The grand strategy titles will receive new expansions.
Reported by Digital Spy 2 days ago.
Reported by Digital Spy 2 days ago.
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New Europa Universalis 4, Crusaders Kings 2 expansions announced
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VIDEO: Rock star John Mayer's accolade for Torquay engraver David Smith
This is South Devon --A TORBAY master craftsman has earned the ultimate accolade, not only celebrity endorsement but a special friendship with a man who fills rock stadiums around the world.
David Smith is one of a rare breed of glass embossers creating beautiful bespoke designs which take many hours of exquisite work for businesses like pubs and also for private commissions.
One special commission for 2013 was from whiskey company Jameson's for a limited edition bottle and so his name is immortalised on bottles sold around the world. His name was also on the special display cases.
David, from Torquay, said: "I am the third person to have my signature on the front of the bottle which is just brilliant. It was a limited edition bottle for St Patrick's Day. It was even on British Airways tickets and in airports around the world."
He was also commissioned to create a large reverse glass gilded mirror for Jameson, which now takes pride of place in their famous Whiskey distillery. Then came major commission from Sony Music/Columbia records, New York, to design an album cover for John Mayer, an American pop and blues rock musician. The album is called Born and Raised.
David worked with John on the brief of the artwork, and was asked to include coins, watches, flowers and ribbons. The turn-of-the-century, trade-card styled artwork took roughly one month to complete. David said: "This has without a doubt been one of the most enjoyable projects I have been involved with due to the person I was working for."
They regularly chat on the phone or by Skype. "He's a really nice guy and we have made a film with it which has had lots of interest on YouTube and Vimeo," said David. On YouTube the film, called The Making of John Mayer's Born and Raised Artwork, has had more than 180,000 hits on YouTube and 300,000 hits on Vimeo, with other sites sharing the film.
The album is available both digitally and as a traditional LP with full cover jacket and internal artwork. It has been number one in America and six other countries.
The guitarist showed it off on the Ellen DeGeneres TV show in America and the David Letterman Show in New York and many more international shows.
In addition David has recently created the gold leaf glass signs at the front of the new Burberry flagship store on Regent Street, London, and also the mirrors for the Ginstitute, Gin Palace on the Portobello Road, London.
To cap it all, David has been asked to design the cover for the new single for chart toppers Kings of Leon.
He attended one of John Mayer's concerts in America and at the 02 and Wembley arena in London.
He explained: "Last December I was sent an email. I remember the subject box stating: 'Album cover art for Sony music, John Mayer, Born and Raised album'. It had already been a busy and fast paced year; I had just completed and designed the limited edition St Patrick's Day bottle for Jameson Whiskey, and had been putting a lot of time into the project for Burberry flagship store on Regent Street, London.
"I did not realise at the time of opening this email that I was soon to embark on creating one of the most interesting yet challenging pieces I have ever made.
"And it wasn't just the artwork for the album cover I was kept busy with. I was assigned the task of creating posters for the songs Queen of California and Something Like Olivia and many other merchandise such as T-shirts and tour posters.
"During the making of the cover, a close friend of mine from Paignton, Danny Cooke a brilliant film maker captured the process of its creation, with this video still on YouTube, it's viewed by fans of John Mayer's around the world.
"Looking back now, the last year has been a surreal experience. Two months ago, I flew to California to meet John at one of his first concerts of his Born and Raised worldwide tour.
"And now myself and 16 others, my family and friends, were sent backstage passes and tickets to attend his concert at London's O2 Arena."
David learned glass embossing and signwriting after his father got him on to a traditional apprenticeship after leaving Westlands School in 1984. Now David is busier than ever, with some three years' worth of work lined up and is recognised as the leading exponent of the traditional skill in Britain and across the globe, meaning his services are much in demand.
For more of his work see www.davidadriansmith.com Reported by This is 12 hours ago.
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Family life: Dad's hair-combing ritual, the naughty Tom Lehrer and Mum's 'trifle'
Readers' favourite photographs, songs and recipes
*Snapshot*:* The younger me, in a different era *
Up until, say, the age of 10, if we were going anywhere special, my father would part my hair for me, in a small ritual that gave me pleasure. He would take the comb, wetted with water by my mother, who would flick it first to dry it a little, the drops making a tiny spatter on the terracotta tiles of the kitchen floor. He would stand above me, so much bigger than I was then, and comb my hair, scraping it across the scalp to either side of my head, so that I could feel the points of the comb, but not hard enough to hurt. The sensation, and his brief concentration on me, always gave me an intense physical pleasure.
My favourite part was a ritual within the ritual. "Is my parting straight?" I would ask. "It's as crooked as a dog's hind leg," my father would say, scraping a straighter line – always the mathematician – across the left side of my scalp from back to front. I would get a tiny Mexican wave of goose pimples. Then my father would say, "Bah!" in dismissal of further effort, put the comb down and sometimes walk away, the steel segs on his heels clicking on the tiled floor.
My mother's notation on the back of this snapshot, taken half a century ago, tells me the scene is at Sleights, on the Yorkshire coast. We would be on an outing from Whitby, perennial favourite for our summer holiday.
I wear a child's parody of a man's suit, short trousers reaching almost to the bony cups of my knees, the tweedy jacket with its lumpy leather buttons like miniature conkers. Like one of the Bash Street Kids, my socks rumple down towards my sandals, while at the other end, my outstretched left arm rests along the top bar of the gate, as I wear NHS Milky Bar Kid glasses and a serious expression. My hair is pasted flat as polish, and I remember now the pleasure of the familiar ritual with my father.
I look pleasingly ridiculous, a child clothed and coiffed from a different era, but the pleasure of that ritual haunts me like a tiny, friendly ghost, and I wish I had the magic to conjure it into being.
Michael A Young
*Playlist*:* My naughty, witty bond with Dad*
* *
*Poisoning Pigeons in the Park by Tom Lehrer*
"All the world seems in tune / On a spring afternoon / When we're poisoning pigeons in the park"
Dad was one of those 1970s fathers who embraced suburban life and keeping up appearances far more than he embraced active parenthood, a concept that apparently baffled him. At weekends he always chose to mow the immaculate front lawn, nuke the flower beds with new chemical gardening products, wash the car or redecorate the house, refusing to go to the park with Mum, my brother and sister and me. As we three kids grew up, in the era of punk, new wave and ska, he poured scorn on our music choices, which amplified the feeling of him versus us.
But there was one slim thread that connected me to him – my interest in his record collection. He had a large cabinet full of LPs by many of the jazz greats, plus lots of comedy records – the Goons, Tommy Cooper and, my favourite, Tom Lehrer. He would play them as he decorated or after lunch on a Sunday, singing along or laughing out loud, putting him in a far better mood than usual. Craving some positive attention, I made the most of those times to be around him.
Tom Lehrer's songs dazzled me with his wit and inventiveness, plus his references to things I'd never heard of, such as Harvard and strychnine. My favourite song was Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, the naughtiness of it giving it a huge extra frisson. Dad and I would sing along together with gusto.
I only found out a few years ago, when I won tickets to see the Specials at the 100 Club on Oxford Street, in central London, how big a music fan Dad had been in his youth – it turned out that he had frequently gone to jazz nights at the same venue. (Ironically, years later, of course, it was the 100 Club that first welcomed the Sex Pistols and the other punk bands that Dad so detested.)
At the Specials gig, I looked at all the framed black and white photos of bands, singers and musicians on the walls and thought about Dad being there as a happier, younger man in the 50s. It was a second positive musical connection to add to our Tom Lehrer bond.
Helen Self
*We love to eat*:* Mum's amazing 'trifle'*
*Ingredients*
1 egg
2oz (55g) sugar
2oz (55g) margarine
2oz (55g) self-raising flour
2oz (55g) cocoa powder
Orange juice
Raspberries, preferably frozen and then defrosted so they are mushy
Instant custard
Mix the egg, margarine, flour and cocoa in a microwavable Pyrex dish. Microwave for a couple of minutes to cook the sponge and then use a fork to break up and pour orange juice over to moisten so the cake layer is squidgy. Leave to cool. Add a layer of mushed raspberries and cover in custard. Refrigerate till custard is set and dig in, enjoying the slurping noise when the first portion comes out of the dish.
Growing up in the early 80s, my sister and I had no idea that the dish we regularly enjoyed was not really trifle but Mum's loose interpretation of the dessert. The origin of her recipe is not clear but likely to be a combination of her love of shortcuts and ingredient substitution coupled with a fear of alcohol and my hatred of cream. It also celebrates the excitement of the early days of the microwave when the large brown box in the corner of the kitchen was used to cook everything in record time, with varying results.
Thanks to Dad's two allotments and incredibly green fingers, we had a constant glut of fresh organic (though they weren't called organic then) fruit and vegetables, which resulted in Mum spending balmy summer afternoons and evenings processing and freezing massive quantities for the winter months. Any dish that made instant use of these abundant frozen offerings was a bonus and the odd caterpillar hiding in the raspberry layer was not unheard of!
Mum's "trifle" was the real taste of home when I was back from university and a cheeky breakfast treat whenever there were leftovers. It is still my favourite dessert, served in the same scratched Pyrex dish and it knocks the socks off its sherry-soaked namesake.
Clare Armstrong
*We'd love to hear your stories
*
We will pay £25 for every Letter to, Playlist, Snapshot or We love to eat we publish. Write to Family Life, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email family@theguardian.com. Please include your address and phone number Reported by guardian.co.uk 12 hours ago.
*Snapshot*:* The younger me, in a different era *
Up until, say, the age of 10, if we were going anywhere special, my father would part my hair for me, in a small ritual that gave me pleasure. He would take the comb, wetted with water by my mother, who would flick it first to dry it a little, the drops making a tiny spatter on the terracotta tiles of the kitchen floor. He would stand above me, so much bigger than I was then, and comb my hair, scraping it across the scalp to either side of my head, so that I could feel the points of the comb, but not hard enough to hurt. The sensation, and his brief concentration on me, always gave me an intense physical pleasure.
My favourite part was a ritual within the ritual. "Is my parting straight?" I would ask. "It's as crooked as a dog's hind leg," my father would say, scraping a straighter line – always the mathematician – across the left side of my scalp from back to front. I would get a tiny Mexican wave of goose pimples. Then my father would say, "Bah!" in dismissal of further effort, put the comb down and sometimes walk away, the steel segs on his heels clicking on the tiled floor.
My mother's notation on the back of this snapshot, taken half a century ago, tells me the scene is at Sleights, on the Yorkshire coast. We would be on an outing from Whitby, perennial favourite for our summer holiday.
I wear a child's parody of a man's suit, short trousers reaching almost to the bony cups of my knees, the tweedy jacket with its lumpy leather buttons like miniature conkers. Like one of the Bash Street Kids, my socks rumple down towards my sandals, while at the other end, my outstretched left arm rests along the top bar of the gate, as I wear NHS Milky Bar Kid glasses and a serious expression. My hair is pasted flat as polish, and I remember now the pleasure of the familiar ritual with my father.
I look pleasingly ridiculous, a child clothed and coiffed from a different era, but the pleasure of that ritual haunts me like a tiny, friendly ghost, and I wish I had the magic to conjure it into being.
