The Guardian World News |
- Bin Laden home videos reveal life in his lair
- Miliband to Lib Dems: quit cabinet
- Syrian tanks fire on demonstrators
- Taliban launch blitz on Kandahar
- Misrata rebels' fuel supply destroyed
- Blanc poised to go after 'racism' row
- Greece: 'Only tourism can save us'
- Canada rallies to a new type of leader
- Family seeks justice in Doherty case
- British intellectuals have their say
- Meet the new kids on the block
- Riviera homes: €30 a month
- French cinema's golden couple
- Online voice of the baby boomers
- 13 Assassins – review
- 'I'm a presenter who is gay'
- Is it really goodbye to TV and DVDs?
- A show in Ai Weiwei's absence
| Bin Laden home videos reveal life in his lair Posted: 07 May 2011 02:41 PM PDT Clips from the al-Qaida leader's 'home videos' show him obsessively watching himself on TV news programmes Home videos of Osama bin Laden seized from the Pakistani compound where he was killed have been released by the Pentagon last night. One tape shows him preparing a video message addressed to the United States while in another Bin Laden, looking like an elderly grandfather with a cap on his head and blanket around his shoulders, holds a TV remote control in his hide-out and watches himself on television. The videos offer the world a tiny glimpse of Bin Laden's life on the run. The most extraordinary video shows the elderly terrorist in a very different way to normal glimpses of al-Qaida's dead leader. Gone is the gun-toting rebel or the scholarly sheikh dictating messages to the outside word. Instead he is shown with greying hair and a grey beard, rocking back and forth as he watches stories about himself on al-Jazeera. Sitting on the floor, with the TV perched on a ramshackle wooden desk in a room draped with electrical wires, Bin Laden intently watches the screen and then repeatedly changes channels, always watching stories about himself. At one stage Bin Laden – apparently while in his bolthole – watches older video of himself clambering up a steep mountain. He also gestures and speaks to someone off-camera. The tapes, released by American intelligence officials, were among a trove of DVDs and computer hard drives that have been described as the single greatest intelligence haul in the fight against al-Qaida. It also contained telephone numbers and other information that will probably lead to further breakthroughs. That haul has led to at least one public alert that al-Qaida was actively considering attacking the American rail network, possibly by tampering with tracks, which led to a security alert being sent out to law enforcement agencies by the Department of Home Security late last week. A special task force has been set up to deal with the leads being generated and to analyse all the intelligence. At a briefing at the Pentagon, officials gave reporters more details of the raid, saying DNA tests proved the man killed was Bin Laden. Other videos released to the media yesterday showed a more familiar image of Bin Laden. One, apparently recorded last year in either October or November, was titled "Message to the American people". Audio from the video was not released but it apparently contained a condemnation of the US and of global capitalism. That video showed that Bin Laden always dyed his hair and beard black before making broadcasts. In the clip shown to reporters, Bin Laden is wearing a dramatic gold and white robe and a white cap. His beard and hair are almost jet-black and he looks years younger. Officials said they were not releasing the sound as they did not want to appear to be helping spread the content of Bin Laden's speeches. The remaining videos were also apparently for an international audience. One was almost a "blooper reel" as it shows Bin Laden making a mistake while delivering a speech and then starting again. The release of the videos was clearly intended by the US to portray Bin Laden as someone obsessed with his own public image. But intelligence officials also said that they showed Bin Laden was still active in al-Qaida on both a strategic and tactical level when they were made. That goes against the opinion of some terrorist experts who had long assumed Bin Laden had been more of a symbolic figurehead than active leader while he was in hiding. The intelligence officials told reporters they believed the Abbottabad compound was an "active command and control centre" where Bin Laden kept control of al-Qaida. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Miliband to Lib Dems: quit cabinet Posted: 07 May 2011 04:32 PM PDT The Labour leader says disaffected Lib Dems should stand with him to oppose Tory policies Ed Miliband today opens the door to future co-operation with the Liberal Democrats as he calls on disaffected ministers in Nick Clegg's party to quit the cabinet and join Labour in a fight against rightwing Tory policies. The Labour leader, whose party now faces an uphill struggle to secure a Commons majority following the collapse of its vote in Scotland, says he will "work with any Liberal Democrats" against the Conservatives and their plans on the NHS, education and the economy. Following the Lib Dems' disastrous showing in Thursday's council elections and the AV referendum – and amid increasing Lib Dem anger with David Cameron over campaign tactics – Miliband says it is "late, but not too late" for Clegg's ministers to jump ship. "Do they want Tory policies or progressive ones?" he asked. "If they are in favour of new politics they should start by keeping their promises and reflecting the will of those who put them into parliament. If they are not in favour of these Tory policies they should stand up for what they believe or leave the cabinet. They can come and work with us. My door is always open." While Miliband insists that his objective is still a majority Labour government and his immediate focus is on working with the Lib Dems against Tory policies, his overtures suggest that the party is prepared to plan for the possibility of a Lab-Lib deal after the next election. Sympathising with the Lib Dems over how the Tory-backed no campaign behaved during the referendum campaign Miliband said: "The campaign on AV was a showcase for old politics at its very worst. Lib Dems have to work out which side they are on. Do they want to be on the Conservative side, backing the Conservative-led government, or on the progressive side? It really is time for them to make up their minds." Sources close to Clegg stressed that the Lib Dems' central objective was now to stop the Tories winning an outright majority at the next election – and for them to have an option to team up with Labour. As the Lib Dems tried to come to terms with losing nine councils and 695 council seats, as well as burying hope of electoral reform for a generation, there were bitter recriminations over the no campaign's targeting of Clegg. Lib Dem business secretary Vince Cable, who is known to feel closer to Labour than the Tories, said he would continue to support the coalition, but added: "Some of us never had many illusions about the Conservatives, but they have emerged as ruthless, calculating and thoroughly tribal." Former Lib Dem leader Lord Ashdown went further: "We are bloody but unbowed. We have been here before and have always confounded the prophets of doom. But what makes this particularly hard to bear is the widespread, and in my view justified, feeling in the party that the Tories were either allowed to – or encouraged to – join a national vilification of our party leader and seem to have benefited from that." Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott said it was time chief secretary to the treasury Danny Alexander rethought the political consequences of his role as number two to chancellor George Osborne. "He doesn't need to be a royal bodyguard, throwing himself in front of every bullet heading for Osborne." On Monday Labour will seek to expose Lib Dem discomfort within the coalition by calling on its MPs to support an opposition motion opposing the government's NHS reforms, which are strongly opposed by Lib Dem activists. Then on Wednesday it will ask the Lib Dems to support a series of Labour amendments to Michael Gove's education bill, including one insisting that all teachers in schools be fully qualified. Neal Lawson, chair of the centre-left thinktank Compass, said it was right for Miliband to be thinking of working with the Lib Dems. "The worry is that if Labour is flatlining when the Tories are cutting services, its support will collapse when they cut taxes before the next election. Ed Miliband knows he can't win a two versus one election against the Tories and the Liberal Democrats. And the best he can hope for right now is a progressive coalition government with a Liberal Democrat party that has dumped Nick Clegg. He needs to prepare the ground for such a campaign and coalition now." Writing in today's Observer, Lib Dem president Tim Farron, seen by some as a potential successor to Clegg, calls on his party to fight its corner more assertively while keeping faith in the coalition. Yesterday the leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Tavish Scott, resigned. He said: "Thursday's Scottish general election result was disastrous and I must and do take responsibility."Last night a senior source in the campaign for the alternative vote admitted they knew "very early on" that there was no chance of winning the referendum and that Clegg had become part of the problem: "Every time Clegg spoke about AV our polling numbers went into free-fall. We knew from very early on, before the new year, that we couldn't win, our message wasn't getting through and the Liberal Democrats in the whole were worse than useless. Clegg was toxic and everything [Chris] Huhne did in criticising the Tories just put the attention on the political spat – made it a Clegg versus Cameron affair. Utterly unwinnable. "We even brought in an advertising man to save us. He came up with the idea of constructing a giant pin-striped bottom to take around the country for people to throw things at as a way of illustrating that AV makes MPs work harder. It was desperate stuff. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Syrian tanks fire on demonstrators Posted: 07 May 2011 10:22 AM PDT Fears mount that regime of Bashar al-Assad is planning to repeat the siege tactics it deployed in Deraa Syrian tanks rolled into the Mediterranean coastal town of Banias on Saturday and opened fire on demonstrators as President Bashar al-Assad continued the violent assault on his opponents. A day after clashes with anti-government protesters that left at least 30 dead nationwide according to activists and an eyewitness, fears mounted that the Syrian regime was planning to repeat the siege tactics it deployed in Deraa, another key opposition centre. Those fears were bolstered by reports yesterday that Syrian forces had shot dead four women demonstrating on a coastal road near Banias. Ammar Qurabi of the National Organisation for Human Rights said the women, part of a small all-female gathering, had been protesting against the siege and the cutting of power lines when they were killed by plainclothes security forces or pro-government gunmen. Their bodies were taken to hospital in a Sunni district of the besieged town. "Banias is now surrounded from all all directions, not a single person can go in or out," said a resident, who did not wish to be identified. He added that electricity and phone lines had been cut and residents were charging their mobile phones on car batteries. Activists said gunboats could be seen off the Banias coastline and gunfire was heard after tanks approached from three directions in the early hours. As civilians made human chains to protect neighbourhoods, eyewitnesses added that Sunni rather than Alawite neighbourhoods were being targeted. Banias, which has an oil refinery and is the main point of export for Syrian oil, is a predominantly Sunni city close to the Jebel Ansuriya stronghold of Assad's minority Alawite sect. It has a potentially explosive mix of religious groups and sects. The latest attacks came in defiance of a US sanctions regime already imposed and despite the expected announcement that the EU will announce sanctions next week against 14 regime officials, although not Assad . The eyewitness said an atmosphere of fear and apprehension had taken over the town, adding that two-thirds of the population had already fled, notably women and children. Activists in touch with residents confirmed his account, saying the town, which has become a leading focus of anti-regime demonstrations, was now besieged. The activists also spoke on condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. The moves came after human rights groups said at least 30 were shot dead in anti-government protests on Friday's "day of defiance" and rights group Sawasieh raised the total death toll since mid-March to 800. "The use of tanks makes us think they are planning to siege the city like Deraa," said one analyst in the capital. Banias's persistent restiveness – like that of the southern stronghold, which was surrounded by tanks on 25 April – has irked the government. And, like Deraa's Omari mosque imam Ahmed Sayasna, Banias has a prominent cleric, Anas Airout, who has come out in support of the protesters. As news of the tanks' arrival broke in the capital on Saturday , supporters of the protesters said the international community's response had been too slow, allowing a brutal crackdown to push to the limit the protesters' resolve. The international community, like Syrian protesters, has rejected military intervention and has struggled to find ways of putting pressure on the Assad regime. On Saturday some Syrians in the capital expressed frustration at the lack of momentum, claiming that many more people wanted change than the protests numbers suggested. "When a television show gets one complaint, you know there are 100 more who are unhappy but couldn't be bothered to write," said one young man who identified himself as Omar. "It's the same here, but each protester may be worth 200 or 300 people who are too scared to come out." Katherine Marsh is the pseudonym of a journalist living in Damascus guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Taliban launch blitz on Kandahar Posted: 07 May 2011 04:06 PM PDT Gunmen and suicide bombers hit at least five targets as insurgents aim to take control of provincial capital The Taliban launched an unprecedented, multi-pronged attack on Kandahar, with commanders claiming they aimed to "take control of the city". The assault by gunmen and suicide bombers on at least five targets in the southern city began at midday and, according to insurgents who talked to the Observer by phone during the fighting, involved hundreds of attackers. The sustained attack on government buildings wounded at least 24 people and created chaos in the capital of a province Nato has spent the past year trying to secure. The dream of turning the city into a bulwark of security was badly tarnished, with people fleeing to their homes, shuttering shops and leaving the streets empty save for the sound of gunfire and explosions. Haji Pacha, an influential elder from the Alokozai tribe, said Kandahar was "completely empty. There is fighting still going on in at least three districts of the city and all the shops are closed, the people are completely terrified," he said by telephone. The fighting began with an explosion outside the provincial governor's compound, followed by gunfire from the upper levels of a five-storey shopping centre. One Taliban commander, who would not give his name but who was directing an attack on the governor's compound, said that some civil servants, who have been the subject of a ruthless assassination campaign by insurgents, were using civilians as human shields. "They are forcing themselves into cars with civilians to try and escape because they know we don't target civilians," he said. The commander, who claimed that he had 40 men attacking the compound, said the plan to attack multiple targets was designed to overwhelm security forces. "We know that if we attack one place all the security people will come and surround us; this way they can't stop us," he said. He also claimed that Taliban fighters, many of whom had escaped from the city's main jail last month, had managed to block major roads leading to the city. The Taliban did not link the ambitious attack to the killing of Osama bin Laden, saying the assault had been planned for weeks. An announcement on the movement's website said the attack was part of "Operation Badar", the name the Taliban have given to their spring offensive, and was intended to turn Kandahar city into a "scene of bloody fighting". It said they had targeted the offices of the governor, the national security directorate, police headquarters and "a local spy agency" – an apparent reference to a US special forces base. In a separate statement, the Taliban commented at length about the death of Bin Laden for the first time. It said that the "martyrdom of Sheikh Osama … will blow a new spirit into the jihad against the occupiers". Meanwhile, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of Kandahar's provincial council, said the assault on the city was "not serious at all", and that the situation was under control. "Everyone knows that these types of attacks, with suicide bombers and a few people hiding and shooting, are difficult to stop and can happen anywhere," he said, adding that the attack had done nothing to undermine the security gains in the city and province in recent months. "The Taliban are desperate. They cannot do anything else but try to create news," he said. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Misrata rebels' fuel supply destroyed Posted: 07 May 2011 06:02 AM PDT Libyan rebels say city will be starved of fuel after light aircraft drop bombs on oil tanks Libyan government forces have bombed four large oil tanks in Misrata, destroying the city's only source of fuel, according to rebels. Light aircraft normally used for spraying pesticides were deployed for the overnight attack in Qasr Ahmed, close to the port, rebel spokesman Ahmed Hassan said today. Bombs were dropped on four large storage tanks, destroying them and sparking a huge blaze that spread to four more, he said. "We cannot extinguish it because we do not have the right tools," Hassan told Reuters. "Now the city will face a major problem. Those were the only source of fuel for the city. "These tanks could have kept the city for three months with enough fuel." Nato was notified by the rebels about the planes before the attack but did not respond, said Hassan. Misrata, the last remaining city in the east held by the rebels, has been under siege by Gaddafi's forces for more than two months. It has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting between loyalists and rebels. Government forces last month flew at least one helicopter reconnaissance mission over the city, according to the rebels. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Blanc poised to go after 'racism' row Posted: 07 May 2011 11:19 AM PDT Nicolas Sarkozy is said to be trying to stop Laurent Blanc from resigning over comments on quotas for black and Arab players
The future of French football coach Laurent Blanc, at the centre of a row over quotas of non-white players in the national squad, is hanging in the balance after he was reported to be on the verge of resigning. The former Manchester United and Marseille defender was said to be ready to step down as the manager of Les Bleus after he was secretly taped discussing proposals to reduce the number of black and Arab players in the side. Ouest-France, France's biggest-selling daily newspaper, claimed Blanc planned to resign at a press conference on Mondaydespite the French football federation pleading for him to stay. It quoted an anonymous government source saying that France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was ready to call the 45-year-old and ask him to reconsider the decision. A spokesman for Blanc denied the reports and said he would not be quitting. The ministry of sport and the football federation also rejected the claims. "I had him on the telephone and we spoke of him coming to Paris to be interviewed and of what happens after the inquiry, but at no stage was there any question of that [resignation]," Philippe Tournon, spokesman for the French national team, told the news agency AFP. Separate inquiries have been launched into the claims that emerged a week ago on the investigative website Mediapart. A federation official has been suspended and Blanc has been given until Monday morning to appear before the two inquiries to respond to the allegations. In 1998, when France won the World Cup, the country's national squad was a potent symbol of the nation's ethnic makeup and was nicknamed the "black-blanc-beur" (black-white-Arab) team. On the secret tape made of the meeting last November, however, federation officials, including Blanc, are heard discussing a plan to cap the number of 12- and 13-year-old black and Arab hopefuls at sports academies, which feed into the national team, to 30%. Blanc initially denied any knowledge of the quota proposal. When Mediapart published a transcript of the tape, he issued a qualified apology. "I admit some remarks made during a work meeting, taken out of their context, may be misinterpreted. As far as I am concerned, I apologise if I have hurt some feelings. But I, who am against any form of discrimination, do not accept being accused of racism or xenophobia," he said in a statement. He added that the only point of the meeting was to "discuss the future of French football and deal with the delicate problem of players with dual nationality". The affair has sparked controversy internationally. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Greece: 'Only tourism can save us' Posted: 07 May 2011 04:06 PM PDT With debts of €340bn, Greece is turning to its cultural heritage to attract a better class of visitor and make tourism the engine of the Greek economy You come to Delos by way of its ancient harbour. This, one suspects, is just as Apollo would have wished. For it is here, under the shade of a palm, that they say the god of light was born. Far removed from the merry-go-round that is Athens – or the fears over Greece's economic plight that have reached fever pitch – the uninhabited isle is afforded a reverence that few others know. But for those braving the wind-swept seas on a Delos-bound ferry from Mykonos last week, there was no escaping the realisation that that crisis has also reached these hallowed parts. With litter bobbing on a film of filth off its beaches, its museum shop flooded and closed, and treasures – including the island's famous lions – consigned to a building blighted by cracks, cobwebs and rusty scaffolding, the signs were hard to ignore. Lack of staff meant most of the gems had been roped off. "What can I say?" spluttered Fani Iosifidou, one of three employees guarding the site's myriad, poppy-strewn temples, mosaics and statues. "The culture ministry was meant to dispatch more personnel at the beginning of the season but we're still waiting. There are simply not enough of us here. If we don't close off that space," she said, pointing to the lions, "people go and sit on them. It's a terrible thing." The economic crisis that has engulfed Europe's periphery – peaking with reports, flatly denied by the government, that Athens was poised to exit the eurozone and reinstate the drachma as its currency – is hitting at the heart of the debt-stricken country where it first erupted. A year to the week after receiving rescue loans worth €110bn, the biggest bailout in western history, austerity-plagued Greece is still struggling to stave off economic collapse. Amid frenzied speculation that it will soon have no choice but to restructure a debt load estimated at €340bn and climbing, eurozone finance ministers announced that they would meet to discuss whether Athens needs even more aid – a scenario bound to send further tensions through the EU. But for the Greeks, who have dismissed the suggestion of a euro exit as a "joke", the answer lies closer to home – in tourism, a sector that accounts for one out of five jobs and 18% of GDP. Even as places like Delos struggle to make the best of their antiquities and museums, there is a growing recognition that economic recovery lies with a sector that for far too long has relied on tour operators and cheap mass travel. And in order to lure visitors, there is a sense for the first time that the nation must tap into its immense cultural wealth – a heritage too often neglected – as well as its natural beauty. "Tourism can be the star of development … a model for economic development," said the socialist prime minister, George Papandreou, in a keynote speech to industry figures. "The reputation of our country is strengthened when the wealth of our monuments is displayed and when it is associated with myth, history, tradition, Greek produce and Greek diet." Cultural riches could be promoted by being listed with the world heritage convention, the prime minister added, citing the case of Spinalonga, the Venetian fortress-turned-leper colony off Crete that was immortalised by the British novelist Victoria Hislop in her bestseller, The Island. "Spinalonga is an example of the wealth we have around us, that we either don't know or have no idea about promoting in a proper and organised way," he said. From the rolling hills of Arcadia to the plains of Macedonia and sun-baked palaces of Crete, examples of the thwarted efforts of cash-strapped Greek authorities to showcase that wealth are two a penny. In provincial towns and islands, museums have been closed. For places like Plato's Academy, the world's first university, in the heart of Athens, funds have been so scarce that officials have been unable even to afford basic signs. With Greece mired in recession not seen since the reintroduction of democracy in 1974, and Athens's historic centre so crime-ridden that even its mayor recently conceded that he felt unsafe at night walking its streets, Papandreou's targets, then, might seem a bit of a pipe dream. But the US-born premier is not without ambition. Greece, he says, should aim to become one of the "10 best" destinations in the world. To this end, he has gone out of his way to improve the country's image abroad. Last year, the government banished visa requirements for non–EU citizens, waived landing and take-off fees for aircraft at airports nationwide and took steps to facilitate foreign investment in a sector that, like so many others, has been afflicted by corruption, cronyism and lack of competitiveness – the very ills that helped bring Greece to its knees. Last week, Papandreou announced plans to cut the price of costly ferry tickets. The measures appear to be paying off. In a reversal of several lean years, Greece is bracing for a bumper season, with popular Ionian islands, like Zakynthos, reporting a 200% increase in the number of visitors over Easter. Bookings by Britons have shot up by 20%, according to Thomas Cook, as tourists who might normally go to Egypt and Tunisia have opted for the Aegean islands instead. "Suddenly Greece is all the rage," said a spokesman from the company. "It's set for a comeback." For the first time, too, the country looks set to be besieged by visitors from neighbouring Turkey, as well as Russia, China and India, following the lifting of visa restrictions. Despite its dire public finances, Athens will stage the Special Olympics, a unique sports event for the intellectually disabled that is expected to bring in around 40,000 tourists over two weeks in June. The hope is that a reinvigoration of the tourism sector – regarded as a heavy industry in a country that produces little else – will not only increase jobs but overturn the prevailing mood of uncertainty that, as in Portugal, has also seized Greeks. Unemployment, as a result of stringent austerity measures imposed in exchange for aid from the EU and IMF, recently topped an unprecedented 15%, with a disproportionate number of young Greeks affected. "If Greece became one of the 10 best destinations in the world, the sector would account for 20% of GDP and provide one in four jobs," said Andreas Andreadis, the newly installed president of the Association of Greek Tourism Enterprises. "Then it would really be the engine of the Greek economy." But officials also know that the hoary image of Greece as a sun, sand and sea destination brimming with smiling Zorbas no longer works and that the country will have to diversify. Arrivals might be up but revenues show only a slight increase due to discounts and special offers that hoteliers have been forced to offer to attract tourists. "The country needs to be rebranded," said Andreadis. "The Greece that we Greeks know, the Greece of the mountains and hills, countryside and sea, is simply not promoted." As the first of the spring flowers burst into life on Delos, its keepers couldn't agree more. In recent years inadequate protection has seen a flow of priceless objects being filched from the site. "Delos is a world-class venue but it only has three guards to protect it at night and three during the day," lamented Mykonos's mayor, Athanasios Kousathanas-Megas, who has administrative control over the island. For years, he says, locals have pleaded with the culture ministry to restore the island's ancient theatre beyond the villas and temples that look onto its ancient port. "If it were restored and performances held, Delos, the island of Apollo, could come alive again," he says. "We Greeks may not have much money but we have pride. Our ancient heritage is our identity and it can help us get through this crisis." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Canada rallies to a new type of leader Posted: 07 May 2011 04:06 PM PDT Jack Layton's New Democrats have come from nowhere to challenge the ruling Conservatives There is a buzz, even in the rainswept air along Danforth Avenue, as lunchtime drinkers emerge from the Fox and Fiddle and mothers collect their children from the Holy Name Catholic school. This is the "riding", or constituency, of Toronto Danforth, parliamentary seat of the man who lost the Canadian federal election, Jack Layton. So why the buzz? Because within that defeat was victory of sorts: Layton's New Democratic party was the phenomenon of the week, coming from nowhere to become the new official opposition and redraw the political map of Canada. Layton's NDP is a combative socialist alliance of unions, disaffected middle classes, former communists, immigrants and industrial workers. "Yeah, so he didn't win," says Ben Forbes, an electrician, buying his train ticket to work the late shift at Pape station, "but he did better than we dared think he would." "This is like a popular part of town," says Maura Beckett, pushing her twins through Withrow Park, "where we vote for Jack and keep voting for him until he's prime minister." It is fitting, somehow, that these constituencies are called ridings – more English than England, in a Commonwealth city that looks like the American midwest but sports the crown of Windsor on licence plates and freeway signs, and her majesty on a C$20 bill. But the political climate is now singularly Canadian: across these ridings, the country returned to what feels like good, old-fashioned punch-up politics. The clear victor is the incumbent prime minister, Stephen Harper, who heads a Conservative overall majority reminiscent of that enjoyed by Margaret Thatcher in the mother country. Harper, in his victory speech, insisted that he would form "a government for all Canadians", speaking like a one-nation Tory, but he knows that Canada is now bitterly divided along ideological lines, rather than the usual linguistic, geographical or demographic issues, thanks to Layton's NDP. Though born and raised in Quebec, Layton began his life as a career politician in Danforth, doubling the NPD's vote in the city during his first year as party leader in 2003. Within four years, it was up to 18%, but Layton was still regarded as an outsider by the main Conservative and Liberal parties, as he failed to convert his local base into a national one. Now, having conquered Quebec, the NPD is a true national party and Layton's rise is being compared to the journey of Aesop's tortoise. "I'll never forget in 2008 when Mr Layton started talking about applying for the job of prime minister," said his campaign architect, Brad Lavigne. "People said that is not credible, and we didn't care if the media thought it was credible. What we wanted to do was establish among the electorate that you have a leader here that you preferred. And you could vote for him locally to get him to that job." Layton has an immediate agenda to start making trouble: a deal between the provincial government of Ontario and its public sector workers for a 3% pay rise – to the astonishment of the rest of the