann’s use of ‘done’. The word is repeated and re-emphasised when he is asked about how Portuguese police conducted the case, particularly in the first 24 hours. He says: ‘I think, em, you know, we are not looking at what has been done, and I don’t think it helps at this stage to look back at what could and couldn’t have been done . . . The time for these lessons to be learned is after the investigation is finished and not now.’

I am cross with this phrase, ‘after the investigation is finished’. Did he mean after they’d packed up their charts and evidence bags and gone home? Surely what they are involved in is a frantic search for a missing child: how can it be finished except by finding her, alive or dead? Why does he not say what he means? Again, presumably because no one can say it: there can be no corpse, killed by them or by anyone else. Still, the use of the word ‘investigation’ begins to grate (elsewhere, Kate McCann said that one of the reasons they didn’t want to leave Portugal is that they wanted ‘to stay close to the investigation’). Later in the interview the word changes to the more banal but more outward-looking ‘campaign’. ‘Of course the world has changed in terms of information technology and the speed of response, you know, in terms of the media coming here and us being prepared, em, to some extent to use that to try and influence the campaign, but above all else, it’s touched everyone. Everyone.’

The sad fact is that this man cannot speak properly about what is happening to himself and his wife, and about what he wants. The language he uses is more appropriate to a corporate executive than to a desperate father. This may be just the way he is made. This may be all he has of himself to give the world, just now. But we are all used to the idea of corporations lying to us, one way or another – it’s part of our mass paranoia, as indeed are the couple we see on the screen. No wonder, I think, they will not speak about that night.

Then I go to bed and wake up the next day, human again, liking the McCanns.

Anne Enright's novel The Gathering is out from Cape. There will be a book of stories in the spring.

Parenting in Poverty

2007-10-06T13:02:00.000Z

Last week I attended some training, on safeguarding children, for the voluntary work I do. I left feeling depressed because of the comments expressed by others attending. I don't really understand why my consideration of social deprivation was dismissed, why some people were only too keen to call parents bad, and why people wanted to disrupt children's lives by removing them instead of offering support to enable families to stay together. Poverty in the UK is a neglected issue, despite the fine campaigning of Shelter and Oxfam et al.

There are all lovely people, well I thought they were, but so off base with some of their judgemental, value laden comments that I wanted to cry. I did what I always do, I chose the wrong battles. Because of that I was oppositional, probably completely ineffectual, and would never change any one's mind. I must remember to marshall my thoughts more thoughtfully! It made me think of searching for a poem and I found this one;

I grow daily more tired from trying
To make rich men care about poor children
Their world view such a study in the unreality that is men’s lives
They truly believe that all these children would be well
If their lazy mothers just worked harder
if they left them all alone at night to work another shift?
if they never had the time to see the insides of their schools?
that would be better?
It seems that way to the rich, white men
Because they leave life’s details and their family’s alone
Never knowing what mothers do and don’t do to keep their children well
They leave and they fault mothers for being there still
If money is not
The battles to make them see and care are wearing me
Burning me
Out.
Magadi, M. and Middleton, S. (2007) Severe Child Poverty in the UK, Save the Children, London, UK.

This report finds that one out of every ten children in the UK is living in severe poverty. A total of 1.4 million children have an income well below the government’s poverty line and lack basic necessities that most people in the UK take for granted. Policy-makers say that the first step to changing something is to measure it.Yet the government does not currently measure severe poverty. Save the Children argues that the government must focus its efforts on these children.

We cannot safeguard children unless we tackle the enormous strain and stress of families who live their lives in poverty. Poverty was never a rosy picture, however it is presented in sepia, it is desperate.

Maddy Murdered by Mum?

2007-09-07T18:17:00.000Z

Portuguese police believe the mother of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann accidentally killed her daughter, a family spokesman has said.
Altough it would be surprising, given what we have seen of the parents, most children who are murdered die at the hands of their parents.

Like Mother Like Daughter

2007-09-03T16:36:00.001Z

Self Indulgence

2007-09-02T20:09:00.000Z

Devious Diana

2007-09-01T20:07:00.000Z

I am rather with Germaine Greer on Diana, but not sure that anyone's life could stand such scrutiny, and sure I could have been called a "devious moron" on occasion! Whoever she was, or was to be, boys who grow up without a parent experience a profound loss. Princes are still boys, just look at Harry's lost face 10 years ago, and look at how well he pulled off his mother's memorial service. It was nothing less that a tanatalising glimpse into the future of the monarchy. I suspect more collaboration than competition between the brothers and wonder if Charles could bear not to be king, the job he has been awaiting all his life, and I wonder if giving it to his boys instead would be a gift.

Fear & Loathing in Leicestershire

2007-08-29T06:34:00.000Z

"...why would you get up in the morning if you weren't a bit fearful? Everything is a balance between tedium and fear." said Nigella today.