Michael A Young
*Playlist*:* My naughty, witty bond with Dad*
* *
*Poisoning Pigeons in the Park by Tom Lehrer*
"All the world seems in tune / On a spring afternoon / When we're poisoning pigeons in the park"
Dad was one of those 1970s fathers who embraced suburban life and keeping up appearances far more than he embraced active parenthood, a concept that apparently baffled him. At weekends he always chose to mow the immaculate front lawn, nuke the flower beds with new chemical gardening products, wash the car or redecorate the house, refusing to go to the park with Mum, my brother and sister and me. As we three kids grew up, in the era of punk, new wave and ska, he poured scorn on our music choices, which amplified the feeling of him versus us.
But there was one slim thread that connected me to him – my interest in his record collection. He had a large cabinet full of LPs by many of the jazz greats, plus lots of comedy records – the Goons, Tommy Cooper and, my favourite, Tom Lehrer. He would play them as he decorated or after lunch on a Sunday, singing along or laughing out loud, putting him in a far better mood than usual. Craving some positive attention, I made the most of those times to be around him.
Tom Lehrer's songs dazzled me with his wit and inventiveness, plus his references to things I'd never heard of, such as Harvard and strychnine. My favourite song was Poisoning Pigeons in the Park, the naughtiness of it giving it a huge extra frisson. Dad and I would sing along together with gusto.
I only found out a few years ago, when I won tickets to see the Specials at the 100 Club on Oxford Street, in central London, how big a music fan Dad had been in his youth – it turned out that he had frequently gone to jazz nights at the same venue. (Ironically, years later, of course, it was the 100 Club that first welcomed the Sex Pistols and the other punk bands that Dad so detested.)
At the Specials gig, I looked at all the framed black and white photos of bands, singers and musicians on the walls and thought about Dad being there as a happier, younger man in the 50s. It was a second positive musical connection to add to our Tom Lehrer bond.
Helen Self
*We love to eat*:* Mum's amazing 'trifle'*
*Ingredients*
1 egg
2oz (55g) sugar
2oz (55g) margarine
2oz (55g) self-raising flour
2oz (55g) cocoa powder
Orange juice
Raspberries, preferably frozen and then defrosted so they are mushy
Instant custard
Mix the egg, margarine, flour and cocoa in a microwavable Pyrex dish. Microwave for a couple of minutes to cook the sponge and then use a fork to break up and pour orange juice over to moisten so the cake layer is squidgy. Leave to cool. Add a layer of mushed raspberries and cover in custard. Refrigerate till custard is set and dig in, enjoying the slurping noise when the first portion comes out of the dish.
Growing up in the early 80s, my sister and I had no idea that the dish we regularly enjoyed was not really trifle but Mum's loose interpretation of the dessert. The origin of her recipe is not clear but likely to be a combination of her love of shortcuts and ingredient substitution coupled with a fear of alcohol and my hatred of cream. It also celebrates the excitement of the early days of the microwave when the large brown box in the corner of the kitchen was used to cook everything in record time, with varying results.
Thanks to Dad's two allotments and incredibly green fingers, we had a constant glut of fresh organic (though they weren't called organic then) fruit and vegetables, which resulted in Mum spending balmy summer afternoons and evenings processing and freezing massive quantities for the winter months. Any dish that made instant use of these abundant frozen offerings was a bonus and the odd caterpillar hiding in the raspberry layer was not unheard of!
Mum's "trifle" was the real taste of home when I was back from university and a cheeky breakfast treat whenever there were leftovers. It is still my favourite dessert, served in the same scratched Pyrex dish and it knocks the socks off its sherry-soaked namesake.
Clare Armstrong
*We'd love to hear your stories
*
We will pay £25 for every Letter to, Playlist, Snapshot or We love to eat we publish. Write to Family Life, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email family@theguardian.com. Please include your address and phone number Reported by guardian.co.uk 12 hours ago.
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Wake by Anna Hope – review
Kasia Boddy on the stories of the Unknown Soldier
In August 1920, a British army chaplain wrote to the dean of Westminster with an idea about the commemoration of the dead of the first world war. Four years earlier, in a garden in Armentières, he had come across a grave marked by a wooden cross on which were pencilled the words "An Unknown British Soldier". Surely such a person deserved a place "among the kings" at Westminster Abbey? King George V thought the idea distasteful but was persuaded by the prime minister – or so one story goes.
In fact, the idea of commemorating an anonymous soldier had circulated in Britain and France throughout the war. The body of the unknown soldier represented war at its most deadly and egalitarian, as a stripping away of any sign of rank or social status, and its commemoration was offered as an opportunity for collective mourning. Without identity, he belonged to everyone.
To enact such weighty symbolism required carefully choreographed ritual. Remains were exhumed from four battle areas and brought to a chapel near Arras on the night of 7 November 1920. Each skeleton was covered with a union jack before one was selected and placed in a coffin made from Hampton Court oak, along with a trench helmet and a khaki belt; a 16th-century crusader's sword was fixed on top. On Armistice Day, the bones were buried in Westminster Abbey, and in Whitehall the Cenotaph – or "empty grave"– was unveiled.
Wake takes place over the five days between the exhumation and burial of the British Unknown Warrior. Each of the five sections of Anna Hope's thoroughly researched novel interweaves details of the body's ritualised journey toward London with the emotional journeys of three city women – each carefully created for her representative qualities. Forty-five‑year-old Ada, from Hackney, east London, is haunted by the memory of a son whose death remains a mystery for much of the novel; Evelyn, from Primrose Hill, north London, and two weeks shy of her 30th birthday, can't get over the death of her lover; Hettie, from Hammersmith, west London, and just 19, has lost her father to the Spanish flu and her brother to the catatonia of shell shock. The novel's title refers both to their attempts to watch over their dead and to their faltering efforts to come to terms with loss. Wake suggests that talking to a stranger about "it", and "sharing" the "truth" of whatever it might be, is "enough" to make life "lighter"; a therapeutic message not unfamiliar to readers of modern novels. Evelyn is the only character allowed to express any scepticism about the "show" of the Unknown Warrior. "This is supposed to make it all right, is it?" she asks her brother Ed (a Hemingway drunk with problems "down there"). "This burial? This pulling a body from the earth in France and dragging him over here? And all of us standing, watching, weeping?"
But, finally, she too is caught up in the "unexpected blessing" of November sunshine and the sounds of the city's bells "chiming together and apart". By 1920, Hope insists, it's time to have one final sob and then, well, wake up; it's time to make yourself pretty again, to put on a more cheerful frock, to cut that Edwardian hair, and, as the novel's central metaphor has it, start dancing again. The present-tense narrative takes us away from a past that can never be retrieved towards a future that tastes of "sherbet" and sounds like Dixieland jazz. Could we be so blithe about those who were bereaved by 9/11 or by the Iraq or Afghanistan wars?
• Kasia Boddy's Boxing: A Cultural History is published by Reaktion. Reported by guardian.co.uk 9 hours ago.
In August 1920, a British army chaplain wrote to the dean of Westminster with an idea about the commemoration of the dead of the first world war. Four years earlier, in a garden in Armentières, he had come across a grave marked by a wooden cross on which were pencilled the words "An Unknown British Soldier". Surely such a person deserved a place "among the kings" at Westminster Abbey? King George V thought the idea distasteful but was persuaded by the prime minister – or so one story goes.
In fact, the idea of commemorating an anonymous soldier had circulated in Britain and France throughout the war. The body of the unknown soldier represented war at its most deadly and egalitarian, as a stripping away of any sign of rank or social status, and its commemoration was offered as an opportunity for collective mourning. Without identity, he belonged to everyone.
To enact such weighty symbolism required carefully choreographed ritual. Remains were exhumed from four battle areas and brought to a chapel near Arras on the night of 7 November 1920. Each skeleton was covered with a union jack before one was selected and placed in a coffin made from Hampton Court oak, along with a trench helmet and a khaki belt; a 16th-century crusader's sword was fixed on top. On Armistice Day, the bones were buried in Westminster Abbey, and in Whitehall the Cenotaph – or "empty grave"– was unveiled.
Wake takes place over the five days between the exhumation and burial of the British Unknown Warrior. Each of the five sections of Anna Hope's thoroughly researched novel interweaves details of the body's ritualised journey toward London with the emotional journeys of three city women – each carefully created for her representative qualities. Forty-five‑year-old Ada, from Hackney, east London, is haunted by the memory of a son whose death remains a mystery for much of the novel; Evelyn, from Primrose Hill, north London, and two weeks shy of her 30th birthday, can't get over the death of her lover; Hettie, from Hammersmith, west London, and just 19, has lost her father to the Spanish flu and her brother to the catatonia of shell shock. The novel's title refers both to their attempts to watch over their dead and to their faltering efforts to come to terms with loss. Wake suggests that talking to a stranger about "it", and "sharing" the "truth" of whatever it might be, is "enough" to make life "lighter"; a therapeutic message not unfamiliar to readers of modern novels. Evelyn is the only character allowed to express any scepticism about the "show" of the Unknown Warrior. "This is supposed to make it all right, is it?" she asks her brother Ed (a Hemingway drunk with problems "down there"). "This burial? This pulling a body from the earth in France and dragging him over here? And all of us standing, watching, weeping?"
But, finally, she too is caught up in the "unexpected blessing" of November sunshine and the sounds of the city's bells "chiming together and apart". By 1920, Hope insists, it's time to have one final sob and then, well, wake up; it's time to make yourself pretty again, to put on a more cheerful frock, to cut that Edwardian hair, and, as the novel's central metaphor has it, start dancing again. The present-tense narrative takes us away from a past that can never be retrieved towards a future that tastes of "sherbet" and sounds like Dixieland jazz. Could we be so blithe about those who were bereaved by 9/11 or by the Iraq or Afghanistan wars?
• Kasia Boddy's Boxing: A Cultural History is published by Reaktion. Reported by guardian.co.uk 9 hours ago.
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Viral Video Chart: One Direction, Lena Dunham and Arnold Schwarzenegger
The !D boys tune out, touring with The Girls, Benedict Cumberbatch legs it – and Arnie goes to the Super Bowl
Love 'em or hate 'em, you can't avoid One Direction, so it makes a refreshing change to watch our top video this week and hear the boys' voices not quite up to scratch. Dub kings Sam and Rick have taken away the voices of Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan and replaced the vocals of Story of My Life with something quite different.
The 1D boys are used to starring in their own videos, but it will be interesting if, in years to come, they are as scathing about their work as Noel Gallagher. The Oasis star gives a running commentary about the band's UK single music videos – and he is really not impressed.
Meanwhile, we've got a double dose of Arnold Schwarzenegger this week as he makes an appearance playing ping-pong in the ad break for the Super Bowl and dresses up as a gym instructor to surprise some punters as they work out and raise cash for charity.
Fans of Lena Dunham and Girls might want to join Sasheer Zamata's tour – and if Mean Girls is more your thing, we've got a catty version which will make you chuckle. Missing Sherlock? Catch Benedict Cumberbatch – and those legs – accepting his NTA gong in Los Angeles. Finally, if your tastes are more highbrow than popular film and TV, you'll love our final clip which brings art masterpieces to life.