country, across which other groups will now demand parity, and probably back their claim with industrial action. As recession bites, Layton can flex his constituency's muscles. Danforth is, visibly, a riding made up of what have become typical NPD voters: industrial workers, public sector employees, immigrant communities from Greece, China and the Indian subcontinent, and "young renters" (as you are known in Canada if you cannot afford to own a first house or apartment). But Canada's revolution happened in francophone Quebec, where Layton achieved the apparently impossible: he became the first anglophone Canadian to win the province against French-speaking opposition. Half his parliamentary caucus now comes from Quebec. For decades, the francophone and secessionist Bloc Québécois has been the driving force in provincial politics, though never able to muster a referendum majority for separation from Canada. But now, just as Scotland moves into a secessionist gear, Quebec – whose seaboard counts many of Canada's poorest communities – has shunned the Bloc, sending to parliament such New Democratic MPs as Mathieu Ravignat, a karate teacher and former communist who unseated Canada's foreign affairs minister, Lawrence Cannon. Then there is Ellen Brosseau, a college barmaid who barely campaigned, went on holiday in Las Vegas just before the election and, having won, has now – to the media's gloating delight – vanished from view, reportedly to learn French. But this is no joke party, and Canadian analysts are grappling to explain the Bloc's demise and the NDP surge in Quebec. Writing in the Conservative National Post, commentator Kevin Libin said: "I have yet to see a satisfying explanation for what sparked that Quebec stampede to the NDP, but my best guess is that it was one of those generational swings: young people in that province voting in their first federal election this week were babies when the Bloc was created and probably grew up watching with bafflement and amusement their parents' sovereigntist idealism." To which the respected political review, McLeans, added: "The odd thing is that the New Democrats were relative … Luddites": the hard left pulling young votes with pre-digital campaigning for old-fashioned notions of progress; increased public and social spending; severe action on climate change; confrontation with the financial sector. The Bloc Québécois was not the only victim of this brazen clarity: in the same week that the Liberal Democrats in Britain took a hammering at the polls, the high-wire politics of "middle ground" compromise were thrashed even more thoroughly in Canada. Layton and the Liberals have a chequered history of both vote-sharing and the eventual bringing down of a Liberal government by the NDP, which held the balance of power, after the implication of the Liberals in a corruption scandal over advertising sponsorship. But the NDP now replaces the Liberals as the official opposition, led to their worst-ever defeat by former Observer columnist and academic Michael Ignatieff. While Ignatieff's British counterpart, Nick Clegg, reneged on tuition fees, free higher education was a cornerstone of Ignatieff's family-centric campaign against "jets, jails and corporate tax cuts" – his catchiest assault on Harper's government. On Friday, though, Ignatieff prepared to return to academe – not to Harvard, whence he came, but to Massey College in the University of Toronto. His valedictory remarks were endearingly frank. "I'm going back to the classroom," he said, "because the only damn thing I can do that's any use to anybody is to teach kids what I learned and what mistakes I made." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Family seeks justice in Doherty case Posted: 07 May 2011 04:06 PM PDT Family of Mark Blanco say they may seek to prosecute the rock star and two of his friends if the police do not press charges The family of a man who died after falling from a balcony shortly after an altercation with ex-Libertines singer Pete Doherty and two of the star's friends say they will seek a private prosecution if police fail to bring charges over the incident in December 2006. Scotland Yard has requested a private meeting with Mark Blanco's family this week at the Old Bailey. Officers are expected to tell his mother, Sheila, whether they believe that their investigations will yield any prosecutions. CCTV images showed Doherty stepping over the body of the 30-year-old shortly after he fell to his death. Blanco had been at a party with Doherty at the Whitechapel flat of Paul Roundhill, a figure on the east London alternative arts scene who supplied the Babyshambles frontman with drugs. A part-time actor who was staging Dario Fo's Accidental Death of an Anarchist, Blanco had visited the flat to invite Doherty to see a performance of the play. But he left following a confrontation with Roundhill, Doherty and the star's minder, Johnny "Headlock" Jeannevol. Shortly afterwards he was found dead on the ground outside, having fallen from a first-floor balcony outside Roundhill's flat. After leaving the scene, Doherty and his friends smashed up a hotel room in Clerkenwell, London. Blanco's family insist that his death was an unlawful killing. Celebrities including comedian Jimmy Carr and magician Jerry Sadowitz have spearheaded fundraising campaigns to establish the cause of Blanco's death as the family has become increasingly frustrated with police inquiries. Scotland Yard initially believed that Blanco had jumped to his death. However, at the inquest, the coroner, Dr Andrew Reid, ruled out a verdict of suicide and rejected one of accidental death. Recording an open verdict, he requested a second independent investigation. Michael Wolkind QC, who is representing the Blanco family, said that it was hard for them to believe that prosecutions would come as a result of the police follow-up investigation. "Throughout their investigations, the police have suffered a severe allergy to finding crime, even though it is clear Mark was unlawfully killed," Wolkind said. "This week we will find out if they have overcome their shyness to prosecute." At the inquest, Jeannevol and Roundhill admitted attacking Blanco shortly before he died. At one stage Jeannevol admitted killing him, but retracted the claim. "It would be perverse if they escaped prosecution," said Wolkind, who confirmed that the family would consider a private prosecution if the police ruled out charges. A private action could take the form of prosecuting Jeannevol and Roundhill for assault, or wider charges against all three. "I'm not going away," Sheila Blanco said. "But it can't be right that we're having to spend thousands of pounds and all of our time doing a job the police should be doing." Scientific tests commissioned by the family revealed that Blanco had not sought to protect himself when he fell 3.5m (11ft) on to his head. Richard Wassersug, a professor of anatomy and neurobiology and an expert in such falls, concluded that, "the two most likely explanations are that he was backed into the railings and pushed over, or that he was not conscious and was dropped over the railing". The family handed a dossier of evidence to the Crown Prosecution Service last July in the hope that this would result in charges. "The strain has been overwhelming," Sheila Blanco said. Blanco's father has suffered two heart attacks since his son's death. Roundhill, Doherty and Jeannevol deny any wrongdoing. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| British intellectuals have their say Posted: 07 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT Ten celebrated thinkers offer their thoughts on Britain's relationship with its intelligentsia Alain de Botton, philosopher |
| Meet the new kids on the block Posted: 07 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT The teenage stars of Attack the Block, a new sci-fi movie by Joe Cornish being praised for its authentic depiction of youth culture on a London estate, talk slang, crime and modern policing I'm surrounded by chanting teenagers. Five of them, eyeballing me and repeating: "Blood, blood, blood." "Cuz, cuz, cuz." "Trust, trust, trust." It's quite unnerving, a bit Lord of the Flies. "Bruv, bruv, bruv." "Oi, oi, oi." "Y'get me? Y'get me? Y'get me?" They stop, point made. "See?" says one of them. "You see how it can be overplayed?" They are the young stars of Attack the Block, a new sci-fi film directed by Joe Cornish that pits a gang of south London estate kids against gorilla-like aliens that invade their tower block. Cornish's film, out on 11 May, is part monster flick, part study of youth culture and it's very good. Today, sitting around a hotel lounge in central London, the young actors are doing impressions of other recent "hood culture" films, films that have made a pantomime of street patois through overuse, with a "blood" or a "bruv" or a "cuz" inserted into every sentence in a bid for currency. "The colloquial language," says Franz Drameh, mocking the term, "but pushed way too much. You watch these films and think, OK, it's cool, we get it… blood." The other four snicker. Close friends after months together filming last year, they do a lot of snickering. Attack the Block won the audience award at the SXSW festival in Texas in March, and elsewhere early reviews have been equally positive, largely due to the collective charisma of these five unusual leads, their believability as 15- and 16-year-old London miscreants. If, like me, you've come to dread the depiction of "yooves" on screen (dubious about Noel Clarke's overwrought Kidulthood kids, all those suspiciously Rada-ish hoodlums from episodes of Casualty and The Bill) then Cornish's film should come as a great relief. Its stars give hugely credible performances, drawing on their own lives in inner-city London. Slang is ever-present in the dialogue but never cringeing. And the five don't dress like post-apocalyptic bikers or whatever it is a far-removed costume designer has decided estate kids wear. They dress like estate kids. The film is set entirely on a walkways-and-corridors estate in Lambeth, south London, and begins with a slow pan over Oval tube station (surely a first: no Woody Allen-ish establishing shots of the Gherkin or the Eye here). The actors were encouraged to veto clothes or phrases they deemed too inauthentic for the setting. They tell a story, overlapping each other: "What was that word they wanted us to use? Leek? Eek? I think it was eek. It was meant to mean a snitch. Someone didn't write it down properly when they researched it." So "eek" was scrubbed from the script, and "leek" too, for good measure. Franz Drameh, the chattiest and the most polite, is 18 and has acted before (he was in Hereafter with Matt Damon last year). Three others are newcomers, plucked from school workshops and drama groups around London. Leeon Jones is 17, the shyest. Simon Howard, 18, displays a verve to match his great fan of hair, and the most disarming way with his diction ("liked" is "lacked", "mountains" are "mountings"). Alex Esmail, long haired and 17, sits apart a bit and doesn't smile much. Then there's John Boyega, the eldest at 19, the leader of the gang on screen and, from what I can tell, in real life as well. He waits for the others to finish speaking before he does and at one point silences the room completely by referring to Malcolm Gladwell in the middle of a discussion about action figures. It takes five minutes for the group to settle, at first, after a spell trying to open Coke bottles with their belt buckles. ("Man," says Drameh, "that's stressful.") A scene of near hysteria descends, after they've been talking about a shared love of manga cartoons and computer games, when I float a question: which would they prefer – an Attack the Block computer game being made or Attack the Block manga? "Woah! Computer game." "Computer game, straight up." "I'm gonna get my computer game." In the excitement, one of them starts to sing in a high falsetto voice. Attack the Block's director, Joe Cornish, is one half of Adam and Joe, the irreverent comics and spoof experts, hosts of a popular radio show on BBC 6 Music. Cornish's stock in trade is satirical observation, and though Attack the Block is not an outright comedy he uses his good eye and ear to record and film some deliciously plausible reactions by a bunch of careless teens to alien invasion. Running out of credit on a mobile is almost as major a concern as being eaten by a gorilla-like monster. When things get really tough, the boys' instinct is to lock themselves up for a calming session on the Xbox. "When you watch so-called hood-related stuff," says Howard, "you always know what it's going to be. Gangs beefing gangs. Someone gets robbed, someone gets beaten up. Happy days. Attack the Block is different." It is different – all those aliens, for a start, and a great sense of genre affection that gives it a fond, reference-sprinkled Shaun of the Dead feel. (Shaun's Nick Frost has a supporting role and Edgar Wright produces, too.) The concept of "inner city versus outer space" came to Cornish when he was mugged, seven years ago. He wondered: what would happen if aliens landed now? His film starts with a mugging, the gang threatening a female neighbour with a knife and taking her jewellery. It happens matter of factly, part of an evening's activity for the boys, and it gives the following story a very unusual flavour. Once aliens invade, the boys become our heroes, but they're quite unrepentant about the earlier crime, and often quite unlikable. Compare with another alien encounter film. Shortly after the release of ET, Steven Spielberg suggested, sweetly, that the kids he'd portrayed were pretty clued up. His young characters were ready to cope with extraterrestrial confrontation because they'd spent hours watching TV serials and playing Space Invaders. "The years of childhood have been subject to a kind of inflation," said Spielberg, in open wonder that the youth of today – this was 1982 – were so wise and cynical. Oh, to watch Attack the Block with him. The Block kids do not meet extraterrestrial encounter with a charm offensive, a la ET, offering treats from the chocolate cupboard and a Sesame Street marathon. Instead, they kill the first arrival with a baseball bat because it has shown them disrespect. They do not speak in terms of cooing wonder. Instead: "What is that, cuz?" "That's a alien!" "We crazy kicked that." They drag the corpse away to stash it, in case there's money to be made by selling it. Cornish makes a particularly close study of the clash between the gang (bored, riled, with confused ideas about territory) and a middle-class nurse, Sam, played by Jodie Whittaker. She is the neighbour they mug in the opening scene and afterwards she reports them to the police. Even when the sci-fi action kicks in, and the group are thrown together as comrades, neither Sam nor the gang is able to forgive the other over the mugging. To the boys, Sam snitching to the police was as bad as pulling out a knife. It's a subplot that gives the film great strength and grounds it in reality even as the surface action (fireworks used as missiles, Super Soakers turned into flamethrowers) gets sillier. I ask if the boys have ever been involved in a mugging. Friends have, says Howard. "There's a difference between living somewhere," says Boyega, "and being part of somewhere. There's loads going on in Peckham [where he lives] that I'm not involved in because I'm doing my other thing. But I still know the world, what goes down." Why, in the film, do the boys react so badly when Sam goes to the police? "In a gang lifestyle, snitching is kind of unforgivable," says Drameh. "I don't think it's just the gang lifestyle," says Boyega, "it's a community thing. The 'block' in Attack the Block is not just a physical thing, it's people, it's families. Everyone's living their own kind of life. When the police come round it makes it complicated. Even mothers are like, nah, I won't talk to the police. Not just gangsters. Would your mum," he says to the group, "ever go to the police?" The others aren't sure. Eventually, Esmail says: "I'm not gonna lie, I've been robbed three times." They burst out laughing. "I'm glad you all find it funny, you bunch of wankers." "You're still alive, man," says Jones in a rare interjection, "it's all good." Howard says: "It happens every day. It's not, like, mean." Not mean? Do they, then, accept it as a part of life? "I don't accept it at all," says Esmail. "It feels horrible. But the main reason I wouldn't pick up the phone to the police is that, no offence, they don't do much. They'll get you in the car, go look for the robber. But if he's smart no robber is still gonna be there." The gang are still laughing. "Nah, think about it…" "Top tip," says Jones, and in an American accent Drameh says: "If you're gonna rob someone go home afterwards. That statement was sponsored by Attack the Block." Boyega steers them back. "Being robbed hurts – not physically but from what it does to your pride." "At the same time," says Drameh, "you can't stop bad things from happening. It may not be a good part of life but that's the world." By the end of the film, the boys' characters still haven't really come to terms with Sam's snitching. "It's not like, oh, we're all friends," says Drameh. "Let's slip off into the rainbow." They find this about right. Chat moves on to lighter subjects. Trainers. BlackBerrys. How the film's slang might go down in America. "They've been feeding us with new language for years," says Boyega, a little irritated. "Slang in The Wire, Pandora language in Avatar, flipping Klingon. What the hell, man? Just take it as it is and enjoy the film." "I watch their films," says Howard, "and I can understand." It's time to leave them be. As I make my way out they cheerily go back to opening Coke bottles with their belt buckles and doing impressions of fireworks; engaging in the overlapping discussion of excitable teens. "Man, it's hard putting out a film," someone says. "I thought it just went on in cinemas and that was it." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Posted: 07 May 2011 04:06 PM PDT Cut-price housing for locals aims to revive a dying community in Italy near a haven for Hollywood stars An idyllic fishing village tucked away on the Italian Riviera just over a mile from the celebrity hang-out of Portofino is offering stone cottages with sea views for rent from €30 a month in a desperate bid to bring back local families as the rural population dies out. The empty homes in San Fruttuoso, which are being dubbed the "world's most beautiful council houses", will be redecorated and handed over later this year as the full-time population of the once thriving village dips from around 100 in the last century to just five. "This is a unique case of a beauty spot that is known around the world gradually emptying," said Giovanni Boitano, the regional housing assessor who is vetting locals to fill the 11 new apartments. Hidden in protected woodland and connected only by footpaths to the outside world, San Fruttuoso amounts to a cluster of houses and a disused 10th-century Benedictine abbey that give on to a beach and transparent waters where fishermen have cast their nets for centuries. Just over the headland sits bustling Portofino, a haven for Hollywood stars since Richard Burton proposed to Elizabeth Taylor in a local restaurant. In the town where Dolce and Gabbana host Madonna at its villa, small apartments in old fishermen's houses are snapped up for around €1.5m. In San Fruttuoso, where inhabitants must go by boat to reach nearby towns – or take an hour's walk through chestnut trees and ancient olive groves when rough seas stop sailings – it is a different story. Visiting celebrities rarely stay longer than the time it takes for a leisurely lunch in the harbour, while locals have kept up a steady exodus for years. In the 1980s, a teacher who arrived by boat from nearby Camogli to teach classes in the abbey's tower stopped coming as the population dwindled. In 1994 politicians stopped showing up to set up voting booths at elections. "The place is all yours in the winter, although you share it with torrential rain and fog and not everyone likes it," said Giuseppina Repetto, 68, whose husband's family has run a restaurant in the summer for generations. "In the summer it is like a film," said Mario Scevola, 65, one of the five full-time residents left. "But in winter, if the boats can't make it, you need to get in the supplies, you can't get a doctor and we play a lot of cards." Alessandro Capretti, who is restoring the abbey, said: "When the last tourist boat leaves, the village returns to how it was when the monks were here. There is a kind of mystical silence." Repetto was less convinced. "The community spirit we once had has long gone," she said. Apart from the restoration of the houses abandoned in the 1970s, spaces for two new restaurants, a bed and breakfast, a small museum and an olive oil mill are being opened to boost job prospects. Only local residents qualify for the cut-price housing, and no millionaires would be let in, said Boitano. "You need to be on less than €30,000 a year to get an apartment, and anyone caught sub-letting will immediately be ejected," he said. The plan is just one of many being put into action up and down Italy as stunning but often remote villages are slowly abandoned by young Italians moving to the cities. Immigrants landing on the island of Lampedusa are being invited to take up a trade in the Calabrian town of Riace, while other villages are turned into tourist destinations or wired for high-speed internet to attract artists. "I remember the beach here packed with 20 fishing boats, including my father's, when I was a child," recalled Scevola. "I can't wait to see life starting to be lived again here." guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Posted: 07 May 2011 04:06 PM PDT The stars will be centre stage at the Cannes film festival, even if parenthood keeps