Yesterday was a horrible day for no discernable reason; unplaced anxiety plagued me till the end of the day, & now it has gone as inexplicably as it arrived. Glad to know this is the human condition?

Whatever

2007-08-21T19:20:00.000Z

The revolving doors of celebrity rehab are at it again, I hope the Causeway don't let Amy back to disturb the fragile equilibrium of those who are serious about seeking help. I try not to say anything vile about other women but honestly, who cares about Amy, except her mum of course. Neither her or Pete Doherty are interesting, & actually, I feel sorry for both mums!

Amy Winehouse Quits Rehab Again Amy Winehouse has left her rehab clinic for the second time in a week after a massive row with husband Blake Fielder-Civil. The troubled pair had been receiving treatment at The Causeway clinic in Essex following Amy’s recent drug overdose, but the couple walked out of the centre on Sunday night, taking a taxi to a London hotel. “It is supposed to be a peaceful backdrop to help people deal with their problems. But Amy and Blake kept rowing and spoiling the ambience,” a source at the clinic said. “While Amy would be welcomed back with open arms, I’m not sure they’d say the same for Blake. He upset people in The Causeway with his behaviour.”

Yes, yes, yes...Amy’s Back In Rehab Amy Winehouse has returned to rehab after quitting the Essex clinic after just 48 hours. She originally left the Causeway rehab centre on Wednesday and refused to return unless husband Blake Fielder-Civil went with her, even though reports suggest that Amy’s dad has been begging her to get treatment on her own. Speaking outside her home in north London before her return to rehab, Amy told reporters: “I’ve put on half a stone. I feel fine.” The singer has cancelled the rest of her performances for August so she can concentrate on getting well, but is adamant that her US tour will go ahead in September.

Amy Quits Rehab Amy Winehouse has quit rehab after just two days. The singer walked out of the Causeway clinic in Essex with husband Blake Fielder-Civil just 48 hours after admitting she had a problem with drugs. The couple had been receiving treatment together but were desperate to get home and back to a normal life. Or as normal as it can be when you're a pop star - Amy chartered a helicopter to get home to north London. Speaking later outside her house, Amy said: "Oh my God, what the hell happened to last week? I'm fine, don't worry." According to reports, the sickly singer has also had a brain scan to find out if last week’s seizure could have been caused by epilepsy.

Not So Old Vic

2007-08-19T23:01:00.000Z

After the triumph of Aladdin, Stephen Fry is scripting Cinders for this Christmas, can you think of anything more pantfabuous?!

& now I have to admit that I find it hard to swallow my American classics when they are not washed down by Kevin Spacey. Thank God he came to the Old Vic, what could be better...

Sofa Chic?

2007-08-16T20:42:00.000Z

Sometimes, on a fat day you understand, I feel like my brightly patterned skirt makes me look like a large upholstered something. I guess some people just go that bit further...

Paris's Vélib

2007-08-16T06:58:00.000Z

Paris has a cycle sharing scheme and apparently, blasé cyclists can be seen negotiating the high-speed free-for-all that is the Place de la Concorde while puffing a cigarette and calling a friend. Not only that, but the beige and black colour scheme is chic enough not to clutter up those boulevards with garish neon hues and tones beautifully with the Parisian wardrobe! Got to love the french!

Daddy's Home

2007-07-29T16:18:00.000Z

Morgan Styke, five, stands in a formation that includes her father, Sgt Jeremy Charlet, at a dismissal ceremony of his National Guard unit, at the New Ulm Civic Center, in New Ulm, Minnesota. The 125th Field Artillery Headquarters and Headquarters Battery unit returned to after 22 months of active duty, 16 of them in Iraq. (John Cross/ Mankato Free Press).

His Georgeousness at Galaxy

2007-07-22T19:27:00.000Z

I did mention my hidden shallows? News from the a hardly news source at all has me worried about David's staying power, I mean I like Posh because she laughs at herself, but I think they forgot how many babes there are in La La Land.

Organ Donation; right or choice

2007-07-17T16:39:00.000Z

The CMO tells us that we should opt out of organ donation rather than choose if we do. What do you think?

Mosaic of Men

2007-07-09T21:44:00.000Z

BP Portrait Prize 2007

2007-07-09T09:04:00.000Z

Following a record number of entries, four artists have been shortlisted for the 2007 BP Portrait Award, one of Britain’s most prestigious art prizes, the winner of which will be announced on Wednesday June 20. The artists in the running for the £25,000 award are Johan Andersson, Paul Emsley, David Lawton and Hynek Martinec, whose work is currently on display alongside that of 60 other contestants at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

Car + Cocaine = Cornfield

2007-06-28T20:49:00.001Z

Dallas for the Noughties

2007-06-17T13:27:00.000Z

Brothers & Sisters' biggest asset is that it really knows how families, particularly big families, think, speak and interact. Tiny things rip generations apart. Huge things can be ignored for whole lifetimes.

*Sparkles*