*Guardian Viral Video Chart. Compiled by Unruly Media and mashed up by Janette*
*1.* One Direction - Story Of My Life (shred) by SamRick
Pitched out
*2.* Arnold Works at Gold's
Watch your back
*3.* Official Arnold Schwarzenegger Bud Light Super Bowl 2014 Ping Pong Commercial
Turning the tables
*4.* HBO's GIRLS Tour ft. Sasheer Zamata
Lena's lot
*5.* Benedict Cumberbatch - NTA Awards Winner Best TV Detective
Clued up
*6.* Mean Girls Parody - Mean Cats
Puss in cahoots
*7.* Oasis - DVD commentary highlights
The first Noel
*8.* How That Legendary 'Fight Club' Scene Would Look Without Tyler Durden
Action man
*9.* What if Google was a Guy?
Searching questions
*10.*This Guy Animated Classic Paintings And The Results Are Beautiful
Art warming
Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 14:00 on 23 January 2014. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 days ago.
Love 'em or hate 'em, you can't avoid One Direction, so it makes a refreshing change to watch our top video this week and hear the boys' voices not quite up to scratch. Dub kings Sam and Rick have taken away the voices of Harry Styles, Liam Payne, Zayn Malik, Louis Tomlinson and Niall Horan and replaced the vocals of Story of My Life with something quite different.
The 1D boys are used to starring in their own videos, but it will be interesting if, in years to come, they are as scathing about their work as Noel Gallagher. The Oasis star gives a running commentary about the band's UK single music videos – and he is really not impressed.
Meanwhile, we've got a double dose of Arnold Schwarzenegger this week as he makes an appearance playing ping-pong in the ad break for the Super Bowl and dresses up as a gym instructor to surprise some punters as they work out and raise cash for charity.
Fans of Lena Dunham and Girls might want to join Sasheer Zamata's tour – and if Mean Girls is more your thing, we've got a catty version which will make you chuckle. Missing Sherlock? Catch Benedict Cumberbatch – and those legs – accepting his NTA gong in Los Angeles. Finally, if your tastes are more highbrow than popular film and TV, you'll love our final clip which brings art masterpieces to life.
*Guardian Viral Video Chart. Compiled by Unruly Media and mashed up by Janette*
*1.* One Direction - Story Of My Life (shred) by SamRick
Pitched out
*2.* Arnold Works at Gold's
Watch your back
*3.* Official Arnold Schwarzenegger Bud Light Super Bowl 2014 Ping Pong Commercial
Turning the tables
*4.* HBO's GIRLS Tour ft. Sasheer Zamata
Lena's lot
*5.* Benedict Cumberbatch - NTA Awards Winner Best TV Detective
Clued up
*6.* Mean Girls Parody - Mean Cats
Puss in cahoots
*7.* Oasis - DVD commentary highlights
The first Noel
*8.* How That Legendary 'Fight Club' Scene Would Look Without Tyler Durden
Action man
*9.* What if Google was a Guy?
Searching questions
*10.*This Guy Animated Classic Paintings And The Results Are Beautiful
Art warming
Source: Viral Video Chart. Compiled from data gathered at 14:00 on 23 January 2014. The Viral Video Chart is currently based on a count of the embedded videos and links on approximately 2m blogs, as well as Facebook and Twitter. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 days ago.
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Seeing red | Mind your language
A shocking story of verbal abuse suggests we should be more sensitive about using the word 'ginger'
A couple of months ago, police were called in when red-haired pupils at an academy in Yorkshire were the victims of "kick a ginger kid day". An isolated incident? Perhaps not.
"This letter is to respectfully ask that the word 'ginger' is not used interchangeably for redheads, as it a term that it is all too often used in a derogatory fashion and as a prelude to abuse."
So begins a letter to the readers' editor describing horrifying abuse the writer has been subjected to – and all because of the colour of her hair.
She continues: "Until about five years ago, if someone you knew used the term 'ginger' in front of you, they would immediately look embarrassed and mutter something along the lines of: 'Oh, but you're not a ginger – you've got lovely hair.' It now seems to have slipped into common usage; perhaps it has the cachet of a naughty word.
"It is still the case that if you are out in public and hear it the word is usually followed by 'minger', sometimes by 'freak' and (unfortunately) sometimes the wet sound of someone spitting in your direction. In five years I've had redhead abuse upwards of a dozen times, and twice it included being actually spat on.
"Like many other attacks based on appearance, verbal abuse of redheads is often uncomfortably sexual in nature. A particularly horrible experience on a train began with three drunken men first hissing 'ginger minger' at me through the seats; then the abuse escalating to yelled offers to 'wallpaper my head so they can fuck me'. (Apologies for the coarse language.) I had done nothing to attract their attention – I was actually travelling up to Perthshire for my mother's memorial service. My Scottish cousins, who also have red hair, have actually had worse scenarios and now dye their hair.
"While there may be small pockets of the UK where the word is not used as abuse, I've travelled a lot across Britain and have yet to find them. As I suspect most of the abuse does not happen in middle-class areas (apart from the schoolyard), I can understand that many non-redheads simply do not realise just how much this term is used still as a weapon."
The sexual element suggests that women are more likely to be victims of this kind of moronic treatment. I asked a red-haired man about his own experiences and he said: "I have never really been abused for my hair colour. I think it's important to remember that sometimes, when people get abusing words thrown at them, they aren't being abused because of what they look like. For example, if Peter Crouch bumped into you in the street, you might call him a 'tall twat' but you're not abusing him because he's tall. You're just looking for any adjective that you can attach to the word 'twat'.
"This may well happen to a lot of redheads and they convince themselves that if they weren't a redhead, they wouldn't be abused. But this is impossible to tell, as chavs on trains may well abuse you even if you're a brunette. As with all forms of teasing, confidence and the ability to laugh off banter are important.
"The word 'ginger' does carry more negative connotations than redhead but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use it. I believe that there is no such thing as an inherently bad word and that everything has a context. When the Guardian uses 'ginger' as a synonym for redhead in a piece where they have already used the word 'redhead' then clearly there is no negative intent. And all writers grasp at synonyms to avoid word repetition.
"To ban the word altogether would probably just make it worse and taboo words only become more powerful and more offensive."
A (dark-haired) Observer columnist, while recognising that "ginger prejudice" exists, has suggested that red-haired people are perhaps oversensitive and wonders whether we are "getting our PC knickers in a twist". To be fair, no one is asking for "ginger" to be banned altogether but the letter writer did suggest that we take more care over use of the term, and I think that's good advice which I shall be passing on to my colleagues.
This recent article – Mapping redheads: which country has the most? – may have been tongue-in-cheek, but I can see that anyone who had been abused as a "ginger" would not find it very funny. (And as it's not the 1950s, we don't normally use "blondes" to describe people with blond hair.)
Over to you.
David Marsh, author of For Who the Bell Tolls: One Man's Quest for Grammatical Perfection, will debate "Questions of Grammar" with NM Gwynne, author of Gwynne's Grammar, at Kings Place, London, on Monday 17 February. Tickets here. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
A couple of months ago, police were called in when red-haired pupils at an academy in Yorkshire were the victims of "kick a ginger kid day". An isolated incident? Perhaps not.
"This letter is to respectfully ask that the word 'ginger' is not used interchangeably for redheads, as it a term that it is all too often used in a derogatory fashion and as a prelude to abuse."
So begins a letter to the readers' editor describing horrifying abuse the writer has been subjected to – and all because of the colour of her hair.
She continues: "Until about five years ago, if someone you knew used the term 'ginger' in front of you, they would immediately look embarrassed and mutter something along the lines of: 'Oh, but you're not a ginger – you've got lovely hair.' It now seems to have slipped into common usage; perhaps it has the cachet of a naughty word.
"It is still the case that if you are out in public and hear it the word is usually followed by 'minger', sometimes by 'freak' and (unfortunately) sometimes the wet sound of someone spitting in your direction. In five years I've had redhead abuse upwards of a dozen times, and twice it included being actually spat on.
"Like many other attacks based on appearance, verbal abuse of redheads is often uncomfortably sexual in nature. A particularly horrible experience on a train began with three drunken men first hissing 'ginger minger' at me through the seats; then the abuse escalating to yelled offers to 'wallpaper my head so they can fuck me'. (Apologies for the coarse language.) I had done nothing to attract their attention – I was actually travelling up to Perthshire for my mother's memorial service. My Scottish cousins, who also have red hair, have actually had worse scenarios and now dye their hair.
"While there may be small pockets of the UK where the word is not used as abuse, I've travelled a lot across Britain and have yet to find them. As I suspect most of the abuse does not happen in middle-class areas (apart from the schoolyard), I can understand that many non-redheads simply do not realise just how much this term is used still as a weapon."
The sexual element suggests that women are more likely to be victims of this kind of moronic treatment. I asked a red-haired man about his own experiences and he said: "I have never really been abused for my hair colour. I think it's important to remember that sometimes, when people get abusing words thrown at them, they aren't being abused because of what they look like. For example, if Peter Crouch bumped into you in the street, you might call him a 'tall twat' but you're not abusing him because he's tall. You're just looking for any adjective that you can attach to the word 'twat'.
"This may well happen to a lot of redheads and they convince themselves that if they weren't a redhead, they wouldn't be abused. But this is impossible to tell, as chavs on trains may well abuse you even if you're a brunette. As with all forms of teasing, confidence and the ability to laugh off banter are important.
"The word 'ginger' does carry more negative connotations than redhead but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use it. I believe that there is no such thing as an inherently bad word and that everything has a context. When the Guardian uses 'ginger' as a synonym for redhead in a piece where they have already used the word 'redhead' then clearly there is no negative intent. And all writers grasp at synonyms to avoid word repetition.
"To ban the word altogether would probably just make it worse and taboo words only become more powerful and more offensive."
A (dark-haired) Observer columnist, while recognising that "ginger prejudice" exists, has suggested that red-haired people are perhaps oversensitive and wonders whether we are "getting our PC knickers in a twist". To be fair, no one is asking for "ginger" to be banned altogether but the letter writer did suggest that we take more care over use of the term, and I think that's good advice which I shall be passing on to my colleagues.
This recent article – Mapping redheads: which country has the most? – may have been tongue-in-cheek, but I can see that anyone who had been abused as a "ginger" would not find it very funny. (And as it's not the 1950s, we don't normally use "blondes" to describe people with blond hair.)
Over to you.
David Marsh, author of For Who the Bell Tolls: One Man's Quest for Grammatical Perfection, will debate "Questions of Grammar" with NM Gwynne, author of Gwynne's Grammar, at Kings Place, London, on Monday 17 February. Tickets here. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
↧
12 Years a Slave's John Ridley wrote script 'for free'
Oscar nominated scriptwriter received no fee for first four years of development, until Hollywood finally stepped in
• Will Steve McQueen be first black film-maker to win best director Oscar?
• Oscars 2014: 12 Years a Slave must clean up. But that doesn't mean it will
12 Years a Slave scriptwriter John Ridley revealed that he worked unpaid on the script for the Oscar nominated film for four years.
Ridley, who had previously written scripts for Red Tails, Three Kings and U Turn told the Press Association: "There was no development money whatsoever for this project, so I said I'd take it on as a spec project, which means I'll write it for free."
12 Years, adapted from Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir of kidnap and slavery on a plantation in Louisiana, was initially spotted by director Steve McQueen's partner Bianca Stigter, and Ridley agreed to write a script well before any financial backing arrived.