them from taking place of honour on the red carpet A film festival requires its talented "golden couple" almost as much as its long red carpet – and at Cannes the prospect of a pair of glamorous homegrown lovers is especially tantalising. So whether the sun shines on the Côte d'Azur or not, hopes are high for an appearance from the Oscar-winning Marion Cotillard and her partner, the acclaimed writer, director and actor Guillaume Canet. Cotillard has been invited as one of the stars of the film that will open the festival, Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris. Taking the role of the "muse" in Allen's celebration of the city and its myths, she will feature alongside France's first lady, Carla Bruni, and the Hollywood A-listers Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams. Cotillard, who first came to international attention four years ago as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, sent Batman fans across the world into a spin with the announcement that she is to appear opposite Christian Bale in director Christopher Nolan's next comic strip outing, The Dark Knight Rises. Nolan, who worked with Cotillard on Inception, claims she will be playing a Bruce Wayne employee called Miranda Tate, but there is a growing suspicion that this might not be the whole truth. "My role is a secret, as is the whole project," Cotillard has said. What is clear, however, is that later this year the 35-year-old actress from Orléans will follow up her acclaimed screen performance as a sexually polymorphous tease in Canet's latest hit, Little White Lies, with an English-language role in Steven Soderbergh's new thriller Contagion, in which she will star with Kate Winslet and Matt Damon. Hot duo they may be, but there is a strong chance that Cotillard and Canet's admirers will be disappointed when they gather along the Croisette for the Allen premiere, because the couple are involved in another pressing joint production: the arrival of their first child. Last week, in the pristine pages of Madame Figaro, Cotillard described being pregnant as "perfect happiness". Even the occasionally maudlin Canet, 38, has admitted that he is "really ready to be a dad". Apart from his burgeoning reputation as a director and screenwriter, he can be seen in British cinemas in Farewell, a cold war thriller based on the true story of a KGB spy who leaked information to the west. Later this spring he is to appear again, this time as the long-lost flame of Keira Knightley in a romantic set piece called Last Night. As bright young stars, Canet and Cotillard now seem to be shining at full beam. Cotillard is already talked of with awe by the established names of the film-making elite. Leonardo DiCaprio, her co-star in Inception, has dubbed her "one of the greats", while Nicole Kidman, a fellow cast member in Rob Marshall's Fellini update, Nine, has noted her "fairy quality". For the film writer David Thomson, Cotillard's eyes, "always on the point of weeping", suggest that "nearly everything she can think of is tinged with grief or regret". Canet, in turn, is now regarded as a great hope for the commercial future of French cinema (Little White Lies sold 5.5 million tickets in France). The director grew up in the countryside beyond Paris and his parents, who were horse breeders, divorced when he was young. As a discontented teenager he went off to join a circus for a year before eventually studying acting in Paris. His directorial debut, Mon Idole, was a comic study of the entertainment business, while his appearance in the English-language film version of Alex Garland's The Beach earned him an international profile. In 2003, he made the dry romantic comedy Love Me If You Dare, in which he starred with Cotillard. And then came the big hit: his sharp and stylish thriller Tell No One. A period of morose contemplation and therapy for Canet followed this success, brought on by a bout of septicaemia. These doldrums ultimately gave shape to the bleakly comic ideas behind his screenplay for Little White Lies, a film that charts the deceits and delusions of a group of branché (trendy) Parisians who take a holiday together in the south of France. "I was tired of those little lies that we tell because we don't want to hurt other people's feelings, or because we don't want to wreck the atmosphere in a group," Canet has explained, "and those lies that I was telling myself, too, about the choices I made, or to escape issues about my family and stuff." Whatever dark thoughts were seething below, the only visible cloud in the lives of Canet and Cotillard has been an intense period of scrutiny from the French media prompted by the director's decision to leave his first wife, the German actress Diane Kruger. Canet has likened his feelings for Cotillard to a slow revelation: "I've known her for 14 years now, but we never had any relation until three years ago. One moment you're moving in a particular direction with a person, then one day you wake up and say: 'She's the love of my life.' I never saw it coming." Cotillard, in turn, has spoken of finding in Canet the stimulus she requires: "For me, I need to be with someone who is searching, who is wide awake." Her career has blossomed with their relationship, despite a perilous moment when the media picked up on remarks she had once made on a late night chatshow about the terrorist attacks of 9/11, suggesting that they might have been faked by the establishment. She now claims she was misquoted. "I didn't say that. The first reason is that I know people who have lost members of families or friends that were in those planes. So how could I believe in the conspiracy theory? It's nonsense." Since this minor blip, her popularity in Hollywood has grown and she has not suffered from the so-called "Binoche factor", the tendency for French-speaking stars to price themselves out of the industry in their native land and yet fail to find big roles in America. Cotillard's approach to acting is akin to total immersion. During the time she was playing Piaf she sang every day, although her singing voice was not used in the film. And once filming had finished, she says, it took her months to finally leave the "Little Sparrow" behind her. The daughter of an actress and a director, she is a genuine bohemian, not to say hippy, who loves making jewellery and almost gave up acting to work full-time for Greenpeace. Cotillard said this spring that she has come to relish the challenge of acting in a foreign language. "It's totally different," she said. "And it's more work. But it's something that I love to do. I love to work on the detail of the sound, how you stress a word, the meaning of the rhythm of what you say. It's very, very interesting." For now, though, with motherhood pending, she is wedded to her life in Paris with Canet and has no plans to move to Los Angeles. Proximity to old friends is important to her. "Last night I was at an event and then two friends called to say, hey, we're round the corner having a drink, and I said, 'I'm on my way.' It was so great." The couple are often spotted out together doing normal things, like drinking coffee and buying food. But then – thanks to an illusory Gallic effect that is, coincidentally, examined by Woody Allen in Cotillard's latest film – even "normal things" can appear alluringly glamorous if they are being done in Paris. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Online voice of the baby boomers Posted: 07 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT Gransnet, a social networking site for Britain's 14m grandparents, aims to counter deeply ingrained ageism Back in 1965, the chief executive of Elizabeth Arden wrote in Forbes magazine: "We don't want to be connected with older women." Not much has changed. Today there are more than 20 million Britons over 50; yet, despite our numbers, we can be forgiven for feeling that we are ever so slightly embarrassing. The ageing population is almost never out of the news, but the fact that we're all living longer, which really ought to be a good thing, is always seen as a problem. The country can't afford the pension bills or the social care. We're threatening the social fabric with our healthcare costs and our housing wealth. David Willetts, minister for universities and science, has written a book, The Pinch, claiming the over-50 baby boomers have stolen our children's future. Two bright young journalists, Ed Howker and Shiv Malik, have written another book identifying themselves as the Jilted Generation. Thanks to greedy boomers and their incessant needs, we appear to be heading for intergenerational warfare. Last week Gransnet was launched as a social networking site for Britain's 14m grandparents. It is the offspring of Mumsnet, which has, in its 11 years, given a voice to a group – parents – that was previously somewhat disenfranchised. We're hoping that we may be able to do something similar for people in the second half of life. Yet it's fair to say that when we approached advertising agencies before the launch, many of the young people we met looked at us blankly. Like, you mean, old people? There's a paradox here. At the same time as older people are presented as a threat, they are also widely ignored. That older women feel invisible is a common complaint, of course, in a society where a bit of cellulite on a celebrity thigh is cause for scandalised newspaper articles, and in which Miriam O'Reilly was advised to get Botox before being removed from her job as a television presenter. But men also suffer from a similar sense of vertigo, especially once they have retired. Between the ages of 50 and old age, who are we? What's our purpose? It appears we're not even wanted as consumers. We can feel as though we exist in a kind of identity void. After 50, you join a group that might as well be on another planet when it comes to marketing. Advertisers think in demographic blocs of 18-49, or, at a push, 25-54. It's as if there is no adulthood beyond that. This is very short-sighted because, by 2030, over-65s are going to account for a quarter of the consumer market in Britain. Presumably the assumption is that we'll only be interested in buying insurance and cruises – and they all have the same advert anyway. It's that picture of a silver-haired couple walking along a beach. It will need to be a very long beach. One-fifth of Britons alive today can expect to see 100. Increasing longevity and improved healthcare mean that many people over 50 are fit and capable. And they are confidently looking forward to all those spare years and wondering what to do with them. We hear an awful lot about the ageing population, but the real story is that there's an explosion of people in late middle age. We mid-lifers have very few roadmaps through the new phase that has opened up. All the assumptions about life courses were made for a different time, when childhood was followed by adulthood, retirement and, then, in fairly short order, decline and death. In the 20th century, as lifespans began to