The European Games kicked off with its opening ceremony last night as a 15-year-old synchronised swimmer was in hospital after being hit by a bus at the athletes’ village.
As it sometimes does, last October the Nobel Committee for the prize in physiology or medicine split its award. Half the pot (of eight million Swedish kronor in all) went to the British-American neuroscientist John O’Keefe, the other to the Norwegian couple who have charted the grid cells in the brain that enable our pathfinding and positioning skills via a sort of “internal GPS”.
When I arrived in New Zealand to start filming as Gandalf, in the first week of the 21st Century, Peter Jackson held a dinner for some of the cast. I was happily next to Christopher Lee who I had known of throughout my actor-admiring life. He'd been cast as the white wizard Saruman but his opening line to me was: “I've always thought I should play Gandalf. I read Lord of the Rings every year – sometimes twice.”
There was an emotional core to Nike once, in the days before their determination to be the richest, most ubiquitous brand led them to suffer the dubious coincidence of being the one attached to Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods and Oscar Pistorius when each of those individuals plumbed the depths of notoriety.
I read the article “David Miliband ‘may return as MP in 2020 poll’” (11 June) in which he is quoted as saying that Labour needed “to find again that combination of economic dynamism and social justice that defined the success of Mr Blair”. I read it and gave up hope that we will ever again see a Labour government
What were the backpackers thinking when they stripped off and were accused of urinating on a sacred site in Malaysia, after a guide had expressly forbidden such behaviour? Gap years are supposed to broaden your outlook and expose you to other cultures, a chance to help those less fortunate than yourself, but all too often they seem to be an excuse to do drugs, get drunk and behave badly.
UK Athletics are seeking immediate answers from Alberto Salazar about his involvement with the former banned American athlete Mary Slaney, as concerns mount over his suitability to coach Mo Farah.
Two of the stories we did best this week were forced marriage and Britain’s constitution, the latter part of a series curated by our Associate Editor, Richard Askwith.
Right now, President Barack Obama said to some astonishment this week, the US does not have a “complete strategy” to defeat Isis in Iraq and Syria – and the figures released by the Pentagon this week appear to support that admission.
How bad does something have to be before the international sports community – that nebulous but influential entity – says enough? Before it throws in the towel, takes off its kit and refuses to run, jump or swim another metre?
It is often said that “constitutional affairs” rarely make it to the top of the political agenda, and that, generally, voters are uninterested. Yet, in reality, how we run our country, and even whether it should exist in its current form, naturally arouses great passion. Most obviously this was the case in the Scottish referendum campaign – with its record turnout and sometimes divisive impact. It has also been true of our unfair voting system – which delivered a flukish, and probably unstable... Читать дальше...
Since the dawn of humanity nothing, apart from Kriss Akabusi’s laugh, has been as reliably aggravating as the festival of smug self-regard officially known as the celebrity questionnaire. And when I say “since the dawn of humanity”, I mean that not only most sincerely, folks, but in the biblical sense quite literally.
Why, 20 years after the Women’s Prize for Fiction was launched in protest at an all-male Booker Prize shortlist, are so few women winning the big book prizes?
Viewers are congratulating the Prime Minister on his new part time job
“It is an indictment that in 2015, as it looks ahead to 2020, Labour is still trying to make sense of the events of 2007.” So said two former advisers to Labour politicians in the last parliament, writing anonymously in a damning essay published by the Fabian Society.
Empires come and empires go. The Hittites, the Incas, the Ottomans, the British, Liverpool FC (remember them?). They all vacated the top table when their time was up. Actually, not Britain, who still refuse to give up their elite seat, but you get my drift. Now the one-man empire that is George Clooney is looking down both barrels if box-office returns are anything to go by (and they usually are).
It's a pleasure to report that Patrick Marber, author of such Nineties classics as Dealer's Choice and Closer, has overcome a nasty and protracted case of writer's block and is back at the National with a beautiful play about the beautiful game. He's been at pains to suggest that football is not really the subject of The Red Lion but the gateway to a study of loyalty, loneliness and belonging.
Eleanor Hawkins, the young British woman arrested for taking part in a naked photo-shoot on top of Mount Kinabalu, days before it was rocked by a deadly earthquake, probably feels she is in the midst of a nightmare right now.
Naked bike rides and pop church 'services' are part of this Regency resort's appeal, writes Tracey Davies
The first ever European Games will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan from Friday. In the months preceding the games, Azerbaijan’s autocratic president has rounded up and jailed his most vocal critics. Yet, the European Olympic Committees, who are responsible for the games, have little to say about those jailed on trumped up charges. Why does sport think it’s above human rights?
There is a lot of Tony Blair about at the moment.
I have a paperback copy of Christopher Lee’s autobiography, Tall, Dark and Gruesome, on my bookshelf. What is startling is how out of date it seems. Back in 1977, when the book was published, Lee’s career as a leading man seemed just about over.
Sir Christopher Lee seems to have been around almost as long as his two most famous roles, Dracula and Frankenstein’s monster. His death at the age of 93 robs British cinema of one of its most enduring stars.