He said: "The upside is I get to own that manuscript; the downside is, for what? This was not Transformers, where you can go to a studio, where they say, 'Great. Let's put some big stars in and go'."
"It was either going to be a script that wowed people and show how powerful that memoir and that story was, and how pertinent it is. That was the difficulty of it. That was something that came to me in a partnership but ultimately it was a choice of four year's work without taking a penny."
Ridley says he did eventually receive a fee, after Brad Pitt's Plan B production company got involved and finally secured funding. Ridley is credited as executive producer as well as scriptwriter, and says he was paid on the first day of filming.
Ridley also described his first meeting with McQueen: "We had breakfast and he was very demonstrative about trying to explore the slave era in American history, and very curious why Americans had not explored it and why it was a difficult subject matter ... I talked to him about the studio system and that it would be hard to get the money. He was very passionate."
• Will Steve McQueen be first black film-maker to win best director Oscar?
• Oscars 2014: 12 Years a Slave must clean up. But that doesn't mean it will Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
• Will Steve McQueen be first black film-maker to win best director Oscar?
• Oscars 2014: 12 Years a Slave must clean up. But that doesn't mean it will
12 Years a Slave scriptwriter John Ridley revealed that he worked unpaid on the script for the Oscar nominated film for four years.
Ridley, who had previously written scripts for Red Tails, Three Kings and U Turn told the Press Association: "There was no development money whatsoever for this project, so I said I'd take it on as a spec project, which means I'll write it for free."
12 Years, adapted from Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir of kidnap and slavery on a plantation in Louisiana, was initially spotted by director Steve McQueen's partner Bianca Stigter, and Ridley agreed to write a script well before any financial backing arrived.
He said: "The upside is I get to own that manuscript; the downside is, for what? This was not Transformers, where you can go to a studio, where they say, 'Great. Let's put some big stars in and go'."
"It was either going to be a script that wowed people and show how powerful that memoir and that story was, and how pertinent it is. That was the difficulty of it. That was something that came to me in a partnership but ultimately it was a choice of four year's work without taking a penny."
Ridley says he did eventually receive a fee, after Brad Pitt's Plan B production company got involved and finally secured funding. Ridley is credited as executive producer as well as scriptwriter, and says he was paid on the first day of filming.
Ridley also described his first meeting with McQueen: "We had breakfast and he was very demonstrative about trying to explore the slave era in American history, and very curious why Americans had not explored it and why it was a difficult subject matter ... I talked to him about the studio system and that it would be hard to get the money. He was very passionate."
• Will Steve McQueen be first black film-maker to win best director Oscar?
• Oscars 2014: 12 Years a Slave must clean up. But that doesn't mean it will Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
↧
12 Years
Oscar nominated scriptwriter received no fee for first four years of development, until Hollywood finally stepped in
• Will Steve McQueen be first black film-maker to win best director Oscar?
• Oscars 2014: 12 Years a Slave must clean up. But that doesn't mean it will
12 Years a Slave scriptwriter John Ridley revealed that he worked unpaid on the script for the Oscar nominated film for four years.
Ridley, who had previously written scripts for Red Tails, Three Kings and U Turn told the Press Association: "There was no development money whatsoever for this project, so I said I'd take it on as a spec project, which means I'll write it for free."
12 Years, adapted from Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir of kidnap and slavery on a plantation in Louisiana, was initially spotted by director Steve McQueen's partner Bianca Stigter, and Ridley agreed to write a script well before any financial backing arrived.
He said: "The upside is I get to own that manuscript; the downside is, for what? This was not Transformers, where you can go to a studio, where they say, 'Great. Let's put some big stars in and go'."
"It was either going to be a script that wowed people and show how powerful that memoir and that story was, and how pertinent it is. That was the difficulty of it. That was something that came to me in a partnership but ultimately it was a choice of four year's work without taking a penny."
Ridley says he did eventually receive a fee, after Brad Pitt's Plan B production company got involved and finally secured funding. Ridley is credited as executive producer as well as scriptwriter, and says he was paid on the first day of filming.
Ridley also described his first meeting with McQueen: "We had breakfast and he was very demonstrative about trying to explore the slave era in American history, and very curious why Americans had not explored it and why it was a difficult subject matter ... I talked to him about the studio system and that it would be hard to get the money. He was very passionate."
• Will Steve McQueen be first black film-maker to win best director Oscar?
• Oscars 2014: 12 Years a Slave must clean up. But that doesn't mean it will Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
• Will Steve McQueen be first black film-maker to win best director Oscar?
• Oscars 2014: 12 Years a Slave must clean up. But that doesn't mean it will
12 Years a Slave scriptwriter John Ridley revealed that he worked unpaid on the script for the Oscar nominated film for four years.
Ridley, who had previously written scripts for Red Tails, Three Kings and U Turn told the Press Association: "There was no development money whatsoever for this project, so I said I'd take it on as a spec project, which means I'll write it for free."
12 Years, adapted from Solomon Northup's 1853 memoir of kidnap and slavery on a plantation in Louisiana, was initially spotted by director Steve McQueen's partner Bianca Stigter, and Ridley agreed to write a script well before any financial backing arrived.
He said: "The upside is I get to own that manuscript; the downside is, for what? This was not Transformers, where you can go to a studio, where they say, 'Great. Let's put some big stars in and go'."
"It was either going to be a script that wowed people and show how powerful that memoir and that story was, and how pertinent it is. That was the difficulty of it. That was something that came to me in a partnership but ultimately it was a choice of four year's work without taking a penny."
Ridley says he did eventually receive a fee, after Brad Pitt's Plan B production company got involved and finally secured funding. Ridley is credited as executive producer as well as scriptwriter, and says he was paid on the first day of filming.
Ridley also described his first meeting with McQueen: "We had breakfast and he was very demonstrative about trying to explore the slave era in American history, and very curious why Americans had not explored it and why it was a difficult subject matter ... I talked to him about the studio system and that it would be hard to get the money. He was very passionate."
• Will Steve McQueen be first black film-maker to win best director Oscar?
• Oscars 2014: 12 Years a Slave must clean up. But that doesn't mean it will Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
↧
Since I came out as gay three years ago, my mother has refused to speak to me
Even though I had a miscarriage and tried to call then, she ignores me – and has now cut me out of her will. Should I give up on her?
*Nearly three years ago, in my mid-30s, I came out as gay to my mother. She is very religious and I knew what her reaction would be. Her reaction was as expected. She ignored me for months, telling my aunt to pass on that she wanted no further contact. I called her up only to be told she didn't have a daughter any more. Although painful, I moved on, hoping she would change her mind. I never heard from her again, except to be told via my aunt that I'd been written out of her will.*
*Two years ago, I lost a baby girl just into the fifth month of pregnancy. In a moment of weakness, I called my mum from the hospital for support as she had lost a baby at around the same age. She said she would not have had any contact with the baby anyway (as she was conceived via sperm donation) and "it was nothing but a disappointment to her". I sobbed down the phone to her for help; I was going mad with grief but got no response. *
*After the miscarriage, I was quite depressed for some time. This was all particularly hard as in 2010 I suddenly lost my father, who was very dear to me. I miss him a lot. My mum was divorced from him for years and hated him with a passion.*
*I haven't heard from her since I lost the baby. She still sends cards and presents to my son (who is six and was conceived after a relationship with a man with whom my son is in close contact). She had said, via my aunt, that she expected to still see my son but without speaking to me. She wanted contact to be via my aunt and for me to drop him off (200 miles away). I wasn't happy with this as I didn't think it was a good dynamic. She told my aunt to tell me she would never forgive me for losing contact with her grandchild. *
*I'm not sure how I'm meant to respond to the cards and presents she sends him. I give them to him, but that means he still asks about his nan and why he doesn't see her. *
*Close friends have said I need to write her a final letter asking her not to contact my son and close the door on this. This feels like the right thing to do, but it is very hard as if I do, it will probably be my final contact with my mum. I need to find some peace with it. I am very stuck on this issue.*
*Anonymous*
What a very sad, painful situation for all of you and how much loss you have suffered. In a sense you and your mother have something in common: you both wish the other were different. I don't agree with your friends about writing a "last letter". It's unlikely to offer the resolution you seek.
I consulted family therapist David Pocock (aft.org.uk). "The hope that one's mother will be a good, accepting mother is not easily given up. You still have a real and alive mother, but may never have the mother you need. This can take a long time to fully accept, and the acceptance is the – sometimes agonising – work of grieving."
You are a testament to how forgiving and hopeful children can be towards their parents. Pocock thinks it is helpful that you want to "keep the door open rather than retaliate and reject your mother, but with the caveat that the mother who might possibly one day take up the option of the open door can only be the real one, not the yearned-for one."
So what to do? Pocock advises: "I wouldn't recommend accepting your mother's request for direct contact with your son, at the moment – that may be too much for a child his age to manage. However, letters and presents sent to him keep something alive and are already a prompt for him to ask questions to help him with his confusion."
When he's older, your son may want to initiate his own contact and that would be his choice. When he asks questions try to be factual but calm – and stress that any problems are between you and your mother, and don't relate to him.
Pocock adds: "It is important to note that difficult relationships don't end when people no longer see each other. They live on in the mind, sometimes hidden from plain sight but with profound implications for how the person relates to themselves and others."
I've listed some organisations below to help you deal with your grief over your baby girl and your father. Do please ring them.
Put your relationship with your mother on pause for the moment. It might not be as initially satisfying as the big, final gesture of a letter but, ultimately, I think it will bring you the most peace and resolution.
Uk-sands.org.uk; Cruse.org.uk; sayinggoodbye.org
*Your problems solved
*
Contact Annalisa Barbieri, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email annalisa.barbieri@mac.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.
Follow Annalisa on Twitter @AnnalisaB Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
*Nearly three years ago, in my mid-30s, I came out as gay to my mother. She is very religious and I knew what her reaction would be. Her reaction was as expected. She ignored me for months, telling my aunt to pass on that she wanted no further contact. I called her up only to be told she didn't have a daughter any more. Although painful, I moved on, hoping she would change her mind. I never heard from her again, except to be told via my aunt that I'd been written out of her will.*
*Two years ago, I lost a baby girl just into the fifth month of pregnancy. In a moment of weakness, I called my mum from the hospital for support as she had lost a baby at around the same age. She said she would not have had any contact with the baby anyway (as she was conceived via sperm donation) and "it was nothing but a disappointment to her". I sobbed down the phone to her for help; I was going mad with grief but got no response. *
*After the miscarriage, I was quite depressed for some time. This was all particularly hard as in 2010 I suddenly lost my father, who was very dear to me. I miss him a lot. My mum was divorced from him for years and hated him with a passion.*
*I haven't heard from her since I lost the baby. She still sends cards and presents to my son (who is six and was conceived after a relationship with a man with whom my son is in close contact). She had said, via my aunt, that she expected to still see my son but without speaking to me. She wanted contact to be via my aunt and for me to drop him off (200 miles away). I wasn't happy with this as I didn't think it was a good dynamic. She told my aunt to tell me she would never forgive me for losing contact with her grandchild. *
*I'm not sure how I'm meant to respond to the cards and presents she sends him. I give them to him, but that means he still asks about his nan and why he doesn't see her. *
*Close friends have said I need to write her a final letter asking her not to contact my son and close the door on this. This feels like the right thing to do, but it is very hard as if I do, it will probably be my final contact with my mum. I need to find some peace with it. I am very stuck on this issue.*
*Anonymous*
What a very sad, painful situation for all of you and how much loss you have suffered. In a sense you and your mother have something in common: you both wish the other were different. I don't agree with your friends about writing a "last letter". It's unlikely to offer the resolution you seek.