increase, the "golden years" were invented – a time for the golf course, for that beach so beloved of advertisers and, er, that's it. In the 21st century, that looks rather boring and, frankly, a bit infantilising. It may be that many mid-lifers will continue to leave 9-5 jobs in big companies (to "make way" for younger people, who are, not entirely coincidentally, cheaper), but that doesn't mean we don't want to go on working or volunteering or being involved with our families. We still want to be a part of things. One in three working mothers relies on grandparents for childcare; in practice, grans and grandads are crucial to the smooth running of busy families. Some of us are also founder members of what has been called the club-sandwich generation caring for elderly relatives. Our lives can be complicated. Mumsnet has demonstrated that if you are overloaded the best place to get advice, information and support is from other people in a similar situation. We hope that this will also be true for Gransnet; in the process, we may even find that we are not a homogeneous horde, but as diverse as any other group. On the first day on Gransnet, people were posting about growing basil outside in England, their daughters-in-law, swearing (annoying or not?), political militancy, grandparents' rights when families break up, and a lot of other things. The age group turns out to be as diverse in its preoccupations as any other. As it happens, 10% of grandparents in the UK are under 50 and half are under-65. But age is one of the least useful ways of segmenting people; identity and interests are far more important, for older people as much as for the younger ones whom advertisers assiduously segment into tribes. As someone has said, "once you've seen one 80-year-old, you've seen one 80-year-old". A number of people, looking at Mumsnet's track record in influencing the political agenda, have asked me what I think our first campaign will be on Gransnet. That depends on what the members care about and what emerges from the forums – it's not my decision. What is clear, however, is that because mid-life has never existed as a stage before in quite the way it does now, we lack rituals and established routes through it, which can be unnerving, although also exhilarating. As the US writer Marc Freedman has argued in his new book Shift, we need gap years for grown-ups and more backing for mid-life entrepreneurs (who have a great track record of establishing successful businesses) as well as internships to help older people make the transition from one stage of life to another. Freedman has gone some way towards this by setting up internships for executives from Silicon Valley to move into third-sector organisations when they retire. Until all that happens, mid-lifers will continue to suffer from prejudice. Ageism is so deeply ingrained that most of the time we don't even notice it. The words "young" and "old" are often used simply to denote good and bad – think of "sunset industries" and "young cities" and "ageing infrastructure". It is acceptable to speak of old people in a way that would be unthinkable about race or disability. The actor Harriet Walter, who curated an exhibition of photographs of women aged from 48 to 97 last year, marvels at this obsession with newness. "We are terribly dismissive of experience. Everything has to be the latest," she says. "I am in the business of human wisdom: I speak words written 400 years ago which cannot be improved upon. But there is scant respect for wisdom nowadays." Ageism fuels the idea that older generations can't or won't learn to use technology. I've lost count of the number of people who have asked me whether enough grandparents are online to warrant a social networking forum all of their own. Of course, it's true that many of the digitally excluded are old. That's a serious problem and I don't want to minimise it. But not all older people are digitally excluded and, in fact, those over-65s who are online spend on average 42 hours a month on the web, more than any other group. And the over-50s are the fastest-growing group for internet usage. So, we live in exciting times. We are in the middle of two social revolutions, one to do with longevity, the other with technology. I don't think it's too much to hope that we can make them join up. www.gransnet.com guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Posted: 07 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT Miike is Japan's most prolific film-maker, a director who'll turn his hand to anything, and best known in Britain for the audacious psychological thriller Audition, in which a widower discovers an ideal bride through a fake movie-casting session, only to discover she's an insane avenger. His new film is a welcome revival of the samurai movie, a homage to Kurosawa set in 1844, after a long period of peace. The vicious Lord Naritsugu, a psychotic sadist threatening the stability of the realm, has to be destroyed, and only a team of dedicated samurai can achieve this. The elegant first half is dedicated to the selection and training of this elite group by the stately warrior Shinzaemon. The last 50 minutes is a non-stop running battle that follows when the 13 honourable assassins ambush the lord and his vast entourage, a virtual army seven times their number. It is a stunning sequence, magnificently staged, an epic encounter with little in the way of special effects, that leaves the village in tatters and just two men standing. Kinetic film-making of a high order. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Posted: 07 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT The Today anchor on Britain's lack of identity, being seen as a lightweight – and being papped at the shops You have two new TV programmes coming out. One of them, Business Nightmares, has some amazing cases, doesn't it? Persil Power, so strong it shredded knickers… One of the programme's revelations is that all washing powders shred knickers to some degree! In many ways, the most poignant case is Gerald Ratner. His story [in a speech in 1991, he described his company's products as "total crap"] has been told so many times, and it's funny, but actually it was a big tragedy for him.He lost the business and he tells the tale of having to buy petrol for the car and not knowing what you do. He took years to recover from the shock. I think you can enjoy the horrible stories of the disasters that befall people while nevertheless respecting them for doing stuff. Mistakes are nothing to be ashamed of. If you're not making some mistakes, it probably means you're not trying hard enough. What about Made in Britain? That one is about whether Britain has got enough industry. Can we survive without manufacturing? Can we build an economy on services? It's all bound up with issues of national identity. The Germans are clear about what they do – cars and machine tools; the Japanese are clear about what they do – electronics; the Chinese are clear about what they do – they're the workshop of the world. We're less clear and that's because we've moved towards the intangible sectors more than other developed economies. We are a huge net exporter of business and commercial services: insurance and finance, surveying, architecture, legal services, advertising, university education. Is that a good thing? The service sector raises a number of problems. Here's the nub of it: old industries – manufacturing industries – had lots of good reasons to disperse geographically. You had shipbuilding in Sunderland, steel in South Wales and coal scattered around the country. The new industries are brainy industries and so-called knowledge workers tend to like to be near other people who are the same. Think of the City or Hollywood. People cluster. This means you have winning regions, such as London and Cambridge, and losing regions. The people who want to be top lawyers in Sunderland are hoovered up by London. Is the answer more manufacturing? We have got too little manufacturing, and I'm not saying that out of some romantic idea that mining is good for you or it's better to make things. There is a strong link between the following three things: exporting, manufacturing and the degree of saving by the population. It's complicated, but if the population doesn't save, the economy will not tend to export as much, and if it doesn't export as much, it won't manufacture enough. Hang on, what's saving got to do with it? When a population saves – and the exporting powerhouses, the Germans, Japanese and Chinese do save – what happens is this. First, the companies that operate in those countries where the population are not big spenders are forced to look outside the country to find sales. They become export-oriented. Second, the financial system has more funds, because the population has put its savings there, so it has to be less choosy about who it gives the money to – it can justify capital spending. Britain has been a low-saving nation and has less equipment per worker; we're less capital intensive. And then, third, is the exchange rate. When a population saves a lot, the funds are invested outside the country as well as inside. If the Japanese invest in the United States, it pushes their exchange rate down and makes their manufacturing more competitive. That is really interesting… What I like about it as a theory is that it puts it back to us. Instead of saying there's some conspiracy by Margaret Thatcher, it's been a collective decision. We've become a consuming nation; we suck in imports rather than exports; we build shopping centres rather than factories. The consequence is that our manufacturing industry has been too small. As well as making business TV programmes, you're also a presenter on the Today programme. Were you annoyed that you weren't in when Osama bin Laden was killed? A little bit. I'm not a jealous person though actually, with Osama, I did think, God, that's an interesting day to be on. But, in fairness, it was Jim and Justin and I'm modest enough to think, oh well, that's the best team, as they are American experts. But why did I have to do some godforsaken bank holiday when nothing happens! When you started on Today, some people deemed you lightweight. Do you think you've improved? I'm keen not to lose the things that made people say I was lightweight, but I'm also keen not to be seen as lightweight. There would be no point if I became a clone of the others, but equally it would be no good if I was seen as the one who did funny features about walking dogs in the park. Finding that balance isn't easy. In five years I might have cracked it. Does it annoy you when you're called a gay presenter? It doesn't annoy me but I think of myself as a presenter who is gay, rather than a gay presenter. It's a subtle distinction, but that's how I view it. I don't think I'm hugely camp on air. Private Eye did do a funny spoof of me interviewing Peter Mandelson in which it was all, 'Ooh get her…' [laughs]. I'm quite proud to be gay; I'm not hiding it. What