I consulted family therapist David Pocock (aft.org.uk). "The hope that one's mother will be a good, accepting mother is not easily given up. You still have a real and alive mother, but may never have the mother you need. This can take a long time to fully accept, and the acceptance is the – sometimes agonising – work of grieving."
You are a testament to how forgiving and hopeful children can be towards their parents. Pocock thinks it is helpful that you want to "keep the door open rather than retaliate and reject your mother, but with the caveat that the mother who might possibly one day take up the option of the open door can only be the real one, not the yearned-for one."
So what to do? Pocock advises: "I wouldn't recommend accepting your mother's request for direct contact with your son, at the moment – that may be too much for a child his age to manage. However, letters and presents sent to him keep something alive and are already a prompt for him to ask questions to help him with his confusion."
When he's older, your son may want to initiate his own contact and that would be his choice. When he asks questions try to be factual but calm – and stress that any problems are between you and your mother, and don't relate to him.
Pocock adds: "It is important to note that difficult relationships don't end when people no longer see each other. They live on in the mind, sometimes hidden from plain sight but with profound implications for how the person relates to themselves and others."
I've listed some organisations below to help you deal with your grief over your baby girl and your father. Do please ring them.
Put your relationship with your mother on pause for the moment. It might not be as initially satisfying as the big, final gesture of a letter but, ultimately, I think it will bring you the most peace and resolution.
Uk-sands.org.uk; Cruse.org.uk; sayinggoodbye.org
*Your problems solved
*
Contact Annalisa Barbieri, The Guardian, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU or email annalisa.barbieri@mac.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence.
Follow Annalisa on Twitter @AnnalisaB Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
↧
↧
Steph Curry, Paul George and Kyrie Irving are first time NBA All-Stars
Once again the Miami Heat's LeBron James and the Oklahoma City Thunder's Kevin Durant received the most All-Star votes but there are several new starters
Thursday night the NBA revealed the 2014 All Star Game starters, as voted on by the fans. As expected, LeBron James of the Miami Heat and Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder were the top two vote-getters, but the rest of the ballot reflected a changing league.
As of last year, NBA fans no longer had to pick players to fill specific positions, a move mostly made because of the dwindling number of true centers in the league. As a result, Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers is the closest thing to a center in either lineup. Not only are there no real centers, not a single player from the Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs or Chicago Bulls made the cut and the lone Los Angeles Lakers representative, Kobe Bryant, will most likely sit out due to injury. Maybe change is for the best, as this opened the door for Paul George, Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry to make their first All-Star starts.
(Extended voting results can be found here.)
*Eastern Conference*
*Frontcourt*
LeBron James (Miami Heat)
Paul George (Indiana Pacers)
Carmelo Anthony (New York Knicks)
*Backcourt*
Dwyane Wade (Miami Heat)
Kyrie Irving (Cleveland Cavaliers)
We can all agree on LeBron James deserving this, yes? Let's move on then.
How popular is Paul George these days? Popular enough to get the second most votes in the Eastern Conference. This is what happens when you have a star making turn in the Eastern Conference Finals, look even better at the start of next year's season, get recognized as the undisputed leader of maybe the best team in the NBA and then make the highlight reel play of the season.
It also didn't hurt George's case that this was a relatively weak Eastern Conference field and the rest of the starting lineup is somewhat questionable. Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat received the third most votes despite the fact that he's been day-to-day with injuries that have sapped him of much of his effectiveness. For those who believe that team success should be a big part of the voting process, Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks and Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers must be particularly galling choices. No matter, Anthony's skill set is perfect for a game infamous for its lack of defense and Irving has dazzled on All-Star Weekend before..
The biggest snubs? Carmelo Anthony beat out Roy Hibbert of the Indiana Pacers, who would have easily been the starting center had the All-Star voting format not changed. Meanwhile, John Wall of the Washington Wizards is having his long-awaited breakout season, and the case could be made he should start ahead of both Wade and Irving. It's not a travesty or anything though, because unless they are injured, or there's an epidemic of mass psychosis among NBA coaches, both Hibbert and Wall are shoe-ins to make the All-Star reserves.
*Western Conference*
*Front court*
Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder)
Blake Griffin (Los Angeles Clippers)
Kevin Love (Minnesota Timberwolves)
*Back court*
Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors)
Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers)
As with LeBron James, there's no serious argument that Kevin Durant shouldn't be the top vote getter in his conference, especially now that he actually might have a half-decent nickname. There are, however, plenty of arguments to be made about the Slim Reaper's supporting cast.
First of all, yes of course Kobe Bryant shouldn't be here. He missed the start of the season while rehabbing from last season's ankle injury, played exactly six games with the Los Angeles Lakers before getting hurt again and even if he's healthy he may still sit the game out. Heck, even among All-Injured Western Conference All-Stars, Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers and Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder would probably have better cases.
Is this really a big problem though? All-Star Game fan voting is, almost by definition, a popularity contest. Unless incoming NBA commissioner Adam Silver decides to pull a Bud Selig and have the winner of the All-Star Game determine home field advantage in the NBA Finals it's all just one big advertisement for the league. Sean Highkin, writing for USA Today's "For The Win" blog, addressed this particular teacup tempest.
When fans vote for All-Star teams, there are always going to be a few ridiculous choices. Kobe making it is no different from Yao Ming being voted a starter in 2011 (when he played five games) or Allen Iverson winning the fan vote in 2010 (when he washed out of the league). Injured players get replaced by deserving players. Love replaced Yao in 2011 and Brook Lopez replaced Rajon Rondo last year. The world went on.
Plus, maybe we should give the fans a little credit — they don't always make the obvious picks. This year, Curry beat out Chris Paul (who is also hurt, but is one of the most recognizable names in the sport). And Love beat out Dwight Howard, who had seemed like a lock. In both cases, the more deserving player beat out the bigger name
It's hard to argue with Highkin on that last point. Last year, Steph Curry, of the Golden State Warriors, didn't even make the All-Star reserves and Kevin Love, of the Minnesota Timberwolves, was dealing with yet another major injury. This year fans have noticed that Curry might be the league's best shooter and that Love might be its best rebounder and have voted accordingly.
While the Los Angeles Clippers' Blake Griffin deserves his All-Star nod, many believe that LaMarcus Aldridge of the surprisingly successful Portland Trail Blazers should have made the cut. Among those might be the Denver Nuggets, who had to play the Trail Blazers a few hours after the NBA All-Star announcements. Playing with what one imagines to be a huge chip on his shoulder, Aldridge put up a career-high 44 points, and the Trail Blazers beat the Nuggets 110-105. I think that counts as a statement.
*All-Star reserves to follow*
If your favorite player didn't make it, have no fear, the NBA will announce the All-Star reserves, as voted on by coaches, on January 30. There's an ocean of deserving candidates which probably means more than a few won't make it. Here's rough guess on the players who will be in the mix (not including players who will either be sidelined with injury or have missed most of the season so far). If there's players you think this misses, feel free to make suggestions in the comment below.
*Eastern Conference*
John Wall (Washington Wizards); Joakim Noah (Chicago Bulls); Chris Bosh (Miami Heat), Roy Hibbert, Lance Stephenson (Indiana Pacers); Kyle Lowry (Toronto Raptors); Paul Millsap (Atlanta Hawks); Andre Drummond (Detroit Pistons).
*Western Conference*
LaMarcus Aldridge, Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers); DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento Kings); James Harden, Dwight Howard (Houston Rockets); Dirk Nowitzki (Dallas Mavericks), Tony Parker (San Antonio Spurs); Mike Conley (Memphis Grizzlies); Anthony Davis (New Orleans Pelicans): Klay Thompson (Golden State Warriors). Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
Thursday night the NBA revealed the 2014 All Star Game starters, as voted on by the fans. As expected, LeBron James of the Miami Heat and Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder were the top two vote-getters, but the rest of the ballot reflected a changing league.
As of last year, NBA fans no longer had to pick players to fill specific positions, a move mostly made because of the dwindling number of true centers in the league. As a result, Blake Griffin of the Los Angeles Clippers is the closest thing to a center in either lineup. Not only are there no real centers, not a single player from the Boston Celtics, San Antonio Spurs or Chicago Bulls made the cut and the lone Los Angeles Lakers representative, Kobe Bryant, will most likely sit out due to injury. Maybe change is for the best, as this opened the door for Paul George, Kevin Love, Kyrie Irving and Steph Curry to make their first All-Star starts.
(Extended voting results can be found here.)
*Eastern Conference*
*Frontcourt*
LeBron James (Miami Heat)
Paul George (Indiana Pacers)
Carmelo Anthony (New York Knicks)
*Backcourt*
Dwyane Wade (Miami Heat)
Kyrie Irving (Cleveland Cavaliers)
We can all agree on LeBron James deserving this, yes? Let's move on then.
How popular is Paul George these days? Popular enough to get the second most votes in the Eastern Conference. This is what happens when you have a star making turn in the Eastern Conference Finals, look even better at the start of next year's season, get recognized as the undisputed leader of maybe the best team in the NBA and then make the highlight reel play of the season.
It also didn't hurt George's case that this was a relatively weak Eastern Conference field and the rest of the starting lineup is somewhat questionable. Dwyane Wade of the Miami Heat received the third most votes despite the fact that he's been day-to-day with injuries that have sapped him of much of his effectiveness. For those who believe that team success should be a big part of the voting process, Carmelo Anthony of the New York Knicks and Kyrie Irving of the Cleveland Cavaliers must be particularly galling choices. No matter, Anthony's skill set is perfect for a game infamous for its lack of defense and Irving has dazzled on All-Star Weekend before..
The biggest snubs? Carmelo Anthony beat out Roy Hibbert of the Indiana Pacers, who would have easily been the starting center had the All-Star voting format not changed. Meanwhile, John Wall of the Washington Wizards is having his long-awaited breakout season, and the case could be made he should start ahead of both Wade and Irving. It's not a travesty or anything though, because unless they are injured, or there's an epidemic of mass psychosis among NBA coaches, both Hibbert and Wall are shoe-ins to make the All-Star reserves.
*Western Conference*
*Front court*
Kevin Durant (Oklahoma City Thunder)
Blake Griffin (Los Angeles Clippers)
Kevin Love (Minnesota Timberwolves)
*Back court*
Stephen Curry (Golden State Warriors)
Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers)
As with LeBron James, there's no serious argument that Kevin Durant shouldn't be the top vote getter in his conference, especially now that he actually might have a half-decent nickname. There are, however, plenty of arguments to be made about the Slim Reaper's supporting cast.
First of all, yes of course Kobe Bryant shouldn't be here. He missed the start of the season while rehabbing from last season's ankle injury, played exactly six games with the Los Angeles Lakers before getting hurt again and even if he's healthy he may still sit the game out. Heck, even among All-Injured Western Conference All-Stars, Chris Paul of the Los Angeles Clippers and Russell Westbrook of the Oklahoma City Thunder would probably have better cases.
Is this really a big problem though? All-Star Game fan voting is, almost by definition, a popularity contest. Unless incoming NBA commissioner Adam Silver decides to pull a Bud Selig and have the winner of the All-Star Game determine home field advantage in the NBA Finals it's all just one big advertisement for the league. Sean Highkin, writing for USA Today's "For The Win" blog, addressed this particular teacup tempest.
When fans vote for All-Star teams, there are always going to be a few ridiculous choices. Kobe making it is no different from Yao Ming being voted a starter in 2011 (when he played five games) or Allen Iverson winning the fan vote in 2010 (when he washed out of the league). Injured players get replaced by deserving players. Love replaced Yao in 2011 and Brook Lopez replaced Rajon Rondo last year. The world went on.
Plus, maybe we should give the fans a little credit — they don't always make the obvious picks. This year, Curry beat out Chris Paul (who is also hurt, but is one of the most recognizable names in the sport). And Love beat out Dwight Howard, who had seemed like a lock. In both cases, the more deserving player beat out the bigger name
It's hard to argue with Highkin on that last point. Last year, Steph Curry, of the Golden State Warriors, didn't even make the All-Star reserves and Kevin Love, of the Minnesota Timberwolves, was dealing with yet another major injury. This year fans have noticed that Curry might be the league's best shooter and that Love might be its best rebounder and have voted accordingly.
While the Los Angeles Clippers' Blake Griffin deserves his All-Star nod, many believe that LaMarcus Aldridge of the surprisingly successful Portland Trail Blazers should have made the cut. Among those might be the Denver Nuggets, who had to play the Trail Blazers a few hours after the NBA All-Star announcements. Playing with what one imagines to be a huge chip on his shoulder, Aldridge put up a career-high 44 points, and the Trail Blazers beat the Nuggets 110-105. I think that counts as a statement.
*All-Star reserves to follow*
If your favorite player didn't make it, have no fear, the NBA will announce the All-Star reserves, as voted on by coaches, on January 30. There's an ocean of deserving candidates which probably means more than a few won't make it. Here's rough guess on the players who will be in the mix (not including players who will either be sidelined with injury or have missed most of the season so far). If there's players you think this misses, feel free to make suggestions in the comment below.
*Eastern Conference*
John Wall (Washington Wizards); Joakim Noah (Chicago Bulls); Chris Bosh (Miami Heat), Roy Hibbert, Lance Stephenson (Indiana Pacers); Kyle Lowry (Toronto Raptors); Paul Millsap (Atlanta Hawks); Andre Drummond (Detroit Pistons).
*Western Conference*
LaMarcus Aldridge, Damian Lillard (Portland Trail Blazers); DeMarcus Cousins (Sacramento Kings); James Harden, Dwight Howard (Houston Rockets); Dirk Nowitzki (Dallas Mavericks), Tony Parker (San Antonio Spurs); Mike Conley (Memphis Grizzlies); Anthony Davis (New Orleans Pelicans): Klay Thompson (Golden State Warriors). Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
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Kings, Ducks face off under stars at Dodger Stadium
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - "California Dreamin'" brings to mind images of surf and sunshine but on Saturday at Dodger Stadium a very different dream will be realized when the Golden State stages its first ever outdoor National Hockey League game.
Reported by Reuters 2 days ago.
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Wake by Anna Hope – review
Kasia Boddy on the stories of the Unknown Soldier
In August 1920, a British army chaplain wrote to the dean of Westminster with an idea about the commemoration of the dead of the first world war. Four years earlier, in a garden in Armentières, he had come across a grave marked by a wooden cross on which were pencilled the words "An Unknown British Soldier". Surely such a person deserved a place "among the kings" at Westminster Abbey? King George V thought the idea distasteful but was persuaded by the prime minister – or so one story goes.
In fact, the idea of commemorating an anonymous soldier had circulated in Britain and France throughout the war. The body of the unknown soldier represented war at its most deadly and egalitarian, as a stripping away of any sign of rank or social status, and its commemoration was offered as an opportunity for collective mourning. Without identity, he belonged to everyone.
To enact such weighty symbolism required carefully choreographed ritual. Remains were exhumed from four battle areas and brought to a chapel near Arras on the night of 7 November 1920. Each skeleton was covered with a union jack before one was selected and placed in a coffin made from Hampton Court oak, along with a trench helmet and a khaki belt; a 16th-century crusader's sword was fixed on top. On Armistice Day, the bones were buried in Westminster Abbey, and in Whitehall the Cenotaph – or "empty grave"– was unveiled.
Wake takes place over the five days between the exhumation and burial of the British Unknown Warrior. Each of the five sections of Anna Hope's thoroughly researched novel interweaves details of the body's ritualised journey toward London with the emotional journeys of three city women – each carefully created for her representative qualities. Forty-five‑year-old Ada, from Hackney, east London, is haunted by the memory of a son whose death remains a mystery for much of the novel; Evelyn, from Primrose Hill, north London, and two weeks shy of her 30th birthday, can't get over the death of her lover; Hettie, from Hammersmith, west London, and just 19, has lost her father to the Spanish flu and her brother to the catatonia of shell shock. The novel's title refers both to their attempts to watch over their dead and to their faltering efforts to come to terms with loss. Wake suggests that talking to a stranger about "it", and "sharing" the "truth" of whatever it might be, is "enough" to make life "lighter"; a therapeutic message not unfamiliar to readers of modern novels. Evelyn is the only character allowed to express any scepticism about the "show" of the Unknown Warrior. "This is supposed to make it all right, is it?" she asks her brother Ed (a Hemingway drunk with problems "down there"). "This burial? This pulling a body from the earth in France and dragging him over here? And all of us standing, watching, weeping?"
But, finally, she too is caught up in the "unexpected blessing" of November sunshine and the sounds of the city's bells "chiming together and apart". By 1920, Hope insists, it's time to have one final sob and then, well, wake up; it's time to make yourself pretty again, to put on a more cheerful frock, to cut that Edwardian hair, and, as the novel's central metaphor has it, start dancing again. The present-tense narrative takes us away from a past that can never be retrieved towards a future that tastes of "sherbet" and sounds like Dixieland jazz. Could we be so blithe about those who were bereaved by 9/11 or by the Iraq or Afghanistan wars?
• Kasia Boddy's Boxing: A Cultural History is published by Reaktion. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.
In August 1920, a British army chaplain wrote to the dean of Westminster with an idea about the commemoration of the dead of the first world war. Four years earlier, in a garden in Armentières, he had come across a grave marked by a wooden cross on which were pencilled the words "An Unknown British Soldier". Surely such a person deserved a place "among the kings" at Westminster Abbey? King George V thought the idea distasteful but was persuaded by the prime minister – or so one story goes.
In fact, the idea of commemorating an anonymous soldier had circulated in Britain and France throughout the war. The body of the unknown soldier represented war at its most deadly and egalitarian, as a stripping away of any sign of rank or social status, and its commemoration was offered as an opportunity for collective mourning. Without identity, he belonged to everyone.
To enact such weighty symbolism required carefully choreographed ritual. Remains were exhumed from four battle areas and brought to a chapel near Arras on the night of 7 November 1920. Each skeleton was covered with a union jack before one was selected and placed in a coffin made from Hampton Court oak, along with a trench helmet and a khaki belt; a 16th-century crusader's sword was fixed on top. On Armistice Day, the bones were buried in Westminster Abbey, and in Whitehall the Cenotaph – or "empty grave"– was unveiled.
Wake takes place over the five days between the exhumation and burial of the British Unknown Warrior. Each of the five sections of Anna Hope's thoroughly researched novel interweaves details of the body's ritualised journey toward London with the emotional journeys of three city women – each carefully created for her representative qualities. Forty-five‑year-old Ada, from Hackney, east London, is haunted by the memory of a son whose death remains a mystery for much of the novel; Evelyn, from Primrose Hill, north London, and two weeks shy of her 30th birthday, can't get over the death of her lover; Hettie, from Hammersmith, west London, and just 19, has lost her father to the Spanish flu and her brother to the catatonia of shell shock. The novel's title refers both to their attempts to watch over their dead and to their faltering efforts to come to terms with loss. Wake suggests that talking to a stranger about "it", and "sharing" the "truth" of whatever it might be, is "enough" to make life "lighter"; a therapeutic message not unfamiliar to readers of modern novels. Evelyn is the only character allowed to express any scepticism about the "show" of the Unknown Warrior. "This is supposed to make it all right, is it?" she asks her brother Ed (a Hemingway drunk with problems "down there"). "This burial? This pulling a body from the earth in France and dragging him over here? And all of us standing, watching, weeping?"
But, finally, she too is caught up in the "unexpected blessing" of November sunshine and the sounds of the city's bells "chiming together and apart". By 1920, Hope insists, it's time to have one final sob and then, well, wake up; it's time to make yourself pretty again, to put on a more cheerful frock, to cut that Edwardian hair, and, as the novel's central metaphor has it, start dancing again. The present-tense narrative takes us away from a past that can never be retrieved towards a future that tastes of "sherbet" and sounds like Dixieland jazz. Could we be so blithe about those who were bereaved by 9/11 or by the Iraq or Afghanistan wars?
• Kasia Boddy's Boxing: A Cultural History is published by Reaktion. Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.
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Every step of the way: Essex Chronicle marks 250 years
This is Essex --CAN you name this country's past nine kings and queens? If not, a trawl through the vast archives of the Essex Chronicle would furnish you with the answers because we've been there every step of the way of successions and coronations.
* Take a look back at the archives in our Essex Chronicle at 250 section here *
It is almost 250 years ago, on August 10, 1764, that a man named William Strupar printed the first handmade edition of the newspaper from a small booksellers' shop at 69/70 High Street, Chelmsford, now the edge of Marks & Spencer.
It was an era when there were no desktop computers, laptops, fancy smartphones, tablets or even national newspapers.
The early Chronicle was sold for just two-and-a-half old pennies ('tuppence'), in places like Peele's Coffee House in Fleet Street and the George in Epping. It served at least eight of the counties in southern England.
It bore the line "to be continued every Friday," and with the exception of two occasions when the paper was mired in industrial dispute, this promise has been kept in spite of war and recession.
Since then the paper has covered some of the biggest events in world history, like the American Declaration of Independence, the Titanic disaster and man's first steps on the moon.
Now the paper can proudly declare itself as one of Britain's oldest surviving newspapers, the longest established business in the county, and, more importantly for its survival, no longer just a newspaper but a 24/7 multimedia organisation.
Now in its 250th year it is time to celebrate the county's great manufacturers, inventors and entrepreneurs.
From the renowned industries of the past like Marconi, Hoffmann and Crompton Christy, to the engineering bastions of the present like Ford, e2v and BAE systems, Essex has a rich heritage of manufacturing.
Throughout 2014, as part of our "Made in Essex" campaign, we're teaming up with the Manufacturing Advisory Service to showcase some of the county's greatest products, gizmos and gadgets in The Business.
Over the next few pages you'll find the inspiring tale of a 20-year-old inventor Oliver Murphy, whose invention won investment from BBC's Dragons' Den, a 3D printing firm making parts for prosthetic limbs and a firm who says its product will shave 90 per cent off your energy bills.