about when you were photographed in jeans with a biker chain… I was papped! Apparently, I was breaking some hidden Daily Mail sartorial rule that meant I had to dress in a suit to go across the road to get milk. I think the headline was "Please Mr Davis, Won't You Dress Your Age?". That phrase – "Please Mr Davis" – is used in our household quite a lot by my partner. "Pleeeease Mr Davis, won't you do the washing up…" guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Is it really goodbye to TV and DVDs? Posted: 07 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT The drop in ownership of television sets in America could have a massive impact on the broadcasting industry A new report from Nielsen, the US media ratings firm, conveys some bad news to the broadcast TV networks. Ownership of television sets by US households has fallen for the first time in two decades. Granted, the decline – 96.7% of American households now own sets, down from 98.9% previously – may not seem very much, but there will be many in the industry who will wonder if it's the faint tremor that presages an earthquake. After all, for as long as most of us can remember, a TV set has been almost as commonplace a piece of domestic kit as a cooker. And television has been the dominant organism in our media ecosystem for just about as long. If that's changing, then it's big news and not just for the industry concerned: politics in most western countries is largely driven and dominated by broadcast TV too. So it's important to know if the Nielsen finding represents a blip or a tremor. There are arguments either way. If it's a blip, then the explanation is simple, if sad: it's a reflection of growing poverty in the US as a result of the economic downturn that has followed the banking crisis, possibly exacerbated by the switchover from analogue to digital TV. Nielsen's research suggests that the TV-less households have annual household incomes of less than $20,000 (£12,146), so it's not surprising that households like that find themselves unable to afford a new TV set. This happened once before, in 1992, when the percentage of US homes with a television set also declined briefly after a prolonged economic recession. But ownership bounced back as the economy recovered. Maybe that will happen again. But there are also reasons for thinking that the current decline might be a harbinger. The main one is that for younger generations ownership of a TV set is no longer seen as a badge of adulthood. The number of kids taking a receiver with them to university, for example, is now vanishingly small. And that's not just because most campuses have communal viewing facilities; it's also a reflection of the fact that while young people watch a lot of video material, they increasingly do so via a laptop (with the more affluent among them viewing via an iPad or other tablet device). So, as the New York Times puts it: "While Nielsen data demonstrates that consumers are viewing more video content across all platforms – rather than replacing one medium with another – a small subset of younger, urban consumers seem to be going without paid TV subscriptions for the time being. The long-term effects of this are still unclear, as it is undetermined if this is also an economic issue that will see these individuals entering the TV marketplace once they have the means or the beginning of a larger shift to online viewing." This doesn't mean that broadcast TV is finished: there are some things for which a few-to-many medium is the most appropriate (think X Factor, Olympics, cup finals). But it does have radical implications for TV networks everywhere. It means, for example, that time-shifted viewing becomes the norm. The BBC's slogan for its iPlayer service – "Making the unmissable unmissable" – says it all. Most TV networks now offer something like the iPlayer, which, in turn, has radical implications for our broadband infrastructure, which is already struggling to cope with streaming video. And that's before HD becomes ubiquitous. But it's not just the broadcast networks that are affected by the switch. The music business is also feeling the pinch. Last week, the Digital Entertainment Group, which represents film studios and consumer electronics companies, reported that US sales of new DVDs have fallen by 20% in a year. Given that DVD sales used to be Hollywood's biggest revenue earner, this is startling news. What lies behind it is the same phenomenon that's affecting the TV networks – movie streaming by companies such as Netflix, which provide films on demand to their broadband subscribers. Years ago, when the battle to decide the next high-definition DVD format was being fought between the Blu-ray and HD DVD standards, Bill Gates said that we would never see another such conflict. It would be the last time that an industry would "ship atoms in order to ship bits". For once, he was right. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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| Posted: 07 May 2011 04:05 PM PDT While Ai Weiwei remains interned by the Chinese authorities, Nicholas Logsdail, director of the Lisson Gallery, talks about a forthcoming exhibition of the artist's work and his growing influence on the global stage My last conversation with Ai Weiwei took place in January. My colleague Greg Hilty and I went to Beijing for three days to make selections for the forthcoming show at the Lisson Gallery, and we got a sense of great foreboding from him. He had been placed under house arrest in November and had subsequently been released, but he was already worried about whether he'd get out of the country. He had all these commitments abroad – in Berlin, in New York, and with us in London – and he was very concerned about fulfilling them. There was a discussion then about whether we should do the show now or delay it for a year so that he could produce an entirely new body of work. We decided to go ahead because there was an urgency to it, due to his situation at home, and we wanted to give a London audience a sense of the range of his work and the thinking behind it. In my opinion, Ai Weiwei is one of the major artists of the early 21st century. My gallery avoided the gold rush for Chinese art in the boom years because, in my experience, it's almost always a false premise to group artists together by generation or nationality. What's important is the quality of the individual artist, and it was clear to us that Ai Weiwei stood apart. He's not just the most important Chinese artist of his generation but a truly international figure. His work is a very interesting blend of traditionalism and liberalism, with a revolutionary bent. He has an outspoken nature, which is what has got him into trouble, but my reading is that his primary impulse is less to overturn society than to improve it. He is unwilling to keep quiet in the face of ignorance and prejudice and he speaks out against injustice wherever he finds it. I've met him on a number of occasions over the last couple of years. When we were preparing for the show, I found him to be highly practical and thoroughly professional. He is a serious man of few words but he has an ironic sense of humour. He's also a big guy, physically, with a barrel chest and a commanding presence. We had some very interesting conversations about the time he spent living in New York in considerable hardship. He was an exile, partly by choice, partly out of necessity because of his family's political problems in China. It was a gestation period, a time of growth. He was taking stock of the bigger world and putting his house in order, as an artist and an intellectual. He may not think of himself as an intellectual, but I would certainly describe him as one. Although he can be irrational himself, he despises irrationality and tries to give a clear and logical approach to the issues that are important to him. He's committed and idealistic, and unaccepting of injustice to the point of self-denial – allowing himself to get into this position is surely a form of self-denial. All the arrangements for the show had been made before his arrest, but it feels rotten putting it on in his absence. We've been praying, metaphorically speaking, that some news of his whereabouts would break, but nothing has: it's been total silence since his detention. The outpouring of respect and admiration for him, his honesty, his bravery – maybe you could say his foolhardiness as well – have been completely astonishing. Many other artists have shown their solidarity, including Anish Kapoor who has dedicated his forthcoming Grand Palais show in Paris to Ai Weiwei. The best we can do now is to maintain our support for him and keep up the pressure. It's crucial that all the planned projects go ahead – his work is also showing in New York and, from next week, at Somerset House in London. How do we put ourselves into the heads of the Chinese authorities who are responsible for his arrest? How do we reach them? What is it that we need to say to them? In arresting Ai Weiwei, I believe they have failed to understand what it means to be an artist. They have failed to be culturally aware. He is exactly the kind of person they should have onside. He's actually much more dangerous now, under arrest, than he ever was before. I think he is a great global cultural ambassador for the new China, but this arrest is making China's new cultural revolution look rather unrevolutionary. They have accused him of tax evasion, bigamy and spreading pornography on the internet, but these charges are clearly trumped up. If you want to nail somebody and put them away for a while, you can probably find dirt on anybody on the planet, let alone a controversial artist like Ai Weiwei. Some people have commented that the Chinese government saw what was going on in north Africa and the Middle East and got nervous. That may well explain his arrest. I am hopeful though – that he's in a reasonable state and can speak for himself; he's an intelligent man and should be able to provide arguments for his release. Although of course it's not going to get you anywhere if you're talking to a brick wall. What's so distressing about this situation is that there is no obvious authority that one can appeal to or challenge about what has happened. It's so sad that this charismatic, larger-than-life, gentle guy has been arrested. I'm deeply upset. I'd get on the next plane to China if I thought there was anything I could do, and I'm sure loads of people feel the same way. We have organised a very different series of events from the ones we had originally planned. Alongside the show, we will have a press conference and then a big open party to celebrate Ai Weiwei's work. We will also have a moment of silence to remember his situation, although until he is released I don't think it is going to be far from anyone's mind. guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2011 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds
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