Essex Chronicle editor Paul Dent-Jones said: "We're humbled that our newspaper has been 'Making Local Matter More Since 1764'.
"Here's to the next 250 years." Reported by This is 16 hours ago.
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Currys won't give me a refund, whatever happens
Curry's laptop needed repair and Whatever Happens insurance was not up to scratch
*We bought a laptop from Currys in 2012 and paid £259 for Whatever Happens premier insurance cover. The policy states that if a repair takes more than seven days from the moment it is booked in at your local Currys you are entitled to a replacement or vouchers to the equivalent value. It adds that in this case the store will loan you a laptop. *
*We took our laptop for repair on 22 December and were told it would be ready for collection on 4 January. Since this was longer than seven days I asked for a replacement or refund in vouchers. The representative said that, because we had asked to have all data recovered (another free benefit of the policy), that extended the seven-day guarantee. He then claimed the policy obliged Currys to complete repairs within seven days, but didn't specify how long they could take to return the item. Moreover, I was denied a loan laptop as I was told this is "subject to availability". This is not in the policy. *TS, Hunmanby, Yorkshire
Currys tells me that data recovery is described as a "service" rather than a repair, and therefore can legitimately extend the process beyond the seven days. The trouble is, nowhere in the terms and conditions is this explained and given most laptop owners will want their data recovered before a repair is attempted, it's crucial.
But, as another reader recently found, Currys is remiss when it comes to essential smallprint and prefers customers to exercise intuition. The company says it might look at the wording when it next reviews its terms and conditions, but insists it's perfectly clear to most customers. It does, however, admit that you should have been loaned a laptop and that the repair did "not meet our punctual standards" and so is offering vouchers to the value of your laptop and a refund of your insurance premium.
*If you need help email Anna Tims at ** your.problems@observer.co.uk** or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. * Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
*We bought a laptop from Currys in 2012 and paid £259 for Whatever Happens premier insurance cover. The policy states that if a repair takes more than seven days from the moment it is booked in at your local Currys you are entitled to a replacement or vouchers to the equivalent value. It adds that in this case the store will loan you a laptop. *
*We took our laptop for repair on 22 December and were told it would be ready for collection on 4 January. Since this was longer than seven days I asked for a replacement or refund in vouchers. The representative said that, because we had asked to have all data recovered (another free benefit of the policy), that extended the seven-day guarantee. He then claimed the policy obliged Currys to complete repairs within seven days, but didn't specify how long they could take to return the item. Moreover, I was denied a loan laptop as I was told this is "subject to availability". This is not in the policy. *TS, Hunmanby, Yorkshire
Currys tells me that data recovery is described as a "service" rather than a repair, and therefore can legitimately extend the process beyond the seven days. The trouble is, nowhere in the terms and conditions is this explained and given most laptop owners will want their data recovered before a repair is attempted, it's crucial.
But, as another reader recently found, Currys is remiss when it comes to essential smallprint and prefers customers to exercise intuition. The company says it might look at the wording when it next reviews its terms and conditions, but insists it's perfectly clear to most customers. It does, however, admit that you should have been loaned a laptop and that the repair did "not meet our punctual standards" and so is offering vouchers to the value of your laptop and a refund of your insurance premium.
*If you need help email Anna Tims at ** your.problems@observer.co.uk** or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. * Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
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Equifax downgraded me from 'excellent' to 'poor'
Credit rating agency Equifax twice matched reader's details to an incorrect address
*I contacted credit reference agencies to check my credit rating. Both Noddle (a subsidiary of Callcredit) and Experian rated me as "excellent". But at Equifax it is "very poor" because, allegedly, no credit agreements are associated with my address and I am not on the electoral register. There are and I am, and provided Equifax with evidence of both. Now the one credit agreement that they did manage to log has vanished and been filed under my previous address. So once more I have no credit agreements associated with my current address.* *LJP, *London
It seems that you didn't use your full name as it appears on the electoral register when you applied for a credit report. However, the company admits it twice matched your details to an incorrect address and has corrected this. The credit accounts in question are in the name of JP rather than LJP. This is why your score is still only "fair". You need to ask your lenders to change your name to LJP as it appears on the electoral register. Equifax, to apologise for its own mistakes, has offered a year's free subscription so you can keep tabs on your rating.
*If you need help email Anna Tims at **your.problems@observer.co.uk** or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. * Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
*I contacted credit reference agencies to check my credit rating. Both Noddle (a subsidiary of Callcredit) and Experian rated me as "excellent". But at Equifax it is "very poor" because, allegedly, no credit agreements are associated with my address and I am not on the electoral register. There are and I am, and provided Equifax with evidence of both. Now the one credit agreement that they did manage to log has vanished and been filed under my previous address. So once more I have no credit agreements associated with my current address.* *LJP, *London
It seems that you didn't use your full name as it appears on the electoral register when you applied for a credit report. However, the company admits it twice matched your details to an incorrect address and has corrected this. The credit accounts in question are in the name of JP rather than LJP. This is why your score is still only "fair". You need to ask your lenders to change your name to LJP as it appears on the electoral register. Equifax, to apologise for its own mistakes, has offered a year's free subscription so you can keep tabs on your rating.
*If you need help email Anna Tims at **your.problems@observer.co.uk** or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. * Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
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Virgin drilled a hole through my garden wall – and is being very slow in fixing it
Virgin drilled a hole through my garden wall – and is being very slow in fixing it
*I came home from work to discover that someone had drilled a hole through my garden wall and threaded wire through it. The mystery was solved when a package from Virgin Media arrived addressed to an individual I had never heard of. My three attempts to contact Virgin Media were ineffectual. I have since found out that the order was placed by a new neighbour. He told me he had rung to correct his mistake, but clearly wasted his time. GB,* Luton, Bedfordshire
Virgin says that, on receiving the order, it dispatched its team to pull in the cable to the property ready for the installation team. This is agreed with customers when they sign up and was unfortunately carried out before your neighbour rang to correct his address. So Virgin's only fault thus far was its promptness in fulfilling the order (Openreach take note). The company was, however, remiss in not heeding your complaint until the press office became involved. It has now filled in the hole and repainted the entire wall.
*If you need help email Anna Tims at **your.problems@observer.co.uk** or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. * Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
*I came home from work to discover that someone had drilled a hole through my garden wall and threaded wire through it. The mystery was solved when a package from Virgin Media arrived addressed to an individual I had never heard of. My three attempts to contact Virgin Media were ineffectual. I have since found out that the order was placed by a new neighbour. He told me he had rung to correct his mistake, but clearly wasted his time. GB,* Luton, Bedfordshire
Virgin says that, on receiving the order, it dispatched its team to pull in the cable to the property ready for the installation team. This is agreed with customers when they sign up and was unfortunately carried out before your neighbour rang to correct his address. So Virgin's only fault thus far was its promptness in fulfilling the order (Openreach take note). The company was, however, remiss in not heeding your complaint until the press office became involved. It has now filled in the hole and repainted the entire wall.
*If you need help email Anna Tims at **your.problems@observer.co.uk** or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number. * Reported by guardian.co.uk 13 hours ago.
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Ducks shut out Kings in unique outdoor clash
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Palm trees, a beach volleyball court and pyrotechnics from American rock band KISS - Saturday's ground-breaking National Hockey League (NHL) game at Dodger Stadium certainly delivered something very different.
Reported by Reuters 12 hours ago.
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Jerome Willis obituary
Actor known for his Shakespearean roles, but who also appeared on TV and in films including Winstanley and Orlando
Jerome Willis, who has died at the age of 85, was an actor who might have described himself, without bitterness, as an "attendant lord". He was a natural Shakespearean, in possession of a strong physique and the ability to speak verse with enviable confidence. In a distinguished career spanning almost 60 years, he brought to every part he undertook a perceptive intelligence that illuminated even the smallest cameo. He also became a familiar face on television from 1974 to 1978 as Charles Radley, the deputy governor of Stone Park prison in Within These Walls, with Googie Withers as his boss.
Jerome began his career as a disc jockey, newsreader and actor by turns, posted to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1946 for his national service in the RAF and serving in communications for the Ceylonese station Radio SEAC. On his return to London in 1948, he was accepted as a student at the prestigious Old Vic school, run by the despotic Michel Saint-Denis, whom actors either feared or revered. Fellow students included Joan Plowright and Prunella Scales. Upon graduating in 1951, he joined the West of England Touring Company, alongside Plowright.
Anthony Quayle, who had recently taken charge of the Shakespeare Memorial theatre, was impressed by Jerome's acting and offered him a place in his new company. In Stratford-upon-Avon in November 1952 he met Dilys Elstone, a costume cutter. They married in January 1953. In that year he played Scarus in Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Glen Byam Shaw and starring Michael Redgrave and Peggy Ashcroft. It was a triumphant success that toured to several European capitals.
Jerome played his first substantial part in Shakespeare at the Old Vic in 1962, when he appeared as Orsino in Twelfth Night with Eileen Atkins as Viola. He was then invited to appear in what would turn out to be a pioneering event in television drama – Shakespeare's history plays from Richard II, through the Henrys IV, V and VI to Richard III, performed in 15 parts, under the overall title An Age of Kings, starting with Richard II: The Hollow Crown. The project was the inspiration of Peter Dews, who persuaded the BBC to take it on. Each instalment was broadcast live, an extra challenge for the actors, the many battlefields created in the studio at Wood Lane. Jerome played a succession of noblemen.
In 1975, he undertook what he called a "labour of love", playing the kindly, conscience-stricken General Lord Fairfax in Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's film Winstanley, about the tragic fate of the leader of the Diggers in the English civil war. He was the one professional in a cast of amateurs. The subject had a deep and lasting appeal for him, confirming his belief in the Quaker movement, which he was to join as a consequence. Other film work included Orlando, with Tilda Swinton, in 1992.
He was born in Balham, south London, the second child and only son of Robert Willis, who worked in the electrical industry, and his wife Heather (nee Murphy). He had four sisters. His maternal grandfather, Jerome Murphy, after whom he was named, was a noted tenor who sang frequently with the great John McCormack. His great-aunt Julia Willis was for many seasons with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which was dedicated to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Jerome's own passion for music was lifelong, and in his later years especially he loved singing in choirs and playing the recorder.
After the closing performance of Michael Boyd's production of The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare theatre in 2002, the cast and crew gave him a surprise party with champagne and a cake in the form of an Elizabethan ship to celebrate his half-century at Stratford-upon-Avon. He had played Gentleman in that same play in 1952, with Redgrave as Prospero, but now he was a well-received Gonzalo.
Jerome was a cherished friend of mine for 40 years and a delightful gossip, relating theatre anecdotes whose details were often corrected by Dilys.
She survives him, as do their four daughters, Sarah, twins Megan and Grania, and Kate, his sisters Fiona (a props and hat maker) and Nuala (an opera singer and cabaret artist), and his granddaughters.
• Jerome Barry Willis, actor, born 23 October 1928; died 11 January 2014 Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
Jerome Willis, who has died at the age of 85, was an actor who might have described himself, without bitterness, as an "attendant lord". He was a natural Shakespearean, in possession of a strong physique and the ability to speak verse with enviable confidence. In a distinguished career spanning almost 60 years, he brought to every part he undertook a perceptive intelligence that illuminated even the smallest cameo. He also became a familiar face on television from 1974 to 1978 as Charles Radley, the deputy governor of Stone Park prison in Within These Walls, with Googie Withers as his boss.
Jerome began his career as a disc jockey, newsreader and actor by turns, posted to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1946 for his national service in the RAF and serving in communications for the Ceylonese station Radio SEAC. On his return to London in 1948, he was accepted as a student at the prestigious Old Vic school, run by the despotic Michel Saint-Denis, whom actors either feared or revered. Fellow students included Joan Plowright and Prunella Scales. Upon graduating in 1951, he joined the West of England Touring Company, alongside Plowright.
Anthony Quayle, who had recently taken charge of the Shakespeare Memorial theatre, was impressed by Jerome's acting and offered him a place in his new company. In Stratford-upon-Avon in November 1952 he met Dilys Elstone, a costume cutter. They married in January 1953. In that year he played Scarus in Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Glen Byam Shaw and starring Michael Redgrave and Peggy Ashcroft. It was a triumphant success that toured to several European capitals.
Jerome played his first substantial part in Shakespeare at the Old Vic in 1962, when he appeared as Orsino in Twelfth Night with Eileen Atkins as Viola. He was then invited to appear in what would turn out to be a pioneering event in television drama – Shakespeare's history plays from Richard II, through the Henrys IV, V and VI to Richard III, performed in 15 parts, under the overall title An Age of Kings, starting with Richard II: The Hollow Crown. The project was the inspiration of Peter Dews, who persuaded the BBC to take it on. Each instalment was broadcast live, an extra challenge for the actors, the many battlefields created in the studio at Wood Lane. Jerome played a succession of noblemen.
In 1975, he undertook what he called a "labour of love", playing the kindly, conscience-stricken General Lord Fairfax in Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo's film Winstanley, about the tragic fate of the leader of the Diggers in the English civil war. He was the one professional in a cast of amateurs. The subject had a deep and lasting appeal for him, confirming his belief in the Quaker movement, which he was to join as a consequence. Other film work included Orlando, with Tilda Swinton, in 1992.
He was born in Balham, south London, the second child and only son of Robert Willis, who worked in the electrical industry, and his wife Heather (nee Murphy). He had four sisters. His maternal grandfather, Jerome Murphy, after whom he was named, was a noted tenor who sang frequently with the great John McCormack. His great-aunt Julia Willis was for many seasons with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company, which was dedicated to the works of Gilbert and Sullivan. Jerome's own passion for music was lifelong, and in his later years especially he loved singing in choirs and playing the recorder.
After the closing performance of Michael Boyd's production of The Tempest at the Royal Shakespeare theatre in 2002, the cast and crew gave him a surprise party with champagne and a cake in the form of an Elizabethan ship to celebrate his half-century at Stratford-upon-Avon. He had played Gentleman in that same play in 1952, with Redgrave as Prospero, but now he was a well-received Gonzalo.
Jerome was a cherished friend of mine for 40 years and a delightful gossip, relating theatre anecdotes whose details were often corrected by Dilys.
She survives him, as do their four daughters, Sarah, twins Megan and Grania, and Kate, his sisters Fiona (a props and hat maker) and Nuala (an opera singer and cabaret artist), and his granddaughters.
• Jerome Barry Willis, actor, born 23 October 1928; died 11 January 2014 Reported by guardian.co.uk 6 hours ago.
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Wake by Anna Hope – review
Kasia Boddy on the stories of the Unknown Soldier
In August 1920, a British army chaplain wrote to the dean of Westminster with an idea about the commemoration of the dead of the first world war. Four years earlier, in a garden in Armentières, he had come across a grave marked by a wooden cross on which were pencilled the words "An Unknown British Soldier". Surely such a person deserved a place "among the kings" at Westminster Abbey? King George V thought the idea distasteful but was persuaded by the prime minister – or so one story goes.
In fact, the idea of commemorating an anonymous soldier had circulated in Britain and France throughout the war. The body of the unknown soldier represented war at its most deadly and egalitarian, as a stripping away of any sign of rank or social status, and its commemoration was offered as an opportunity for collective mourning. Without identity, he belonged to everyone.
To enact such weighty symbolism required carefully choreographed ritual. Remains were exhumed from four battle areas and brought to a chapel near Arras on the night of 7 November 1920. Each skeleton was covered with a union jack before one was selected and placed in a coffin made from Hampton Court oak, along with a trench helmet and a khaki belt; a 16th-century crusader's sword was fixed on top. On Armistice Day, the bones were buried in Westminster Abbey, and in Whitehall the Cenotaph – or "empty grave"– was unveiled.
Wake takes place over the five days between the exhumation and burial of the British Unknown Warrior. Each of the five sections of Anna Hope's thoroughly researched novel interweaves details of the body's ritualised journey toward London with the emotional journeys of three city women – each carefully created for her representative qualities. Forty-five‑year-old Ada, from Hackney, east London, is haunted by the memory of a son whose death remains a mystery for much of the novel; Evelyn, from Primrose Hill, north London, and two weeks shy of her 30th birthday, can't get over the death of her lover; Hettie, from Hammersmith, west London, and just 19, has lost her father to the Spanish flu and her brother to the catatonia of shell shock. The novel's title refers both to their attempts to watch over their dead and to their faltering efforts to come to terms with loss. Wake suggests that talking to a stranger about "it", and "sharing" the "truth" of whatever it might be, is "enough" to make life "lighter"; a therapeutic message not unfamiliar to readers of modern novels. Evelyn is the only character allowed to express any scepticism about the "show" of the Unknown Warrior. "This is supposed to make it all right, is it?" she asks her brother Ed (a Hemingway drunk with problems "down there"). "This burial? This pulling a body from the earth in France and dragging him over here? And all of us standing, watching, weeping?"
But, finally, she too is caught up in the "unexpected blessing" of November sunshine and the sounds of the city's bells "chiming together and apart". By 1920, Hope insists, it's time to have one final sob and then, well, wake up; it's time to make yourself pretty again, to put on a more cheerful frock, to cut that Edwardian hair, and, as the novel's central metaphor has it, start dancing again. The present-tense narrative takes us away from a past that can never be retrieved towards a future that tastes of "sherbet" and sounds like Dixieland jazz. Could we be so blithe about those who were bereaved by 9/11 or by the Iraq or Afghanistan wars?
• Kasia Boddy's Boxing: A Cultural History is published by Reaktion. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
In August 1920, a British army chaplain wrote to the dean of Westminster with an idea about the commemoration of the dead of the first world war. Four years earlier, in a garden in Armentières, he had come across a grave marked by a wooden cross on which were pencilled the words "An Unknown British Soldier". Surely such a person deserved a place "among the kings" at Westminster Abbey? King George V thought the idea distasteful but was persuaded by the prime minister – or so one story goes.
In fact, the idea of commemorating an anonymous soldier had circulated in Britain and France throughout the war. The body of the unknown soldier represented war at its most deadly and egalitarian, as a stripping away of any sign of rank or social status, and its commemoration was offered as an opportunity for collective mourning. Without identity, he belonged to everyone.
To enact such weighty symbolism required carefully choreographed ritual. Remains were exhumed from four battle areas and brought to a chapel near Arras on the night of 7 November 1920. Each skeleton was covered with a union jack before one was selected and placed in a coffin made from Hampton Court oak, along with a trench helmet and a khaki belt; a 16th-century crusader's sword was fixed on top. On Armistice Day, the bones were buried in Westminster Abbey, and in Whitehall the Cenotaph – or "empty grave"– was unveiled.
Wake takes place over the five days between the exhumation and burial of the British Unknown Warrior. Each of the five sections of Anna Hope's thoroughly researched novel interweaves details of the body's ritualised journey toward London with the emotional journeys of three city women – each carefully created for her representative qualities. Forty-five‑year-old Ada, from Hackney, east London, is haunted by the memory of a son whose death remains a mystery for much of the novel; Evelyn, from Primrose Hill, north London, and two weeks shy of her 30th birthday, can't get over the death of her lover; Hettie, from Hammersmith, west London, and just 19, has lost her father to the Spanish flu and her brother to the catatonia of shell shock. The novel's title refers both to their attempts to watch over their dead and to their faltering efforts to come to terms with loss. Wake suggests that talking to a stranger about "it", and "sharing" the "truth" of whatever it might be, is "enough" to make life "lighter"; a therapeutic message not unfamiliar to readers of modern novels. Evelyn is the only character allowed to express any scepticism about the "show" of the Unknown Warrior. "This is supposed to make it all right, is it?" she asks her brother Ed (a Hemingway drunk with problems "down there"). "This burial? This pulling a body from the earth in France and dragging him over here? And all of us standing, watching, weeping?"
But, finally, she too is caught up in the "unexpected blessing" of November sunshine and the sounds of the city's bells "chiming together and apart". By 1920, Hope insists, it's time to have one final sob and then, well, wake up; it's time to make yourself pretty again, to put on a more cheerful frock, to cut that Edwardian hair, and, as the novel's central metaphor has it, start dancing again. The present-tense narrative takes us away from a past that can never be retrieved towards a future that tastes of "sherbet" and sounds like Dixieland jazz. Could we be so blithe about those who were bereaved by 9/11 or by the Iraq or Afghanistan wars?
• Kasia Boddy's Boxing: A Cultural History is published by Reaktion. Reported by guardian.co.uk 2 days ago.
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Roadworks in North Devon this week - 27/01/2014
This is North Devon -- Below is a list of roadworks affecting the North Devon area at the moment. Appledore A road is closed between the junction of Marine Parade and Quay House until February 21 while South West Water carry out works. Bideford Traffic control is in place from today in the High Street and on the quay until January 30 while mechanical restructuring is carried out. Braunton A road is closed at Dyers Close in East Street until January 31. Traffic control is in place on the A361 at Exeter Road for resurfacing and at Chaloners Road, the square and Caen Street for replacement of existing traffic signals. Fremington Traffic control is in place on the B3233 at Church Hill until April 15 while Devon County Council carry out works. Georgeham The road from Forda Hill To Kings Arms will be closed between January 6 and March 31 while drainage works are carried out. Lynton and Lynmouth Devon County Council are carrying out fencing works at Station Hill until January 24. The road is closed. A road is also closed at the junction with Lynmouth Hill, Castle Hill and Lynbridge Road on the B3234 for rock fall management work. Traffic lights are in place on the B3224 between Watersmeet Road and Lynbridge Road until February 28 for works to West Lyn Bridge. South West Water have got traffic control in place at Lyndale Bridge until February 4. Ilfracombe Traffic lights are going up outside Golden Bay in St James Place today until February 7. This work is being carried out by South West Water. Traffic lights will also be in place in Ropery Road and Broad Street during the same period. Roundswell, Barnstaple: Major roadworks will be taking place between January 20 and July 12 and delays will be possible. The works by Devon County Council will see numerous changes made to the roundabout in a bid to combat the junction's chronic congestion problems; including the enlargement of the roundabout itself and the widening of entry roads from the A39 from two to three lanes. Saunton Traffic control is in place on the B3231 from Pump House to Saunton Sands until April 15 while Devon County Council carry out works. Westward Ho! Nelson road is closed while South West Water carry out works on sewers and manholes. If we have missed a road closure, let us know by commenting in the box below or by emailing editorial@northdevonjournal.co.uk.
Reported by This is 11 hours ago.
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